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• GWB | 30 Posts in 60 Days Update

  - by Staff of Geeks

  One month after the contest started, we definitely have some leaders and one blogger who has reached the mark.  Keep up the good work guys, I have really enjoyed the content being produced by our bloggers. Current Winners: Enrique Lima (37 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/enriquelima Almost There: Stuart Brierley (28 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/StuartBrierley Dave Campbell (26 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/WynApseTechnicalMusings Eric Nelson (23 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/iupdateable Coming Along: Liam McLennan (17 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/liammclennan Christopher House (13 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/13DaysaWeek mbcrump (13 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/mbcrump Steve Michelotti (10 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/michelotti Michael Freidgeim (9 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/mnf MarkPearl (9 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/MarkPearl Brian Schroer (8 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/brians Chris Williams (8 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams CatherineRussell (7 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/CatherineRussell Shawn Cicoria (7 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/cicorias Matt Christian (7 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/CodeBlog James Michael Hare (7 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/BlackRabbitCoder John Blumenauer (7 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/jblumenauer Scott Dorman (7 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/sdorman   Technorati Tags: Standings,Geekswithblogs,30 in 60

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• High Jinks, Hi Jacks, Exceptional DBA Awards and PASS

  - by Rodney

  The countdown to PASS has counted down.  The day after tomorrow I will board a plane, like many others, on my way for the 4th year in a row to SQL PASS Summit.  The anticipation has been excruciating but luckily I have this little thing called a day job as a DBA that has kept me busy and not thinking too much about the event. Well that is not exactly true since my beautiful wife works for PASS so we get to talk about SQL from the time we wake up until late in the evening. I would not have it any other way and I feel very fortunate to be a part of this great event and to have been chosen as the Exceptional DBA Award judge also for the 4th year in a row.  This year, I will have been again tasked with presenting the award to the winner, Mr. Jeff Moden and it will be a true honor to meet him in person as I have read many of his articles on SSC and have attended his session at PASS previously.  The speech is all ready but one item remains, which will be a surprise to all who attend the party on Tuesday night in Seattle (see links below).  Let's face it, Exceptional DBAs everywhere work very hard protecting our data stores, tuning queries, mentoring, saving money, installing clusters, etc and once in a while there is time to be exceptionally non-professional and have a bit of fun. Once incident that happened this year that falls under the High Jinks category was when my network admin asked if I could Telnet into a SQL instance and see if I could make the connection through the firewall that he had just configured. I was able to establish a connection on port 1433 and it occurred to me that it would be very interesting if I could actually run T-SQL queries via a Telnet session much like you might do with an SMTP server. With that thought, I proceeded to demonstrate this could be possible by convincing my senior DBA Shawn McGehee that I was able to do so. At first he did not believe me. It shook his world view.  It was inconceivable.  What I had done, behind the scenes, of course, was to copy and rename SQLCMD.exe to Telnet.exe and used it to connect and run a simple, "Select * from sys.databases" on the SQL instance. I think if it had been anyone other than Shawn I could have extended this ruse indefinitely but he caught on within 30 seconds. It was a fun thirty seconds though. On the High Jacks side of the house, which is really merged to be SQL HACKS, I finally, after several years of struggling with how to connect to an untrusted domain like in a DMZ with a windows account in SSMS, I stumbled upon a solution that does away with the requirement to use SQL Authentication.  While "Runas" is a great command to use to run an application with a higher privileged account, I had not previously been able to figure out how to connect to the remote domain with SSMS and "Runsas". It never connected and caused a login failure every time for the remote windows domain account. Then I ran across an option for "Runas",   "/netonly".  This option postpones the login until a connection is made and only then passes the remote login you supply when you first launch SSMS with the "Runas" command. So a typical shortcut would look like: "C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /netonly /user:remotedomain.com\rodlandrum "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\Ssms.exe" You will want to make sure the passwords are synced between the two domains, your local domain and the remote domain, otherwise you may have account lockout issues, but I have found in weeks of testing this is a stable solution. Now it is time to get ready to head for Seattle. Please, if you see me (@SQLBeat) or my wife (@Karlakay22) please run up and high five me (wait..High Jinks.High Jacks.High Fives.Need to change the title) or give me a big bear hug if you are strong enough to lift me off the ground. And if you do actually do that, I will think you are awesome and will not embarrass you by crying out for help or complaining of a broken back or sciatic nerve damage. And now the links to others who have all of the details. First, for the MVP Deep Dives 2, of which, like John, I was lucky enough to be able to participate in this year. http://www.simple-talk.com/community/blogs/johnm/archive/2011/09/29/103577.aspx And the details of the SSC party where the Exceptional DBA of 2011, Jeff Moden, will be awarded. http://www.simple-talk.com/community/blogs/rebecca_amos/archive/2011/10/05/103661.aspx   Cheers! Rodney

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• Silverlight Security

  Here are some interesting links about Silverlight security (I learnt a lot from the first document): Silverlight security whitepaper: > http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/1/A/A1A80A28-907C-4C6A-8036-782E3792A408/Silverlight Security Overview.docx This reading gives you a lot of insight into features like Isolated Storage, Local Messaging, Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), Sandbox, Validate input, https, . Shawn Wildermuths session at MIX10: > Securing Microsoft Silverlight Applications ...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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• Silverlight TV 23: MVP Q&A with WWW (Wildermuth, Wahlin and Ward)

  John interviews a panel of 3 well known Silverlight leaders including Shawn Wildermuth, Dan Wahlin, and Ward Bell at the Silverlight 4 launch event. The guest panel answers questions sent in from Twitter about the features in Silverlight 4, thoughts on MVVM, and the panel members' experiences developing Silverlight. This is a great chance to hear from some of the leading Silverlight minds. These guys are all experts at building business applications with Silverlight. Relevant links: John's Blog...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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• TypeScript Resources

  - by csmith18119

  TypeScript looks like a great start to evolving javascript.  I am going to start playing with it seeing what it is like.  This is the post I will update will all the resources I've found. Welcome to TypeScript - The TypeScript Language has an offical site, and this is it. This site does a nice job of giving the key information about the language and its uses, as well as highlighting that it is an open source project, which is cross platform. TypeScript is still causing quite a buzz in the community, here are some more of peoples initial impressions: Introducing TypeScript - Rob Eisenberg Why does TypeScript have to be the answer to anything? - Scott Hanselman TypeScript (or the obligatory post about it) - Shawn Wildermuth TypeScript project in Visual Studio 2012 - Linvi Microsoft TypeScript : A quick introduction and A Love Affair Begins here. - Anoop Madhusudanan Microsoft TypeScript : A Typed Superset of JavaScript & Using TypeScript in ASP.NET MVC Projects - Shiju Varghese Hello TypeScript - Getting Started - Sumit Maitra

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• Phoney Windows Phone 7 Project Now Available!

  - by help.net

  UPDATE: Phoney now has a NuGet package. Search on NuGet to add Phoney to your project! I started this project when I found I had a number of small classes that I'd built for my Windows Phone 7 application so I thought it was time to share. here is the information on the new library. It is currently in a very early Alpha stage, but I expect to have it at a release version by MIX 11 (Mid-April). Let me know what you think! By Shawn Wildermuth Read more......(read more)

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• Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 DFW DevCamp (Silverlightpalooza) is around the corner

  - by T

  It is really shaping up to be everything I had hoped.  Prizes are stacked up behind me.  Food is in place.  I have a set of wonderful volunteers beside me.  The event has been full for weeks.  I will not be doing any official blogging for this event here.  You will have to watch the official blog for that http://silverlightpalooza.dynamitesilverlight.com/ I plan to post pictures and descriptions of everyone’s projects during the event to that site.  It is going to be wonderful fun.  Shawn will be filming part of the time so stay tuned for that also.  We have some great plans in place!!!  I wish everyone could join us and am very excited for those who signed up in time.

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• A Guided Tour of Complexity

  - by JoshReuben

  I just re-read Complexity – A Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell , protégé of Douglas Hofstadter ( author of “Gödel, Escher, Bach”) http://www.amazon.com/Complexity-Guided-Tour-Melanie-Mitchell/dp/0199798109/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339744329&sr=8-1 here are some notes and links:   Evolved from Cybernetics, General Systems Theory, Synergetics some interesting transdisciplinary fields to investigate: Chaos Theory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory – small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible. System Dynamics / Cybernetics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Dynamics – study of how feedback changes system behavior Network Theory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_theory – leverage Graph Theory to analyze symmetric  / asymmetric relations between discrete objects Algebraic Topology - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_topology – leverage abstract algebra to analyze topological spaces There are limits to deterministic systems & to computation. Chaos Theory definitely applies to training an ANN (artificial neural network) – different weights will emerge depending upon the random selection of the training set. In recursive Non-Linear systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_system – output is not directly inferable from input. E.g. a Logistic map: Xt+1 = R Xt(1-Xt) Different types of bifurcations, attractor states and oscillations may occur – e.g. a Lorenz Attractor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_system Feigenbaum Constants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feigenbaum_constants express ratios in a bifurcation diagram for a non-linear map – the convergent limit of R (the rate of period-doubling bifurcations) is 4.6692016 Maxwell’s Demon - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon - the Second Law of Thermodynamics has only a statistical certainty – the universe (and thus information) tends towards entropy. While any computation can theoretically be done without expending energy, with finite memory, the act of erasing memory is permanent and increases entropy. Life & thought is a counter-example to the universe’s tendency towards entropy. Leo Szilard and later Claude Shannon came up with the Information Theory of Entropy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory) whereby Shannon entropy quantifies the expected value of a message’s information in bits in order to determine channel capacity and leverage Coding Theory (compression analysis). Ludwig Boltzmann came up with Statistical Mechanics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_mechanics – whereby our Newtonian perception of continuous reality is a probabilistic and statistical aggregate of many discrete quantum microstates. This is relevant for Quantum Information Theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_information and the Physics of Information - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_information. Hilbert’s Problems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert's_problems pondered whether mathematics is complete, consistent, and decidable (the Decision Problem – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entscheidungsproblem – is there always an algorithm that can determine whether a statement is true).  Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems  proved that mathematics cannot be both complete and consistent (e.g. “This statement is not provable”). Turing through the use of Turing Machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine symbol processors that can prove mathematical statements) and Universal Turing Machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Turing_machine Turing Machines that can emulate other any Turing Machine via accepting programs as well as data as input symbols) that computation is limited by demonstrating the Halting Problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem (is is not possible to know when a program will complete – you cannot build an infinite loop detector). You may be used to thinking of 1 / 2 / 3 dimensional systems, but Fractal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal systems are defined by self-similarity & have non-integer Hausdorff Dimensions !!!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fractals_by_Hausdorff_dimension – the fractal dimension quantifies the number of copies of a self similar object at each level of detail – eg Koch Snowflake - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_snowflake Definitions of complexity: size, Shannon entropy, Algorithmic Information Content (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_information_theory - size of shortest program that can generate a description of an object) Logical depth (amount of info processed), thermodynamic depth (resources required). Complexity is statistical and fractal. John Von Neumann’s other machine was the Self-Reproducing Automaton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine  . Cellular Automata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automaton are alternative form of Universal Turing machine to traditional Von Neumann machines where grid cells are locally synchronized with their neighbors according to a rule. Conway’s Game of Life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life demonstrates various emergent constructs such as “Glider Guns” and “Spaceships”. Cellular Automatons are not practical because logical ops require a large number of cells – wasteful & inefficient. There are no compilers or general program languages available for Cellular Automatons (as far as I am aware). Random Boolean Networks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_network are extensions of cellular automata where nodes are connected at random (not to spatial neighbors) and each node has its own rule –> they demonstrate the emergence of complex  & self organized behavior. Stephen Wolfram’s (creator of Mathematica, so give him the benefit of the doubt) New Kind of Science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science proposes the universe may be a discrete Finite State Automata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite-state_machine whereby reality emerges from simple rules. I am 2/3 through this book. It is feasible that the universe is quantum discrete at the plank scale and that it computes itself – Digital Physics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics – a simulated reality? Anyway, all behavior is supposedly derived from simple algorithmic rules & falls into 4 patterns: uniform , nested / cyclical, random (Rule 30 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_30) & mixed (Rule 110 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110 localized structures – it is this that is interesting). interaction between colliding propagating signal inputs is then information processing. Wolfram proposes the Principle of Computational Equivalence - http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrincipleofComputationalEquivalence.html - all processes that are not obviously simple can be viewed as computations of equivalent sophistication. Meaning in information may emerge from analogy & conceptual slippages – see the CopyCat program: http://cognitrn.psych.indiana.edu/rgoldsto/courses/concepts/copycat.pdf Scale Free Networks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-free_network have a distribution governed by a Power Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law - much more common than Normal Distribution). They are characterized by hubs (resilience to random deletion of nodes), heterogeneity of degree values, self similarity, & small world structure. They grow via preferential attachment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferential_attachment – tipping points triggered by positive feedback loops. 2 theories of cascading system failures in complex systems are Self-Organized Criticality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organized_criticality and Highly Optimized Tolerance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_optimized_tolerance. Computational Mechanics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_mechanics – use of computational methods to study phenomena governed by the principles of mechanics. This book is a great intuition pump, but does not cover the more mathematical subject of Computational Complexity Theory – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_complexity_theory I am currently reading this book on this subject: http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Complexity-Christos-H-Papadimitriou/dp/0201530821/ref=pd_sim_b_1   stay tuned for that review!

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• Step Aside Google

  - by David Dorf

  Step aside Google. While search will always be a huge part of the web, I can see a day in the not-too-distance future where search takes a backseat to the social graph. Links between pages will give way to relationships between people, including context like location. What does this mean for retail? It means your e-commerce strategy will slowly transition to an f-commerce strategy. Remember when a large portion of the online population was held captive inside the walls of AOL? All the commercials listed an AOL keyword, not a web address because that's where the majority of people surfed. Now, people are spending a huge amount of time in Facebook (despite Betty White's proclamation that its a big waste of time). According to Facebook, users spend 500 billion minutes per month on the site. Selling products where consumers are spending their time makes sense. The power of Like and Share are the most effective approach to marketing. More and more stores are popping up on Facebook, and soon they will be the front-end to e-commerce systems. As sites adopt the Facebook Open Graph API, users will have a harder time distinguishing the open web from their Facebook experience, including shopping. Of course e-commerce sites won't go away, but a large portion of their traffic will emanate from Facebook and in some cases Facebook will act as the front-end for the web store. Ignore Facebook Open Graph at your peril. In a Mashable article, Mitchell Harper made several predictions about how e-commerce will change based on Facebook. His five points are not far-fetched at all, so we need to watch this space carefully.

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• Hiding the Flash Message After a Time Delay

  - by Madhan ayyasamy

  Hi Friends,The flash hash is a great way to provide feedback to your users.Here is a quick tip for hiding the flash message after a period of time if you don’t want to leave it lingering around.First, add this line to the head of your layout to ensure the prototype and script.aculo.us javascript libraries are loaded:Next, add the following to either your layout (recommended), your view templates or a partial depending on your needs. I usually add this to a partial and include the partial in my layouts. "flash", :id = flash_type % "text/javascript" do % setTimeout("new Effect.Fade('');", 10000); This will wrap the flash message in a div with class=‘flash’ and id=‘error’, ‘notice’ or ‘warn’ depending on the flash key specified.The value ‘10000’ is the time in milliseconds before the flash will disappear. In this case, 10 seconds.This function looks pretty good and little javascript stunts like this can help make your site feel more professional. It’s also worth bearing in mind though, not everybody can see well or read as quickly as others so this may not be suitable for every application.Update:As Mitchell has pointed out (see comments below), it may be better to set the flash_type as the div class rather than it’s id. If there is the possibility that you’ll be showing more than one flash message per page, setting the flash_type as the div id will result in your HTML/XHTML code becoming invalid because the unique intentifier will be used more than once per page.Here is a slightly more complex version of the method shown above that will hide all divs with class ‘flash’ after a time delay, achieving the same effect and also ensuring your code stays valid with more than one flash message! "flash #{flash_type}" % "text/javascript" do % setTimeout("$$('div.flash').each(function(flash){ flash.hide();})", 10000); In this example, the div id is not set at all. Instead, each flash div will have class “div” and also class of the type of flash message (“error”, “warning” etc.).Have a Great Day..:)

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• Speaking at UK DevConnections in www.DevConnections.com/uk and discount codes

  - by Testas

   HiI will be speaking at the UK DevConnections on Analysis Services at the ExCeL conference centre in London on 13th-15th June 2011. Join top SQL Server names such as Paul Randall, Kimberley Tripp, Simon Sabin and Allan Mitchell ( to name a few), at the IT & DevConnections powered by Microsoft UK  in London on 13th-15th June 2011. With UK DevConnections you can combine SQL Sessions with other Microsoft technology stacks. Microsoft and leading independent industry presenters will deliver in-depth presentations and cutting edge sessions on  SharePoint Windows Exchange and Unified Communications SQL Server Silverlight ASP.Net Virtualisation Cloud and Azure As a speaker I have a discount code that entitles give 20% off the cost to register for IT&DEvConnections in June.  The code is sql-bits, if people register before the 31st March when the Super Early Bird offer ends you will only pay £639.20 +vat (normal price £999)Furthermore, there are preferential hotel rates for this event at: https://logicalvenues.vbookings.co.uk/b/pentonlondon0611/  So if you want to attend a conference with a wide spectrum of technologies, then DevConnections may be up your street Thanks  Chris

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• 1 ASPX Page, Multiple Master Pages

  - by csmith18119

  So recently I had an ASPX page that could be visited by two different user types.  User type A would use Master Page 1 and user type B would use Master Page 2.  So I put together a proof of concept to see if it was possible to change the MasterPage in code.  I found a great article on the Microsoft ASP.net website. Specifying the Master Page Programmatically (C#) by Scott Mitchell So I created a MasterPage call Alternate.Master to act as a generic place holder.  I also created a Master1.Master and a Master2.Master.  The ASPX page, Default.aspx will use this MasterPage.  It will also use the Page_PreInit event to programmatically set the MasterPage.  1: protected void Page_PreInit(object sender, EventArgs e) { 2: var useMasterPage = Request.QueryString["use"]; 3: if (useMasterPage == "1") 4: MasterPageFile = "~/Master1.Master"; 5: else if (useMasterPage == "2") 6: MasterPageFile = "~/Master2.Master"; 7: }   In my Default.aspx page I have the following links in the markup: 1: <p> 2: <asp:HyperLink runat="server" ID="cmdMaster1" NavigateUrl="~/Default.aspx?use=1" Text="Use Master Page 1" /> 3: </p> 4: <p> 5: <asp:HyperLink runat="server" ID="cmdMaster2" NavigateUrl="~/Default.aspx?use=2" Text="Use Master Page 2" /> 6: </p> So the basic idea is when a user clicks the HyperLink to use Master Page 1, the default.aspx.cs code behind will set the property MasterPageFile to use Master1.Master.  The same goes with the link to use Master Page 2.  It worked like a charm!  To see the actual code, feel free to download a copy here: Project Name: Skyhook.MultipleMasterPagesWeb http://skyhookprojectviewer.codeplex.com

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• Oracle Number One in Supply Chain Planning

  - by Stephen Slade

  Something nice to write home about!  Saw this accomplishment and worth promoting, with special Congrats to the VCP team. Read on: Summary: Oracle is the #1 player in  Supply Chain Planning  according to research firm ARC Advisory Group Details: The report (Source: ARC Advisory Group, “Supply Chain Planning Worldwide Outlook, Market Analysis and Forecast through 2016,” Clint Reiser, Steve Banker), gives Oracle 21.1% of revenue share, compared to SAP, who was second at 18.6%. JDA Software, Aspen, Logility, and Infor were the next players in the market. The total market was valued at $1.506B. ARC counts Software (new license and upgrades), Implementation Services, Maintenance and Support, and SaaS, in its definition. ARC defines supply chain planning to include four key application areas: Extended SCP, Manufacturing Planning, Inventory/Distribution Planning, and Demand Management. Extended SCP consists of Network Design, Capable to Promise, SCP Composites, and Extended Supply Chain BI software. In the report, ARC further gives Oracle the number one spot in both Software Revenues and Services Revenues subsegments, as well as in many vertical areas such as Government, Electronics and Electrical, Medical Products, Pharmaceutical, and Wholesale/Distribution. ARC also issued a forecast, that predicts SCP revenue to grow from $1.506B in 2011 to $2.172B in 2016, with a CAGR of 7.6%. The report has several positive quotes about Oracle, including calling Oracle a “visionary,” and states that “Oracle has leveraged a broad set of home-grown and acquired offerings to create a comprehensive, integrated, yet modular suite with applicability to a wide range of industries,” Blog Link: http://blog.us.oracle.com/marketdata/?97119896  (shawn willett@oracle com)

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• Best way to mask 2D sprites in XNA?

  - by electroflame

  I currently am trying to mask some sprites. Rather than explaining it in words, I've made up some example pictures: The area to mask (in white) Now, the red sprite that needs to be cropped. The final result. Now, I'm aware that in XNA you can do two things to accomplish this: Use the Stencil Buffer. Use a Pixel Shader. I have tried to do a pixel shader, which essentially did this: float4 main(float2 texCoord : TEXCOORD0) : COLOR0 { float4 tex = tex2D(BaseTexture, texCoord); float4 bitMask = tex2D(MaskTexture, texCoord); if (bitMask.a > 0) { return float4(tex.r, tex.g, tex.b, tex.a); } else { return float4(0, 0, 0, 0); } } This seems to crop the images (albeit, not correct once the image starts to move), but my problem is that the images are constantly moving (they aren't static), so this cropping needs to be dynamic. Is there a way I could alter the shader code to take into account it's position? Alternatively, I've read about using the Stencil Buffer, but most of the samples seem to hinge on using a rendertarget, which I really don't want to do. (I'm already using 3 or 4 for the rest of the game, and adding another one on top of it seems overkill) The only tutorial I've found that doesn't use Rendertargets is one from Shawn Hargreaves' blog over here. The issue with that one, though is that it's for XNA 3.1, and doesn't seem to translate well to XNA 4.0. It seems to me that the pixel shader is the way to go, but I'm unsure of how to get the positioning correct. I believe I would have to change my onscreen coordinates (something like 500, 500) to be between 0 and 1 for the shader coordinates. My only problem is trying to work out how to correctly use the transformed coordinates. Thanks in advance for any help!

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• How to know what you don't know?

  - by Ivo Danihelka

  Is there a way how to recognize that you don't know something? For example, I had some hard realizations: I didn't know that criticism isn't a good way to teach your friends. I realized that after reading How to Win Friends & Influence People. I didn't know about the fundamental needed for an indutive bias in machine learning. If I have read Mitchell's Machine Learning book early, I would know it. I haven't found it mentioned in other books and papers. Sorry if the question is too generic. The question could also mean: How to know that you are missing something important about your programming language?

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• Genetics algorithms theoretical question

  - by mandelart

  Hi All! I'm currently reading "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach" (Russell+Norvig) and "Machine Learning" (Mitchell) - and trying to learn basics of AINN. In order to understand few basic things I have two 'greenhorn' questions: Q1: In a genetic algorithm given the two parents A and B with the chromosomes 001110 and 101101, respectively, which of the following offspring could have resulted from a one-point crossover? a: 001101 b: 001110 Q2: Which of the above offspring could have resulted from a two-point crossover? and why? Please advise.

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• The Connected Company: WebCenter Portal Activity Streams

  - by Michael Snow

  Guest post by Mitchell Palski, Oracle Staff Sales Consultant Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Social media is sure to have made its way into your company or government organization. Whether its discussion threads, blog posts, Facebook-style profile-pages, or just a simple Instant Messenger application; in one way or another, your employees are connected. What are the objectives of leveraging social media in your organization? Facilitating knowledge transfer More effectively organizing team events Generating inter-community discussions to solve problems Improving resource management Increasing organizational awareness Creating an environment of accountability Do any of the business objectives above stand out to you as needs? If so, consider leveraging the WebCenter Portal Activity Stream as part of your solution. In WebCenter Portal, the Activity Stream feature provides a streaming view of the activities of your connections, actions taken in portals, and business activities that looks a lot like a combined Facebook and Twitter newsfeed. Activity Stream can note when a user: Posts feedback (comments) Uploads a document Creates a new blog, page, event, or announcement Starts a new discussion Streams messages and attachments entered through WebCenter Publisher (similar to Twitter) Through Activity Stream Preferences, you can select which of these activities to show or hide from your personal Activity Stream. Here’s what you get: Real-time stream of activities with in a Portal or sub-Portal increases awareness across your organization or within a working group Complete list of user actions reduces the time-to-find for users that need to interact with the latest activities in your portal Users can publish to their groups when tasks are finished for complete group traceability and accountability, as well as improved resource management. Project discussions and shared documents that require the expertise of someone outside of a working group now get increased visibility across your organization. There’s a reason that commercial Social Media tools like Facebook and Twitter have been so successful – they spread information in an aesthetically appealing and easy to read format.  Strategically placing an Activity Feed within your Portal is analogous to sending your employees a daily newsletter, events calendar, recent documents report, and list of announcements – BUT ALL IN ONE! 

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• Django URL regex question

  - by shawnjan

  Hey all! I had a quick question about Django URL configuration, and I guess REGEX as well. I have a small configuration application that takes in environments and artifacts in the following way: url(r'^env/(?P<env>\w+)/artifact/(?P<artifact>\w+)/$', 'config.views.ipview', name="bothlist"), Now, this works fine, but what I would like to do is have it be able to have additional parameters that are optional, such as a verbose mode or no formating mode. I know how to do this just fine in the views, but I can't wrap my head around the regex. the call would be something like GET /env/<env>/artifact/<artifact>/<opt:verbose>/<opt:noformat> Any help would be appreciated, thanks! -Shawn

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• Django exclude(**kwargs) help

  - by shawnjan

  Hey guys/gals! I had a question for you, something that I can't seem to find the solution for... Basically, I have a model called Environment, and I am passing all of them to a view, and there are particular environments that I would like to exclude. Now, I know there is a exclude function on a queryset, but I can't seem to figure out how to use it for multiple options... For example, I tried this but it didn't work: kwargs = {"name": "env1", "name": "env2"} envs = Environment.objects.exclude( kwards ) But the only thing that it will exclude is the last "name" value in the list of kwargs. I understand why it does that now, but I still can't seem to exclude multiple objects with one command. Any help is much appreciated! Shawn

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• C# Find and Replace RegEx question

  - by fraXis

  Hello, I am starting to get a grip on RegEx thanks to all the great help here on SO with my other questions. But I am still suck on this one: My code is: StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(fDialog.FileName.ToString()); string content = reader.ReadToEnd(); reader.Close(); I am reading in a text file and I want to search for this text and change it (the X and Y value always follow each other in my text file): X17.8Y-1. But this text can also be X16.1Y2.3 (the values will always be different after X and Y) I want to change it to this X17.8Y-1.G54 or X(value)Y(value)G54 My RegEx statement follows but it is not working. content = Regex.Replace(content, @"(X(?:\d*\.)?\d+)*(Y(?:\d*\.)?\d+)", "$1$2G54"); Can someone please modify it for me so it works and will search for X(wildcard) Y(Wildcard) and replace it with X(value)Y(value)G54? Thanks, Shawn

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• Sef-packed training kit practice tests

  - by Costa

  Hi I have a book called .Net framework 2.0 application development foundation, self-packed training kit by Tony Northup and Shawn wildermuth. the book CD contains practice tests, Can I rely on this CD to take the exam, or it will be just like the book itself, a wast of money? someone rely on it and success? I am not talking about memorizing or cheating the exam I am talking about studying and practice it. Also When I visit MS website they did not determine the number of questions, type of questions, or the time, someone have this info? Thanks

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• URGENT: How to force a postback with asp.net and C#

  - by ErnieStings

  I have a demo scheduled with a client and i need a quick and dirty fix for now. I will find a more appropriate work around tomorrow but for the time being i need a way to force a post back, or refresh the page. i tried: Response.Redirect(""); but it brings me to a page that says "Object moved to here". 'here' is a hyperlink that brings me to the page with desired results but i wish to bypass this message. Any ideas. This is very urgent. Any help would be much appeciated Thanks, shawn

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• referencing a WCF web service

  - by ErnieStings

  Our current project uses an asmx service. We want to keep this service for now, but would like to add an additional wcf service for ajax calls. I followed a procedure i found online to set up the service and it works fine with javascript in aspx files within that particular project but i'm unsure how to reference it in javascript files in a different project (in the same solution). If someone could point me in the right direction it would be much appreciated. Thanks, Shawn EDIT: i wish to make calls in javascript similar to the following: function Button1_onclick() { var service = new AjaxServices.TestService(); service.wcfTest(4, onSuccess, null, null); } function onSuccess(result){ document.getElementById("ajaxPlaceHolder").innerHTML = "<p>" + result + "</p>"; } // ]]> but i'm willing to explore the jQuery option as well.

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• Windows Phone 7 Design using Expression Blend - Resources

  - by Nikita Polyakov

  I’ve been doing a series of talks across Florida regarding Windows Phone 7 Design using Microsoft Expression Blend 4. I discuss the WP7 phone and application experience; show how to use Expression Blend toolset to effectively design such apps. Next presentation is on 5/4/2010 at 6:30PM EST will be a webcast format over LiveMeeting at Ft. Lauderdale Online group. Registration and the LiveMeeting link are both here: http://www.fladotnet.com/Reg.aspx?EventID=459 [I will post a link if it’s recorded]   Here are the resources from my presentations: The Biggest source is the Windows Phone UI and Design Language video from MIX10 Windows Phone 7 Design Guide as it’s found on the WP7 Dev Home Page Study The Silverlight Mobile Tutorials on official Silverlight website I will be blogging a separate entry for a new demo app that will showcase the elements I presented. I suggest you actually watch all of the MIX videos about SL and Design as great primer to get you thinking the WP7 way.   A lot happening with WP7Dev and it’s just the beginning! So watch these Twitter accounts and blogs: @Ckindel - Charlie Kindel - WP7 Dev Head http://blogs.msdn.com/ckindel @WP7Dev - Official Dev Twitter @WP7 - Official WP7 Twitter Peter Torr - http://blogs.msdn.com/ptorr Mike Harsh - http://blogs.msdn.com/mharsh Shawn Oster - http://www.shawnoster.com   Other worthwhile mention my local friends speaking and blogging about Windows Phone 7: Bill Reiss is doing great presentations on Building games with XNA for Windows Phone 7. Be on the lookout for those around Florida. Bill is a Silverlight MVP and has a legacy of XNA and Silverlight games, see his site. Kevin Wolf aka ByteMaster he is a Device Application Developer MVP with tremendous experience building mobile applications. He has developed WinMo-GF a multi-platform gaming framework. Get these tools and get creating! You will need the following components installed in this order: Expression Blend 4 Beta Windows Phone Developer Tools Microsoft Expression Blend Add-in Preview for Windows Phone Microsoft Expression Blend SDK Preview for Windows Phone Want more training? Don’t forget that Channel 9 has complete walkthroughs of their WP7 Training Kit posted online. PS: To continue with all this design talk check out Microsoft .toolbox “Learn to create Silverlight applications using Expression Studio and to apply fundamental design principles.” A great website with a lot of design tutorials set up as a wonderful full course on design all for free, including a great forum community and neat little avatars you can build yourself.

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• Slides and Code from my Silverlight MVVM Talk at DevConnections

  - by dwahlin

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

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