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• Quickly Preview Songs in Windows Media Center 12 in Windows 7

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Do you ever wish you could quickly preview a song without having to play it? Today we look at a quick and easy way to do that in Windows Media Player 12. Open Windows Media Player in Library Mode and select your Music library. Hover your cursor over the Title of the song and a Preview pop-up window will appear after a few seconds.    Click on the Preview in the pop-up window and the song will begin to play. As the preview begins to play, you will see the Skip link and a song timer. Click on Skip to jump ahead 15 seconds in the song. When you are finished previewing the song, simply move your mouse away from the preview window to stop playback. Automatically Preview Songs You can adjust settings in Windows Media Player to automatically preview songs when you hover your cursor over the title. Select Tools  from the menu and click Options. On the Options window, select the Library tab and click on Automatically preview songs on title hover. Click OK.   Now when you simply hover your cursor over the song title the preview window will appear and playback will begin automatically. This feature works just as well in Details view as it does in Expanded Tile view. Would you like to stream your music to other computers on your network? Check out our article on how to stream media to other Windows 7 computers. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Add Color Coding to Windows 7 Media Center Program GuideSchedule Updates for Windows Media CenterIntegrate Hulu Desktop and Windows Media Center in Windows 7Integrate Boxee with Media Center in Windows 7 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 Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites

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• Add a Sleep Timer to Windows 7 Media Center

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Do you make it a habit of falling asleep at night while watching Windows Media Center? Today we are going to take a look at the MC7 Sleep Timer for Windows 7 Media Center. This simple little plugin allows you to schedule an automatic shutdown time in Media Center. Note: At this point MC7 Sleep Timer doesn’t work with extenders. If you’re using ClamAV or Panda it may detect this plugin as a virus, we’ve tested it and this is a false positive for these two antivirus apps. Installation and Usage Download and install MC7 Sleep Timer. (See download below) After the installation is finished, you will find MC7 Sleep Timer located in the Media Center Extras Library. Click on the tile to open the timer and configure your settings. The MC7 Sleep Timer will open in full screen mode. You can choose to shutdown the PC after 30 or 60 minutes, create a custom length shutdown timer at any 5 minute interval, or select the exact time you want the PC to shutdown.  After setting your PC to shutdown, you’ll get an audio confirmation. To set a custom timer length, scroll to the “Custom timer” option and click right or left on your Media Center remote or, the right or left arrow keys, to choose how many minutes before shutdown. To schedule a shutdown for a certain time, browse to the “Shutdown at time” button, and scroll right or left with the arrow keys on the keyboard or remote. When you’ve chosen your time, hit “Enter” on the keyboard or “OK” on the remote.   Clicking the “Monitor Off” button will turn off only the monitor and “Cancel Timer” will cancel your shutdown request. Conclusion If you often find yourself falling asleep every night watching Media Center and then fumbling and stumbling in the middle of the night to shutdown your computer, MC7 Sleep timer might just be a perfect addition to your Media Center setup. Download MC7 Sleep Timer Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Re-Enable Sleep Mode in Windows VistaSchedule Updates for Windows Media CenterIntegrate Hulu Desktop and Windows Media Center in Windows 7Add Color Coding to Windows 7 Media Center Program Guide 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 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Use My TextTools to Edit and Organize Text Discovery Channel LIFE Theme (Win7) Increase the size of Taskbar Previews (Win 7) Scan your PC for nasties with Panda ActiveScan CleanMem – Memory Cleaner AceStock – The Personal Stock Monitor

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• Do We Indeed Have a Future? George Takei on Star Wars.

  - by Bil Simser

  George Takei (rhymes with Okay), probably best known for playing Hikaru Sulu on the original Star Trek, has always had deep concerns for the present and the future. Whether on Earth or among the stars, he has the welfare of humanity very much at heart. I was digging through my old copies of Famous Monsters of Filmland, a great publication on monster and films that I grew up with, and came across this. This was his reaction to STAR WARS from issue 139 of Famous Monsters of Filmland and was written June 6, 1977. It is reprinted here without permission but I hope since the message is still valid to this day and has never been reprinted anywhere, nobody will mind me sharing it. STAR WARS is the most pre-posterously diverting galactic escape and at the same time the most hideously credible portent of the future yet.While I thrilled to the exploits that reminded me of the heroics of Errol Flynn as Robin Hood, Burt Lancaster as the Crimson Pirate and Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon, I was at the same time aghast at the phantasmagoric violence technology can place at our disposal. STAR WARS raised in my mind the question - do we indeed have a future?It seems to me what George Lucas has done is to masterfully guide us on a journey through space and time and bring us back face to face with today's reality. STAR WARS is more than science fiction, I think it is science fictitious reality.Just yesterday, June 7, 1977, I read that the United States will embark on the production of a neutron bomb - a bomb that will kill people on a gigantic scale but will not destroy buildings. A few days before that, I read that the Pentagon is fearful that the Soviets may have developed a warhead that could neutralize ours that have a capacity for that irrational concept overkill to the nth power. Already, it seems we have the technology to realize the awesome special effects simulations that we saw in the film.The political scene of STAR WARS is that of government by force and power, of revolutions based on some unfathomable grievance, survival through a combination of cunning and luck and success by the harnessing of technology -  a picture not very much at variance from the political headlines that we read today.And most of all, look at the people; both the heroes in the film and the reaction of the audience. First, the heroes; Luke Skywalker is a pretty but easily led youth. Without any real philosophy to guide him, he easily falls under the influence of a mystical old man believed previously to be an eccentric hermit. Recognize a 1960's hippie or a 1970's moonie? Han Solo has a philosophy coupled with courage and skill. His philosophy is money. His proficiency comes for a price - the highest. Solo is a thoroughly avaricious mercenary. And the Princess, a decisive, strong, self-confident and chilly woman. The audience cheered when she wielded a gun. In all three, I missed qualities that could be called humane - love, kindness, yes, I missed sensuality. I also missed a sense of ideals and faith. In this regard the machines seemed more human. They demonstrated real affection for each other and an occasional poutiness. They exhibited a sense of fidelity and constancy. The machines were humanized and the humans conversely seemed mechanical.As a member of the audience, I was swept up by the sheer romantic escapsim of it all. The deering-dos, the rope swing escape across the pit, the ray gun battles and especially the swash buckle with the ray swords. Great fun!But I just hope that we weren't too intoxicated by the escapism to be able to focus on the recognizable. I hope the beauty of the effects didn't narcotize our sensitivity to violence. I hope the people see through the fantastically well done futuristic mirrors to the disquieting reflection of our own society. I hope they enjoy STAR WARS without being "purely entertained".

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• Oracle ADF Core Functionality Now Available for Free - Presenting Oracle ADF Essentials

  - by Shay Shmeltzer

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE HE /* 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:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;} We are happy to announce the new Oracle ADF Essentials - a free to develop and deploy version of the core technologies at the base of Oracle ADF – Oracle’s strategic development framework that was used, among other things, to build the new generation of the enterprise Oracle Fusion Applications. This release is aligned with the new Oracle JDeveloper 11.1.2.3 version that we released today. Oracle ADF Essentials enables developers to use the following free: Oracle ADF Faces Rich Client components –over 150 JSF 2.0 components that include extensive charting and data visualization components, supports skinning, internalization, accessibility and touch gestures and providing advanced Ajax, windowing, drag and drop and other UI capabilities in a declarative way. Oracle ADF Controller – an extension on top of the JSF controller providing complete process flow definition and enabling advanced reusability of flows inside page’s regions. Oracle ADF Binding – a declarative way to bind various business services to JSF user interfaces eliminating tedious managed-beans coding. Oracle ADF Business Components – a declarative layer for building Java based business services on top of relational databases. The main goal of Oracle ADF Essentials is to bring the benefits of Oracle ADF to a broader community of developers. If you are already using Oracle ADF, a key new functionality for you would be the ability to deploy your application on GlassFish. Several other interesting points: We provide instructions for deployment of Oracle ADF Essentials on GlassFish and officially support this platform for Oracle ADF Essentials deployment. Developers can choose to use the whole Oracle ADF Essentials, or just pieces of the technology. Visual development for Oracle ADF Essentials is provided in Oracle JDeveloper. Eclipse support via Oracle Enterprise for Eclipse (OEPE) is also planned. Want to learn more? Here is a quick overview and development demo of Oracle ADF Essentials For more visit the Oracle ADF Essentials page on OTN

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• Rotate a Video 90 degrees with VLC or Windows Live Movie Maker

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Have you ever captured video with your cell phone or camcorder only to discover when you play it back on your computer that the video is rotated 90 degrees? Or maybe you shot it that way on purpose because you preferred portrait style to a landscape view? Before you go straining your neck or flipping your monitor on it’s side to watch your video, we’ll show you a few easier methods. If you simply want to rotate the video while you watch it, we’ll show you how to accomplish that with VLC Media Player. If you want to convert the video so it is rotated permanently, we’ll show you how to do that with Windows Live Movie Maker and output your video as a WMV file. Rotate and Watch a Video in VLC Download, install, and run VLC Media Player. (See download link below)   Open your video file by going to Media  > Open File… and browsing for your file. Or, by just dragging and dropping your video onto the VLC player.   Choose Tools from the Menu bar and select Effects and Filters. On the Video Effects tab, tick the Transform checkbox and choose your degrees of rotation. The video is rotated counter-clockwise, so to rotate clockwise 90 degrees you’ll want to choose Rotate by 270 degrees.   Now you can enjoy your video the way it was intended to be viewed. Rotate and Convert the Video with Windows Live Movie Maker Starting with Windows 7, Windows Movie Maker no longer comes pre-installed with the OS. It’s now part of the Windows Live suite that is available as a separate, free download for Windows 7 and Vista. (Windows XP is not supported) You can find the link to our detailed instruction on how to install Windows Live at the end of the article. To add your video files to Windows Movie Maker, click on Add videos and photos on the Home tab, or drag and drop the video into the blank area on the right side of the application. Next, you’ll need to rotate the video. Staying on the Home tab, click on the Rotate right 90° or Rotate left 90°.   You’ll see your video is now oriented properly on the left.   To save and convert your video to WMV format, click the Movie Maker tab just to the left of the Home tab. Hover your cursor over Save movie, and then select your output settings. You also have the option to burn directly to DVD. Browse for a location to save it and rename the output file if you’d like. Click Save. You’ll be notified when the file is complete. Now you’ll have your video properly oriented in WMV file format.   These are two rather easy ways to accomplish rotating your video. Unfortunately, Windows Live Movie Maker doesn’t give you a lot of  options for output. If you want to output to a file, your only choice is WMV format or DVD. However, previous versions will also allow you to export to AVI. How-To Geek’s Install Windows Live Essentials In Windows 7 Article. Download Windows Live Download VLC Media Player Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How to Make/Edit a movie with Windows Movie Maker in Windows VistaCreate and Author DVDs in Windows 7Family Fun: Share Photos with Photo Gallery and Windows Live SpacesInstall Windows Live Essentials In Windows 7Add Network Support to Windows Live MovieMaker 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 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 Hide Your Confidential Files Inside Images Get Wildlife Photography Tips at BBC’s PhotoMasterClasses

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• Watch Netflix Instant Movies in Boxee

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Boxee is multi-platform Media PC application with a host of media applications. One of which is the popular Movie service, Netflix. Today we’ll show you how to get setup to watch Netflix Instant streaming video in Boxee. Note: Nexflix requires Microsoft Silverlight which unfortunately means Boxee users running Linux out of luck. What You’ll Need A Netflix account Authorize your Netflix account with Boxee Install Microsoft Silverlight Authorize Your Netflix Account First, we need to authorize our Netflix account with Boxee. (See link below). Type in your Boxee username and password and click “Login.”  When prompted, click “Authorize.”   Click “Yes, Link This Account.”    Install Silverlight If you don’t already have Silverlight installed, you’ll need to do so. See the download link at the end of the article.   Log into Boxee Now we’re ready to log into Boxee. Once logged in, click on “Apps” on the Home screen.   From the My Apps screen click on Netflix. Then click “Start.” Click “Yes” to enable the cookie.   Now you’ll enter the Netflix App. From here, you can browse your Instant Queue, Recommendations, New Arrivals, Browse Genre, or Search for available titles.   Click on a selection you’d like to watch. From here, you can Play, Rate, or even add the title to your regular Netflix Queue.   With a remote or the on-screen controls you can pause, stop, play, and skip forward or back through the video.   Now you’re all set to enjoy the Netflix Instant library with Boxee. Netflix Instant is one of many great Apps included with Boxee. While the current available selection isn’t exactly overwhelming, most subscribers will likely find enough to keep themselves entertained in between DVD deliveries. Haven’t tried Boxee yet? Check out our article on getting started with Boxee. Links Authorize your Netflix account with Boxee Install Microsoft Silverlight Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Find Movies and TV Based on your Mood with JinniGetting Started with BoxeeQuickly Find Movies to Watch at Hello MoviesIntegrate Boxee with Media Center in Windows 7 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 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Change DNS servers on the fly with DNS Jumper Live PDF Searches PDF Files and Ebooks Converting Mp4 to Mp3 Easily Use Quick Translator to Translate Text in 50 Languages (Firefox) Get Better Windows Search With UltraSearch Scan News With NY Times Article Skimmer

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• Routes for IIS Classic and Integrated Mode

  - by imran_ku07

       Introduction:             ASP.NET MVC Routing feature makes it very easy to provide clean URLs. You just need to configure routes in global.asax file to create an application with clean URLs. In most cases you define routes works in IIS 6, IIS 7 (or IIS 7.5) Classic and Integrated mode. But in some cases your routes may only works in IIS 7 Integrated mode, like in the case of using extension less URLs in IIS 6 without a wildcard extension map. So in this article I will show you how to create different routes which works in IIS 6 and IIS 7 Classic and Integrated mode.       Description:             Let's say that you need to create an application which must work both in Classic and Integrated mode. Also you have no control to setup a wildcard extension map in IIS. So you need to create two routes. One with extension less URL for Integrated mode and one with a URL with an extension for Classic Mode.   routes.MapRoute( "DefaultClassic", // Route name "{controller}.aspx/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults ); routes.MapRoute( "DefaultIntegrated", // Route name "{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults );               Now you have set up two routes, one for Integrated mode and one for Classic mode. Now you only need to ensure that Integrated mode route should only match if the application is running in Integrated mode and Classic mode route should only match if the application is running in Classic mode. For making this work you need to create two custom constraint for Integrated and Classic mode. So replace the above routes with these routes,     routes.MapRoute( "DefaultClassic", // Route name "{controller}.aspx/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }, // Parameter defaults new { mode = new ClassicModeConstraint() }// Constraints ); routes.MapRoute( "DefaultIntegrated", // Route name "{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }, // Parameter defaults new { mode = new IntegratedModeConstraint() }// Constraints );            The first route which is for Classic mode adds a ClassicModeConstraint and second route which is for Integrated mode adds a IntegratedModeConstraint. Next you need to add the implementation of these constraint classes.     public class ClassicModeConstraint : IRouteConstraint { public bool Match(HttpContextBase httpContext, Route route, string parameterName, RouteValueDictionary values, RouteDirection routeDirection) { return !HttpRuntime.UsingIntegratedPipeline; } } public class IntegratedModeConstraint : IRouteConstraint { public bool Match(HttpContextBase httpContext, Route route, string parameterName, RouteValueDictionary values, RouteDirection routeDirection) { return HttpRuntime.UsingIntegratedPipeline; } }             HttpRuntime.UsingIntegratedPipeline returns true if the application is running on Integrated mode; otherwise, it returns false. So routes for Integrated mode only matched when the application is running on Integrated mode and routes for Classic mode only matched when the application is not running on Integrated mode.       Summary:             During developing applications, sometimes developers are not sure that whether this application will be host on IIS 6 or IIS 7 (or IIS 7.5) Integrated mode or Classic mode. So it's a good idea to create separate routes for both Classic and Integrated mode so that your application will use extension less URLs where possible and use URLs with an extension where it is not possible to use extension less URLs. In this article I showed you how to create separate routes for IIS Integrated and Classic mode. Hope you will enjoy this article too.   SyntaxHighlighter.all()

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• Make Your Mouse Pointers Left-hand Friendly

  - by Matthew Guay

  It’s a right-centric world, with everything from pencils to computer mice expecting you to be right-handed.  Here’s how you can train your mouse and cursors in Windows 7 and Vista to respect your left-handedness. Using your Left Hand the Right Way It’s easy to switch your mouse to left-handed mode.  Enter “mouse” in your Start menu search, and select the first entry. Check the “Switch primary and secondary buttons” box to make your mouse more left-hand friendly.  Now your primary select button is your right button, and the secondary button (commonly referred to as right-click) is the left button. But, it can still be awkward to select items on screen with your left hand using the default cursors.  MSDN has a free set of cursors designed for left-handed users, that can fix this problem for you.  These cursors are exactly like the default Aero cursors in Windows 7 and Vista, except they are reversed to make them better for left-handed use. The cursors are available in 3 sizes: normal, large, and extra large.  The normal ones are the same size as the default ones in Windows 7; feel free to choose the other sizes if you prefer them.  Click each link to download all 6 cursors for your size (link below). Click “I Agree” after selecting the cursors to accept the license agreement and download them. Once you have all 6 cursors downloaded, select the Pointers tab in the Mouse Properties dialog.  Click the cursor to change, and then click Browse to select the new cursor. Browse to the folder you downloaded your new cursors to, select the correct cursor, and click Open. Do this for each of the 6 cursors to be changed.  Strangely, the Busy cursor (the spinning blue orb) is a static cursor, so you may not wish to change it.  All the other ones look and act like their standard counterparts. Here’s the cursors to be changed, and their equivalents in the default cursors: Normal Select: aero_arrow_left.cur Help Select: aero_helpsel_left.cur Working in Background: aero_working_left.ani Busy: aero_busy_left.cur Handwriting: aero_pen_left.cur Link Select: aero_link_left.cur After changing all the cursors, click Save As… to save this mouse scheme so you can easily select it in the future.  Finally click Ok to close the Mouse Properties dialog and accept the changes. Now your pointers will be easier to use left-handed! Conclusion Whether you’re right-handed or left-handed, you can enjoy the Aero cursors in Windows 7 or Vista in the way that works best for you.  Unfortunately, many mice are still designed for right-handed people, but this trick will help you make the best out of your mouse. We included all of the 6 cursors for you in a zip file you can download Here. This will make it easier for you to get them all together without having to download them individually. Link Download Left-Handed Mouse Pointers from MSDN Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Prevent Themes From Modifying Icons and Cursors in Windows 7How To Personalize Windows 7 StarterShow Two Time Zones in Your Outlook 2007 CalendarMake Mouse Navigation Faster in WindowsWhy Doesn’t Tab Work for Drop-down Controls in Firefox on OS X? 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 Microsoft’s “How Do I ?” Videos Home Networks – How do they look like & the problems they cause Check Your IMAP Mail Offline In Thunderbird Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff

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• iPad Impressions

  - by Aaron Lazenby

  So, I spent some quality time with my new iPad on Saturday. Here are things I like/don't like: -- Don't like that it has to sync with iTunes before you use it: I was traveling and left my laptop at home thinking I'd use this iPad thing instead. But the first thing it asked me to do is connect it to a laptop. Ugh. Had to borrow my mother-in-law's MacBook Pro just to get the iPad rolling. -- Like that magazines and newspapers are forever changed: And I think for the better...it's why I bought this thing in the first place. I spent significant time with The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine and Popular Science on the iPad. Sliding stories around, jumping from section to section, enlarging images = all excellent experiences. Actually prefer iPad magazine to print, which will require a major shift in editorial strategy, summed up by Popular Science's Mark Jannot in his editor's note "What defines a magazine? Curated expertise--not paper." -- Don't like the screwy human factors: I actually enjoy the virtual keyboard (although I think I'm in the minority), but you have to hunch over to look down at what you're typing. Bad technology ergonomics have already jacked my body in various ways. The iPad just introduced a new one.-- Like the multitouch: In fact, it's awesome. Hands down. Probably will have the most lasting impact on the personal computing industry as a whole.   -- Don't like that it's heavy: If you plan to read in bed, you'd better double up on the creatine and curls. Holding this thing up on your own gets pretty uncomfortable. -- Like the Netfilx app: I wanted to watch "The Big Lebowski," so I did. That is all. -- Don't like that people feel 3G is necessary: For $30 a month? Please. I'm already accustomed to limiting my laptop internet use to readily available free wi-fi. Why do I expect anything different with the iPad? Most anyplace I have time to sit and read/use a computer (cafe, airport, you house, library, etc.) has free wi-fi. I can live without web surfing in your car. That's what the iPhone is for. -- Don't like that not everyone was ready in day one: I'm looking at you Facebook. No iPad app for launch? Lame. iPhone apps scaled-up to work on the iPad look grainy and cheap. Not a quality befitting this beautiful $700 piece of glass.Verdict: I'm bringing it to COLLABORATE 08 and seeing if I can go the whole week using only the iPad. If I can trade this thing for my laptop, I know it's a winner. For now, I'm enjoying Popular Science.

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• A Small Utility to Delete Files recursively by Date

  - by Rick Strahl

  It's funny, but for me the following seems to be a recurring theme: Every few months or years I end up with a host of files on my server that need pruning selectively and often under program control. Today I realized that my SQL Server logs on my server were really piling up and nearly ran my backup drive out of drive space. So occasionally I need to check on that server drive and clean out files. Now with a bit of work this can be done with PowerShell or even a complicated DOS batch file, but heck, to me it's always easier to just create a small Console application that handles this sort of thing with a full command line parser and a few extra options, plus in the end I end up with code that I can actually modify and add features to as is invariably the case. No more searching for a script each time :-) So for my typical copy needs the requirements are: Need to recursively delete files Need to be able to specify a filespec (ie. *.bak) Be able to specify a cut off date before which to delete files And it'd be nice to have an option to send files to the Recycle bin just in case for operator error :-)(and yes that came in handy as I blew away my entire database backup folder by accident - oops!) The end result is a small Console file copy utility that I popped up on Github: https://github.com/RickStrahl/DeleteFiles The source code is up there along with the binary file you can just run. Creating DeleteFiles It's pretty easy to create a simple utility like DeleteFiles of course, so I'm not going to spend any talking about how it works. You can check it out in the repository or download and compile it. The nice thing about using a full programming language like C over something like PowerShell or batch file is that you can make short work of the recursive tree walking that's required to make this work. There's very little code, but there's also a very small, self-contained command line parser in there that might be useful that can be plugged into any project - I've been using it quite a bit for just about any Console application I've been building. If you're like me and don't have the patience or the persistence (that funky syntax requires some 'sticking with it' that I simply can't get over) to get into Powershell coding, having an executable file that I can just copy around or keep in my Utility directory is the only way I'll ever get to reuse this functionality without going on a wild search each time :-) Anyway, hope some of you might find this useful. © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Windows  CSharp   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• MVVM Light Toolkit V3 SP1 for Windows Phone 7

  - by Laurent Bugnion

  He he I start to sound like Microsoft… Anyway… I just released a service pack (SP1) for MVVM Light Toolkit V3. Why? Well mostly because I worked a bit more with the Windows Phone 7 tools that were released at MIX0, and I noticed a few things that could be better in the Windows Phone 7 template. Also, I only found out at MIX that you can actually install custom project templates for Visual Studio Express. For some reason I thought it was not possible. The best way to solve these issues is through a service pack, which consists of a few zip files. Simply follow the instructions on the “Installing Manually” page. You can go ahead and overwrite the files that were installed with V3, all the file structure and names are exactly the same. What? So what do you get in this service pack that was not already in V3? (for more info about what’s new in V3, check the What’s New page). Project and Item templates for Visual Studio 10 Express (phone edition). Unzip these files in your “My Documents” folder, and you can now create a new MVVM Light application in the WinPhone7 version of Visual Studio 2010 Express. Signed assemblies: All the assemblies are now signed, which is a requirement in certain build configurations. XML documentation files: Thanks to Matt Casto for pinging me and reminding me that I had forgotten to include them (doh). New and improved Windows Phone 7 assemblies and templates: This one deserves its own section (see below). What was wrong with the old Silverlight 3 assemblies in Windows Phone 7 projects? It was kind of weird. Functionality wise, it was working just right. However, if you noticed, the EventToCommand behavior was not visible in the Assets tab of Expression Blend, under Behaviors, where it should normally have been. The reason was that even though the Windows Phone 7 is using Silverlight 3, the System.Windows.Interactivity that Blend was expecting is the version that is normally used in Silverlight 4. Yeah, I know, it’s weird. This led me to create a specific version of these assemblies for the phone. The assemblies are located into C:\Program Files\Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft)\Mvvm Light Toolkit\Binaries\WP7. There are 3 DLLs: GalaSoft.MvvmLight.WP7.dll with RelayCommand, Messenger and ViewModelBase GalaSoft.MvvmLight.Extras.WP7.dll with EventToCommand and DispatcherHelper System.Windows.Interactivity.dll which is the same DLL installed in the Blend SDK, and which is needed for the EventToCommand behavior to work. Happy coding! That’s all! Download and install the service pack according to the instructions on the Installation page, and create your first MVVM Light application for the phone (a blog post will follow later with more details).   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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• Don&rsquo;t Kill the Password

  - by Anthony Trudeau

  A week ago Mr. Honan from Wired.com penned an article on security he titled “Kill the Password: Why a String of Characters Can’t Protect Us Anymore.” He asserts that the password is not effective and a new solution is needed. Unfortunately, Mr. Honan was a victim of hacking. As a result he has a victim’s vendetta. His conclusion is ill conceived even though there are smatterings of truth and good advice. The password is a security barrier much like a lock on your door. In of itself it’s not guaranteeing protection. You can have a good password akin to a steel reinforced door with the best lock money can buy, or you can have a poor password like “password” which is like a sliding lock like on a bathroom stall. But, just like in the real world a lock isn’t always enough. You can have a lock, security system, video cameras, guard dogs, and even armed security guards; but none of that guarantees your protection. Even top secret government agencies can be breached by someone who is just that good (as dramatized in movies like Mission Impossible). And that’s the crux of it. There are real hackers out there that are that good. Killer coding ninja monkeys do exist! We still have locks on our doors, because they still serve their role. Passwords are no different. Security doesn’t end with the password. Most people would agree that stuffing your mattress with your life savings isn’t a good idea even if you have the best locks and security system. Most people agree its safest to have the money in a bank. Essentially this is compartmentalization. Compartmentalization extends to the online world as well. You’re at risk if your online banking accounts are linked to the same account as your social networks. This is especially true if you’re lackadaisical about linking those social networks to outside sources including apps. The object here is to minimize the damage that can be done. An attacker should not be able to get into your bank account, because they breached your Twitter account. It’s time to prioritize once you’ve compartmentalized. This simply means deciding how much security you want for the different compartments which I’ll call security zones. Social networking applications like Facebook provide a lot of security features. However, security features are almost always a compromise with privacy and convenience. It’s similar to an engineering adage, but in this case it’s security, convenience, and privacy – pick two. For example, you might use a safe instead of bank to store your money, because the convenience of having your money closer or the privacy of not having the bank records is more important than the added security. The following are lists of security do’s and don’ts (these aren’t meant to be exhaustive and each could be an article in of themselves): Security Do’s: Use strong passwords based on a phrase Use encryption whenever you can (e.g. HTTPS in Facebook) Use a firewall (and learn to use it properly) Configure security on your router (including port blocking) Keep your operating system patched Make routine backups of important files Realize that if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product Security Don’ts Link accounts if at all possible Reuse passwords across your security zones Use real answers for security questions (e.g. mother’s maiden name) Trust anything you download Ignore message boxes shown by your system or browser Forget to test your backups Share your primary email indiscriminately Only you can decide your comfort level between convenience, privacy, and security. Attackers are going to find exploits in software. Software is complex and depends on other software. The exploits are the responsibility of the software company. But your security is always your responsibility. Complete security is an illusion. But, there is plenty you can do to minimize the risk online just like you do in the physical world. Be safe and enjoy what the Internet has to offer. I expect passwords to be necessary just as long as locks.

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• SQLAuthority News – Top 5 Latest Microsoft Certifications of 2013 – Guest Post

  - by Pinal Dave

  With the IT job market getting more and more competent by the day, certifications are a must for anyone who wishes to get a strong foothold in the industry. Microsoft community comes up with regular updates and enhancements in its existing products to keep up with the rapidly evolving requirements of the ICT industry. We bring you a list of five latest Microsoft certifications that you must consider acquiring this year. MCSE: SharePoint Learn all about Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft SharePoint 2013, which brings an advanced set of features to the fore in this latest version. It introduces new capabilities for business intelligence, social media, branding, search, identity management, mobile device among other features. Enjoy a great user experience with sharing and collaboration in community forum, within a pixel-perfect SharePoint website. Data connectivity and business intelligence tools allow users to process and access data, analyze reports, share and collaborate with each other more conveniently. Microsoft Specialist: Microsoft Project 2013 The only project management system that works seamlessly with other applications and cloud solutions of Microsoft, MS Project 2013 offers more than what meets the eye.  It provides for easier management and monitoring of projects so that users can ensure timely delivery while improving the productivity significantly. So keep all your projects on track and collaborate with your team like never before with this enhanced release! This one’s a must for all project managers. MCSE Messaging Another one of Microsoft gems is its messaging environment which has also launched the latest release Microsoft Exchange Server 2013. Messaging administrators can take up this training and validate their expertise in Unified Messaging, Exchange Online, PowerShell and Virtualization strategies, through MCSE Messaging certification in Exchange Server. If you wish to enhance productivity and data security of your organization while being flexible and extremely efficient, this is the right certification for you. MCSE Communication An enterprise can function optimally on the strength of its information flow and communication systems. With Lync Server 2013, you can introduce a whole new world of unified communications which consists of audio/video conferencing, dial-in, Persistent Chat, instant chat, and EDGE services in your organization. Utilize IT to serve and support business objectives by mastering this UC technology with this latest MCSE Communication course on using Microsoft Lync Server 2013. MCSE: SQL Server 2012 BI Platform The decision making process is largely influenced by underlying enterprise information used by the management for business intelligence. Therefore, a robust business intelligence platform that anchors enterprise IT and transform it to operational efficiencies is the need of the hour. SQL Server 2012 BI Platform certification helps professionals implement, manage and maintain a BI database infrastructure effectively. IT professionals with BI skills are highly sought after these days. MCSD: Windows Store Apps A Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer certification in Windows Store Apps validates your potential in designing interactive apps. Learn The Essentials of Developing Windows Store Apps using HTML5 and JavaScript and establish yourself as an ace developer capable of creating fast and fluid Metro style apps for Windows 8 that are accessible on a variety of devices. You can also go ahead and Learn Essentials of Developing Windows Store Apps using C# mode if you’re already familiar and working with C# programming language. Hence the developers are free to choose their own favorite development stream which opens doors for them to get ready for the latest and exciting application development platform called Windows store apps. Software developers with these skills are in great demand in the industry today. In order to continue being competitive in your respective fields, it is imperative that IT personnel update their knowledge on a regular basis. Certifications are a means to achieve this goal. Not considered to be an optional pre-requisite anymore, major IT certifications such as these are now essential to stay afloat in a cut-throat industry where technologies change on a daily basis. This blog is written by Aruneet Anand of Koenig Solutions. Koenig Solutions does training for all of the above courses. For more information, visit the website. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Microsoft Certifications

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• F# WPF Form &ndash; the basics

  - by MarkPearl

  I was listening to Dot Net Rocks show #560 about F# and during the podcast Richard Campbell brought up a good point with regards to F# and a GUI. In essence what I understood his point to be was that until one could write an end to end application in F#, it would be a hard sell to developers to take it on. In part I agree with him, while I am beginning to really enjoy learning F#, I can’t but help feel that I would be a lot further into the language if I could do my Windows Forms like I do in C# or VB.NET for the simple reason that in “playing” applications I spend the majority of the time in the UI layer… So I have been keeping my eye out for some examples of creating a WPF form in a F# project and came across Tim’s F# Twitter Stream Sample, which had exactly this…. of course he actually had a bit more than a basic form… but it was enough for me to scrap the insides and glean what I needed. So today I am going to make just the very basic WPF form with all the goodness of a XAML window. Getting Started First thing we need to do is create a new solution with a blank F# application project – I have made mine called FSharpWPF. Once you have the project created you will need to change the project type from a Console Application to a Windows Application. You do this by right clicking on the project file and going to its properties… Once that is done you will need to add the appropriate references. You do this by right clicking on the References in the Solution Explorer and clicking “Add Reference'”. You should add the appropriate .Net references below for WPF & XAMl to work. Once these references are added you then need to add your XAML file to the project. You can do this by adding a new item to the project of type xml and simply changing the file extension from xml to xaml. Once the xaml file has been added to the project you will need to add valid window XAML. Example of a very basic xaml file is shown below… <Window xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Title="F# WPF WPF Form" Height="350" Width="525"> <Grid> </Grid> </Window> Once your xaml file is done… you need to set the build action of the xaml file from “None” to “Resource” as depicted in the picture below. If you do not set this you will get an IOException error when running the completed project with a message along the lines of “Cannot locate resource ‘window.xaml’ You then need to tie everything up by putting the correct F# code in the Program.fs to load the xaml window. In the Program.fs put the following code… module Program open System open System.Collections.ObjectModel open System.IO open System.Windows open System.Windows.Controls open System.Windows.Markup [<STAThread>] [<EntryPoint>] let main(_) = let w = Application.LoadComponent(new System.Uri("/FSharpWPF;component/Window.xaml", System.UriKind.Relative)) :?> Window (new Application()).Run(w) Once all this is done you should be able to build and run your project. What you have done is created a WPF based window inside a FSharp project. It should look something like below…   Nothing to exciting, but sufficient to illustrate the very basic WPF form in F#. Hopefully in future posts I will build on this to expose button events etc.

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• Hello World - My Name is Christian Finn and I'm a WebCenter Evangelist

  - by Michael Snow

  12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}  Good Morning World! I'd like to introduce a new member of the Oracle WebCenter Team, Christian Finn. We decided to let him do his own intros today. Look for his guest posts next week and he'll be a frequent contributor to WebCenter blog and voice of the community. Hello (Oracle) World! Hi everyone, my name is Christian Finn. It’s a coder’s tradition to have “hello world” be the first output from a new program or in a new language. While I have left my coding days far behind, it still seems fitting to start my new role here at Oracle by saying hello to all of you—our customers, partners and my colleagues. So by way of introduction, a little background about me. I am the new senior director for evangelism on the WebCenter product management team. Not only am I new to Oracle, but the evangelism team is also brand new. Our mission is to raise the profile of Oracle in all of the markets/conversations in which WebCenter competes—social business, collaboration, portals, Internet sites, and customer/audience engagement. This is all pretty familiar turf for me because, as some of you may know, until recently I was the director of product management at Microsoft for Microsoft SharePoint Server and several other SharePoint products. And prior to that, I held management roles at Microsoft in marketing, channels, learning, and enterprise sales. Before Microsoft, I got my start in the industry as a software trainer and Lotus Notes consultant. I am incredibly excited to be joining Oracle at this time because of the tremendous opportunity that lies ahead to improve how people and businesses work. Of all the vendors offering a vision for social business, Oracle is unique in having best of breed strength in market (or coming soon) in all three critical areas: customer experience management; the middleware and back-end applications that run your business; and in the social, collaboration, and content technologies that are the connective tissue between them. Everyone else can offer one or two of the above, but not all three unified together. So it is a great time to come board and there’s a fantastic team of people hard at work on building great products for you. In the coming weeks and months you’ll be hearing much more from us. For now, we’ll kick things off with some blog posts here on the WebCenter blog. Enjoy the reads and please share your thoughts with me over Twitter on @cfinn.

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• My thoughts on the future of the web with respect to flash, plugins, etc…

  - by joelvarty

  More than 10 years ago I was coding Java applets.  They were great at the time because I could reasonably expect them to run the same way in Netscape and Internet Explorer.  I could also reliably do asynchronous networking back to the server.  But then, Microsoft pulled their native Java runtime from Windows and Internet Explorer.  It got a lot harder to get applets running in people’s browsers. So I started writing ActiveX controls for IE and Java applets for Netscape. Then I switched to Flash, not for too long, but it was enough for me to see that it was a capable and curious implementation of animation, multimedia and script. I even wrote a few Silverlight controls, but then I stopped. I stepped back from all of the “richness” and “interactivity” and I thought about things like accessibility and SEO.  I wondered how my apps and sites might appear to the greater world.  I wondered how the developers I am working with, or who might be inheriting my code down the road, might interact with it. And I thought to myself, What the hell was I thinking? Those embedded controls are not what the web is about, and they run contrary to nearly all of the things that makes the web exciting and fosters innovation within and around.   Those plugins or controls, or whatever you want to refer to them as, are only stop-gaps that fill a hole in the basic HTML/Script/CSS specifications, and that’s all they should ever be used for.  Full stop.  Period.  For instance, I still make use of a nifty little flash control called SWFUpload because it lets me check file size before an upload starts.  I can do the same thing from a Silverlight control.  But rest assured, if I could do this from native javascript, I would in a second.  In fact, the only reason I chose SWFUpload over a ton of other alternatives is that it has a great javascript API so I can do (nearly) all of the UI in regular HTML.  And I ALWAYS provide a non-flash alternative for uploading, and for the rest of any website where the designer has insisted on some piece of creativity that requires flash (usually because the designer is also the flash developer, but that’s an aside…). The web is about openness, and about exposing that openness in such a way that it can be taken advantage of as a small part of a greater whole.  Sure we need security and authentication and ssl and all that stuff, but for me, its something more profound.  For me, the majority of what the web is, is about exposing something that delivers meaning.  What meaning can we derive from an <object> tag?   more later - joel

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• Cross platform application revolution

  - by anirudha

  Every developer know that if they make a windows application that they work only on windows. that’s a small pity thing we all know. this is a lose point for windows application who make developer thing small means only for windows and other only for mac. this is a big point behind success of web because who purchase a operating system if they want to use a application on other platform. why they purchase when they can’t try them. that’s a thing better in Web means IE 6 no problem IE 6 to IE 8 chrome to chrome 8 Firefox to Firefox 3.6.13 even that’s beta no problem the good website is shown as same as other browser. some minor difference may be can see. the cross platform application development thinking is much big then making a application who is only for some audience. the difference between audience make by OS what they use Windows or mac. if they use mac they can’t use this they use windows they can’t use this. Web for Everyone starting from a children to grandfather. male and female Everyone can use internet.no worrying what you have even you have Windows or mac , any browser even as silly IE 6. the cross platform have a good thing that “People”. everyone can use them without a problem that. just like some time problem come in windows that “some component is missing click here to get them” , you can’t use this [apps] software because you have windows sp1 , sp2  sp3. you need to install this first before this. this stupidity mainly comes in Microsoft software. in last year i found a issue on WPI that they force user to install another software when they get them from WPI. ex:- you need to install Visual studio 2008 before installing Visual studio 2010 express. are anyone tell me why user get old version 2008 when they get latest and express version. i never try again their to check the issue is solved or not. a another thing is you can’t get IE 9 on windows XP version. in that’case don’t thing and worrying about them because Firefox and Chrome is much better. the stupidity from Microsoft is too much. they never told you about Firebug even sometime they discuss about damage tool in IE they called them developer tool because they are Microsoft and they only thing how they can market their products. you need to install many thing without any reason such as many SQL server component even you use other RDBMS. you can’t say no to them because you need a tool and tool require a useless component called SQL server. i never found any software force me to install this for this and this for this before install me. that’s another good thing in WEB that no thing require i means you not need to install dotnet framework 4 before enjoy facebook or twitter. may be you found out that Microsoft's fail project Window planet force you to get silverlight before going their. i never hear about them. some month ago my friend talked to me about them i found nothing better their. Wha’t user do when facebook force user to install silverlight or adobe flash or may be Microsoft dotnet framework 4. if you not install them facebook tell  you bye bye tata ! never come here before installing Microsoft dotnet framework 4. the door is open for you after installing them not before. the story is same as “ tell me sorry before coming in home” as mother says to their child when they do something wrong. the web never force you to do something for them. sometime they allow you to use other website account their that’s very fast login for you. because they know the importance of your time.

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• Expert F# &ndash; Pattern Matching with Adam and Eve

  - by MarkPearl

  So I am loving my Expert F# book. I wish I had more time with it, but the little time I get I really enjoy. However today I was completely stumped by what the book was trying to get across with regards to pattern matching. On Page 38 – Chapter 3, it briefly describes F# option values. On this page it gives the code snippet along the code lines below and then goes on to speak briefly about pattern matching... open System type 'a option = | None | Some of 'a let people = [ ("Adam", None); ("Eve", None); ("Cain", Some("Adam", "Eve")); ("Abel", Some("Adam", "Eve")) ] let showParents(name, parents) = match parents with | Some(dad, mum) -> printfn "%s has father %s, mother %s" name dad mum | None -> printfn "%s has no parents!" name Console.WriteLine(showParents("Adam", None))   Originally when I read this code I think I misunderstood the purpose of the example code. I for some reason thought that the showParents function would magically be parsing the people array and looking for a match of name and then showing the parents. But obviously it cannot do this since there is no reference to the people array in the showParents method. After rereading the page I realized that I had just combined the two segments of code together, possibly incorrectly, and that a better example would have been to have a code snippet like the following. let showParents(name, parents) = match parents with | Some(dad, mum) -> printfn "%s has father %s, mother %s" name dad mum | None -> printfn "%s has no parents!" name Console.WriteLine(showParents("Adam", None)) Console.WriteLine(showParents("Cain", Some("Adam", "Eve"))) Console.ReadLine()   However, what if I wanted to have a function that was passed a list of people and a name would then show the parents of the name if there were any, and if not would show that they had no parents… so that doesnt seem to difficult does it… lets look at my very unoptimized noob F# code to try and achieve this… open System let people = [ ("Adam", None); ("Eve", None); ("Cain", Some("Adam", "Eve")); ("Abel", Some("Adam", "Eve")) ] // // returns the name of the person // let showName(person : string * (string * string) option) = let name = fst(person) name // // Returns a string with the parents details or not // let showParents(itemData : string * (string * string) option) = let name = fst(itemData) let parents = snd(itemData) match parents with | Some(dad, mum) -> "Father " + dad + " and Mother " + mum | None -> "Has no parents!" // // Prints the details // let showDetails(person : string * (string * string) option) = Console.WriteLine(showName(person)) Console.WriteLine(showParents(person)) // // Check if the name matches the first portion of person // if so, return true, else return false // let nameMatch(name : string , person : string * (string * string) option) = match name with | x when x = fst(person) -> true | _ -> false // // Searches an array of people and looks for a match of names // let findPerson(name : string, people : (string * (string * string) option) list) = let o = Seq.tryFind(fun x -> nameMatch(name, x)) people if Option.isSome o then o else Option.None // // Try and find a person, if found show their details // else show no match // let FoundPerson = findPerson("Cain", people) match FoundPerson with | None -> Console.WriteLine("Not found") | Some(x) -> showDetails(x) Console.ReadLine() So, my code isn’t the cleanest but it did teach me a bit more F#. The area that I learnt about was the option keyword. The challenge being, if a match of the name isn’t found – and if a name is found but the person doesn’t have parents it should react accordingly. I’m pretty sure I can optimize this code quite a bit more and I think I may come back to it sometime in the future and relook at it, but for now at least I was able to achieve what I wanted.. and my brain has gone just that wee little bit more functional.

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• Silverlight Cream for December 09, 2010 -- #1006

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Adam Kinney, Jonathan van de Veen, René Schulte(-2-), Vikas, Chad Campbell, Chris Koenig, John Papa, and Martin Krüger. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Silverlight TV #54: Introducing 11 Brand New Labs" John Papa WP7: "Gestures in Windows Phone 7" Chris Koenig Training: "New Windows Phone 7 tutorials for Designers on toolbox!" Adam Kinney Shoutouts: Jesse Liberty posted ways to get help when you get stuck: Top 10 Tips To Getting Help With Silverlight From SilverlightCream.com: New Windows Phone 7 tutorials for Designers on toolbox! Adam Kinney posted about some WP7 design goodness he's had the opportunity to take part in putting together that is now available for all of us on the Microsoft design Toolbox site.... detailed info about what's there. Adventures while building a Silverlight Enterprise application part #39 Jonathan van de Veen has his latest Silverlight coding adventure detailed on his blog... in the final throes of releasing, he came across some issues surrounding CRUD operations... Windows Phone Unplugged - How to Detect the Zune Software René Schulte has a post up about my two favorite devices: Zune and WP7 ... and how to detect if the Zune software is running when the device is connected to the PC. Issue with the WP7 PictureDecoder and Workaround René Schulte has a second post up today about strange behavior with the PictureDecoder DecodeJpeg method... he describes the problem and a workaround for it. Performance Wizard for Silverlight Vikas reports some Silverlight goodness in the VS2010 SP1 beta that's out ... a Performance Wizard... and he's ratted out it's use and sharing that info... Submitting an App to the Windows Phone Marketplace Chad Campbell details the user experience of getting an app through the marketplace to users... from the standpoint of someone that's been there. Gestures in Windows Phone 7 Chris Koenig is talking about Gestures in WP7, documenting how he used some XNA to get some side-to-side image scrolling going on... and gave us the source! Silverlight TV #54: Introducing 11 Brand New Labs John Papa has his latest Silverlight TV up and he's talking to two great guys: Dan Wahlin and Corey Schuman who have produced the labs you've seen referenced... awesome stuff guys... WP7: precisely position the text cursor when writing text Martin Krüger has a quick WP7 usage tip up for precisely positioning the text cursor in a textbox ... I could have used that today when "Nick's Frame Shop" came up as "Nix Frame Shop" in a search. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• SQL SERVER – LOGBUFFER – Wait Type – Day 18 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  At first, I was not planning to write about this wait type. The reason was simple- I have faced this only once in my lifetime so far maybe because it is one of the top 5 wait types. I am not sure if it is a common wait type or not, but in the samples I had it really looks rare to me. From Book On-Line: LOGBUFFER Occurs when a task is waiting for space in the log buffer to store a log record. Consistently high values may indicate that the log devices cannot keep up with the amount of log being generated by the server. LOGBUFFER Explanation: The book online definition of the LOGBUFFER seems to be very accurate. On the system where I faced this wait type, the log file (LDF) was put on the local disk, and the data files (MDF, NDF) were put on SanDrives. My client then was not familiar about how the file distribution was supposed to be. Once we moved the LDF to a faster drive, this wait type disappeared. Reducing LOGBUFFER wait: There are several suggestions to reduce this wait stats: Move Transaction Log to Separate Disk from mdf and other files. (Make sure your drive where your LDF is has no IO bottleneck issues). Avoid cursor-like coding methodology and frequent commit statements. Find the most-active file based on IO stall time, as shown in the script written over here. You can also use fn_virtualfilestats to find IO-related issues using the script mentioned over here. Check the IO-related counters (PhysicalDisk:Avg.Disk Queue Length, PhysicalDisk:Disk Read Bytes/sec and PhysicalDisk :Disk Write Bytes/sec) for additional details. Read about them over here. If you have noticed, my suggestions for reducing the LOGBUFFER is very similar to WRITELOG. Although the procedures on reducing them are alike, I am not suggesting that LOGBUFFER and WRITELOG are same wait types. From the definition of the two, you will find their difference. However, they are both related to LOG and both of them can severely degrade the performance. Note: The information presented here is from my experience and there is no way that I claim it to be accurate. I suggest reading Book OnLine for further clarification. All the discussion of Wait Stats in this blog is generic and varies from system to system. It is recommended that you test this on a development server before implementing it to a production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)   Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• Anticipating JavaOne 2012 – Number 17!

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  As I write this, JavaOne 2012 (September 30-October 4 in San Francisco, CA) is just over a week away -- the seventeenth JavaOne! I’ll resist the impulse to travel in memory back to the early days of JavaOne. But I will say that JavaOne is a little like your birthday or New Year’s in that it invites reflection, evaluation, and comparison. It’s a time when we take the temperature of Java and assess the world of information technology generally. At JavaOne, insight and information flow amongst Java developers like no other time of the year.This year, the status of Java seems more secure in the eyes of most Java developers who agree that Oracle is doing an acceptable job of stewarding the platform, and while the story is still in progress, few doubt that Oracle is engaging strongly with the Java community and wants to see Java thrive. From my perspective, the biggest news about Java is the growth of some 250 alternative languages for the JVM – from Groovy to Jython to JRuby to Scala to Clojure and on and on – offering both new opportunities and challenges. The JVM has proven itself to be unusually flexible, resulting in an embarrassment of riches in which, more and more, developers are challenged to find ways to optimally mix together several different languages on projects.    To the matter at hand -- I can say with confidence that Oracle is working hard to make each JavaOne better than the last – more interesting, more stimulating, more networking, and more fun! A great deal of thought and attention is being devoted to the task. To free up time for the 475 technical sessions/Birds of feather/Hands-on-Labs slots, the Java Strategy, Partner, and Technical keynotes will be held on Sunday September 30, beginning at 4:00 p.m.   Let’s not forget Java Embedded@JavaOne which is being held Wednesday, Oct. 3rd and Thursday, Oct. 4th at the Hotel Nikko. It will provide business decision makers, technical leaders, and ecosystem partners important information about Java Embedded technologies and new business opportunities.   This year's JavaOne theme is “Make the Future Java”. So come to JavaOne and make your future better by:--Choosing from 475 sessions given by the experts to improve your working knowledge and coding expertise --Networking with fellow developers in both casual and formal settings--Enjoying world-class entertainment--Delighting in one of the world’s great cities (my home town) Hope to see you there!

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• SQL SERVER – Guest Post – Glenn Berry – Wait Type – Day 26 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  Glenn Berry works as a Database Architect at NewsGator Technologies in Denver, CO. He is a SQL Server MVP, and has a whole collection of Microsoft certifications, including MCITP, MCDBA, MCSE, MCSD, MCAD, and MCTS. He is also an Adjunct Faculty member at University College – University of Denver, where he has been teaching since 2000. He is one wonderful blogger and often blogs at here. I am big fan of the Dynamic Management Views (DMV) scripts of Glenn. His script are extremely popular and the reality is that he has inspired me to start this series with his famous DMV which I have mentioned in very first  wait stats blog post (I had forgot to request his permission to re-use the script but when asked later on his whole hearty approved it). Here is is his excellent blog post on this subject of wait stats: Analyzing cumulative wait stats in SQL Server 2005 and above has become a popular and effective technique for diagnosing performance issues and further focusing your troubleshooting and diagnostic  efforts.  Rather than just guessing about what resource(s) that SQL Server is waiting on, you can actually find out by running a relatively simple DMV query. Once you know what resources that SQL Server is spending the most time waiting on, you can run more specific queries that focus on that resource to get a better idea what is causing the problem. I do want to throw out a few caveats about using wait stats as a diagnostic tool. First, they are most useful when your SQL Server instance is experiencing performance problems. If your instance is running well, with no indication of any resource pressure from other sources, then you should not worry that much about what the top wait types are. SQL Server will always be waiting on some resource, but many wait types are quite benign, and can be safely ignored. In spite of this, I quite often see experienced DBAs obsessing over the top wait type, even when their SQL Server instance is running extremely well. Second, I often see DBAs jump to the wrong conclusion based on seeing a particular well-known wait type. A good example is CXPACKET waits. People typically jump to the conclusion that high CXPACKET waits means that they should immediately change their instance-level MADOP setting to 1. This is not always the best solution. You need to consider your workload type, and look carefully for any important “missing” indexes that might be causing the query optimizer to use a parallel plan to compensate for the missing index. In this case, correcting the index problem is usually a better solution than changing MAXDOP, since you are curing the disease rather than just treating the symptom. Finally, you should get in the habit of clearing out your cumulative wait stats with the  DBCC SQLPERF(‘sys.dm_os_wait_stats’, CLEAR); command. This is especially important if you have made an configuration or index changes, or if your workload has changed recently. Otherwise, your cumulative wait stats will be polluted with the old stats from weeks or months ago (since the last time SQL Server was started or the stats were cleared).  If you make a change to your SQL Server instance, or add an index, you should clear out your wait stats, and then wait a while to see what your new top wait stats are. At any rate, enjoy Pinal Dave’s series on Wait Stats. This blog post has been written by Glenn Berry (Twitter | Blog) Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• CodeStock 2012 Review: Michael Eaton( @mjeaton ) - 3 Simple Things for Increased Productivity

  3 Simple Things for Increased ProductivitySpeaker: Michael EatonTwitter: @mjeatonBlog: http://mjeaton.net/blog This was the first time I had seen Michael Eaton speak but have hear a lot of really good things about his speaking abilities. Needless to say I was really looking forward to his session. He basically addressed the topic of distractions and how they can decrease or increase your productivity as a developer. He makes the case that in order to become more productive you must block/limit all distractions. For example, he covered his top distractions as a developer. Top Distractions Social Media(Twitter, Reddit, Facebook) Wiki sites Phone Email Video Games Coworkers, Friends, Family Michael stated that he uses various types of music to help him block out these distractions in order for him to get into his coding zone. While he states that music works for him, he also notes that he knows of others that cannot really work with music. I have to say I am in the latter group because I require a quiet environment in order to work. A few session attendees also recommended listening to really loud white noise or music in another language other than your own. This allows for less focus to be placed on words being sung compared to the rhythmic beats being played. I have to say that I have not tried these suggestions yet but will in the near future. However, distractions can be very beneficial to productivity in that they give your mind a chance to relax and not think about the issues at hand. He spoke highly of taking vacations, and setting boundaries at work so that develops prevent the problem of burnout. One way he suggested that developer’s combat distractions is to use the Pomodoro technique. In his example he selects one task to do for 20 minutes and he can only do that task during that time. He ignores all other distractions until this task or time limit is complete. After it is completed he allows himself to relax and distract himself for another 5- 10 minutes before his next Pomodoro. This allows him to stay completely focused on a task and when the time is up he can then focus on other things.

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• How to bill a client for frequently-interrupted time

  - by Greg

  I find that when I'm working on hourly-billable projects (in particular, those that are research/design/architecture-oriented as opposed to straight coding) that I'm easily distracted by any number of things (email, grab a drink (loss of focus, but nature happens), link off the webpage I was reading, wandering mind (easy when the job calls for a lot of thinking), etc.) This results in very fragmented time, far too incremental IMO to accurately track with a timeclock, and some time very gray. I frequently end up billing for only some fraction of the elapsed time I spent in order to feel fair, but sometimes it takes a really long time to put in an 8-hour day. By contrast, when I've worked for salary I've not worried about whether I'm actively working at any given minute, I just get the job done, and I've never had anything but stellar reviews/feedback from past salaried employers, so I think I get the job done well. I personally believe in an 80/20 cycle: I get 80% of my work done during an inspired 20% of my time. But I have to screw around the other 80% of the time in order to get that first 20%. So the question: what billing/time-tracking policy can I adopt in order to be fair to my hourly customers without having to write off my own less-productive 80% that a salaried employer is willing to overlook in light of the complete package? Note: This question is not about how to be more productive or focused. It's about how to work around whatever salient limitations that I have in a way that's both fair to me and to my customers. Update: A little clarification (to pre-emptively stop some righteous indignation): I currently have a half dozen different project/client groups. It's not a great situation and I'm working at reducing it down to two, but that's my current reality. It's very easy to get off on a thread related to a different project than the one I'm clocking, and I'm not always conscious of it at the time. [I did not intend the question to mean that I was off playing games or making personal calls, etc., and have adjusted wording above to be clearer. Most of the time. I am only human, and sometimes the mind does force you to take a break! :-)]

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• Should I be wary of signing a non-disclosure agreement with someone I just met?

  - by Thomas Levine

  tl;dr: Some guy I just met says he wants me to join his company. Before he shows me what they do, he wants me to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Is this weird? I'm traveling right now. Someone who saw me coding seemed to think I was smart or something and started talking with me. He explained that he owns a software company, told me a bit about what it does and told me that he was looking for a programmer who would work for a stake in the company. He explained that the company's product is being developed rather secretly, so he couldn't tell me much. But he did tell enough about the product to convince me that he's not completely making this up, which is a decent baseline. He suggested that he show me more of what he's been working on and, after seeing that, I decide whether I want to join. Because of the secrecy behind the product, he wants me to sign a non-disclosure agreement before we talk. I'm obviously somewhat skeptical because of the random nature by which we met. In the short term, I'm wondering if I should be wary of signing such an agreement. He said it would be easier to show me the product in person rather than over the internet, and I'm leaving town tomorrow, so I'd have to figure this out by tomorrow. If I decide to talk with him, I could decide later whether I trust that it's worth spending any time on this company. The concept of being able to avoid telling a secret seems strange to me for the same reason that things like certain aspects of copyright seem strange. Should I be wary of signing a non-disclosure agreement? Is this common practice? I don't know the details of the agreement of which he was thinking, (If I end up meeting with him, I'll of course read over the agreement before I decide whether to sign it.) so I could consider alternatives according to the aspects of the agreement. Or I could just consider the case of an especially harsh agreement. This question seems vaguely related. Do we need a non-disclosure agreement (NDA)? Thanks

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