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• Good programming style when handling multiple objects

  - by Glitch

  I've been programming a software version of a board game. Thus far I have written the classes which will correspond to physical objects on the game board. I'm well into writing the program logic, however I've found that many of the logic classes require access to the same objects. At first I was passing the appropriate objects to methods as they were called, but this was getting very tedious, particularly when the methods required many objects to perform their tasks. To solve this, I created a class which initialises and stores all the objects I need. This allows me to access an object from any class by calling Assets.dice(), for example. But now that I've thought about it, this doesn't seem right. This is why I'm here, I fear that I've created some sort of god class. Is this fear unfounded, or have I created a recipe for disaster?

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• New hire expectations... (Am I being unreasonable?)

  - by user295841

  I work for a very small custom software shop. We currently consist me and my boss. My boss is an old FoxPro DOS developer and OOP makes him uncomfortable. He is planning on taking a back seat in the next few years to hopefully enjoy a “partial retirement”. I will be taking over the day to day operations and we are now desperately looking for more help. We tried Monster.com, Dice.com, and others a few years ago when we started our search. We had no success. We have tried outsourcing overseas (total disaster), hiring kids right out of college (mostly a disaster but that’s where I came from), interns (good for them, not so good for us) and hiring laid off “experienced” developers (there was a reason they were laid off). I have heard hiring practices discussed on podcasts, blogs, etc... and have tried a few. The “Fizz Buzz” test was a good one. One kid looked physically ill before he finally gave up. I think my problem is that I have grown so much as a developer since I started here that I now have a high standard. I hear/read very intelligent people podcasts and blogs and I know that there are lots of people out there that can do the job. I don’t want to settle for less than a “good” developer. Perhaps my expectations are unreasonable. I expect any good developer (entry level or experienced) to be billable (at least paying their own wage) in under one month. I expect any good developer to be able to be productive (at least dangerous) in any language or technology with only a few days of research/training. I expect any good developer to be able to take a project from initial customer request to completion with little or no help from others. Am I being unreasonable? What constitutes a valuable developer? What should be expected of an entry level developer? What should be expected of an experienced developer? I realize that everyone is different but there has to be some sort of expectations standard, right? I have been giving the test project below to potential canidates to weed them out. Good idea? Too much? Too little? Please let me know what you think. Thanks. Project ID: T00001 Description: Order Entry System Deadline: 1 Week Scope The scope of this project is to develop a fully function order entry system. Screen/Form design must be user friendly and promote efficient data entry and modification. User experience (Navigation, Screen/Form layouts, Look and Feel…) is at the developer’s discretion. System may be developed using any technologies that conform to the technical and system requirements. Deliverables Complete source code Database setup instructions (Scripts or restorable backup) Application installation instructions (Installer or installation procedure) Any necessary documentation Technical Requirements Server Platform – Windows XP / Windows Server 2003 / SBS Client Platform – Windows XP Web Browser (If applicable) – IE 8 Database – At developer’s discretion (Must be a relational SQL database.) Language – At developer’s discretion All data must be normalized. (+) All data must maintain referential integrity. (++) All data must be indexed for optimal performance. System must handle concurrency. System Requirements Customer Maintenance Customer records must have unique ID. Customer data will include Name, Address, Phone, etc. User must be able to perform all CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) operations on the Customer table. User must be able to enter a specific Customer ID to edit. User must be able to pull up a sortable/queryable search grid/utility to find a customer to edit. Validation must be performed prior to database commit. Customer record cannot be deleted if the customer has an order in the system. (++) Inventory Maintenance Part records must have unique ID. Part data will include Description, Price, UOM (Unit of Measure), etc. User must be able to perform all CRUD operations on the part table. User must be able to enter a specific Part ID to edit. User must be able to pull up a sortable/queryable search grid/utility to find a part to edit. Validation must be performed prior to database commit. Part record cannot be deleted if the part has been used in an order. (++) Order Entry Order records must have a unique auto-incrementing key (Order Number). Order data must be split into a header/detail structure. (+) Order can contain an infinite number of detail records. Order header data will include Order Number, Customer ID (++), Order Date, Order Status (Open/Closed), etc. Order detail data will include Part Number (++), Quantity, Price, etc. User must be able to perform all CRUD operations on the order tables. User must be able to enter a specific Order Number to edit. User must be able to pull up a sortable/queryable search grid/utility to find an order to edit. User must be able to print an order form from within the order entry form. Validation must be performed prior to database commit. Reports Customer Listing – All Customers in the system. Inventory Listing – All parts in the system. Open Order Listing – All open orders in system. Customer Order Listing – All orders for specific customer. All reports must include sorts and filter functions where applicable. Ex. Customer Listing by range of Customer IDs. Open Order Listing by date range.

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• End User Ad-Hoc Reporting Tool: Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio or Microsoft Access?

  - by schultkl

  Our centralized IT department has suggested two primary ad hoc query tools for our general user base of approximately 200 staff members: Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 2008 (SSMS) Microsoft Access 2003 Environment The backend database is a read-only Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database. The schema is 400+ tables; allowing access to the raw data for our general staff would be a disaster. We will be building an "abstraction layer" over the raw data for our general staff to run ad hoc queries against. The abstraction layer will most likely contain a number of views. A number of users have basic knowledge in Microsoft Access; none have used SSMS. Which of the above tools (or alternative) would be best for a decidedly non-techie user base of approximately 200 people? What are the pros and cons of each? Also, the IT department has suggested teaching people T-SQL so they may use SSMS. Is this reasonable?

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• Version control of Mathematica notebooks

  - by Etaoin

  Mathematica notebooks are, of course, plaintext files -- it seems reasonable to expect that they should play nice with a version-control system (git in my case, although I doubt the specific system matters). But the fact is that any .nb file is full of cache information, timestamps, and other assorted metadata. Scads of it. Which means that limited version control is possible -- commits and rollbacks work fine. Merging, though, is a disaster. Mathematica won't open a file with merge markers in it, and a text editor is no way to go through a .nb file. Has anyone had any luck putting a notebook under version control? How?

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• Premature optimization is the root of all evil, but can it ever be too late?

  - by polygenelubricants

  "We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil" So what is that 3% like? Can the avoidance of premature optimization ever be taken too extreme that it does more harm than good? Even if it's rare, has there been a case of a real measurable software engineering disaster due to complete negligence to optimize early in the process? Bonus question: is software engineering pretty much the only field that has such a counter intuitive principle regarding doing something earlier rather than later before things potentially become too big a problem to fix? Personal question: how do you justify something as premature optimization and not just a case of you being lazy/ignorant/dumb?

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• Will the <b> and <i> tags ever become deprecated?

  - by CrazyJugglerDrummer

  (This is more of a curiousity question than any pending disaster :D ) So the <b> and <i> tags have been around since near the beginning of the web (I assume). But now we have CSS and many people apposing "stylistic html tags." They are stylistic tags, but they're really not so bad, as they save us from having to make a <span class="bold"> a whole bunch of times, reducing download times. Seeing as they don't take up much space, are easy to use, can possibly be useful to screen-readers, search engines, and other applications that don't care much about how a document looks, and removing them would break TONS of html code, I'm guessing probably not, but I still wanted to bring up the topic. :)

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• GitHub on windows :|

  - by Sonic Soul

  i've been experimenting with github as my personal code rep.. and it has been a bit of a disaster with windows. i've used Subversion, CVS, and Perforce in the past.. none were as annoying to use as github. i've figured out the PGP part, although my workstation no longer lets me check in, and after searching around it turns out that github bash is using putty which is not that reliable and should be configured with something else.. i was not able to configure it with windows shell extension for a nice visual of what is part of the repository, what is modified, and easy check ins, and easy pushes.. has anyone successfully configured some kind of windows shell client and can efficiently and quickly synchronize various machines? It just seems to be more pain to use than it is worth..

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• What issues carry the highest risk in a software project?

  - by Mehrdad Afshari

  Clearly, software projects are different from other industries in terms of many things like for instance, quality assurance, project progress measurement, and many other things. Unique characteristics of software projects also makes the risk management process unique. Lots of issues in a project might lead it to unacceptable delay or failure to deliver business value. They might even make a complete disaster in the project. What are the deadliest risk factors in a software project? How to analyze, prevent and handle them? Particularly, I'm interested in the issues that you can detect from the beginning and you should keep an eye on (for example, you might be told about a third-party API that the current application uses and lacks documentation). Please share your experiences if they are relevant.

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• Click-Once deployment is leaving multiple versions (yes, more than 2)

  - by Clyde

  I've got a click once application that is leaving all old versions on my disk. It's an internal corporate application that gets frequent updates, so this is a disaster for rapidly inflating our backup size. According to the docs and other SO questions, it is supposed to only leave the current and previous versions on disk. However, each time I deploy the project and upgrade a client, I get another copy of all exe/dll/data files. I'm making no changes whatsoever to the application, just pushing deploy again in Visual Studio. Any ideas? Updates: The problem seems to happen on both Windows 7 and XP. 64 bit windows and 32. I've done a diff of the folders where the version is installed and the following files are different: MyApp.exe.manifest MyApp.exe.cdf-ms MyDll1.cdf-ms MyDll2.cdf-ms No actual executable files are different, nor the MyApp.manifest, MyDll1.manifest, etc.

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• Dynamically changing the component of webpage

  - by peril brain

  Hi, I am working for a project on disaster management sponsered by World Bank, under this project i have assigned work on CMS. and my senior has asked me to make a ASP.NET webpage where those logged with administrator privilege will be able to edit the page. like:- <div id="mydiv"><pre>+++++++MY CONTENT+++++++++++++++++++</pre></div> now if if the admin clicks on mydiv he should be able to edit the pre contents. for this i got many options such as WYSIWYG editors (but they work on textboxs only and further more they cant save the data back to server replacing the previous content) then I came to know about Webparts , but its editing capabilities was so low that my plan for implementing a WYSIWYG editor went in vain. so I m seeking help from u all is their any way to achieve the motive, it would be better if u can suggest something like incorporating WYSIWYG into webpartmanager editor... THANKS..

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• Unclear pricing of Windows Azure

  - by Dirk

  How do you people think about the Windows Azure pricing model and the way it is presented to the user? I just found out that Azure keeps charging hours for STOPPED instances. I just received a bill from more than 100 euro for 3 STOPPED instances (not) running "HelloAzure". I the past I also played around with Amazon Web Services. Amazon doesn't charge for stopped instances. I was wondering: "Should I have known this before, or is Microsoft doing a bad job in clear communication in the pricing model?" Quote from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/pricing/ : Compute time, measured in service hours: Windows Azure compute hours are charged only for when your application is deployed. When developing and testing your application, developers will want to remove the compute instances that are not being used to minimize compute hour billing. Partial compute hours are billed as full hours. I read this, so I stopped all instances after a few hours playing around. Now it seems I should have deleted them, not just "stopped". Strictly speaking, all depends on the definition of the word "deployed". If you upload an application, but it is not running, can it still be regarded as being "deployed"? May be, but when you read this for the first time, with AWS experience in mind, I don't think it's 100% clear what this means. Technically speaking, an uploaded application only uses (read: should only use / needs only) a few MB harddrive space. It doesn't require any CPU time. If Azure wants to reserve CPU's for not running instances.. well, that's Azure's choice, not mine. I don't want to spread a hate campaign at all, but I do want to know how people think about this subject. Should Microsoft be more clear about their pricing model or do you think it's clear enough? Second question: did anyone got refunded for a similar case? Thanks in advance! UPDATE 27-01-2011 I sent an email to customer support a few days ago, but I guess that didn't reach anu human being because I didn't hear anything from it. So, I made a telephone call today with a Dutch customer support representative (I live in Holland). She totally understood the problem and she's trying to get a refund for me. However, she mentioned that "usually these refund requests are denied", but she's going to try. She also mentioned that I'm not the first one with this (or similar) problem. UPDATE 28-01-2011 I just received a phonecall from Microsoft support. The lady told me some good news: the money will refunded. However, the invoice has not been made yet, and my creditcard will first be chardged, after which it will be refunded, but hey, that's no problem for me! I'm glad the way it's solved! Thanks everybody!

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• The Oracle Enterprise Linux Software and Hardware Ecosystem

  - by sergio.leunissen

  It's been nearly four years since we launched the Unbreakable Linux support program and with it the free Oracle Enterprise Linux software. Since then, we've built up an extensive ecosystem of hardware and software partners. Oracle works directly with these vendors to ensure joint customers can run Oracle Enterprise Linux. As Oracle Enterprise Linux is fully--both source and binary--compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), there is minimal work involved for software and hardware vendors to test their products with it. We develop our software on Oracle Enterprise Linux and perform full certification testing on Oracle Enterprise Linux as well. Due to the compatibility between Oracle Enterprise Linux and RHEL, Oracle also certifies its software for use on RHEL, without any additional testing. Oracle Enterprise Linux tracks RHEL by publishing freely downloadable installation media on edelivery.oracle.com/linux and updates, bug fixes and security errata on Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN). At the same time, Oracle's Linux kernel team is shaping the future of enterprise Linux distributions by developing technologies and features that matter to customers who deploy Linux in the data center, including file systems, memory management, high performance computing, data integrity and virtualization. All this work is contributed to the Linux and Xen communities. The list below is a sample of the partners who have certified their products with Oracle Enterprise Linux. If you're interested in certifying your software or hardware with Oracle Enterprise Linux, please contact us via [email protected] Chip Manufacturers Intel, Intel Enabled Server Acceleration Alliance AMD Server vendors Cisco Unified Computing System Dawning Dell Egenera Fujitsu HP Huawei IBM NEC Sun/Oracle Storage Systems, Volume Management and File Systems 3Par Compellent EMC VPLEX FalconStor Fusion-io Hitachi Data Systems HP Storage Array Systems Lustre Network Appliance OCFS2 PillarData Symantec Veritas Storage Foundation Networking: Switches, Host Bus Adapters (HBAs), Converged Network Adapters (CNAs), InfiniBand Brocade Emulex Mellanox QLogic Voltaire SOA and Middleware ActiveState ActivePerl, ActivePython Tibco Zend Backup, Recovery & Replication Arkeia Network Backup Suite BakBone NetVault CommVault Simpana 8 EMC Networker, Replication Manager FalconStor Continuous Data Protector HP Data Protector NetApp Snapmanager Quest LiteSpeed Engine Steeleye Data Replication, Disaster Recovery Symantec NetBackup, Veritas Volume Replicator, Symantec Backup Exec Zmanda Amanda Enterprise Data Center Automation BMC CA Unicenter HP Server Automation (formerly Opsware), System Management Homepage Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center Quest Vizioncore vFoglight Pro TeamQuest Manager Clustering & High Availability FUJITSU x10sure NEC Express Cluster X Steeleye Lifekeeper Symantec Cluster Server Univa UniCluster Virtualization Platforms and Cloud Providers Amazon EC2 Citrix XenServer Rackspace Cloud VirtualBox VMWare ESX Security Management ArcSight: Enterprise Security Manager, Logger CA Access Control Centrify Suite Ecora Auditor FoxT Manager Likewise: Unix Account Management Lumension Endpoint Management and Security Suite QualysGuard Suite Quest Privilege Manager McAfee Application Control, Change ControlIntegrity Monitor, Integrity Control, PCI Pro Solidcore S3 Symantec Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) Tripwire Trusted Computer Solutions

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• Disable Opera Thumbnail Previews on Windows 7 Taskbar

  - by Asian Angel

  If you are one of the people who does not care for the Taskbar Thumbnail Previews in Windows 7 then we have a quick and easy way for you to turn them off in Opera Browser. Before Here is our Opera Browser with four tabs full of HTG Network goodness… Hovering the mouse over the Taskbar Icon gives a nice preview of each tabs content. Looking closer you can see the fanned edge on the Taskbar Icon indicating that there are multiple tabs open. This is all good but what if you just want something simpler? Disabling the Previews If you want to disable the Taskbar Thumbnail Previews in Opera you will need to type opera:config in the Address Bar and press Enter. Once you have done that, you will see a condensed listing for all of Opera’s preferences. There is one Preference Category that we need to look for…User Prefs. Note: While a Quick Find Search could be conducted for the entry that needs to be modified, we have chosen to show the full method here. After scrolling down and finding the User Prefs category you will need to expand the section. Notice the size of the scrollbar in comparison with the screenshot above…there is quite a lot that you can look at and finesse in Opera if desired. Scroll down until you find the Use Windows 7 Taskbar Thumbnails entry. Uncheck the box but do not close the opera:config Tab yet…or your changes will not take effect. Scroll down once more until you reach the end of the User Prefs category and click Save. With this particular modification you will need to restart Opera after clicking OK. After restarting Opera the Taskbar Icon and Taskbar Thumbnail Preview will revert to the minimal Windows 7 default as shown here. You can see Opera’s Tab Bar in the thumbnail and the Taskbar Icon no longer has a “fanned edge”. Conclusion If you want to disable Opera’s Taskbar Thumbnail Previews on your Windows 7 system, then this quick modification will help get it sorted out in just a few moments. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Disable IE 8 Thumbnail Previews on Windows 7 TaskbarIncrease the size of Taskbar Preview Thumbnails in Windows 7Vista Style Popup Previews for Firefox TabsEnable Thumbnail Previews for Firefox in Windows 7 TaskbarWorkaround for Vista Taskbar Thumbnail Previews Not Showing Correctly TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 10 Superb Firefox Wallpapers OpenDNS Guide Google TV The iPod Revolution Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides

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• Mark Messages As Read in the Outlook 2010 Reading Pane

  - by Matthew Guay

  Do you ever feel annoyed that Outlook 2010 doesn’t mark messages as Read as soon as you click and view them in the Reading Pane?  Here we show you how to make Outlook mark them as read as soon as they’re opened. Mark as Read By default, Outlook will not mark a message as read until you select another message.  This can be annoying, because if you read a message and immediately click Delete, it will show up as an unread message in our Deleted Items folder. Let’s change this to make Outlook mark messages as read as soon as we view them in the Reading Pane.  Open Outlook and click File to open Backstage View, and select Options. In Options select Mail on the left menu, and under Outlook panes click on the Reading Pane button. Check the box Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading Pane to make Outlook mark your messages as read when you view them in the Reading Pane.  By default, Outlook will only mark a message read after you’ve been reading it for 5 seconds, though you can change this.  We set it to 0 seconds so our messages would be marked as read as soon as we select them. Click OK in both dialogs, and now your messages will be marked as read as soon as you select them in the reading pane, or soon after, depending on your settings. Conclusion Outlook 2010 is a great email client, but like most programs it has its quirks.  This quick tip can help you get rid of one of Outlook’s annoying features, and make it work like you want it to. And, if you’re still using Outlook 2007, check out our article on how to Mark Messages as Read When Viewed in Outlook 2007. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Make Outlook 2007 Mark Items as Read When Viewed in Reading PaneMake Mail.app’s Reading Pane More Like OutlookIntegrate Twitter With Microsoft OutlookSort Your Emails by Conversation in Outlook 2010Find Emails With Attachments with Outlook 2007’s Instant Search TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 OpenDNS Guide Google TV The iPod Revolution Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app

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• Leaks on Wikis: "Corporations...You're Next!" Oracle Desktop Virtualization Can Help.

  - by adam.hawley

  Between all the press coverage on the unauthorized release of 251,287 diplomatic documents and on previous extensive releases of classified documents on the events in Iraq and Afghanistan, one could be forgiven for thinking massive leaks are really an issue for governments, but it is not: It is an issue for corporations as well. In fact, corporations are apparently set to be the next big target for things like Wikileaks. Just the threat of such a release against one corporation recently caused the price of their stock to drop 3% after the leak organization claimed to have 5GB of information from inside the company, with the implication that it might be damaging or embarrassing information. At the moment of this blog anyway, we don't know yet if that is true or how they got the information but how did the diplomatic cable leak happen? For the diplomatic cables, according to press reports, a private in the military, with some appropriate level of security clearance (that is, he apparently had the correct level of security clearance to be accessing the information...he reportedly didn't "hack" his way through anything to get to the documents which might have raised some red flags...), is accused of accessing the material and copying it onto a writeable CD labeled "Lady Gaga" and walking out the door with it. Upload and... Done. In the same article, the accused is quoted as saying "Information should be free. It belongs in the public domain." Now think about all the confidential information in your company or non-profit... from credit card information, to phone records, to customer or donor lists, to corporate strategy documents, product cost information, etc, etc.... And then think about that last quote above from what was a very junior level person in the organization...still feeling comfortable with your ability to control all your information? So what can you do to guard against these types of breaches where there is no outsider (or even insider) intrusion to detect per se, but rather someone with malicious intent is physically walking out the door with data that they are otherwise allowed to access in their daily work? A major first step it to make it physically, logistically much harder to walk away with the information. If the user with malicious intent has no way to copy to removable or moble media (USB sticks, thumb drives, CDs, DVDs, memory cards, or even laptop disk drives) then, as a practical matter it is much more difficult to physically move the information outside the firewall. But how can you control access tightly and reliably and still keep your hundreds or even thousands of users productive in their daily job? Oracle Desktop Virtualization products can help.Oracle's comprehensive suite of desktop virtualization and access products allow your applications and, most importantly, the related data, to stay in the (highly secured) data center while still allowing secure access from just about anywhere your users need to be to be productive.  Users can securely access all the data they need to do their job, whether from work, from home, or on the road and in the field, but fully configurable policies set up centrally by privileged administrators allow you to control whether, for instance, they are allowed to print documents or use USB devices or other removable media.  Centrally set policies can also control not only whether they can download to removable devices, but also whether they can upload information (see StuxNet for why that is important...)In fact, by using Sun Ray Client desktop hardware, which does not contain any disk drives, or removable media drives, even theft of the desktop device itself would not make you vulnerable to data loss, unlike a laptop that can be stolen with hundreds of gigabytes of information on its disk drive.  And for extreme security situations, Sun Ray Clients even come standard with the ability to use fibre optic ethernet networking to each client to prevent the possibility of unauthorized monitoring of network traffic.But even without Sun Ray Client hardware, users can leverage Oracle's Secure Global Desktop software or the Oracle Virtual Desktop Client to securely access server-resident applications, desktop sessions, or full desktop virtual machines without persisting any application data on the desktop or laptop being used to access the information.  And, again, even in this context, the Oracle products allow you to control what gets uploaded, downloaded, or printed for example.Another benefit of Oracle's Desktop Virtualization and access products is the ability to rapidly and easily shut off user access centrally through administrative polices if, for example, an employee changes roles or leaves the company and should no longer have access to the information.Oracle's Desktop Virtualization suite of products can help reduce operating expense and increase user productivity, and those are good reasons alone to consider their use.  But the dynamics of today's world dictate that security is one of the top reasons for implementing a virtual desktop architecture in enterprises.For more information on these products, view the webpages on www.oracle.com and the Oracle Technology Network website.

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

  - by tonyrogerson

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

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• Create a Shortcut to Put Your Windows Computer into Hibernation

  - by Mysticgeek

  Putting your Windows computer into Hibernation Mode allows you to save power, and quickly access your desktop again when you need it. Here we show how to create a shortcut to put your PC in Hibernation Mode quickly. Note: Here we show how to create the shortcut in Windows 7 and add it to the Taskbar. But creating the shortcut should work in XP and Vista as well. Create Shortcut  Right-click an empty area on your desktop and select New \ Shortcut from the Context Menu. In the Create Shortcut window type or copy the following in the location field… C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe powrprof.dll, SetSuspendState 0,1,0 Now give the shortcut a name such as Hibernate Computer or whatever you want to call it. Now you have the shortcut on your desktop, but you might want to change the icon to something else. Change Shortcut Icon Right-click the shortcut icon and select Properties. Select the Shortcut Tab and click the Change Icon button. In the Look for icons in this file field copy and past the following then click OK. %SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll This brings up a list of included Windows icons you can choose from. Select whatever you want it to be. There are a couple of Power icons in the directory…click OK. Of course you can choose any icon you want, if you customize your icons just browse to the directory they are in. For more on selecting icons check out our article on how to customize your icons in Windows 7 or how to change a file type’s icon. Now you will see the icon in the Shortcut Properties window, click OK. Here we have a nice looking shortcut that you can use to put your machine into Hibernation. Or here we used a customized Star Trek icon just to make things more interesting… You can pin the shortcut to the Taskbar for easy access. Conclusion If Hibernation is not enabled on your Windows 7 system you can easily manage it. By creating a shortcut and pinning to the Taskbar, it allows you to put your machine into Hibernation Mode quick and easy. If you like to customize your desktop with unique icons check out our posts on a Sci-Fi icon pack or Video Game icon pack. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Create a Shortcut for Locking Your Computer Screen in Windows 7 or VistaCreate Shutdown / Restart / Lock Icons in Windows 7 or VistaHow To Manage Hibernate Mode in Windows 7Microsoft Releases Pre-SP1 Updates for Windows VistaCreate a Shortcut or Hotkey to Run CCleaner Silently TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 10 Superb Firefox Wallpapers OpenDNS Guide Google TV The iPod Revolution Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides

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• SQL SERVER – SQL Server High Availability Options – Notes from the Field #032

  - by Pinal Dave

  [Notes from Pinal]: When it is about High Availability or Disaster Recovery, I often see people getting confused. There are so many options available that when the user has to select what is the most optimal solution for their organization they are often confused. Most of the people even know the salient features of various options, but when they have to figure out one single option to use they are often not sure which option to use. I like to give ask my dear friend time all these kinds of complicated questions. He has a skill to make a complex subject very simple and easy to understand. Linchpin People are database coaches and wellness experts for a data driven world. In this 26th episode of the Notes from the Fields series database expert Tim Radney (partner at Linchpin People) explains in a very simple words the best High Availability Option for your SQL Server.  Working with SQL Server a common challenge we are faced with is providing the maximum uptime possible.  To meet these demands we have to design a solution to provide High Availability (HA). Microsoft SQL Server depending on your edition provides you with several options.  This could be database mirroring, log shipping, failover clusters, availability groups or replication. Each possible solution comes with pro’s and con’s.  Not anyone one solution fits all scenarios so understanding which solution meets which need is important.  As with anything IT related, you need to fully understand your requirements before trying to solution the problem.  When it comes to building an HA solution, you need to understand the risk your organization needs to mitigate the most. I have found that most are concerned about hardware failure and OS failures. Other common concerns are data corruption or storage issues.  For data corruption or storage issues you can mitigate those concerns by having a second copy of the databases. That can be accomplished with database mirroring, log shipping, replication or availability groups with a secondary replica.  Failover clustering and virtualization with shared storage do not provide redundancy of the data. I recently created a chart outlining some pros and cons of each of the technologies that I posted on my blog. I like to use this chart to help illustrate how each technology provides a certain number of benefits.  Each of these solutions carries with it some level of cost and complexity.  As a database professional we should all be familiar with these technologies so we can make the best possible choice for our organization. If you want me to take a look at your server and its settings, or if your server is facing any issue we can Fix Your SQL Server. Note: Tim has also written an excellent book on SQL Backup and Recovery, a must have for everyone. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: Notes from the Field, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Shrinking Database

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• Ad-hoc taxonomy: owning the chess set doesn't mean you decide how the little horsey moves

  - by Roger Hart

  There was one of those little laugh-or-cry moments recently when I heard an anecdote about content strategy failings at a major online retailer. The story goes a bit like this: successful company in a highly commoditized marketplace succeeds on price and largely ignores its content team. Being relatively entrepreneurial, the founders are still knocking around, and occasionally like to "take an interest". One day, they decree that clothing sold on the site can no longer be described as "unisex", because this sounds old fashioned. Sad now. Let me just reiterate for the folks at the back: large retailer, commoditized market place, differentiating on price. That's inherently unstable. Sooner or later, they're going to need one or both of competitive differentiation and significant optimization. I can't speak for the latter, since I'm hypothesizing off a raft of rumour, but one of the simpler paths to the former is to become - or rather acknowledge that they are - a content business. Regardless, they need highly-searchable terminology. Even in the face of tooth and claw resistance to noticing the fundamental position content occupies in driving sales (and SEO) on the web, there's a clear information problem here. Dilettante taxonomy is a disaster. Ok, so this is a small example, but that kind of makes it a good one. Unisex probably is the best way of describing clothing designed to suit either men or women interchangeably. It certainly takes less time to type (and read). It's established terminology, and as a single word, it's significantly better for web readability than a phrasal workaround. Something like "fits men or women" is short, by could fall foul of clause-level discard in web scanning. It's not an adjective, so for intuitive reading it's never going to be near the start of a title or description. It would also clutter up search results, and impose cognitive load in list scanning. Sorry kids, it's just worse. Even if "unisex" were an archaism (which it isn't), the only thing that would weigh against its being more usable and concise terminology would be evidence that this archaism were hurting conversions. Good luck with that. We once - briefly - called one of our products a "Can of worms". It was a bundle in a bug-tracking suite, and we thought it sounded terribly cool. Guess how well that sold. We have information and content professionals for a reason: to make sure that whatever we put in front of users is optimised to meet user and business goals. If that thinking doesn't inform style guides, taxonomy, messaging, title structure, and so forth, you might as well be finger painting.

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• Add Artistic Effects to Your Pictures in Office 2010

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Do you ever wish you could add cool effects to images in your Office document pictures, but don’t have access to a graphics editor? Today we take a look at the Artistic Effects featire which is a new feature in Office 2010. Note: We will show you examples in Excel, but the Artistic Effect are available in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. To insert a picture into your Office document, click the Picture button on the Insert tab. Once you import your picture, the Picture Tools format ribbon should be active. If not, click on the image.     In the Adjust group, click on Artistic Effects. You will see a selection of effects previews images in the dropdown list. Hover your cursor over the effects to use Live Preview to see what your picture will look like if that effect is applied.   When you find an effect you like, just click to apply it to the image. There are also some additional Artistic Effect Options. Each effect will have a it’s own set of available options that can be adjusted by moving the sliders left or right. If you find you want to undo an effect after it has been applied, simply select the None option from the previews under Artistic Effects. Conclusion Artistic Effects provides a really easy way to add professional looking effects to images in Office 2010 without the need to access graphics editing software. Check out some of our other Office 2010 articles like how to use advanced font ligatures, add video from the web to PowerPoint 2010, and preview before you paste in Office 2010. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add Effects To Your Pictures in Word 2007Center Pictures and Other Objects in Office 2007 & 2010Tools to Help Post Content On Your WordPress BlogAdd Classic Polaroid Look to Your Digital picturesGive Your Desktop Artistic Flair with FotoSketcher TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup The iPod Revolution Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor Gmail Button Addon (Firefox)

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• Control Sysinternals Suite & NirSoft Utilities with a Single Interface

  - by Asian Angel

  Sysinternals and NirSoft both provide helpful utilities for your Windows system but may not be very convenient to access. Using the Windows System Control Center you can easily access everything through a single UI front end. Setup The first thing to do is set up three new folders in Program Files (or Program Files (x86) if you are using a 64bit system) with the following names (the first two need to exactly match what is shown here): Sysinternals Suite NirSoft Utilities (create this folder only if you have any of these apps downloaded) Windows System Control Center (or WSCC depending on your preferences) Unzip the contents of the Sysinternals Suite into its’ folder. Then unzip any individual NirSoft Utilities programs that you have downloaded into the NirSoft folder. All that is left to do is to unzip the WSCC software into its’ folder and create a shortcut. WSCC in Action When you start WSCC up for the first time you will see the following message with a brief explanation about the software. Next the options window will appear providing you an opportunity to look around and make any desired changes. WSCC can access utilities for both suites using a live connection if needed (utilities accessed live are not downloaded). Note: This occurs on the first run only. This is the main WSCC window…you can choose the utility that you want to use by sorting through an all items list or based on category. Note: WSCC may occasionally experience a problem downloading a particular utility if using the live service. We conducted a quick test by accessing two Sysinternals apps. First PsInfo… Followed by DiskView. Both opened quickly and were ready to go. There were no NirSoft Utilities installed on our test system in order to provide a live access example. Within moments WSCC accessed the CurrProcess utility and had it running on our system. Our recommendation is to download your favorite utilities from both suites (in order to always have easy access to them). Conclusion WSCC provides an easy way to access all of the apps in the Sysinternals Suite and NirSoft Utilities in one place. Note: A PortableApps version is also available. Links Download Windows System Control Center (WSCC) Download Windows Sysinternals Suite Download individual NirSoft Utilities programs Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Get Detailed Information About Your PCAccess and Launch Windows Utilities the Easy WayWhat is svchost.exe And Why Is It Running?How to Clean Up Your Messy Windows Context MenuRemove NVIDIA Control Panel from Desktop Right-Click Menu TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor Gmail Button Addon (Firefox) Hyperwords addon (Firefox)

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• How do I (tactfully) tell my project manager or lead developer that the project's codebase needs serious work?

  - by Adam Maras

  I just joined a (relatively) small development team that's been working on a project for several months, if not a year. As with most developer joining a project, I spent my first couple of days reviewing the project's codebase. The project (a medium- to large-sized ASP.NET WebForms internal line of business application) is, for lack of a more descriptive term, a disaster. There are three immediately noticeable problems with the coding standards: The standard is very loose. It describes more of what not to do (don't use Hungarian notation, etc..) than what to do. The standard isn't always followed. There are inconsistencies with the code formatting everywhere. The standard doesn't follow Microsoft's style guidelines. In my opinion, there's no value in deviating from the guidelines that were set forth by the developer of the framework and the largest contributor to the language specification. As for point 3, perhaps it bothers me more because I've taken the time to get my MCPD with a focus on web applications (specifically, ASP.NET). I'm also the only Microsoft Certified Professional on the team. Because of what I learned in all of my schooling, self-teaching, and on-the-job learning (including my preparation for the certification exams) I've also spotted several instances in the project's code where things are simply not done in the best way. I've only been on this team for a week, but I see so many issues with their codebase that I imagine I'll be spending more time fighting with what's already written to do things in "their way" than I would if I were working on a project that, for example, followed more widely accepted coding standards, architecture patterns, and best practices. This brings me to my question: Should I (and if so, how do I) propose to my project manager and team lead that the project needs to be majorly renovated? I don't want to walk into their office, waving my MCTS and MCPD certificates around, saying that their project's codebase is crap. But I also don't want to have to stay silent and have to write kludgey code atop their kludgey code, because I actually want to write quality software and I want the end product to be stable and easily maintainable.

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• Using SQL Source Control and Vault Professional Part 4

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  Two weeks ago I upgraded our installation of Fortress to the latest version, which is now named Vault Professional.  This is the version of Vault (i.e. Vault Standard 5.1 / Vault Professional 5.1) that will be officially supported with Red-Gate SQL Source Control 2.1.  While the folks at Red-Gate did a fantastic job of working with me to get SQL Source Control to work with the older Fortress version, we weren’t going to just sit on that.  There are a couple of things that Vault Professional cleaned up for us, such as improved integration with Visual Studio 2010, so it was a win all around. Shortly after that upgrade, I received notice from Red-Gate that they had a new Early Access version of SQL Source Control available that included the ability to source control static data.  The idea here is that you probably have a few fairly static lookup tables in your system, and those data values are similar in concept to source code, and should be versioned in your source control management system also.  I agree with this, but please be wise…somebody out there is bound to try to use this feature as their disaster recovery for their entire database, and that is NOT the purpose.  First off, you should never have your PROD (or LIVE, whatever you call it) system attached to source control.  Source Control is for development, not for PROD systems.  Second, use the features that are intended for this purpose, such as BACKUP and RESTORE. Laying that tangent aside, it is great that now you can include these critical values in your repository and make them part of a deployment process.  As you would guess, SQL Source Control uses SQL Data Compare to create the data change scripts just like it uses SQL Compare to create the schema change scripts.  Once again, they did a very good job with the integration to their other products.  At this point we are really starting to see some good payback on our investment in the full SQL Developer Bundle.  Those products were worth the investment back when we only used them sporadically for troubleshooting and DBA analysis, but now with SQL Source Control, they are becoming everyday-use products for the development team. I like this software (SQL Source Control) so much that I am about to break my own rules and distribute it to my team to use even though it is still in beta.  This is the first time that I have approved the use of any beta software in a production scenario (actively building our next versions of internal software) but I predict that the usability and productivity gain of using SQL Source Control over manual scripting is worth the risk.  Of course, I have also put this beta software through its paces pretty well to be comfortable with it, and Red-Gate has proven their responsiveness to issues that came up in my early beta testing, and so I am willing to bet on their continued support.  Likewise, SourceGear, the maker of Vault Professional, has proven itself to me as well, and so the combination of SQL Source Control with Vault Professional is the new standard for my development team.

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• SQL SERVER – Transaction Log Full – Transaction Log Larger than Data File – Notes from Fields #001

  - by Pinal Dave

  I am very excited to announce a new series on this blog – Notes from Fields. I have been blogging for almost 7 years on this blog and it has been a wonderful experience. Though, I have extensive experience with SQL and Databases, it is always a good idea that we consult experts for their advice and opinion. Following the same thought process, I have started this new series of Notes from Fields. In this series we will have notes from various experts in the database world. My friends at Linchpin People have graciously decided to support me in my new initiation.  Linchpin People are database coaches and wellness experts for a data driven world. In this very first episode of the Notes from Fields series database expert Tim Radney (partner at Linchpin People) explains a very common issue DBA and Developer faces in their career, when database logs fills up your hard-drive or your database log is larger than your data file. Read the experience of Tim in his own words. As a consultant, I encounter a number of common issues with clients.  One of the more common things I encounter is finding a user database in the FULL recovery model that does not make a regular transaction log backups or ever had a transaction log backup. When I find this, usually the transaction log is several times larger than the data file. Finding this issue is very significant to me in that it allows to me to discuss service level agreements with the client. I get to ask questions such as, are nightly full backups sufficient or do they need point in time recovery.  This conversation has now signed with the customer and gets them to thinking about their disaster recovery and high availability solutions. This issue is also very prominent on SQL Server forums and usually has the title of “Help, my transaction log has filled up my disk” or “Help, my transaction log is many times the size of my database”. In cases where the client only needs the previous full nights backup, I am able to change the recovery model to SIMPLE and shrink the transaction log using DBCC SHRINKFILE (2,1) or by specifying the transaction log file name by using DBCC SHRINKFILE (file_name, target_size). When the client needs point in time recovery then in most cases I will still end up switching the client to the SIMPLE recovery model to truncate the transaction log followed by a full backup. I will then schedule a SQL Agent job to make the regular transaction log backups with an interval determined by the client to meet their service level agreements. It should also be noted that typically when I find an overgrown transaction log the virtual log file count is also out of control. I clean up will always take that into account as well.  That is a subject for a future blog post. If your SQL Server is facing any issue we can Fix Your SQL Server. Additional reading: Monitoring SQL Server Database Transaction Log Space Growth – DBCC SQLPERF(logspace)  SQL SERVER – How to Stop Growing Log File Too Big Shrinking Truncate Log File – Log Full Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Backup and Restore, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• SQLOS and Cloud Infrastructure sessions at PASS Summit 2012

  - by SQLOS Team

  The SQL Pass Summit 2012, the largest yet, is in full swing. Here's a summary of the sessions this week on cloud infrastructure and SQLOS topics. Some of these were today, and you can catch the recordings. One more session takes place on Friday covering SQL Server solution patterns in Windows Azure VMs... Also, catch Thursday's keynote with Quentin Clark which will feature a cool IaaS demo!   SQL Server in Windows Azure VM Sessions CLD-309-A SQLCAT: Best Practices and Lessons Learned on SQL Server in an Azure VM Steve Howard, Arvind Ranasaria - Wednesday 11/6 10:15 This session looked at some best practices to optimize Networking, Memory, Disk IO and high availability based on lessons learned during SQLCat work with customer deployments. Well worth catching the recording.   SQL Server in Azure VM patterns: Hybrid Disaster Recovery, data movement and BI Guy Bowerman, Peter Saddow, Michael Washam, Ross LoForte - Friday 11/9 9:45 Rm 613 [Note: In the guides this has an outdated title.] This session has a focus on SQL Server Azure VM solutions. Starting with the basics and then going deeper into: - New features in the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 8.0 to help plan and size SQL VM migrations.- A Look at a Windows Azure VM SQL Server app making use of load balancing and SQL Server high availability features.- A BI case study running SQL BI components in Azure VMs and making use of Windows 8 tiles.- A training class in a VM case study.   SQLOS Sessions DBA-500-HD Inside SQLOS 2012 (half-day session) Bob Ward - Wednesday 11/6 1:30pm Bob Ward from CSS applies his wealth of experience to look at the internals of SQLOS and what's changed in the various SQL 2012 components, including memory, resource governor, scheduler.   DBA-403-M: SQLCAT: Memory Manager Changes in SQL Server 2012 Gus Apostol, Jerome Halmans - 1:30pm Covers the redesigned SQLOS memory manager in SQL Server 2012 including the new page allocator for any size pages (and all that implies), DMVs, demo's. Not sure why this was placed at the same time as the SQLOS half-day session, but since it's recorded it's available for catch-up.   - Guy   Originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlosteam/

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