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• Beginner Geek: Scan Files for Viruses Before Using Them

  - by Mysticgeek

  To help avoid getting your computer infected by malicious software, it’s a good idea to scan files before executing them. Today we take a look at a couple of options that will let you scan files easily from your desktop. Scan File with Your Antivirus Software Most Antivirus software will put an option in the context menu so you can scan individual files. After downloading a file or email attachment, simply right-click the file and select the option to scan with your Antivirus software. If you want to scan more than one at a time, hold down the Ctrl key while you clicking each file you want to scan. Then right-click and select to scan with your Antivirus software. Here is our favorite Antivirus app, Microsoft Security Essentials scanning a couple of files. If a virus is found, your Antivirus app will delete it or put it in Quarantine so it cannot infect your system. Using VirusTotal Uploader To be very thorough and want a second opinion (actually 41), then you might want to check out the VirusTotal Uploader. This handy app will scan your files with 41 different Antivirus apps online. After installing VirusTotal Uploader, right-click the file, go to Send To, then VirusTotal. Alternately you can launch VirusTotal Uploader and Get and upload the file. It will send the file to VirusTotal.com and scan it with 41 different Antivirus apps and show you the results.   If you don’t want to install the Uploader, you can go to the VirusTotal site and upload a file from there to scan. We’ve noticed that occasionally there will be a false positive detected on files we know are clean. Sometimes the definition database of an Anti-malware app isn’t current, or an obscure Antivirus App will find something questionable. If that is the case, use your best judgment when viewing the results. Conclusion Most Antivirus apps today have real-time scanning and should be able to detect possible infections before you’re able to execute them. However, if they don’t or when in doubt, following these tips can save you a lot of headaches in the long run. If you use a lot of different flash drives throughout the day, check out our article on how to scan a thumb drive for viruses from the AutoPlay Dialog. Download Microsoft Security Essentials Download VirusTotal Uploader VirusTotal Website Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Scan Files for Viruses Before You Download With Dr.WebMake Microsoft Security Essentials Scan Faster by Excluding Certain File TypesBeginner Geek: Delete User Accounts in Windows 7Scan Your Thumb Drive for Viruses from the AutoPlay DialogSecure Computing: Free Anti-Virus Protection With AVG Free Edition 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 Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials 21 Cursor Packs for XP, Vista & 7 Map the Stars with Stellarium Use ILovePDF To Split and Merge PDF Files TimeToMeet is a Simple Online Meeting Planning Tool Easily Create More Bookmark Toolbars in Firefox

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• The most challenging part of blogging about OpenWorld is…

  - by Irem Radzik

  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-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} ...not knowing where to start. Do I talk about the great presentations from our partners and executives in our keynote sessions; do I write about the music festival, or many great sessions we had in the Data integration track? A short blog can never do justice. For now I will stick to our data integration sessions for those who could not attend with so many other sessions running concurrently. And in the coming weeks we will be writing more about what we talked in our sessions and what we learned from our customers and partners. For today, I will give some of the key highlights from Data Integration sessions that took place on Wednesday and Thursday of last week  On Wednesday, GoldenGate was highlighted in multiple Database and Data Integration sessions. I found particularly the session about Oracle’s own use of GoldenGate for its large E-Business Suite implementation for supply chain management and service contract management very interesting. In 2011, Oracle implemented a new operational reporting system using GoldenGate real-time data replication to an operational data store that leverages data from E-Business Suite.The results are very impressive. Data freshness improved by 2,210X while report run performance improved by 60X. For more information on this implementation and its results please see the white paper: Real-Time Operational Reporting for E-Business Suite via GoldenGate Replication to an Operational Data Store Other sessions that provided very rich content were: "Best Practices for Conflict Detection and Resolution in Oracle GoldenGate for Active/Active", "Tuning and Troubleshooting Oracle GoldenGate on Oracle Database", "Next-Generation Data Integration on Oracle Exadata" and "Accelerate Oracle Data Integrator with Advanced Features, SOA, Groovy, SDK, and XML". Below is a slide presented by Stephan Haisley in the Tuning and Troubleshooting Oracle GoldenGate session. If you missed them during OpenWorld, I highly recommend downloading the slides. We will continue to blog about these topics and related resources. .

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• Exposed: Fake Social Marketing

  - by Mike Stiles

  Brands and marketers who want to build their social popularity on a foundation of lies are starting to face more of an uphill climb. Fake social is starting to get exposed, and there are a lot of emperors getting caught without any clothes. Facebook is getting ready to do a purge of “Likes” on Pages that were a result of bots, fake accounts, and even real users who were duped or accidentally Liked a Page. Most of those accidental Likes occur on mobile, where it’s easy for large fingers to hit the wrong space. Depending on the degree to which your Page has been the subject of such activity, you may see your number of Likes go down. But don’t sweat it, that’s a good thing. The social world has turned the corner and assessed the value of a Like. And the verdict is that a Like is valuable as an opportunity to build a real relationship with a real customer. Its value pales immensely compared to a user who’s actually engaged with the brand. Those fake Likes aren’t doing you any good. Huge numbers may once have impressed, but it’s not fooling anybody anymore. Facebook’s selling point to marketers is the ability to use a brand’s fans to reach friends of those fans. Consequently, there has to be validity and legitimacy to a fan count. Speaking of mobile, Trademob recently reported 40% of clicks are essentially worthless, because 22% of them are accidental (again with the fat fingers), while 18% are trickery. Publishers will but huge banner ads next to tiny app buttons to increase the odds of an accident. Others even hide a banner behind another to score 2 clicks instead of 1. Pontiflex and Harris Interactive last year found 47% of users were more likely to click a mobile ad accidentally than deliberately. Beyond that, hijacked devices are out there manipulating click data. But to what end for a marketer? What’s the value of a click on something a user never even saw? What’s the value of a seen but accidentally clicked ad if there’s no resulting transaction? Back to fake Likes, followers and views; they’re definitely for sale on numerous sites, none of which I’ll promote. $5 can get you 1,000 Twitter followers. You can even get followers targeted by interests. One site was set up by an unemployed accountant out of his house in England. He gets them from a wholesaler in Brooklyn, who gets them from a 19-year-old supplier in India. The unemployed accountant is making $10,000 a day. That means a lot of brands, celebrities and organizations are playing the fake social game, apparently not coming to grips with the slim value of the numbers they’re buying. But now, in addition to having paid good money for non-ROI numbers, there’s the embarrassment factor. At least a couple of sites have popped up allowing anyone to see just how many fake and inactive followers you have. Britain’s Fake Follower Check and StatusPeople are the two getting the most attention. Enter any Twitter handle and the results are there for all to see. Fake isn’t good, period. “Inactive” could be real followers, but if they’re real, they’re just watching, not engaging. If someone runs a check on your Twitter handle and turns up fake followers, does that mean you’re suspect or have purchased followers? No. Anyone can follow anyone, so most accounts will have some fakes. Even account results like Barack Obama’s (70% fake according to StatusPeople) and Lady Gaga’s (71% fake) don’t mean these people knew about all those fakes or initiated them. Regardless, brands should realize they’re now being watched, and users are judging the legitimacy of their social channels. Use one of any number of tools available to assess and clean out fake Likes and followers so that your numbers are as genuine as possible. And obviously, skip the “buying popularity” route of social marketing strategy. It doesn’t work and it gets you busted…a losing combination.

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• Convert .3GP and .3G2 Files to AVI / MPEG for Free

  - by DigitalGeekery

  3GP and .3G2 are common video capture formats used on many mobile phones, but they may not be supported by your favorite media player. Today we’ll show you a quick and easy way to convert those files to AVI or MPG format with the free Windows application, Pazera Free 3GP to AVI Converter. Download the Pazera Free 3GP to AVI Converter. You’ll have to unzip the download folder, but there is no need to install the application. Just double-click the 3gptoavi.exe file to run the application. To add your 3GP or 3G2 files to the queue to be converted, click on the Add files  button at the top left. Browse for your file, and click Open.   Your video will be added to the Queue. You can add multiple files to the queue and convert them all at one time.   Most users will find it preferable to use one of the pre-configured profiles for their conversion settings. To load a profile, choose one from the Profile drop down list and then click the Load button. You will see the profile update the settings in the panels at the bottom of the application. We tested Pazera Free 3GP to AVI Converter with 3GP files recorded on a Motorola Droid, and found the AVI H.264 Very High Q. profile to return the best results for AVI output, and the MPG – DVD NTSC: MPEG-2 the best results for MPG output. Other profiles produced smaller file sizes, but at a cost of reduced quality video output.   More advanced users may tweak video and audio settings to their liking in the lower panels. Click on the AVI button under Output file format / Video settings to adjust settings AVI… Or the MPG button to adjust the settings for MPG output. By default, the converted file will be output to the same location as the input directory. You can change it by clicking the text box input radio button and browsing for a different folder. When you’ve chosen your settings, click Convert to begin the conversion process.   A conversion output box will open and display the progress. When finished, click Close. Now you’re ready to enjoy your video in your favorite media player. Pazera Free 3GP to AVI Converter isn’t the most robust media conversion tool, but it does what it is intended to do. It handles the task of 3GP to AVI / MPG conversion very well. It’s easy enough for the beginner to manage without much trouble, but also has enough options to please more experienced users. Download Pazera Free 3GP to AVI Converter Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Convert Video Files to MP3 with VLCEasily Change Audio File Formats with XRECODEConvert PDF Files to Word Documents and Other FormatsConvert Video and Remove Commercials in Windows 7 Media Center with MCEBuddy 1.1Compress Large Video Files with DivX / Xvid and AutoGK 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 DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Install, Remove and HIDE Fonts in Windows 7 Need Help with Your Home Network? Awesome Lyrics Finder for Winamp & Windows Media Player Download Videos from Hulu Pixels invade Manhattan Convert PDF files to ePub to read on your iPad

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• The Value of SOA Specialization - Fujitsu

  - by Jürgen Kress

  Thanks for the nice ink The Value of Specialization In my last post  I talked about Fujitsu's achievement in obtaining SOA and other specializations, but I have heard murmurings from other partners about what just is the value? I think Oracle have to do more to advertise the benefits to customers, we need to see customers asking for specialization for it to really work, but Oracle have made great promises about only recommending those partners who are specialized. For us there was another benefit. Oracle was sponsoring the 3rd Annual SOA Symposium in Berlin and invited us as their first specialized partner to take part. There is a great blog about the symposium on the SOA community blog site. This is real commitment from Oracle and we have other marketing opportunities being worked on with Jürgen. This does generate leads so my message to other Oracle Partners is, you need to do this, it is worthwhile.   Fujitsu - First SOA Specialized Partner Globally Just before Oracle Open World I found out that Fujitsu had achieved the first SOA Specialization globally. I think most partners know what the requirements are for Specialization and that in itself is challenging but the bureaucracy around the actual submission is an exercise in tenacity. I won’t go into that now; I have had my dig at Oracle this month, but enough to say the process could be improved. As a platinum partner we needed 5 specializations and we decided to go for SOA first. The reasoning behind this is that our Oracle Practice is known for being applications centric. We have always had an excellent technical capability but no one ever talked about that, it was just part and parcel of an implementation. However today we have just as many bids that are technology lead as there is applications lead, so it seemed a good plan to work on the areas we were not known for. We appointed a capability lead to be responsible for putting the team through the training and testing and Rosemary (Kell) was excellent, she ensured that everyone was on track and that it wasn’t just getting put into the ‘to do list’. In Fujitsu everyone in the Oracle Practice has an objective to achieve the competency tests in their area, so achieving the 2 pre sales, 2 sales and 1 support was no problem at all. We actually had 22 with the support capability proficiency.  The implementation specialist exams are much harder, more like OCP in the database area. We had help from the Oracle SOA Community; Jürgen Kress who runs this in EMEA is really motivational. At the time we started SOA was a beta exam which means you do not get the results immediately but again we put forward more than we needed. Manjit Chopra, Sukhraj Sahota, Emely Patra, Ian Scorrer and Sunny Sidhu all took the exam and eventually got the results they wanted they had passed. Congratulations. Here is Jurgen expalining why specialization is important. After the tests came the submissions where you need to include deals and experience, this was my bit, and persuading Oracle we really deserved the specialization. Finally we got the news we had been awarded the specialization, and a few days later that we were first globally. I am very proud. However there is no rest for the wicked and we plodded on to make the 5 specializations needed for Platinum and now we are working on the new Diamond status and I think SOA will be one of our 5 ‘super specializations’. This is a global Fujitsu initiative and I work closely with my colleague in Germany Jessika Weiss. It was nice to be able to have a press release about this and a comment from Judson Althoff  head of Oracle Alliances. For more information on SOA Specialization and the SOA Partner Community please feel free to register at www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Website Technorati Tags: SOA,SOA Community,OPN,Oracle,Fujitsu,Debra Lilley,Jürgen Kress,Specialization,SOA Specialization

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• LINQ to Twitter Queries with LINQPad

  - by Joe Mayo

  LINQPad is a popular utility for .NET developers who use LINQ a lot.  In addition to standard SQL queries, LINQPad also supports other types of LINQ providers, including LINQ to Twitter.  The following sections explain how to set up LINQPad for making queries with LINQ to Twitter. LINQPad comes in a couple versions and this example uses LINQPad4, which runs on the .NET Framework 4.0. 1. The first thing you'll need to do is set up a reference to the LinqToTwitter.dll. From the Query menu, select query properties. Click the Browse button and find the LinqToTwitter.dll binary. You should see something similar to the Query Properties window below. 2. While you have the query properties window open, add the namespace for the LINQ to Twitter types.  Click the Additional Namespace Imports tab and type in LinqToTwitter. The results are shown below: 3. The default query type, when you first start LINQPad, is C# Expression, but you'll need to change this to support multiple statements.  Change the Language dropdown, on the Main window, to C# Statements. 4. To query LINQ to Twitter, instantiate a TwitterContext, by typing the following into the LINQPad Query window: var ctx = new TwitterContext(); Note: If you're getting syntax errors, go back and make sure you did steps #2 and #3 properly. 5. Next, add a query, but don't materialize it, like this: var tweets = from tweet in ctx.Status where tweet.Type == StatusType.Public select new { tweet.Text, tweet.Geo, tweet.User }; 6. Next, you want the output to be displayed in the LINQPad grid, so do a Dump, like this: tweets.Dump(); The following image shows the final results:   That was an unauthenticated query, but you can also perform authenticated queries with LINQ to Twitter's support of OAuth.  Here's an example that uses the PinAuthorizer (type this into the LINQPad Query window): var auth = new PinAuthorizer { Credentials = new InMemoryCredentials { ConsumerKey = "", ConsumerSecret = "" }, UseCompression = true, GoToTwitterAuthorization = pageLink => Process.Start(pageLink), GetPin = () => { // this executes after user authorizes, which begins with the call to auth.Authorize() below. Console.WriteLine("\nAfter you authorize this application, Twitter will give you a 7-digit PIN Number.\n"); Console.Write("Enter the PIN number here: "); return Console.ReadLine(); } }; // start the authorization process (launches Twitter authorization page). auth.Authorize(); var ctx = new TwitterContext(auth, "https://api.twitter.com/1/", "https://search.twitter.com/"); var tweets = from tweet in ctx.Status where tweet.Type == StatusType.Public select new { tweet.Text, tweet.Geo, tweet.User }; tweets.Dump(); This code is very similar to what you'll find in the LINQ to Twitter downloadable source code solution, in the LinqToTwitterDemo project.  For obvious reasons, I changed the value assigned to ConsumerKey and ConsumerSecret, which you'll have to obtain by visiting http://dev.twitter.com and registering your application. One tip, you'll probably want to make this easier on yourself by creating your own DLL that encapsulates all of the OAuth logic and then call a method or property on you custom class that returns a fully functioning TwitterContext.  This will help avoid adding all this code every time you want to make a query. Now, you know how to set up LINQPad for LINQ to Twitter, perform unauthenticated queries, and perform queries with OAuth. Joe

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• Simple task framework - building software from reusable pieces

  - by RuslanD

  I'm writing a web service with several APIs, and they will be sharing some of the implementation code. In order not to copy-paste, I would like to ideally implement each API call as a series of tasks, which are executed in a sequence determined by the business logic. One obvious question is whether that's the best strategy for code reuse, or whether I can look at it in a different way. But assuming I want to go with tasks, several issues arise: What's a good task interface to use? How do I pass data computed in one task to another task in the sequence that might need it? In the past, I've worked with task interfaces like: interface Task<T, U> { U execute(T input); } Then I also had sort of a "task context" object which had getters and setters for any kind of data my tasks needed to produce or consume, and it gets passed to all tasks. I'm aware that this suffers from a host of problems. So I wanted to figure out a better way to implement it this time around. My current idea is to have a TaskContext object which is a type-safe heterogeneous container (as described in Effective Java). Each task can ask for an item from this container (task input), or add an item to the container (task output). That way, tasks don't need to know about each other directly, and I don't have to write a class with dozens of methods for each data item. There are, however, several drawbacks: Each item in this TaskContext container should be a complex type that wraps around the actual item data. If task A uses a String for some purpose, and task B uses a String for something entirely different, then just storing a mapping between String.class and some object doesn't work for both tasks. The other reason is that I can't use that kind of container for generic collections directly, so they need to be wrapped in another object. This means that, based on how many tasks I define, I would need to also define a number of classes for the task items that may be consumed or produced, which may lead to code bloat and duplication. For instance, if a task takes some Long value as input and produces another Long value as output, I would have to have two classes that simply wrap around a Long, which IMO can spiral out of control pretty quickly as the codebase evolves. I briefly looked at workflow engine libraries, but they kind of seem like a heavy hammer for this particular nail. How would you go about writing a simple task framework with the following requirements: Tasks should be as self-contained as possible, so they can be composed in different ways to create different workflows. That being said, some tasks may perform expensive computations that are prerequisites for other tasks. We want to have a way of storing the results of intermediate computations done by tasks so that other tasks can use those results for free. The task framework should be light, i.e. growing the code doesn't involve introducing many new types just to plug into the framework.

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• What's New in Oracle's EPM System?

  - by jmorourke

  Oracle’s EPM System R11.1.2.2  is now generally available to customers and partners on the download center.  Although the release number doesn’t sound significant, this is a major release of Oracle’s Hyperion EPM Suite with new modules as well as significant enhancements across the suite.  This release was announced back on April 4th as part of Oracle’s Business Analytics Strategy launch, so analytics is a key aspect of the release.  But the three biggest pieces of news in this release are Oracle Hyperion Planning support for the Exalytics In-Memory Machine, the new Project Financial Planning Application and the new Account Reconciliations Manager module. The Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine was announced back in October 2011, at Oracle OpenWorld.  It’s the latest installment from Oracle in a line of engineered systems that combine Oracle Sun hardware, with Oracle database and application technologies – in solutions that are designed to provide high scalability and performance for specific tasks.  Exalytics is the first engineered system specifically designed for high performance analytics.  Running in-memory versions of Oracle Essbase, as well as the Oracle TimesTen database and Oracle BI tools, Exalytics provides speed of thought response times for complex analytic processes with advanced visualizations.  Early adopter customers have achieved 5X to 100X faster interactivity and 6X to 10X faster planning cycles.  Hyperion Planning running with Oracle Exalytics will support enterprise-wide planning, budgeting and forecasting with more detailed data, with hundreds to thousands of users across an organization getting speed of thought performance. The new Hyperion Project Financial Planning application delivered with EPM 11.1.2.2 is also great news for Oracle customers.  This application follows on the heels of other special-purpose planning applications that Oracle has delivered for Workforce and Capital Asset planning.  It allows Project Managers to identify project-related expenses and revenues, plan and propose new projects, and track results over time. Finance Managers can evaluate and compare different projects, manage the funding process, monitor and report the actual financial results and impacts of projects and project portfolios. This new application is applicable to capital projects, contract projects and indirect projects like IT and HR projects across all industries.  This application is a great complement to existing Project Management applications, and helps bridge the gap between these applications, and the financial planning and budgeting process. Account reconciliations has to be one of the biggest bottlenecks and risks in the financial close and reporting process, and many organizations rely on spreadsheets and manual processes to perform this critical process.  To help address this problem, Oracle developed an Account Reconciliation Manager module that is being delivered as part of Oracle Hyperion Financial Close Management.   This module helps automate and streamline account reconciliations and eliminates the chances for errors, omissions and fraud.  But unlike standalone account reconciliation packages, it’s integrated with the rest of the Oracle Hyperion Financial Close suite, and can integrate balances from any source system.  This can help alleviate a major bottleneck in the financial close process, increase accuracy and reduce risk, and can complement existing investments in Hyperion Financial Management, as well as Oracle and non-Oracle transaction processing systems. Other enhancements in this release include an enhanced Web 2.0 interface for Hyperion Planning and Hyperion Financial Management (HFM), configurable dimensionality in HFM, new Predictive Planning feature in Hyperion Planning, new Detailed Profitability feature in Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management, new Smart View interface for Hyperion Strategic Finance, and integration of the Hyperion applications with JD Edwards Financials. For more information about Oracle EPM System R11.1.2.2 check out the links below: Press Release:  http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/1575775 Product Information on O.com:  http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/business-analytics/overview/index.html Product Information on OTN:  http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/epm/downloads/index.html Webcast Replay:  http://www.oracle.com/us/go/index.html?Src=7317510&Act=65&pcode=WWMK11054701MPP046 Please contact me if you have any questions or need additional information – [email protected]

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• C# 5 Async, Part 2: Asynchrony Today

  - by Reed

  The .NET Framework has always supported asynchronous operations.  However, different mechanisms for supporting exist throughout the framework.  While there are at least three separate asynchronous patterns used through the framework, only the latest is directly usable with the new Visual Studio Async CTP.  Before delving into details on the new features, I will talk about existing asynchronous code, and demonstrate how to adapt it for use with the new pattern. The first asynchronous pattern used in the .NET framework was the Asynchronous Programming Model (APM).  This pattern was based around callbacks.  A method is used to start the operation.  It typically is named as BeginSomeOperation.  This method is passed a callback defined as an AsyncCallback, and returns an object that implements IAsyncResult.  Later, the IAsyncResult is used in a call to a method named EndSomeOperation, which blocks until completion and returns the value normally directly returned from the synchronous version of the operation.  Often, the EndSomeOperation call would be called from the callback function passed, which allows you to write code that never blocks. While this pattern works perfectly to prevent blocking, it can make quite confusing code, and be difficult to implement.  For example, the sample code provided for FileStream’s BeginRead/EndRead methods is not simple to understand.  In addition, implementing your own asynchronous methods requires creating an entire class just to implement the IAsyncResult. Given the complexity of the APM, other options have been introduced in later versions of the framework.  The next major pattern introduced was the Event-based Asynchronous Pattern (EAP).  This provides a simpler pattern for asynchronous operations.  It works by providing a method typically named SomeOperationAsync, which signals its completion via an event typically named SomeOperationCompleted. The EAP provides a simpler model for asynchronous programming.  It is much easier to understand and use, and far simpler to implement.  Instead of requiring a custom class and callbacks, the standard event mechanism in C# is used directly.  For example, the WebClient class uses this extensively.  A method is used, such as DownloadDataAsync, and the results are returned via the DownloadDataCompleted event. While the EAP is far simpler to understand and use than the APM, it is still not ideal.  By separating your code into method calls and event handlers, the logic of your program gets more complex.  It also typically loses the ability to block until the result is received, which is often useful.  Blocking often requires writing the code to block by hand, which is error prone and adds complexity. As a result, .NET 4 introduced a third major pattern for asynchronous programming.  The Task<T> class introduced a new, simpler concept for asynchrony.  Task and Task<T> effectively represent an operation that will complete at some point in the future.  This is a perfect model for thinking about asynchronous code, and is the preferred model for all new code going forward.  Task and Task<T> provide all of the advantages of both the APM and the EAP models – you have the ability to block on results (via Task.Wait() or Task<T>.Result), and you can stay completely asynchronous via the use of Task Continuations.  In addition, the Task class provides a new model for task composition and error and cancelation handling.  This is a far superior option to the previous asynchronous patterns. The Visual Studio Async CTP extends the Task based asynchronous model, allowing it to be used in a much simpler manner.  However, it requires the use of Task and Task<T> for all operations.

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• Oracle MDM Maturity Model

  - by David Butler

  A few weeks ago, I discussed the results of a survey conducted by Oracle’s Insight team. The survey was based on the data management maturity model that the Oracle Insight team has developed over the years as they analyzed customer IT organizations to help them get more out of everything they already have. I thought you might like to learn more about the maturity model itself. It can help you figure out where you stand when it comes to getting your organizations data management act together. The model covers maturity levels around five key areas: Profiling data sources; Defining a data strategy; Defining a data consolidation plan; Data maintenance; and Data utilization. Profile data sources: Profiling data sources involves taking an inventory of all data sources from across your IT landscape. Then evaluate the quality of the data in each source system. This enables the scoping of what data to collect into an MDM hub and what rules are needed to insure data harmonization across systems. Define data strategy: A data strategy requires an understanding of the data usage. Given data usage, various data governance requirements need to be developed. This includes data controls and security rules as well as data structure and usage policies. Define data consolidation strategy: Consolidation requires defining your operational data model. How integration is to be accomplished. Cross referencing common data attributes from multiple systems is needed. Synchronization policies also need to be developed. Data maintenance: The desired standardization needs to be defined, including what constitutes a ‘match’ once the data has been standardized. Cleansing rules are a part of this methodology. Data quality monitoring requirements also need to be defined. Utilize the data: What data gets published, and who consumes the data must be determined. How to get the right data to the right place in the right format given its intended use must be understood. Validating the data and insuring security rules are in place and enforced are crucial aspects for full no-risk data utilization. For each of the above data management areas, a maturity level needs to be assessed. Where your organization wants to be should also be identified using the same maturity levels. This results in a sound gap analysis your organization can use to create action plans to achieve the ultimate goals. Marginal is the lowest level. It is characterized by manually maintaining trusted sources; lacking or inconsistent, silo’d structures with limited integration, and gaps in automation. Stable is the next leg up the MDM maturity staircase. It is characterized by tactical MDM implementations that are limited in scope and target a specific division.  It includes limited data stewardship capabilities as well. Best Practice is a serious MDM maturity level characterized by process automation improvements. The scope is enterprise wide. It is a business solution that provides a single version of the truth, with closed-loop data quality capabilities. It is typically driven by an enterprise architecture group with both business and IT representation.   Transformational is the highest MDM maturity level. At this level, MDM is quantitatively managed. It is integrated with Business Intelligence, SOA, and BPM. MDM is leveraged in business process orchestration. Take an inventory using this MDM Maturity Model and see where you are in your journey to full MDM maturity with all the business benefits that accrue to organizations who have mastered their data for the benefit of all operational applications, business processes, and analytical systems. To learn more, Trevor Naidoo and I have written the Oracle MDM Maturity Model whitepaper. It’s free, so go ahead and download it and use it as you see fit.

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• New R Interface to Oracle Data Mining Available for Download

  - by charlie.berger

    The R Interface to Oracle Data Mining ( R-ODM) allows R users to access the power of Oracle Data Mining's in-database functions using the familiar R syntax. R-ODM provides a powerful environment for prototyping data analysis and data mining methodologies. R-ODM is especially useful for: Quick prototyping of vertical or domain-based applications where the Oracle Database supports the application Scripting of "production" data mining methodologies Customizing graphics of ODM data mining results (examples: classification, regression, anomaly detection) The R-ODM interface allows R users to mine data using Oracle Data Mining from the R programming environment. It consists of a set of function wrappers written in source R language that pass data and parameters from the R environment to the Oracle RDBMS enterprise edition as standard user PL/SQL queries via an ODBC interface. The R-ODM interface code is a thin layer of logic and SQL that calls through an ODBC interface. R-ODM does not use or expose any Oracle product code as it is completely an external interface and not part of any Oracle product. R-ODM is similar to the example scripts (e.g., the PL/SQL demo code) that illustrates the use of Oracle Data Mining, for example, how to create Data Mining models, pass arguments, retrieve results etc. R-ODM is packaged as a standard R source package and is distributed freely as part of the R environment's Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN). For information about the R environment, R packages and CRAN, see www.r-project.org. R-ODM is particularly intended for data analysts and statisticians familiar with R but not necessarily familiar with the Oracle database environment or PL/SQL. It is a convenient environment to rapidly experiment and prototype Data Mining models and applications. Data Mining models prototyped in the R environment can easily be deployed in their final form in the database environment, just like any other standard Oracle Data Mining model. What is R? R is a system for statistical computation and graphics. It consists of a language plus a run-time environment with graphics, a debugger, access to certain system functions, and the ability to run programs stored in script files. The design of R has been heavily influenced by two existing languages: Becker, Chambers & Wilks' S and Sussman's Scheme. Whereas the resulting language is very similar in appearance to S, the underlying implementation and semantics are derived from Scheme. R was initially written by Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman at the Department of Statistics of the University of Auckland in Auckland, New Zealand. Since mid-1997 there has been a core group (the "R Core Team") who can modify the R source code archive. Besides this core group many R users have contributed application code as represented in the near 1,500 publicly-available packages in the CRAN archive (which has shown exponential growth since 2001; R News Volume 8/2, October 2008). Today the R community is a vibrant and growing group of dozens of thousands of users worldwide. It is free software distributed under a GNU-style copyleft, and an official part of the GNU project ("GNU S"). Resources: R website / CRAN R-ODM

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• Customer Interaction Group (NL) becomes the first Oracle EMEA partner that Achieves OPN Specialization for Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  Oracle Recognizes Customer Interaction Group for Expertise in Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service Customer Interaction Group, specialists in customer contact and a Gold level member of Oracle® PartnerNetwork (OPN), today announced it has achieved OPN Specialized status for Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service. To achieve OPN Specialized status, Oracle partners are required to meet a stringent set of requirements that are based on the needs and priorities of the customer and partner community. By achieving a Specialized distinction, Customer Interaction Group has been recognized by Oracle for its expertise in delivering services specifically around Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service through competency development, business results and proven success.   “As valued Oracle partner it is very important to us to achieve this specialization. With this recognition we guarantee our customers professionalism in each project, from advisory tasks to complex implementations. This allows Customer Interaction Group not only a deepening realization towards optimizing customer interaction, but also to service delivery through various media channels. As a result, our customers are able to service their customers on a higher level” says Hanjo Huizing, CEO of Customer Interaction Group. “Oracle congratulates The Customer Interaction Group with becoming specialized Oracle RightNow partner. Oracle’s Specialization Program is a trusted status and brand, which allows our most experienced and committed partners to differentiate themselves in the marketplace and gain a competitive edge by spotlighting their strengths and special skills” said Richard Lefebvre, head of the Oracle EMEA CRM&CX Partner Community. In today’s competitive markets, successful businesses can successfully stand out by offering their customers good customer service combined with excellent accessibility. Our mission is to help businesses configure and optimize the full range of customer contact. We have the knowledge, experience and tools to develop practical and innovative solutions for customer interaction processes. Our customers as fonq.nl (web department store) and CitizenM (hotels) are working successfully with Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service. They both serve their customers not only in The Netherlands but also in a lot of countries in Europe. Our focus is on the delivery of excellent customer service at a lower cost. Our objective is to increase return on customer contact and to give customers a positive experience. About Customer Interaction Group Customer Interaction Group specializes in delivering and optimizing customer interaction solutions for voice, web, and social interactions. Armed with the knowledge, experience and solutions, they provide solutions and consulting services to companies seeking to deliver superior customer experiences. The core method and approach of Customer Interaction Group is to translate business problems and processes into practical interaction solutions. Based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, The Customer Interaction Group serves customers all over Europe. Follow us on Twitter @CustIntGroup, Facebook.com/custintgroup, linkedin.com/company/customer-interaction-group or visit our website www.custintgroup.com About Oracle PartnerNetwork Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized is the latest version of Oracle's partner program that provides partners with tools to better develop, sell and implement Oracle solutions. OPN Specialized offers resources to train and support specialized knowledge of Oracle products and solutions and has evolved to recognize Oracle's growing product portfolio, partner base and business opportunity. Key to the latest enhancements to OPN is the ability for partners to differentiate through Specializations. Specializations are achieved through competency development, business results, expertise and proven success. To find out more visit http://www.oracle.com/partners.

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• Tessellation Texture Coordinates

  - by Stuart Martin

  Firstly some info - I'm using DirectX 11 , C++ and I'm a fairly good programmer but new to tessellation and not a master graphics programmer. I'm currently implementing a tessellation system for a terrain model, but i have reached a snag. My current system produces a terrain model from a height map complete with multiple texture coordinates, normals, binormals and tangents for rendering. Now when i was using a simple vertex and pixel shader combination everything worked perfectly but since moving to include a hull and domain shader I'm slightly confused and getting strange results. My terrain is a high detail model but the textured results are very large patches of solid colour. My current setup passes the model data into the vertex shader then through the hull into the domain and then finally into the pixel shader for use in rendering. My only thought is that in my hull shader i pass the information into the domain shader per patch and this is producing the large areas of solid colour because each patch has identical information. Lighting and normal data are also slightly off but not as visibly as texturing. Below is a copy of my hull shader that does not work correctly because i think the way that i am passing the data through is incorrect. If anyone can help me out but suggesting an alternative way to get the required data into the pixel shader? or by showing me the correct way to handle the data in the hull shader id be very thankful! cbuffer TessellationBuffer { float tessellationAmount; float3 padding; }; struct HullInputType { float3 position : POSITION; float2 tex : TEXCOORD0; float3 normal : NORMAL; float3 tangent : TANGENT; float3 binormal : BINORMAL; float2 tex2 : TEXCOORD1; }; struct ConstantOutputType { float edges[3] : SV_TessFactor; float inside : SV_InsideTessFactor; }; struct HullOutputType { float3 position : POSITION; float2 tex : TEXCOORD0; float3 normal : NORMAL; float3 tangent : TANGENT; float3 binormal : BINORMAL; float2 tex2 : TEXCOORD1; float4 depthPosition : TEXCOORD2; }; ConstantOutputType ColorPatchConstantFunction(InputPatch<HullInputType, 3> inputPatch, uint patchId : SV_PrimitiveID) { ConstantOutputType output; output.edges[0] = tessellationAmount; output.edges[1] = tessellationAmount; output.edges[2] = tessellationAmount; output.inside = tessellationAmount; return output; } [domain("tri")] [partitioning("integer")] [outputtopology("triangle_cw")] [outputcontrolpoints(3)] [patchconstantfunc("ColorPatchConstantFunction")] HullOutputType ColorHullShader(InputPatch<HullInputType, 3> patch, uint pointId : SV_OutputControlPointID, uint patchId : SV_PrimitiveID) { HullOutputType output; output.position = patch[pointId].position; output.tex = patch[pointId].tex; output.tex2 = patch[pointId].tex2; output.normal = patch[pointId].normal; output.tangent = patch[pointId].tangent; output.binormal = patch[pointId].binormal; return output; } Edited to include the domain shader:- [domain("tri")] PixelInputType ColorDomainShader(ConstantOutputType input, float3 uvwCoord : SV_DomainLocation, const OutputPatch<HullOutputType, 3> patch) { float3 vertexPosition; PixelInputType output; // Determine the position of the new vertex. vertexPosition = uvwCoord.x * patch[0].position + uvwCoord.y * patch[1].position + uvwCoord.z * patch[2].position; output.position = mul(float4(vertexPosition, 1.0f), worldMatrix); output.position = mul(output.position, viewMatrix); output.position = mul(output.position, projectionMatrix); output.depthPosition = output.position; output.tex = patch[0].tex; output.tex2 = patch[0].tex2; output.normal = patch[0].normal; output.tangent = patch[0].tangent; output.binormal = patch[0].binormal; return output; }

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• Using T4 to generate Configuration classes

  - by Justin Hoffman

  I wanted to try to use T4 to read a web.config and generate all of the appSettings and connectionStrings as properties of a class.  I elected in this template only to output appSettings and connectionStrings but you can see it would be easily adapted for app specific settings, bindings etc.  This allows for quick access to config values as well as removing the potential for typo's when accessing values from the ConfigurationManager. One caveat: a developer would need to remember to run the .tt file after adding an entry to the web.config.  However, one would quickly notice when trying to access the property from the generated class (it wouldn't be there).  Additionally, there are other options as noted here. The first step was to create the .tt file.  Note that this is a basic example, it could be extended even further I'm sure.  In this example I just manually input the path to the web.config file. <#@ template debug="false" hostspecific="true" language="C#" #><#@ output extension=".cs" #><#@ assembly Name="System.Configuration" #><#@ assembly name="System.Xml" #><#@ assembly name="System.Xml.Linq" #><#@ assembly name="System.Net" #><#@ assembly name="System" #><#@ import namespace="System.Configuration" #><#@ import namespace="System.Xml" #><#@ import namespace="System.Net" #><#@ import namespace="Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextTemplating" #><#@ import namespace="System.Xml.Linq" #>using System;using System.Configuration;using System.Xml;using System.Xml.Linq;using System.Linq;namespace MyProject.Web { public partial class Configurator { <# var xDocument = XDocument.Load(@"G:\MySolution\MyProject\Web.config"); var results = xDocument.Descendants("appSettings"); const string key = "key"; const string name = "name"; foreach (var xElement in results.Descendants()) {#> public string <#= xElement.Attribute(key).Value#>{get {return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[<#= string.Format("{0}{1}{2}","\"" , xElement.Attribute(key).Value, "\"")#>];}} <#}#> <# var connectionStrings = xDocument.Descendants("connectionStrings"); foreach(var connString in connectionStrings.Descendants()) {#> public string <#= connString.Attribute(name).Value#>{get {return ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings[<#= string.Format("{0}{1}{2}","\"" , connString.Attribute(name).Value, "\"")#>].ConnectionString;}} <#} #> }} The resulting .cs file: using System;using System.Configuration;using System.Xml;using System.Xml.Linq;using System.Linq;namespace MyProject.Web { public partial class Configurator { public string ClientValidationEnabled{get {return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ClientValidationEnabled"];}} public string UnobtrusiveJavaScriptEnabled{get {return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["UnobtrusiveJavaScriptEnabled"];}} public string ServiceUri{get {return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ServiceUri"];}} public string TestConnection{get {return ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["TestConnection"].ConnectionString;}} public string SecondTestConnection{get {return ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["SecondTestConnection"].ConnectionString;}} }} Next, I extended the partial class for easy access to the Configuration. However, you could just use the generated class file itself. using System;using System.Linq;using System.Xml.Linq;namespace MyProject.Web{ public partial class Configurator { private static readonly Configurator Instance = new Configurator(); public static Configurator For { get { return Instance; } } }} Finally, in my example, I used the Configurator class like so: [TestMethod] public void Test_Web_Config() { var result = Configurator.For.ServiceUri; Assert.AreEqual(result, "http://localhost:30237/Service1/"); }

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• SSIS Debugging Tip: Using Data Viewers

  - by Jim Giercyk

  When you have an SSIS package error, it is often very helpful to see the data records that are causing the problem.  After all, if your input has 50,000 records and 1 of them has corrupt data, it can be a chore.  Your execution results will tell you which column contains the bad data, but not which record…..enter the Data Viewer. In this scenario I have created a truncation error.  The input length of [lastname] is 50, but the output table has a length of 15.  When it runs, at least one of the records causes the package to fail.     Now what?  We can tell from our execution results that there is a problem with [lastname], but we have no idea WHICH record?     Let’s identify the row that is actually causing the problem.  First, we grab the oft’ forgotten Row Count shape from our toolbar and connect it to the error output from our input query.  Remember that in order to intercept errors with the error output, you must redirect them.     The Row Count shape requires 1 integer variable.  For our purposes, we will not reference the variable, but it is still required in order for the package to run.  Typically we would use the variable to hold the number of rows in the table and refer back to it later in our process.  We are simply using the Row Count as a “Dead End” for errors.  I called my variable RowCounter.  To create a variable, with no shapes selected, right-click on the background and choose Variable.     Once we have setup the Row Count shape, we can right-click on the red line (error output) from the query, and select Data Viewers.  In the popup, we click the add button and we will see this:     There are other fancier options we can play with, but for now we just want to view the output in a grid.  WE select Grid, then click OK on all of the popup windows to shut them down.  We should now see a grid with a pair of glasses on the error output line.     So, we are ready to catch the error output in a grid and see that is causing the problem!  This time when we run the package, it does not fail because we directed the error to the Row Count.  We also get a popup window showing the error record in a grid.  If there were multiple errors we would see them all.     Indeed, the [lastname] column is longer than 15 characters.  Notice the last column in the grid, [Error Code – Description].  We knew this was a truncation error before we added the grid, but if you have worked with SSIS for any length of time, you know that some errors are much more obscure.  The description column can be very useful under those circumstances! Data viewers can be used any time we want to see the data that is actually in the pipeline;  they stop the package temporarily until we shut them.  Also remember that the Row Count shape can be used as a “Dead End”.  It is useful during development when we want to see the output from a dataflow, but don’t want to update a table or file with the data.  Data viewers are an invaluable tool for both development and debugging.  Just remember to REMOVE THEM before putting your package into production

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• Elo system behaves oddly in program I've created

  - by adc

  Alright, so I'm looking to build a small program (C# and XAML) that, essentially, does this: Generate array of players. Each player has a current rating and a true rating. I set current rating to 1200 as a starting point right now; I've also tried setting it to true rating and the average of the two. True rating is what their skill level actually is. Their true rating is calculated based on percentages from the current League of Legends rating system; generating an array of 970 thousand generates results very similar to the data from here: (removed due to URL limit - but trust me, the results are very similar). This array is of length specified by the user. If need be, sort the array from smallest to largest. Play X number of games, again specified by the user. This is done by taking the array of players (which is sorted by Current Rating after being created) and running through it in groups of 10. The first five are on team one, the second five are on team two. It then takes the True Rating of these players and calculates an expected chance to win using the Elo system. It generates a random double and compares it to the expected chance to win; if the number is lower, team one wins - otherwise team two wins. I then update the rating of the players via, again, the Elo system - giving the winning team a score of 1 and the losing team a score of 0. I use a K value of 36 (but have tried 12, 24, and even higher ones) and an F value of 400. After going through the entire loop of players (which I have conveniently forced to be a multiple of ten), it sorts the array - again via current rating. This, if my understanding of the Elo system is correct, runs properly. However, it doesn't seem to work. I have a running test telling me how many players of the full array are within 100 current rating of their true rating. I would expect some portion of the population to be outside this range (as probability is not always going to go in their favor), but a full 40-45% of the population is outside of this range. I also have it outputting the maximum difference between true and current rating - and I have never seen this drop below 500! It hovers between 550-600, occasionally going over or under. I'm at a loss as to what to change - I've fiddled with the K and F values, where I start all the players, etc. but nothing changes the fact that eventually a good 40% of the population is outside the range. And it isn't that I have it playing too few games - it's now run through over 60 thousand games and the problem never disappears or really fluctuates. The full C# code, including everything except the XAML file and the Player class (pastebin is being very slow and I can only post two links, so I can't link to the XAML file): http://pastebin.com/rFcZRL84 The Player class: http://pastebin.com/4cJTdTRu I guess my question is did I do anything wrong? Is there a problem with the way I implemented the system, or is it just that Riot uses a significantly modified Elo system? I don't think it's the latter, as that still wouldn't explain the massive true and current rating differences to me, however.

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• Where Twitter Stands Heading Into 2013

  - by Mike Stiles

  As Twitter continued throughout 2012 to be a stage on which global politics and culture played itself out, the company itself underwent some adjustments that give us a good indication of what users and brands can expect from the platform in 2013. The power of the network did anything but fade. Celebrities continued to use it to connect one-on-one. Even the Pope signed on this year. It continued to fuel revolutions. It played an exponentially large factor in this US Presidential election. And around the world, the freedom to speak was challenged as users were fired, sued, sometimes even jailed for their tweets. Expect more of the same in 2013, as Twitter has entrenched itself, for individuals, causes and brands, as the fastest, easiest, most efficient way to message the masses so some measure of impact can come from it. It’s changed everything, and it’s not finished. These fun facts reveal the position of strength with which Twitter enters 2013: It now generates a billion tweets every 2.5 days It has 500 million+ users The average Twitter user has tweeted 307 times 32% of everyone using the Internet uses Twitter It’s expected to bring in $540 million in ad revenue by 2014 11 new accounts are created every second High-level Executive Summary: people love it, people use it, and they’re going to keep loving and using it. Whether or not outside developers love it is a different matter. 2012 marked a shift from welcoming the third party support that played at least some role in Twitter being so warmly embraced, to discouraging anything that replicates what Twitter can do itself…or plans to do itself. It’s not the open playground it once was. Now Twitter must spend 2013 proving it can innovate in-house and keep us just as entranced. Likewise, Twitter is distancing itself from Facebook. Images from the #1 platform’s Instagram don’t work on Twitter anymore, and Twitter’s rolling out their own photo filter product. Where the two have lived in a “plenty of room for everybody” symbiosis up to now, 2013 could see the giants ramping up a full-on rivalry. Twitter is exhibiting a deliberate strategy. Updates have centered on more visually appealing search results, and making finding and sharing content easier. Deals have been cut with some media entities so their content stands out. CEO Dick Costolo has said tweets aren’t the attraction, they’re what leads you to content. Twitter aims to be a key distributor of media and info. Add the addition of former News Corp. President Peter Chernin to the board, and their hashtag landing page experience for events, and their media behemoth ambitions get pretty clear. There are challenges ahead and Costolo has also laid those out; entry into China, figuring out how to have Twitter deliver both comprehensive and relevant, targeted experiences, and the visualization of big data. What does this mean for corporations? They can expect a more media-rich evolution and growing emphases on imagery. They can expect more opportunities to create great media content and leverage Twitter for its distribution. And they can expect new ways to surface in searches. Are brands diving in? 56% of customer tweets to companies get completely and totally ignored. Ugh. A study Twitter recently conducted with Compete shows people who see tweets from retailers are more likely to buy a product. And, the more retailer tweets they see, the more likely they are to purchase on the retail site. As more of those tweets point to engaging media content from the brand, the results should get even better. Twitter appears ready for 2013. Enterprise brands have some work to do. @mikestilesPhoto Stuart Miles, freedigitalphotos.net

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• Wireless doesn't work on a Broadcom BCM4312

  - by Boderick

  As stated, I've just upgraded to 12.04 and my Dell Inspiron 1545 isn't recognising its wireless card and I was wondering if anybody could help? Edit: Okay, so I found the wireless card by using lspci -vvv and it returned this: 0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01) Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast TAbort- SERR- Kernel modules: ssb lsmod Module Size Used by dm_crypt 22528 0 joydev 17393 0 dell_wmi 12601 0 sparse_keymap 13658 1 dell_wmi dell_laptop 13671 0 dcdbas 14098 1 dell_laptop psmouse 72919 0 uvcvideo 67203 0 serio_raw 13027 0 videodev 86588 1 uvcvideo snd_hda_codec_idt 60251 1 mac_hid 13077 0 snd_hda_intel 32765 5 snd_hda_codec 109562 2 snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel snd_hwdep 13276 1 snd_hda_codec parport_pc 32114 0 rfcomm 38139 0 bnep 17830 2 ppdev 12849 0 snd_pcm 80845 3 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec bluetooth 158438 10 rfcomm,bnep snd_seq_midi 13132 0 snd_rawmidi 25424 1 snd_seq_midi snd_seq_midi_event 14475 1 snd_seq_midi snd_seq 51567 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event snd_timer 28931 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq snd_seq_device 14172 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq binfmt_misc 17292 1 snd 62064 18 snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device soundcore 14635 1 snd snd_page_alloc 14108 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm lp 17455 0 parport 40930 3 parport_pc,ppdev,lp sky2 53628 0 ums_realtek 17920 0 uas 17699 0 i915 414603 3 wmi 18744 1 dell_wmi drm_kms_helper 45466 1 i915 drm 197692 4 i915,drm_kms_helper i2c_algo_bit 13199 1 i915 video 19068 1 i915 usb_storage 39646 1 ums_realtek ifconfig -a eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:23:ae:24:71:45 inet addr:192.168.1.158 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::223:aeff:fe24:7145/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:14340 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:10191 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:15403754 (15.4 MB) TX bytes:1262570 (1.2 MB) Interrupt:18 ham0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 7a:79:05:2d:b0:f7 inet addr:5.45.176.247 Bcast:5.255.255.255 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: fe80::7879:5ff:fe2d:b0f7/64 Scope:Link inet6 addr: 2620:9b::52d:b0f7/96 Scope:Global UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1404 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:179 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:500 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:27480 (27.4 KB) lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:433 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:433 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:60051 (60.0 KB) TX bytes:60051 (60.0 KB) iwconfig lo no wireless extensions. ham0 no wireless extensions. eth0 no wireless extensions. the results for sudo lshw -class network *-network description: Wireless interface product: BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY vendor: Broadcom Corporation physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:0c:00.0 logical name: eth1 version: 01 serial: 00:22:5f:77:1f:e6 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=wl0 driverversion=5.100.82.38 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg resources: irq:17 memory:f69fc000-f69fffff *-network description: Ethernet interface product: 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller vendor: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:09:00.0 logical name: eth0 version: 13 serial: 00:23:ae:24:71:45 size: 100Mbit/s capacity: 100Mbit/s width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=sky2 driverversion=1.30 duplex=full firmware=N/A ip=192.168.1.158 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100Mbit/s resources: irq:45 memory:f68fc000-f68fffff ioport:de00(size=256) *-network description: Ethernet interface physical id: 2 logical name: ham0 serial: 7a:79:05:2d:b0:f7 size: 10Mbit/s capabilities: ethernet physical configuration: autonegotiation=off broadcast=yes driver=tun driverversion=1.6 duplex=full firmware=N/A ip=5.45.176.247 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=10Mbit/s and the results of rfkill list all 0: brcmwl-0: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: yes Hard blocked: yes 1: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: yes Hard blocked: yes

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• Microsoft Certifications &ndash; how to prep? and why?

  - by Kelly Jones

  I often get asked by my colleagues, “how do you prepare for Microsoft exams?” Well, the answer for me is a little complicated, so I thought I’d write up here what I do. The first thing I do is go to Microsoft’s website to find the exam that I need to take.  If you’re looking to get a particular certification, then their site lists the exam or exams that you’ll need to pass.  If you’ve already taken an exam, you can log onto the MCP website and use their certification planner.  This little tool tells you what tests you need, based on the exams you’ve already passed.  It is very helpful with the certifications that are multiple tests and especially ones that have electives. Once you’ve identified the test, you can use Microsoft’s website to see the topics that it covers.  This is a good outline to follow when you study.  I’ll keep this handy to reference back throughout my studying to make sure that I’m covering all the topics I need to know. The next step is probably where I am a little different from others.  IF the exam outline covers material that I’ve already been working with, then I’ll skip a lot of the studying and go directly to the practice tests.  However, if I’m looking at the outline and wondering how in the world do you do that? – then it’s time to hit the books. So, where to find study materials?  Try typing in the exam number into any search engine.  You’ll typically find a ton of resources.  If you’re lucky, you’ll find books that others recommend based on their studying and exam experience.  As a Sogeti employee, I have access to three really good resources: an internal company list of all of the consultants who have passed particular tests (on our Connex website), Books 24x7, and Transcender practice exams. Once my studying is done (either through books or experience), I’ll go through the practice exams.  I find them really helpful in getting my knowledge lined up to the thinking process that the exam writers use.  If I’m relying on my experience, then this really helps me to identify gaps in my knowledge that I’ll need to fill. That’s about it.  If I’m doing ok on the practice exams, then I’ll take the real thing.  I’ve found that the practice exams are usually more difficult than then real thing. Oh – one other thing I do related to Microsoft exams – I try to take any beta exams that Microsoft makes available that fall into my skill set.  Microsoft has started a blog to announce these and the seats usually fill up really quick.  The blog is at http://blogs.technet.com/betaexams/ . You don’t get your results instantly, like a normal exam, instead you have to wait for everyone to finish taking the beta exams and for Microsoft to determine which questions they are using and which they are dropping.  So, be prepared to wait six to eight weeks for your results.

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• Webcast Q&A: ResCare Solves Content Lifecycle Challenges with Oracle WebCenter

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  Last week we had the fourth webcast in our WebCenter in Action webcast series, "ResCare Solves Content Lifecycle Challenges with Oracle WebCenter", where customer Joe Lichtefeld from ResCare and Wayne Boerger & Doug Thompson from Oracle Partner TEAM Informatics shared how Oracle WebCenter is powering allowing ResCare to solve content lifecycle challenges, reduce compliance and business risks, and increase adoption of intranet as primary business communication tool In case you missed it, here's a recap of the Q&A.   Joe Lichtefeld, ResCare  Q: Did you run into any issues in the deployment of the platform?A: We experienced very few issues when implementing the content management and search functionalities. There were some challenges in determining the metadata structure. We tried to find a fine balance between having enough fields to provide the functionality needed, but trying to limit the impact to the contributing members.  Q: What has been the biggest benefit your end users have seen?A: The biggest benefit to date is two-fold. Content on the intranet can be maintained by the individual contributors more timely than in our old process of all requests being updated by IT. The other big benefit is the ability to find the most current version of a document instead of relying on emails and phone calls to track down the "current" version. Q: Was there any resistance internally when implementing the solution? If so, how did you overcome that?A: We experienced very little resistance. Most of our community groups were eager to be able to contribute and maintain their information. We had the normal hurdles of training and follow-up training with implementing a new system and process. As our second phase rolled out access to all employees, we have received more positive feedback on the accessibility of information. Wayne Boerger & Doug Thompson, TEAM Informatics Q: Can you integrate multiple repositories with the Google Search Appliance? Yes, the Google Search Appliance is designed to index lots of different repositories, from both public and internal sources. There are included connectors to many repositories, such as SharePoint, databases, file systems, LDAP, and with the TEAM GSA Connector and the Oracle Content Server. And the index for these repositories can be configured into different collections depending on the use cases that each customer has, and really, for each need within a customer environment. Q: How many different filters can you add when the search results are returned? A: Presuming this question is about the filtering on the search results. You can add as many filters as you like and it can be done by collection or any number of other criteria. Most importantly, customers now have the ability to limit the returned content by a set metadata value. Q: With the TEAM Sites Connector, what types of content can you sync? A: There’s really no limit; if it can be checked into the content server, then it is eligible for sync into Sites.  So basically, any digital file that has relevance to a Sites implementation can be checked into the WC Content central repository and then the connector can/will manage it. Q: Using the Connector, are there any limitations around where in Sites that synced content can be used? A: There are no limitations about where it can be used. When setting up your environment to use it, you just need to think through the different destinations on the Sites side that might use the content; that way you’ve got the right information to create the rules needed for the connector. If you missed the webcast, be sure to catch the replay to see a live demonstration of WebCenter in action!  ResCare Solves Content Lifecycle Challenges with Oracle WebCenter from Oracle WebCenter

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• Mobile Deals: the Consumer Wants You in Their Pocket

  - by Mike Stiles

  Mobile deals offer something we talk about a lot in social marketing, relevant content. If a consumer is already predisposed to liking your product and gets a timely deal for it that’s easy and convenient to use, not only do you score on the marketing side, it clearly generates some of that precious ROI that’s being demanded of social. First, a quick gut-check on the public’s adoption of mobile. Nielsen figures have 55.5% of US mobile owners using smartphones. If young people are indeed the future, you can count on the move to mobile exploding exponentially. Teens are the fastest growing segment of smartphone users, and 58% of them have one. But the largest demographic of smartphone users is 25-34 at 74%. That tells you a focus on mobile will yield great results now, and even better results straight ahead. So we can tell both from statistics and from all the faces around you that are buried in their smartphones this is where consumers are. But are they looking at you? Do you have a valid reason why they should? Everybody likes a good deal. BIA/Kelsey says US consumers will spend $3.6 billion this year for daily deals (the Groupons and LivingSocials of the world), up 87% from 2011. The report goes on to say over 26% of small businesses are either "very likely" or "extremely likely" to offer up a deal in the next 6 months. Retail Gazette reports 58% of consumers shop with coupons, a 40% increase in 4 years. When you consider that a deal can be the impetus for a real-world transaction, a first-time visit to a store, an online purchase, entry into a loyalty program, a social referral, a new fan or follower, etc., that 26% figure shows us there’s a lot of opportunity being left on the table by brands. The existing and emerging technologies behind mobile devices make the benefits of offering deals listed above possible. Take how mobile payment systems are being tied into deal delivery and loyalty programs. If it’s really easy to use a coupon or deal, it’ll get used. If it’s complicated, it’ll be passed over as “not worth it.” When you can pay with your mobile via technologies that connects store and user, you get the deal, you get the loyalty credit, you pay, and your receipt is uploaded, all in one easy swipe. Nothing to keep track of, nothing to lose or forget about. And the store “knows” you, so future offers will be based on your tastes. Consider the endgame. A customer who’s a fan of your belt buckle store’s Facebook Page is in one of your physical retail locations. They pull up your app, because they’ve gotten used to a loyalty deal being offered when they go to your store. Voila. A 10% discount active for the next 30 minutes. Maybe the app also surfaces social references to your brand made by friends so they can check out a buckle someone’s raving about. If they aren’t a fan of your Page or don’t have your app, perhaps they’ve opted into location-based deal services so you can still get them that 10% deal while they’re in the store. Or maybe they’ve walked in with a pre-purchased Groupon or Living Social voucher. They pay with one swipe, and you’ve learned about their buying preferences, credited their loyalty account and can encourage them to share a pic of their new buckle on social. Happy customer. Happy belt buckle company. All because the brand was willing to use the tech that’s available to meet consumers where they are, incentivize them, and show them how much they’re valued through rewards.

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• Consumer Oriented Search In Oracle Endeca Information Discovery – Part 1

  - by Bob Zurek

  Information Discovery, a core capability of Oracle Endeca Information Discovery, enables business users to rapidly search, discover and navigate through a wide variety of big data including structured, unstructured and semi-structured data. One of the key capabilities, among many, that differentiate our solution from others in the Information Discovery market is our deep support for search across this growing amount of varied big data. Our method and approach is very different than classic simple keyword search that is found in may information discovery solutions. In this first part of a series on the topic of search, I will walk you through many of the key capabilities that go beyond the simple search box that you might experience in products where search was clearly an afterthought or attempt to catch up to our core capabilities in this area. Lets explore. The core data management solution of Oracle Endeca Information Discovery is the Endeca Server, a hybrid search-analytical database that his highly scalable and column-oriented in nature. We will talk in more technical detail about the capabilities of the Endeca Server in future blog posts as this post is intended to give you a feel for the deep search capabilities that are an integral part of the Endeca Server. The Endeca Server provides best-of-breed search features aw well as a new class of features that are the first to be designed around the requirement to bridge structured, semi-structured and unstructured big data. Some of the key features of search include type a heads, automatic alphanumeric spell corrections, positional search, Booleans, wildcarding, natural language, and category search and query classification dialogs. This is just a subset of the advanced search capabilities found in Oracle Endeca Information Discovery. Search is an important feature that makes it possible for business users to explore on the diverse data sets the Endeca Server can hold at any one time. The search capabilities in the Endeca server differ from other Information Discovery products with simple “search boxes” in the following ways: The Endeca Server Supports Exploratory Search.  Enterprise data frequently requires the user to explore content through an ad hoc dialog, with guidance that helps them succeed. This has implications for how to design search features. Traditional search doesn’t assume a dialog, and so it uses relevance ranking to get its best guess to the top of the results list. It calculates many relevance factors for each query, like word frequency, distance, and meaning, and then reduces those many factors to a single score based on a proprietary “black box” formula. But how can a business users, searching, act on the information that the document is say only 38.1% relevant? In contrast, exploratory search gives users the opportunity to clarify what is relevant to them through refinements and summaries. This approach has received consumer endorsement through popular ecommerce sites where guided navigation across a broad range of products has helped consumers better discover choices that meet their, sometimes undetermined requirements. This same model exists in Oracle Endeca Information Discovery. In fact, the Endeca Server powers many of the most popular e-commerce sites in the world. The Endeca Server Supports Cascading Relevance. Traditional approaches of search reduce many relevance weights to a single score. This means that if a result with a good title match gets a similar score to one with an exact phrase match, they’ll appear next to each other in a list. But a user can’t deduce from their score why each got it’s ranking, even though that information could be valuable. Oracle Endeca Information Discovery takes a different approach. The Endeca Server stratifies results by a primary relevance strategy, and then breaks ties within a strata by ordering them with a secondary strategy, and so on. Application managers get the explicit means to compose these strategies based on their knowledge of their own domain. This approach gives both business users and managers a deterministic way to set and understand relevance. Now that you have an understanding of two of the core search capabilities in Oracle Endeca Information Discovery, our next blog post on this topic will discuss more advanced features including set search, second-order relevance as well as an understanding of faceted search mechanisms that include queries and filters.  

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• Getting the number of fragments which passed the depth test

  - by Etan

  In "modern" environments, the "NV Occlusion Query" extension provides a method to get the number of fragments which passed the depth test. However, on the iPad / iPhone using OpenGL ES, the extension is not available. What is the most performant approach to implement a similar behaviour in the fragment shader? Some of my ideas: Render the object completely in white, then count all the colors together using a two-pass shader where first a vertical line is rendered and for each fragment the shader computes the sum over the whole row. Then, a single vertex is rendered whose fragment sums all the partial sums of the first pass. Doesn't seem to be very efficient. Render the object completely in white over a black background. Downsample recursively, abusing the hardware linear interpolation between textures until being at a reasonably small resolution. This leads to fragments which have a greyscale level depending on the number of white pixels where in their corresponding region. Is this even accurate enough? Use mipmaps and simply read the pixel on the 1x1 level. Again the question of accuracy and if it is even possible using non-power-of-two textures. The problem wit these approaches is, that the pipeline gets stalled which results in major performance issues. Therefore, I'm looking for a more performant way to accomplish my goal. Using the EXT_OCCLUSION_QUERY_BOOLEAN extension Apple introduced EXT_OCCLUSION_QUERY_BOOLEAN in iOS 5.0 for iPad 2. "4.1.6 Occlusion Queries Occlusion queries use query objects to track the number of fragments or samples that pass the depth test. An occlusion query can be started and finished by calling BeginQueryEXT and EndQueryEXT, respectively, with a target of ANY_SAMPLES_PASSED_EXT or ANY_SAMPLES_PASSED_CONSERVATIVE_EXT. When an occlusion query is started with the target ANY_SAMPLES_PASSED_EXT, the samples-boolean state maintained by the GL is set to FALSE. While that occlusion query is active, the samples-boolean state is set to TRUE if any fragment or sample passes the depth test. When the occlusion query finishes, the samples-boolean state of FALSE or TRUE is written to the corresponding query object as the query result value, and the query result for that object is marked as available. If the target of the query is ANY_SAMPLES_PASSED_CONSERVATIVE_EXT, an implementation may choose to use a less precise version of the test which can additionally set the samples-boolean state to TRUE in some other implementation dependent cases." The first sentence hints on a behavior which is exactly what I'm looking for: getting the number of pixels which passed the depth test in an asynchronous manner without much performance loss. However, the rest of the document describes only how to get boolean results. Is it possible to exploit this extension to get the pixel count? Does the hardware support it so that there may be hidden API to get access to the pixel count? Other extensions which could be exploitable would be debugging features like the number of times the fragment shader was invoked (PSInvocations in DirectX - not sure if something simila is available in OpenGL ES). However, this would also result in a pipeline stall.

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• Running Powershell from within SharePoint

  - by Norgean

  Just because something is a daft idea, doesn't mean it can't be done. We sometimes need to do some housekeeping - like delete old files or list items or… yes, well, whatever you use Powershell for in a SharePoint world. Or it could be that your solution has "issues" for which you have Powershell solutions, but not the budget to transform into proper bug fixes. So you create a "how to" for the ITPro guys. Idea: What if we keep the scripts in a list, and have SharePoint execute the scripts on demand? An announcements list (because of the multiline body field). Warning! Let us be clear. This list needs to be locked down; if somebody creates a malicious script and you run it, I cannot help you. First; we need to figure out how to start Powershell scripts from C#. Hit teh interwebs and the Googlie, and you may find jpmik's post: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/18229/How-to-run-PowerShell-scripts-from-C. (Or MS' official answer at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee706563(v=vs.85).aspx) public string RunPowershell(string powershellText, SPWeb web, string param1, string param2) { // Powershell ~= RunspaceFactory - i.e. Create a powershell context var runspace = RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace(); var resultString = new StringBuilder(); try { // load the SharePoint snapin - Note: you cannot do this in the script itself (i.e. add-pssnapin etc does not work) PSSnapInException snapInError; runspace.RunspaceConfiguration.AddPSSnapIn("Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell", out snapInError); runspace.Open(); // set a web variable. runspace.SessionStateProxy.SetVariable("webContext", web); // and some user defined parameters runspace.SessionStateProxy.SetVariable("param1", param1); runspace.SessionStateProxy.SetVariable("param2", param2); var pipeline = runspace.CreatePipeline(); pipeline.Commands.AddScript(powershellText); // add a "return" variable pipeline.Commands.Add("Out-String"); // execute! var results = pipeline.Invoke(); // convert the script result into a single string foreach (PSObject obj in results) { resultString.AppendLine(obj.ToString()); } } finally { // close the runspace runspace.Close(); } // consider logging the result. Or something. return resultString.ToString(); } Ok. We've written some code. Let us test it. var runner = new PowershellRunner(); runner.RunPowershellScript(@" $web = Get-SPWeb 'http://server/web' # or $webContext $web.Title = $param1 $web.Update() $web.Dispose() ", null, "New title", "not used"); Next step: Connect the code to the list, or more specifically, have the code execute on one (or several) list items. As there are more options than readers, I'll leave this as an exercise for the reader. Some alternatives: Create a ribbon button that calls RunPowershell with the body of the selected itemsAdd a layout pageSpecify list item from query string (possibly coupled with content editor webpart with html that links directly to this page with querystring)WebpartListing with an "execute" columnList with multiselect and an execute button Etc!Now that you have the code for executing powershell scripts, you can easily expand this into a timer job, which executes scripts at regular intervals. But if the previous solution was dangerous, this is even worse - the scripts will usually be run with one of the admin accounts, and can do pretty much anything...One more thing... Note that as this is running "consoleless" calls to Write-Host will fail. Two solutions; remove all output, or check if the script is run in a console-window or not.  if ($host.Name -eq "ConsoleHost") { Write-Host 'If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong' }

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• SQL to select random mix of rows fairly [migrated]

  - by Matt Sieker

  Here's my problem: I have a set of tables in a database populated with data from a client that contains product information. In addition to the basic product information, there is also information about the manufacturer, and categories for those products (a product can be in one or more categories). These categories are then referred to as "Product Categories", and which stores these products are available at. These tables are updated once a week from a feed from the customer. Since for our purposes, some of the product categories are the same, or closely related for our purposes, there is another level of categories called "General Categories", a general category can have one or more product categories. For the scope of these tables, here's some rough numbers: Data Tables: Products: 475,000 Manufacturers: 1300 Stores: 150 General Categories: 245 Product Categories: 500 Mapping Tables: Product Category -> Product: 655,000 Stores -> Products: 50,000,000 Now, for the actual problem: As part of our software, we need to select n random products, given a store and a general category. However, we also need to ensure a good mix of manufacturers, as in some categories, a single manufacturer dominates the results, and selecting rows at random causes the results to strongly favor that manufacturer. The solution that is currently in place, works for most cases, involves selecting all of the rows that match the store and category criteria, partition them on manufacturer, and include their row number from within their partition, then select from that where the row number for that manufacturer is less than n, and use ROWCOUNT to clamp the total rows returned to n. This query looks something like this: SET ROWCOUNT 6 select p.Id, GeneralCategory_Id, Product_Id, ISNULL(m.DisplayName, m.Name) AS Vendor, MSRP, MemberPrice, FamilyImageName from (select p.Id, gc.Id GeneralCategory_Id, p.Id Product_Id, ctp.Store_id, Manufacturer_id, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY Manufacturer_id ORDER BY NEWID()) AS 'VendorOrder', MSRP, MemberPrice, FamilyImageName from GeneralCategory gc inner join GeneralCategoriesToProductCategories gctpc ON gc.Id=gctpc.GeneralCategory_Id inner join ProductCategoryToProduct pctp on gctpc.ProductCategory_Id = pctp.ProductCategory_Id inner join Product p on p.Id = pctp.Product_Id inner join StoreToProduct ctp on p.Id = ctp.Product_id where gc.Id = @GeneralCategory and ctp.Store_id=@StoreId and p.Active=1 and p.MemberPrice >0) p inner join Manufacturer m on m.Id = p.Manufacturer_id where VendorOrder <=6 order by NEWID() SET ROWCOUNT 0 (I've tried to somewhat format it to make it cleaner, but I don't think it really helps) Running this query with an execution plan shows that for the majority of these tables, it's doing a Clustered Index Seek. There are two operations that take up roughly 90% of the time: Index Seek (Nonclustered) on StoreToProduct: 17%. This table just contains the key of the store, and the key of the product. It seems that NHibernate decided not to make a composite key when making this table, but I'm not concerned about this at this point, as compared to the other seek... Clustered Index Seek on Product: 69%. I really have no clue how I could make this one more performant. On categories without a lot of products, performance is acceptable (<50ms), however larger categories can take a few hundred ms, with the largest category taking 3s (which has about 170k products). It seems I have two ways to go from this point: Somehow optimize the existing query and table indices to lower the query time. As almost every expensive operation is already a clustered index scan, I don't know what could be done there. The inner query could be tuned to not return all of the possible rows for that category, but I am unsure how to do this, and maintain the requirements (random products, with a good mix of manufacturers) Denormalize this data for the purpose of this query when doing the once a week import. However, I am unsure how to do this and maintain the requirements. Does anyone have any input on either of these items?

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