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• Some notes on Reflector 7

  - by CliveT

  Both Bart and I have blogged about some of the changes that we (and other members of the team) have made to .NET Reflector for version 7, including the new tabbed browsing model, the inclusion of Jason Haley's PowerCommands add-in and some improvements to decompilation such as handling iterator blocks. The intention of this blog post is to cover all of the main new features in one place, and to describe the three new editions of .NET Reflector 7. If you'd simply like to try out the latest version of the beta for yourself you can do so here. Three new editions .NET Reflector 7 will come in three new editions: .NET Reflector .NET Reflector VS .NET Reflector VSPro The first edition is just the standalone Windows application. The latter two editions include the Windows application, but also add the power of Reflector into Visual Studio so that you can save time switching tools and quickly get to the bottom of a debugging issue that involves third-party code. Let's take a look at some of the new features in each edition. Tabbed browsing .NET Reflector now has a tabbed browsing model, in which the individual tabs have independent histories. You can open a new tab to view the selected object by using CTRL+CLICK. I've found this really useful when I'm investigating a particular piece of code but then want to focus on some other methods that I find along the way. For version 7, we wanted to implement the basic idea of tabs to see whether it is something that users will find helpful. If it is something that enhances productivity, we will add more tab-based features in a future version. PowerCommands add-in We have also included Jason Haley's PowerCommands add-in as part of version 7. This add-in provides a number of useful commands, including support for opening .xap files and extracting the constituent assemblies, and a query editor that allows C# queries to be written and executed against the Reflector object model . All of the PowerCommands features can be turned on from the options menu. We will be really interested to see what people are finding useful for further integration into the main tool in the future. My personal favourite part of the PowerCommands add-in is the query editor. You can set up as many of your own queries as you like, but we provide 25 to get you started. These do useful things like listing all extension methods in a given assembly, and displaying other lower-level information, such as the number of times that a given method uses the box IL instruction. These queries can be extracted and then executed from the 'Run Query' context menu within the assembly explorer. Moreover, the queries can be loaded, modified, and saved using the built-in editor, allowing very specific user customization and sharing of queries. The PowerCommands add-in contains many other useful utilities. For example, you can open an item using an external application, work with enumeration bit flags, or generate assembly binding redirect files. You can see Bart's earlier post for a more complete list. .NET Reflector VS .NET Reflector VS adds a brand new Reflector object browser into Visual Studio to save you time opening .NET Reflector separately and browsing for an object. A 'Decompile and Explore' option is also added to the context menu of references in the Solution Explorer, so you don't need to leave Visual Studio to look through decompiled code. We've also added some simple navigation features to allow you to move through the decompiled code as quickly and easily as you can in .NET Reflector. When this is selected, the add-in decompiles the given assembly, Once the decompilation has finished, a clone of the Reflector assembly explorer can be used inside Visual Studio. When Reflector generates the source code, it records the location information. You can therefore navigate from the source file to other decompiled source using the 'Go To Definition' context menu item. This then takes you to the definition in another decompiled assembly. .NET Reflector VSPro .NET Reflector VSPro builds on the features in .NET Reflector VS to add the ability to debug any source code you decompile. When you decompile with .NET Reflector VSPro, a matching .pdb is generated, so you can use Visual Studio to debug the source code as if it were part of the project. You can now use all the standard debugging techniques that you are used to in the Visual Studio debugger, and step through decompiled code as if it were your own. Again, you can select assemblies for decompilation. They are then decompiled. And then you can debug as if they were one of your own source code files. The future of .NET Reflector As I have mentioned throughout this post, most of the new features in version 7 are exploratory steps and we will be watching feedback closely. Although we don't want to speculate now about any other new features or bugs that will or won't be fixed in the next few versions of .NET Reflector, Bart has mentioned in a previous post that there are lots of improvements we intend to make. We plan to do this with great care and without taking anything away from the simplicity of the core product. User experience is something that we pride ourselves on at Red Gate, and it is clear that Reflector is still a long way off our usual standards. We plan for the next few versions of Reflector to be worked on by some of our top usability specialists who have been involved with our other market-leading products such as the ANTS Profilers and SQL Compare. I re-iterate the need for the really great simple mode in .NET Reflector to remain intact regardless of any other improvements we are planning to make. I really hope that you enjoy using some of the new features in version 7 and that Reflector continues to be your favourite .NET development tool for a long time to come.

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• WPF: Timers

  - by Ilya Verbitskiy

  I believe, once your WPF application will need to execute something periodically, and today I would like to discuss how to do that. There are two possible solutions. You can use classical System.Threading.Timer class or System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherTimer class, which is the part of WPF. I have created an application to show you how to use the API.     Let’s take a look how you can implement timer using System.Threading.Timer class. First of all, it has to be initialized.   1: private Timer timer; 2:   3: public MainWindow() 4: { 5: // Form initialization code 6: 7: timer = new Timer(OnTimer, null, Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan, Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan); 8: }   Timer’s constructor accepts four parameters. The first one is the callback method which is executed when timer ticks. I will show it to you soon. The second parameter is a state which is passed to the callback. It is null because there is nothing to pass this time. The third parameter is the amount of time to delay before the callback parameter invokes its methods. I use System.Threading.Timeout helper class to represent infinite timeout which simply means the timer is not going to start at the moment. And the final fourth parameter represents the time interval between invocations of the methods referenced by callback. Infinite timeout timespan means the callback method will be executed just once. Well, the timer has been created. Let’s take a look how you can start the timer.   1: private void StartTimer(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 2: { 3: timer.Change(TimeSpan.Zero, new TimeSpan(0, 0, 1)); 4:   5: // Disable the start buttons and enable the reset button. 6: }   The timer is started by calling its Change method. It accepts two arguments: the amount of time to delay before the invoking the callback method and the time interval between invocations of the callback. TimeSpan.Zero means we start the timer immediately and TimeSpan(0, 0, 1) tells the timer to tick every second. There is one method hasn’t been shown yet. This is the callback method OnTimer which does a simple task: it shows current time in the center of the screen. Unfortunately you cannot simple write something like this:   1: clock.Content = DateTime.Now.ToString("hh:mm:ss");   The reason is Timer runs callback method on a separate thread, and it is not possible to access GUI controls from a non-GUI thread. You can avoid the problem using System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher class.   1: private void OnTimer(object state) 2: { 3: Dispatcher.Invoke(() => ShowTime()); 4: } 5:   6: private void ShowTime() 7: { 8: clock.Content = DateTime.Now.ToString("hh:mm:ss"); 9: }   You can build similar application using System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherTimer class. The class represents a timer which is integrated into the Dispatcher queue. It means that your callback method is executed on GUI thread and you can write a code which updates your GUI components directly.   1: private DispatcherTimer dispatcherTimer; 2:   3: public MainWindow() 4: { 5: // Form initialization code 6:   7: dispatcherTimer = new DispatcherTimer { Interval = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 1) }; 8: dispatcherTimer.Tick += OnDispatcherTimer; 9: } Dispatcher timer has nicer and cleaner API. All you need is to specify tick interval and Tick event handler. The you just call Start method to start the timer.   private void StartDispatcher(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { dispatcherTimer.Start(); // Disable the start buttons and enable the reset button. } And, since the Tick event handler is executed on GUI thread, the code which sets the actual time is straightforward.   1: private void OnDispatcherTimer(object sender, EventArgs e) 2: { 3: ShowTime(); 4: } We’re almost done. Let’s take a look how to stop the timers. It is easy with the Dispatcher Timer.   1: dispatcherTimer.Stop(); And slightly more complicated with the Timer. You should use Change method again.   1: timer.Change(Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan, Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan); What is the best way to add timer into an application? The Dispatcher Timer has simple interface, but its advantages are disadvantages at the same time. You should not use it if your Tick event handler executes time-consuming operations. It freezes your window which it is executing the event handler method. You should think about using System.Threading.Timer in this case. The code is available on GitHub.

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• How do I consistently re-size my game window and elements?

  - by Milo

  In my 2D game, I have a flow layout. Inside the flow layout are tables. I have a slider that lets the user make the tables larger or smaller. This makes the background larger or smaller too. Everything should scale proportionally which means the background should stay at the same position when I make things larger, and it almost does. When the scrollbar is at 0, it does exactly this. As the scrollbar gets further down problems arise. I'll toggle the slider maybe 3 times and on the fourth time, the background jumps a little lower on the Y axis. In order to be efficient, I only start rendering the background near the parent of the flow layout. Here it is: void LobbyTableManager::renderBG( GraphicsContext* g, agui::Rectangle& absRect, agui::Rectangle& childRect ) { int cx, cy, cw, ch; g->getClippingRect(cx,cy,cw,ch); g->setClippingRect(absRect.getX(),absRect.getY(),absRect.getWidth(),absRect.getHeight()); float scale = 0.35f; int w = m_bgSprite->getWidth() * getTableScale() * scale; int h = m_bgSprite->getHeight() * getTableScale() * scale; int numX = ceil(absRect.getWidth() / (float)w) + 2; int numY = ceil(absRect.getHeight() / (float)h) + 2; float offsetX = m_activeTables[0]->getLocation().getX() - w; float offsetY = m_activeTables[0]->getLocation().getY() - h; int startY = childRect.getY(); if(moo) { std::cout << "S=" << startY << ","; } int numAttempts = 0; while(startY + h < absRect.getY() && numAttempts < 1000) { startY += h; if(moo) { std::cout << startY << ","; } numAttempts++; } if(moo) { std::cout << "\n"; moo = false; } g->holdDrawing(); for(int i = 0; i < numX; ++i) { for(int j = 0; j < numY; ++j) { g->drawScaledSprite(m_bgSprite,0,0,m_bgSprite->getWidth(),m_bgSprite->getHeight(), absRect.getX() + (i * w) + (offsetX),absRect.getY() + (j * h) + startY,w,h,0); } } g->unholdDrawing(); g->setClippingRect(cx,cy,cw,ch); } The numeric problem seems to be in the value of startY. I outputted startY figuring out its value: As you can see here, this is me only zooming in, pay attention to the final number before the next s=. You'll notice that, what should happen is, the numbers should be linear, ex: -40, -38, -36, -34, -32, -30, etc. As you'll notice, the start numbers linearly correlate ex: 62k, 64k, 66k, 68k, 70k etc.. but the end result is wrong every third or 4th time. Here is most of the resize code: void LobbyTableManager::setTableScale( float scale ) { scale += 0.3f; scale *= 2.0f; agui::Gui* gotGui = getGui(); float scrollRel = m_vScroll->getRelativeValue(); setScale(scale); rescaleTables(); resizeFlow(); if(gotGui) { gotGui->toggleWidgetLocationChanged(false); } updateScrollBars(); float newVal = scrollRel * m_vScroll->getMaxValue(); if((int)(newVal + 0.5f) > (int)newVal) { newVal++; } m_vScroll->setValue(newVal); static int x = 0; x++; moo = true; //std::cout << m_vScroll->getValue() << std::endl; if(gotGui) { gotGui->toggleWidgetLocationChanged(true); } if(gotGui) { gotGui->_widgetLocationChanged(); } } void LobbyTableManager::valueChanged( agui::VScrollBar* source,int val ) { if(getGui()) { getGui()->toggleWidgetLocationChanged(false); } m_flow->setLocation(0,-val); if(getGui()) { getGui()->toggleWidgetLocationChanged(true); getGui()->_widgetLocationChanged(); } }

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• Open World Day 3

  - by Antony Reynolds

  A Day in the Life of an Oracle OpenWorld Attendee Part IV My third day was exhibition day for me!  I took the opportunity to wander around the JavaOne and OpenWorld exhibitions to see what might be useful for me when selling WebLogic, Coherence & SOA Suite.  I found a number of interesting vendors and thought I would share what I found here.  These are not necessarily endorsements, but observations on companies that I thought had interesting looking products that fill a need I have seen at customers. Highly Available EBS Upgrades A few years ago I worked with a customer that was a port authority.  They wanted to tie E-Business Suite into their operations to provide faster processing of cargo and passengers.  However they only had a 2 hour downtime window to perform upgrades.  This was not a problem for core database and middleware technology, this could accommodate those upgrade timescales easily.  It was a problem for EBS however so I intrigued to find Rapid E-Suite Inc offering an 11i to 12i upgrade service that claims to require no outage.  This could be a real boon to EBS customers like my port friends that need to upgrade without disruption to their business. Mobile on WebLogic I have come across a number of customers who want a comprehensive mobile solution, connected and disconnected operation and so forth.  ADF only addresses part of these requirements currently so I was excited to discover mFrontiers Inc offering an apparently comprehensive solution that should integrate easily with Oracle SOA Suite to mobile enable a SOA infrastructure.  The ability to operate without a network is important for many applications, particularly in industries that require their engineers to enter buildings to perform maintenance or repairs, because network access is not always available – many of my colleagues don’t have mobile access from their homes because they live in the middle of nowhere – and disconnected support is crucial in these situations. Sharepoint Connector for WebCenter Content Obviously Sharepoint is an evil pernicious intrusion into a companies IT estate but it is widely deployed and many people like it but also would like to take advantage of Oracle products such as WebCenter Content.  So I was encouraged to see that Fishbowl Solutions have created a connector for Sharepoint that allows it to bring in content from WebCenter, it looks like a valuable way to maintain the Sharepoint interface end users are used to but extend the range of content by pulling stuff (technical term for content) from WebCenter.   Load Balancing The Enterprise Deployment Guides are Oracles bible on building highly available FMW environments, and each of them requires a front end load balancer.  I have been asked to help configure F5 Load Balancers on a number of occasions over my time at Oracle and each time I come back to it I find more useful features have been added to the BigIP line of load balancers that F5 sell, many of their documents are tailored to FMW.  I like F5, they provide (relatively) easy to use products that do what they say on the side of the box.  They may not have all the bells and whistles of some of their more expensive competitors but they do the job and do it well!  Besides which I like their logo! Other Stuff I saw lots of other interesting products and services, such as a lightweight monitoring tool for Coherence, Forms migration services, JCAPS migration services and lots of cool freebies to take home to the children! A Quiet Night Wednesday night was the partner appreciation event and I had decided to go back to the hotel and have an early night.  I decided to attend the last session of the day – a Maven/Hudson/WebLogic tutorial.  I got the wrong hotel for the session and snuck in 20 minutes late at the back and starting working on the hands on workshop.  One of my co-attendees raised his hand for help and as the presenter came over to help he suddenly stopped and yelled – “Is that Antony”!  It was my old friend Steve Button who used to be based in Redwood Shores but is now a WebLogic guru PM in Australia.  It was good to catch up with him.  As he yelled out a guy with really bad posture turned around to see who he was talking to, this turned out to be my friend Simon Haslan, Oracle ACE from the UK.  After the tutorial Simon and I retired to the coffee shop to catch up and share stories.  2 and half hours later we decided it was time to retire, so much for an early night but great to renew old friendships and find out what real customers are worrying about.

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• Using Hadooop (HDInsight) with Microsoft - Two (OK, Three) Options

  - by BuckWoody

  Microsoft has many tools for “Big Data”. In fact, you need many tools – there’s no product called “Big Data Solution” in a shrink-wrapped box – if you find one, you probably shouldn’t buy it. It’s tempting to want a single tool that handles everything in a problem domain, but with large, complex data, that isn’t a reality. You’ll mix and match several systems, open and closed source, to solve a given problem. But there are tools that help with handling data at large, complex scales. Normally the best way to do this is to break up the data into parts, and then put the calculation engines for that chunk of data right on the node where the data is stored. These systems are in a family called “Distributed File and Compute”. Microsoft has a couple of these, including the High Performance Computing edition of Windows Server. Recently we partnered with Hortonworks to bring the Apache Foundation’s release of Hadoop to Windows. And as it turns out, there are actually two (technically three) ways you can use it. (There’s a more detailed set of information here: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/solutions-technologies/business-intelligence/big-data.aspx, I’ll cover the options at a general level below)  First Option: Windows Azure HDInsight Service  Your first option is that you can simply log on to a Hadoop control node and begin to run Pig or Hive statements against data that you have stored in Windows Azure. There’s nothing to set up (although you can configure things where needed), and you can send the commands, get the output of the job(s), and stop using the service when you are done – and repeat the process later if you wish. (There are also connectors to run jobs from Microsoft Excel, but that’s another post)   This option is useful when you have a periodic burst of work for a Hadoop workload, or the data collection has been happening into Windows Azure storage anyway. That might be from a web application, the logs from a web application, telemetrics (remote sensor input), and other modes of constant collection.   You can read more about this option here:  http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2012/10/24/getting-started-with-windows-azure-hdinsight-service.aspx Second Option: Microsoft HDInsight Server Your second option is to use the Hadoop Distribution for on-premises Windows called Microsoft HDInsight Server. You set up the Name Node(s), Job Tracker(s), and Data Node(s), among other components, and you have control over the entire ecostructure.   This option is useful if you want to  have complete control over the system, leave it running all the time, or you have a huge quantity of data that you have to bulk-load constantly – something that isn’t going to be practical with a network transfer or disk-mailing scheme. You can read more about this option here: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/solutions-technologies/business-intelligence/big-data.aspx Third Option (unsupported): Installation on Windows Azure Virtual Machines  Although unsupported, you could simply use a Windows Azure Virtual Machine (we support both Windows and Linux servers) and install Hadoop yourself – it’s open-source, so there’s nothing preventing you from doing that.   Aside from being unsupported, there are other issues you’ll run into with this approach – primarily involving performance and the amount of configuration you’ll need to do to access the data nodes properly. But for a single-node installation (where all components run on one system) such as learning, demos, training and the like, this isn’t a bad option. Did I mention that’s unsupported? :) You can learn more about Windows Azure Virtual Machines here: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/scenarios/virtual-machines/ And more about Hadoop and the installation/configuration (on Linux) here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Hadoop And more about the HDInsight installation here: http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/install.aspx?appid=HDINSIGHT-PREVIEW Choosing the right option Since you have two or three routes you can go, the best thing to do is evaluate the need you have, and place the workload where it makes the most sense.  My suggestion is to install the HDInsight Server locally on a test system, and play around with it. Read up on the best ways to use Hadoop for a given workload, understand the parts, write a little Pig and Hive, and get your feet wet. Then sign up for a test account on HDInsight Service, and see how that leverages what you know. If you're a true tinkerer, go ahead and try the VM route as well. Oh - there’s another great reference on the Windows Azure HDInsight that just came out, here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brunoterkaly/archive/2012/11/16/hadoop-on-azure-introduction.aspx  

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• Modifying Service URLs with LINQ to Twitter

  - by Joe Mayo

  It’s funny that two posts so close together speak about flexibility with the LINQ to Twitter provider.  There are certain things you know from experience on when to make software more flexible and when to save time.  This is another one of those times when I got lucky and made the right choice up front. I’m talking about the ability to switch URLs. It only makes sense that Twitter should begin versioning their API as it matures.  In fact, most of the entire API has moved to the v1 URL at “https://api.twitter.com/1/”, except for search and trends.  Recently, Twitter introduced the available and local trends, but hung them off the new v1, and left the rest of the trends API on the old URL. To implement this, I muscled my way into the expression tree during CreateRequestProcessor to figure out which trend I was dealing with; perhaps not elegant, but the code is in the right place and that’s what factories are for.  Anyway, the point is that I wouldn’t have to do this kind of stuff (as much fun as it is), if Twitter would have more consistency. Having went to Chirp last week and seeing the evolution of the API, it looks like my wish is coming true.  …now if they would just get their stuff together on the mess they made with geo-location and places… but again, that’s all transparent if your using LINQ to Twitter because I pulled all of that together in a consistent way so that you don’t have to. Normally, when Twitter makes a change, code breaks and I have to scramble to get the fixes in-place.  This time, in the case of a URL change, the adjustment is easy and no-one has to wait for me.  Essentially, all you need to do is change the URL passed to the TwitterContext constructor.  Here’s an example of instantiating a TwitterContext now: using (var twitterCtx = new TwitterContext(auth, "https://api.twitter.com/1/", "https://search.twitter.com/")) The third parameter constructor is the SearchUrl, which is used for Search and Trend APIs. You probably know what’s coming next; another constructor, but with the SearchUrl parameter set to the new URL as follows: using (var twitterCtx = new TwitterContext(auth, "https://api.twitter.com/1/", "https://api.twitter.com/1/")) One consequence of setting the URL this way is that you set the URL for both Trends and Search.  Since Search is still using the old URL, this is going to break for Search queries. You could always instantiate a special TwitterContext instance for Search queries, with the old URL set. Alternatively, you can use the TwitterContext’s SearchUrl property. Here’s an example: twitterCtx.SearchUrl = "https://api.twitter.com/1/"; var trends = (from trend in twitterCtx.Trends where trend.Type == TrendType.Daily && trend.Date == DateTime.Now.AddDays(-2).Date select trend) .ToList(); Notice how I set the SearchUrl property just-in-time for the query. This allows you to target the URL for each specific query. Whichever way you prefer to configure the URL, it’s your choice. So, now you know how to set the URL to be used for Trend queries and how to prevent whacking your Search queries. I’ll be updating the Trend API to use same URL as all other APIs soon, so the only API left to use the SearchUrl will be Search, but for the short term, it’s Trends and Search. Until I make this change, you’ll have a viable work-around by setting the URL yourself, as explained above. These were the Search and Trend URLs, but you might be curious about the second parameter of the TwitterContext constructor; that’s the URL for all other APIs (the BaseUrl), except for Trend and Search. Similarly, you can use the TwitterContext’s BaseUrl property to set the BaseUrl. Setting the BaseUrl can be useful when communicating with other services. In addition to Twitter changing URLs, the Twitter API has been adopted by other companies, such as Identi.ca, Tumblr, and  WordPress.  This capability lets you use LINQ to Twitter with any of these services.  This is a testament to the success of the Twitter API and it’s popularity. No doubt we’ll have hills and valleys to traverse as the Twitter API matures, but hopefully there will be enough flexibility in LINQ to Twitter to make these changes as transparent as possible for you. @JoeMayo

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• IndyTechFest Recap

  - by Johnm

  The sun had yet to raise above the horizon on Saturday, May 22nd and I was traveling toward the location of the 2010 IndyTechFest. In my freshly awaken, and pre-coffee, state I reflected on the months that preceded this day and how quickly they slipped away. The big day had finally come and the morning dew glistened with a unique brightness that morning. What is this all about? For those who are unfamiliar with IndyTechFest, it is a regional conference held in Indianapolis and hosted by the Indianapolis .NET Developers Association (IndyNDA) and the Indianapolis Professional Association for SQL Server (IndyPASS).  The event presents multiple tracks and sessions covering subjects such as Business Intelligence,  Database Administration, .NET Development, SharePoint Development, Windows Mobile Development as well as non-Microsoft topics such as Lean and MongoDB. This year's event was the third hosting of IndyTechFest. No man is an island No event such as IndyTechFest is executed by a single person. My fellow co-founders, with their highly complementary skill sets and philanthropy make the process very enjoyable. Our amazing volunteers and their aid were indispensible. The generous financial support of our sponsors that made the event and fabulous prizes possible. The spectacular line up of speakers who came from near and far to donate their time and knowledge. Our beloved attendees who sacrificed the first sunny Saturday in weeks to expand their skill sets and network with their peers. We are deeply appreciative. Challenges in preparation With the preparation of any event comes challenges. It is these challenges that makes the process of planning an event so interesting. This year's largest challenge was the location of the event. In the past two years IndyTechFest was held at the Gene B. Glick Junior Achievement Center in Indianapolis. This facility has been the hub of the Indy technical community for many years. As the big day drew near, the facility's availability came into question due to some recent changes that had occurred with those who operated the facility. We began our search for an alternative option. Thankfully, the Marriott Indianapolis East was available, was very spacious and willing to work within the range of our budget. Within days of our event, the decision to move proved to be wise since the prior location had begun renovations to the interior. Whew! Always trust your gut. Every day it's getting better At the ending of each year, we huddle together, review the evaluations and identify an area in which the event could improve. This year's big opportunity for improvement resided in the prize give-away portion at the end of the day. In the 2008 event, admittedly, this portion was rather chaotic, rushed and disorganized. This year, we broke the drawing into two sections, of which each attendee received two tickets. The first ticket was a drawing for the mountain of books that were given away. The second ticket was a drawing for the big prizes, the 2 Xboxes, 3 laptops and iPad. We peppered the ticket drawings with gift card raffles and tossing t-shirts into the audience. If at first you don't succeed, try and try again Each year of IndyTechFest, we have offered a means for ad-hoc sessions or discussion groups to pop-up. To our disappointment it was something that never quite took off. We have always believed that this unique type of session was valuable and wanted to figure out a way to make it work for this year. A special thanks to Alan Stevens, who took on and facilitated the "open space" track and made it an official success. Share with your tweety When the attendee badges were designed we decided to place an emphasis on the attendee's Twitter account as well as the events hash-tag (#IndyTechFest) to encourage some real-time buzz during the day. At the host table we displayed a Twitter feed for all to enjoy. It was quite successful and encouraging use of social media. My badge was missing my Twitter account since it was recently changed. For those who care to follow my rather sparse tweets, my address is @johnnydata. Man, this is one long blog post! All in all it was a very successful event. It is always great to see new faces and meet old friends. The planning for the 2011 IndyTechFest will kick off very soon. We have more capacity for future growth and a truck full of great ideas. Stay tuned!

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• Java2Days 2012 Trip Report

  - by reza_rahman

  Java2Days 2012 was held in beautiful Sofia, Bulgaria on October 25-26. For those of you not familiar with it, this is the third installment of the premier Java conference for the Balkan region. It is an excellent effort by admirable husband and wife team Emo Abadjiev and Iva Abadjieva as well as the rest of the Java2Days team including Yoana Ivanova and Nadia Kostova. Thanks to their hard work, the conference continues to grow vigorously with almost a thousand enthusiastic, bright young people attending this year and no less than three tracks on Java, the Cloud and Mobile. The conference is a true gem in this region of the world and I am very proud to have been a part of it again, along with the other world class speakers the event rightfully attracts. It was my honor to present the first talk of the conference. It was a full-house session on Java EE 7 and 8 titled "JavaEE.Next(): Java EE 7, 8, and Beyond". The talk was primarily along the same lines as Arun Gupta's JavaOne 2012 technical keynote. I covered the changes in JMS 2, the Java API for WebSocket (JSR 356), the Java API for JSON Processing (JSON-P), JAX-RS 2, JCache, JPA 2.1, JTA 1.2, JSF 2.2, Java Batch, Bean Validation 1.1 and the rest of the APIs in Java EE 7. I also briefly talked about the possible contents of Java EE 8. My stretch goal was to gather some feedback on some open issues in the Java EE EG (more on that soon) but I ran out of time in the short format forty-five minute session. The talk was received well and I had some pretty good discussions afterwards. The slides for the talk are here: JavaEE.Next(): Java EE 7, 8, and Beyond from reza_rahman To my delight, the Java2Days folks were very interested in my domain-driven design/Java EE 6 talk (titled "Domain Driven Design with Java EE 6"). I've had this talk in my inventory for a long time now but it always gets overridden by less theoretical talks on APIs, tools, etc. The talk has three parts -- a brief overview of DDD theory, mapping DDD to Java EE and actual running DDD code in Java EE 6/GlassFish. For the demo, I converted the well-known DDD sample application (http://dddsample.sourceforge.net/) written mostly in Spring 2 and Hibernate 2 to Java EE 6. My eventual plan is to make the code available via a top level java.net project. Even despite the broad topic and time constraints, the talk went very well. It was a full house, the Q & A was excellent and one of the other speakers even told me they thought this was the best talk of the conference! The slides for the talk are here: Domain Driven Design with Java EE 6 from Reza Rahman The code examples are available here: https://blogs.oracle.com/reza/resource/dddsample.zip for now, as a simple zip file. Give me a shout if you would like to get it up and running. It was also a great honor to present the last session of the conference. It was a talk on the Java API for WebSocket/JSR 356 titled "Building HTML5/WebSocket Applications with JSR 356 and GlassFish". The talk is based on Danny Coward's JavaOne 2012 talk. The talk covers the basic of WebSocket, the JSR 356 API and a simple demo using Tyrus/GlassFish. The talk went very well and there were some very good questions afterwards. The slides for the talk are here: Building HTML5/WebSocket Applications with GlassFish and JSR 356 from Reza Rahman The code samples are available here: https://blogs.oracle.com/arungupta/resource/totd183-HelloWebSocket.zip. You'll need the latest promoted GlassFish 4 build to run the code. Give me a shout if you need help. Besides presenting my talks, I got to attend some great sessions on OSGi, HTML5, cloud, agile and Java 8. I got an invite to speak at the Macedonia JUG when possible. Victor Grazi of InfoQ wrote about my sessions and Java2Days here: http://www.infoq.com/news/2012/11/Java2DaysConference. Stoyan Rachev was very kind to blog about my sessions here: http://www.stoyanr.com/2012/11/java2days-2012-java-ee.html. I definitely enjoyed Java2Days 2012 and hope to be part of the conference next year!

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• Running a Mongo Replica Set on Azure VM Roles

  - by Elton Stoneman

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/EltonStoneman/archive/2013/10/15/running-a-mongo-replica-set-on-azure-vm-roles.aspxSetting up a MongoDB Replica Set with a bunch of Azure VMs is straightforward stuff. Here’s a step-by-step which gets you from 0 to fully-redundant 3-node document database in about 30 minutes (most of which will be spent waiting for VMs to fire up). First, create yourself 3 VM roles, which is the minimum number of nodes you need for high availability. You can use any OS that Mongo supports. This guide uses Windows but the only difference will be the mechanism for starting the Mongo service when the VM starts (Windows Service, daemon etc.) While the VMs are provisioning, download and install Mongo locally, so you can set up the replica set with the Mongo shell. We’ll create our replica set from scratch, doing one machine at a time (if you have a single node you want to upgrade to a replica set, it’s the same from step 3 onwards): 1. Setup Mongo Log into the first node, download mongo and unzip it to C:. Rename the folder to remove the version – so you have c:\MongoDB\bin etc. – and create a new folder for the logs, c:\MongoDB\logs. 2. Setup your data disk When you initialize a node in a replica set, Mongo pre-allocates a whole chunk of storage to use for data replication. It will use up to 5% of your data disk, so if you use a Windows VM image with a defsault 120Gb disk and host your data on C:, then Mongo will allocate 6Gb for replication. And that takes a while. Instead you can create yourself a new partition by shrinking down the C: drive in Computer Management, by say 10Gb, and then creating a new logical disk for your data from that spare 10Gb, which will be allocated as E:. Create a new folder, e:\data. 3. Start Mongo When that’s done, start a command line, point to the mongo binaries folder, install Mongo as a Windows Service, running in replica set mode, and start the service: cd c:\mongodb\bin mongod -logpath c:\mongodb\logs\mongod.log -dbpath e:\data -replSet TheReplicaSet –install net start mongodb 4. Open the ports Mongo uses port 27017 by default, so you need to allow access in the machine and in Azure. In the VM, open Windows Firewall and create a new inbound rule to allow access via port 27017. Then in the Azure Management Console for the VM role, under the Configure tab add a new rule, again to allow port 27017. 5. Initialise the replica set Start up your local mongo shell, connecting to your Azure VM, and initiate the replica set: c:\mongodb\bin\mongo sc-xyz-db1.cloudapp.net rs.initiate() This is the bit where the new node (at this point the only node) allocates its replication files, so if your data disk is large, this can take a long time (if you’re using the default C: drive with 120Gb, it may take so long that rs.initiate() never responds. If you’re sat waiting more than 20 minutes, start another instance of the mongo shell pointing to the same machine to check on it). Run rs.conf() and you should see one node configured. 6. Fix the host name for the primary – *don’t miss this one* For the first node in the replica set, Mongo on Windows doesn’t populate the full machine name. Run rs.conf() and the name of the primary is sc-xyz-db1, which isn’t accessible to the outside world. The replica set configuration needs the full DNS name of every node, so you need to manually rename it in your shell, which you can do like this: cfg = rs.conf() cfg.members[0].host = ‘sc-xyz-db1.cloudapp.net:27017’ rs.reconfig(cfg) When that returns, rs.conf() will have your full DNS name for the primary, and the other nodes will be able to connect. At this point you have a working database, so you can start adding documents, but there’s no replication yet. 7. Add more nodes For the next two VMs, follow steps 1 through to 4, which will give you a working Mongo database on each node, which you can add to the replica set from the shell with rs.add(), using the full DNS name of the new node and the port you’re using: rs.add(‘sc-xyz-db2.cloudapp.net:27017’) Run rs.status() and you’ll see your new node in STARTUP2 state, which means its initializing and replicating from the PRIMARY. Repeat for your third node: rs.add(‘sc-xyz-db3.cloudapp.net:27017’) When all nodes are finished initializing, you will have a PRIMARY and two SECONDARY nodes showing in rs.status(). Now you have high availability, so you can happily stop db1, and one of the other nodes will become the PRIMARY with no loss of data or service. Note – the process for AWS EC2 is exactly the same, but with one important difference. On the Azure Windows Server 2012 base image, the MongoDB release for 64-bit 2008R2+ works fine, but on the base 2012 AMI that release keeps failing with a UAC permission error. The standard 64-bit release is fine, but it lacks some optimizations that are in the 2008R2+ version.

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• Alternative Grid Layout for Silverlight suggestion

  - by brainbox

  I've proposed a suggestion to create alternative grid layout for Silverlight. Please vote for it if also faced the same problems. As i write before current Silverlight Grid Layout breakes best practices of HTML and Adobe Flex Grid layouts. Current defention based approach have following disadvantages that makes xaml coding very hard: 1. It is very hard to create new row. In that case you should rewriteall Grid.Row and Grid.Columns for all rows inserted below.2. Defenitions are static by their nature and because of it, it isimpossible to use grid for dynamic forms. Currently even in toolkit DataFormMicrosoft is using StackPanel. But StackPanel is not designed for multicolumn layout that have dataform. Here is a sample code of AdobeFlex datagrid, which incorporates bestpractices of HTML. <mx:Grid id="myGrid">        <!-- Define Row 1. -->       <mx:GridRow id="row1">           <!-- Define the first cell of Row 1. -->           <mx:GridItem>               <mx:Button label="Button 1"/>           </mx:GridItem>           <!-- Define the second cell of Row 1. -->           <mx:GridItem>               <mx:Button label="2"/>           </mx:GridItem>           <!-- Define the third cell of Row 1. -->           <mx:GridItem>               <mx:Button label="Button 3"/>           </mx:GridItem>       </mx:GridRow>        <!-- Define Row 2. -->       <mx:GridRow id="row2">           <!-- Define a single cell to span three columns of Row 2. -->           <mx:GridItem colSpan="3" horizontalAlign="center">               <mx:Button label="Long-Named Button 4"/>           </mx:GridItem>       </mx:GridRow>        <!-- Define Row 3. -->       <mx:GridRow id="row3">           <!-- Define an empty first cell of Row 3. -->           <mx:GridItem/>           <!-- Define a cell to span columns 2 and 3 of Row 3. -->           <mx:GridItem colSpan="2" horizontalAlign="center">               <mx:Button label="Button 5"/>           </mx:GridItem>       </mx:GridRow>    </mx:Grid>

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• How to Play PC Games on Your TV

  - by Chris Hoffman

  No need to wait for Valve’s Steam Machines — connect your Windows gaming PC to your TV and use powerful PC graphics in the living room today. It’s easy — you don’t need any unusual hardware or special software. This is ideal if you’re already a PC gamer who wants to play your games on a larger screen. It’s also convenient if you want to play multiplayer PC games with controllers in your living rom. HDMI Cables and Controllers You’ll need an HDMI cable to connect your PC to your television. This requires a TV with HDMI-in, a PC with HDMI-out, and an HDMI cable. Modern TVs and PCs have had HDMI built in for years, so you should already be good to go. If you don’t have a spare HDMI cable lying around, you may have to buy one or repurpose one of your existing HDMI cables. Just don’t buy the expensive HDMI cables — even a cheap HDMI cable will work just as well as a more expensive one. Plug one end of the HDMI cable into the HDMI-out port on your PC and one end into the HDMI-In port on your TV. Switch your TV’s input to the appropriate HDMI port and you’ll see your PC’s desktop appear on your TV.  Your TV becomes just another external monitor. If you have your TV and PC far away from each other in different rooms, this won’t work. If you have a reasonably powerful laptop, you can just plug that into your TV — or you can unplug your desktop PC and hook it up next to your TV. Now you’ll just need an input device. You probably don’t want to sit directly in front of your TV with a wired keyboard and mouse! A wireless keyboard and wireless mouse can be convenient and may be ideal for some games. However, you’ll probably want a game controller like console players use. Better yet, get multiple game controllers so you can play local-multiplayer PC games with other people. The Xbox 360 controller is the ideal controller for PC gaming. Windows supports these controllers natively, and many PC games are designed specifically for these controllers. Note that Xbox One controllers aren’t yet supported on Windows because Microsoft hasn’t released drivers for them. Yes, you could use a third-party controller or go through the process of pairing a PlayStation controller with your PC using unofficial tools, but it’s better to get an Xbox 360 controller. Just plug one or more Xbox controllers into your PC’s USB ports and they’ll work without any setup required. While many PC games to support controllers, bear in mind that some games require a keyboard and mouse. A TV-Optimized Interface Use Steam’s Big Picture interface to more easily browse and launch games. This interface was designed for using on a television with controllers and even has an integrated web browser you can use with your controller. It will be used on the Valve’s Steam Machine consoles as the default TV interface. You can use a mouse with it too, of course. There’s also nothing stopping you from just using your Windows desktop with a mouse and keyboard — aside from how inconvenient it will be. To launch Big Picture Mode, open Steam and click the Big Picture button at the top-right corner of your screen. You can also press the glowing Xbox logo button in the middle of an Xbox 360 Controller to launch the Big Picture interface if Steam is open. Another Option: In-Home Streaming If you want to leave your PC in one room of your home and play PC games on a TV in a different room, you can consider using local streaming to stream games over your home network from your gaming PC to your television. Bear in mind that the game won’t be as smooth and responsive as it would if you were sitting in front of your PC. You’ll also need a modern router with fast wireless network speeds to keep up with the game streaming. Steam’s built-in In-Home Streaming feature is now available to everyone. You could plug a laptop with less-powerful graphics hardware into your TV and use it to stream games from your powerful desktop gaming rig. You could also use an older desktop PC you have lying around. To stream a game, log into Steam on your gaming PC and log into Steam with the same account on another computer on your home network. You’ll be able to view the library of installed games on your other PC and start streaming them. NVIDIA also has their own GameStream solution that allows you to stream games from a PC with powerful NVIDIA graphics hardware. However, you’ll need an NVIDIA Shield handheld gaming console to do this. At the moment, NVIDIA’s game streaming solution can only stream to the NVIDIA Shield. However, the NVIDIA Shield device can be connected to your TV so you can play that streaming game on your TV. Valve’s Steam Machines are supposed to bring PC gaming to the living room and they’ll do it using HDMI cables, a custom Steam controller, the Big Picture interface, and in-home streaming for compatibility with Windows games. You can do all of this yourself today — you’ll just need an Xbox 360 controller instead of the not-yet-released Steam controller. Image Credit: Marco Arment on Flickr, William Hook on Flickr, Lewis Dowling on Flickr

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• Master Data Management Implementation Styles

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  In any Master Data Management solution deployment, one of the key decisions to be made is the choice of the MDM architecture. Gartner and other analysts describe some different Hub deployment styles, which must be supported by a best of breed MDM solution in order to guarantee the success of the deployment project.   Registry Style: In a Registry Style MDM Hub, the various source systems publish their data and a subscribing Hub stores only the source system IDs, the Foreign Keys (record IDs on source systems) and the key data values needed for matching. The Hub runs the cleansing and matching algorithms and assigns unique global identifiers to the matched records, but does not send any data back to the source systems. The Registry Style MDM Hub uses data federation capabilities to build the "virtual" golden view of the master entity from the connected systems.   Consolidation Style: The Consolidation Style MDM Hub has a physically instantiated, "golden" record stored in the central Hub. The authoring of the data remains distributed across the spoke systems and the master data can be updated based on events, but is not guaranteed to be up to date. The master data in this case is usually not used for transactions, but rather supports reporting; however, it can also be used for reference operationally.   Coexistence Style: The Coexistence Style MDM Hub involves master data that's authored and stored in numerous spoke systems, but includes a physically instantiated golden record in the central Hub and harmonized master data across the application portfolio. The golden record is constructed in the same manner as in the consolidation style, and, in the operational world, Consolidation Style MDM Hubs often evolve into the Coexistence Style. The key difference is that in this architectural style the master data stored in the central MDM system is selectively published out to the subscribing spoke systems.   Transaction Style: In this architecture, the Hub stores, enhances and maintains all the relevant (master) data attributes. It becomes the authoritative source of truth and publishes this valuable information back to the respective source systems. The Hub publishes and writes back the various data elements to the source systems after the linking, cleansing, matching and enriching algorithms have done their work. Upstream, transactional applications can read master data from the MDM Hub, and, potentially, all spoke systems subscribe to updates published from the central system in a form of harmonization. The Hub needs to support merging of master records. Security and visibility policies at the data attribute level need to be supported by the Transaction Style hub, as well.   Adaptive Transaction Style: This is similar to the Transaction Style, but additionally provides the capability to respond to diverse information and process requests across the enterprise. This style emerged most recently to address the limitations of the above approaches. With the Adaptive Transaction Style, the Hub is built as a platform for consolidating data from disparate third party and internal sources and for serving unified master entity views to operational applications, analytical systems or both. This approach delivers a real-time Hub that has a reliable, persistent foundation of master reference and relationship data, along with all the history and lineage of data changes needed for audit and compliance tracking. On top of this persistent master data foundation, the Hub can dynamically aggregate transaction data on demand from different source systems to deliver the unified golden view to downstream systems. Data can also be accessed through batch interfaces, published to a message bus or served through a real-time services layer. New data sources can be readily added in this approach by extending the data model and by configuring the new source mappings and the survivorship rules, meaning that all legacy data hubs can be leveraged to contribute their records/rules into the new transaction hub. Finally, through rich user interfaces for data stewardship, it allows exception handling by business analysts to keep it current with business rules/practices while maintaining the reliability of best-of-breed master records.   Confederation Style: In this architectural style, several Hubs are maintained at departmental and/or agency and/or territorial level, and each of them are connected to the other Hubs either directly or via a central Super-Hub. Each Domain level Hub can be implemented using any of the previously described styles, but normally the Central Super-Hub is a Registry Style one. This is particularly important for Public Sector organizations, where most of the time it is practically or legally impossible to store in a single central hub all the relevant constituent information from all departments.   Oracle MDM Solutions can be deployed according to any of the above MDM architectural styles, and have been specifically designed to fully support the Transaction and Adaptive Transaction styles. Oracle MDM Solutions provide strong data federation and integration capabilities which are key to enabling the use of the Confederated Hub as a possible architectural style approach. Don't lock yourself into a solution that cannot evolve with your needs. With Oracle's support for any type of deployment architecture, its ability to leverage the outstanding capabilities of the Oracle technology stack, and its open interfaces for non-Oracle technology stacks, Oracle MDM Solutions provide a low TCO and a quick ROI by enabling a phased implementation strategy.

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• A little primer on using TFS with a small team

  - by johndoucette

  The scenario; A small team of 3 developers mostly in maintenance mode with traditional ASP.net, classic ASP, .Net integration services and utilities with the company’s third party packages, and a bunch of java-based Coldfusion web applications all under Visual Source Safe (VSS). They are about to embark on a huge SharePoint 2010 new construction project and wanted to use subversion instead VSS. TFS was a foreign word and smelled of “high cost” and of an “over complicated process”. Since they had no preconditions about the old TFS versions (‘05 & ‘08), it was fun explaining how simple it was to install a TFS server and get the ball rolling, with or without all the heavy stuff one sometimes associates with such a huge and powerful application management lifecycle product. So, how does a small team begin using TFS? 1. Start by using source control and migrate current VSS source trees into TFS. You can take the latest version or migrate the entire version history. It’s up to you on whether you want a clean start or need quick access to all the version notes and history of the bits. 2. Since most shops are mainly in maintenance mode with existing applications, begin using bug workitems for everything. When you receive an issue/bug from your current tracking system, manually enter the workitem in TFS right through Visual Studio. You can automate the integration to the current tracking system later or replace it entirely. Believe me, this thing is powerful and can handle even the largest of help desks. 3. With new construction, begin work with requirements and task workitems and follow the traditional sprint-based development lifecycle. Obviously, some minor training will be needed, but don’t fear, this is very intuitive and MSDN has a ton of lesson based labs and videos. 4. For the java developers, use the new Team Explorer Everywhere 2010 plugin (recently known as Teamprise). There is a seamless interface in Eclipse, but also a good command-line utility for other environments such as Dreamweaver. 5. Wait to fully integrate the whole workitem/project management/testing process until your team is familiar with the integrated workitems for bugs and code. After a while, you will see the team wanting more transparency into the work they are all doing and naturally, everyone will want workitems to help them organize the chaos! 6. Management will be limited in the value of the reports until you have a fully blown implementation of project planning, construction, build, deployment and testing. However, there are some basic “bug rate” reports and current backlog listings that can provide good information. Some notable explanations of TFS; Work Item Tracking and Project Management - A workitem represents the unit of work within the system which enables tracking of all activities produced by a user, whether it is a developer, business user, project manager or tester. The properties of a workitem such as linked changesets (checked-in code), who updated the data and when, the states and reasons for change, are all transitioned to a data warehouse within TFS for reporting purposes. A workitem can be defines as a "bug", "requirement", test case", or a "change request". They drive the work effort by the individual assigned to it and also provide a key role in defining what needs to be done. Workitems are the things the team needs to do to accomplish a goal. Test Case Management - Starting with a workitem known as a "test case", a tester (or developer) can now author and manage test cases within a formal test plan subsystem. Although TFS supports the test case workitem type, there is a new product known as the VS Test Professional 2010 which allows a tester to facilitate manual tests including fast forwarding steps in the process to arrive at the assertion point quickly. This repeatable process provides quick regression tests and can be conducted by the business user to ensure completeness during UAT. In addition, developers no longer can provide a response to a bug with the line "cannot reproduce". With every test run, attachments including the recorded session, captured environment configurations and settings, screen shots, intellitrace (debugging history), and in some cases if the lab manager is being used, a snapshot of the tested environment is available. Version Control - A modern system allowing shared check-in/check-out, excellent merge conflict resolution, Shelvesets (personal check-ins), branching/merging visualization, public workspaces, gated check-ins, security hierarchy capabilities, and changeset/workitem tracking. Knowing what was done with the code by any developer has become much easier to picture and resolve issues. Team Build - Automate the compilation process whether you need it to be whenever a developer checks-in code, periodically such as nightly builds for testers in the morning, or manual builds to be deployed into production. Each build can run through pre-determined tests, perform code analysis to see if the developer conforms to the team standards, and reject the build if either fails. Project Portal & Reporting - Provide management with a dashboard with insight into the project(s). "Where are we" in each step of the way including past iterations and the current burndown rate. Enabling this feature is easy as it seamlessly interfaces with existing SharePoint implementations.

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• Must-see sessions at TCUK11

  - by Roger Hart

  Technical Communication UK is probably the best professional conference I've been to. Last year, I spoke there on content strategy, and this year I'll be co-hosting a workshop on embedded user assistance. Obviously, I'd love people to come along to that; but there are some other sessions I'd like to flag up for anybody thinking of attending. Tuesday 20th Sept - workshops This will be my first year at the pre-conference workshop day, and I'm massively glad that our workshop hasn't been scheduled along-side the one I'm really interested in. My picks: It looks like you're embedding user assistance. Would you like help? My colleague Dom and I are presenting this one. It's our paen to Clippy, to the brilliant idea he represented, and the crashing failure he was. Less precociously, we'll be teaching embedded user assistance, Red Gate style. Statistics without maths: acquiring, visualising and interpreting your data This doesn't need to do anything apart from what it says on the tin in order to be gold dust. But given the speakers, I suspect it will. A data-informed approach is a great asset to technical communications, so I'd recommend this session to anybody event faintly interested. The speakers here have a great track record of giving practical, accessible introductions to big topics. Go along. Wednesday 21st Sept - day one There's no real need to recommend the keynote for a conference, but I will just point out that this year it's Google's Patrick Hofmann. That's cool. You know what else is cool: Focus on the user, the rest follows An intro to modelling customer experience. This is a really exciting area for tech comms, and potentially touches on one of my personal hobby-horses: the convergence of technical communication and marketing. It's all part of delivering customer experience, and knowing what your users need lets you help them, sell to them, and delight them. Content strategy year 1: a tale from the trenches It's often been observed that content strategy is great at banging its own drum, but not so hot on compelling case studies. Here you go, folks. This is the presentation I'm most excited about so far. On a mission to communicate! Skype help their users communicate, but how do they communicate with them? I guess we'll find out. Then there's the stuff that I'm not too excited by, but you might just be. The standards geeks and agile freaks can get together in a presentation on the forthcoming ISO standards for agile authoring. Plus, there's a session on VBA for tech comms. I do have one gripe about day 1. The other big UK tech comms conference, UA Europe, have - I think - netted the more interesting presentation from Ellis Pratt. While I have no doubt that his TCUK case study on producing risk assessments will be useful, I'd far rather go to his talk on game theory for tech comms. Hopefully UA Europe will record it. Thursday 22nd Sept - day two Day two has a couple of slots yet to be confirmed. The rumour is that one of them will be the brilliant "Questions and rants" session from last year. I hope so. It's not ranting, but I'll be going to: RTFMobile: beyond stating the obvious Ultan O'Broin is an engaging speaker with a lot to say, and mobile is one of the most interesting and challenging new areas for tech comms. Even if this weren't a research-based presentation from a company with buckets of technology experience, I'd be going. It is, and you should too. Pattern recognition for technical communicators One of the best things about TCUK is the tendency to include sessions that tackle the theoretical and bring them towards the practical. Kai and Chris delivered cracking and well-received talks last year, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they've got for us on some of the conceptual underpinning of technical communication. Developing an interactive non-text learning programme Annoyingly, this clashes with Pattern Recognition, so I hope at least one of the streams is recorded again this year. The idea of communicating complex information without words us fascinating and this sounds like a great example of this year's third stream: "anything but text". For the localization and DITA crowds, there's rich pickings on day two, though I'm not sure how many of those sessions I'm interested in. In the 13:00 - 13:40 slot, there's an interesting clash between Linda Urban on re-use and training content, and a piece on minimalism I'm sorely tempted by. That's my pick of #TCUK11. I'll be doing a round-up blog after the event, and probably talking a bit more about it beforehand. I'm also reliably assured that there are still plenty of tickets.

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• My First Weeks at Red Gate

  - by Jess Nickson

  Hi, my name’s Jess and early September 2012 I started working at Red Gate as a Software Engineer down in The Agency (the Publishing team). This was a bit of a shock, as I didn’t think this team would have any developers! I admit, I was a little worried when it was mentioned that my role was going to be different from normal dev. roles within the company. However, as luck would have it, I was placed within a team that was responsible for the development and maintenance of Simple-Talk and SQL Server Central (SSC). I felt rather unprepared for this role. I hadn’t used many of the technologies involved and of those that I had, I hadn’t looked at them for quite a while. I was, nevertheless, quite excited about this turn of events. As I had predicted, the role has been quite challenging so far. I expected that I would struggle to get my head round the large codebase already in place, having never used anything so much as a fraction of the size of this before. However, I was perhaps a bit naive when it came to how quickly things would move. I was required to start learning/remembering a number of different languages and technologies within time frames I would never have tried to set myself previously. Having said that, my first week was pretty easy. It was filled with meetings that were designed to get the new starters up to speed with the different departments, ideals and rules within the company. I also attended some lightning talks being presented by other employees, which were pretty useful. These occur once a fortnight and normally consist of around four speakers. In my spare time, we set up the Simple-Talk codebase on my computer and I started exploring it and worked on my first feature – redirecting requests for URLs that used incorrect casing! It was also during this time that I was given my first introduction to test-driven development (TDD) with Michael via a code kata. Although I had heard of the general ideas behind TDD, I had definitely never tried it before. Indeed, I hadn’t really done any automated testing of code before, either. The session was therefore very useful and gave me insights as to some of the coding practices used in my team. Although I now understand the importance of TDD, it still seems odd in my head and I’ve yet to master how to sensibly step up the functionality of the code a bit at a time. The second week was both easier and more difficult than the first. I was given a new project to work on, meaning I was no longer using the codebase already in place. My job was to take some designs, a WordPress theme, and some initial content and build a page that allowed users of the site to read provided resources and give feedback. This feedback could include their thoughts about the resource, the topics covered and the page design itself. Although it didn’t sound the most challenging of projects when compared to fixing bugs in our current codebase, it nevertheless provided a few sneaky problems that had me stumped. I really enjoyed working on this project as it allowed me to play around with HTML, CSS and JavaScript; all things that I like working with but rarely have a chance to use. I completed the aims for the project on time and was happy with the final outcome – though it still needs a good designer to take a look at it! I am now into my third week at Red Gate and I have temporarily been pulled off the website from week 2. I am again back to figuring out the Simple-Talk codebase. Monday provided me with the chance to learn a bunch of new things: system level testing, Selenium and Python. I was set the challenge of testing a bug fix dealing with the search bars in Simple-Talk. The exercise was pretty fun, although Mike did have to point me in the right direction when I started making the tests a bit too complex. The rest of the week looks set to be focussed on pair programming with Mike as we work together on a new feature. I look forward to the challenges that still face me and hope that I will be able to get up to speed quickly. *fingers crossed*

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• How To Get Web Site Thumbnail Image In ASP.NET

  - by SAMIR BHOGAYTA

  Overview One very common requirement of many web applications is to display a thumbnail image of a web site. A typical example is to provide a link to a dynamic website displaying its current thumbnail image, or displaying images of websites with their links as a result of search (I love to see it on Google). Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 makes it quite easier to do it in a ASP.NET application. Background In order to generate image of a web page, first we need to load the web page to get their html code, and then this html needs to be rendered in a web browser. After that, a screen shot can be taken easily. I think there is no easier way to do this. Before .NET framework 2.0 it was quite difficult to use a web browser in C# or VB.NET because we either have to use COM+ interoperability or third party controls which becomes headache later. WebBrowser control in .NET framework 2.0 In .NET framework 2.0 we have a new Windows Forms WebBrowser control which is a wrapper around old shwdoc.dll. All you really need to do is to drop a WebBrowser control from your Toolbox on your form in .NET framework 2.0. If you have not used WebBrowser control yet, it's quite easy to use and very consistent with other Windows Forms controls. Some important methods of WebBrowser control are. public bool GoBack(); public bool GoForward(); public void GoHome(); public void GoSearch(); public void Navigate(Uri url); public void DrawToBitmap(Bitmap bitmap, Rectangle targetBounds); These methods are self explanatory with their names like Navigate function which redirects browser to provided URL. It also has a number of useful overloads. The DrawToBitmap (inherited from Control) draws the current image of WebBrowser to the provided bitmap. Using WebBrowser control in ASP.NET 2.0 The Solution Let's start to implement the solution which we discussed above. First we will define a static method to get the web site thumbnail image. public static Bitmap GetWebSiteThumbnail(string Url, int BrowserWidth, int BrowserHeight, int ThumbnailWidth, int ThumbnailHeight) { WebsiteThumbnailImage thumbnailGenerator = new WebsiteThumbnailImage(Url, BrowserWidth, BrowserHeight, ThumbnailWidth, ThumbnailHeight); return thumbnailGenerator.GenerateWebSiteThumbnailImage(); } The WebsiteThumbnailImage class will have a public method named GenerateWebSiteThumbnailImage which will generate the website thumbnail image in a separate STA thread and wait for the thread to exit. In this case, I decided to Join method of Thread class to block the initial calling thread until the bitmap is actually available, and then return the generated web site thumbnail. public Bitmap GenerateWebSiteThumbnailImage() { Thread m_thread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(_GenerateWebSiteThumbnailImage)); m_thread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA); m_thread.Start(); m_thread.Join(); return m_Bitmap; } The _GenerateWebSiteThumbnailImage will create a WebBrowser control object and navigate to the provided Url. We also register for the DocumentCompleted event of the web browser control to take screen shot of the web page. To pass the flow to the other controls we need to perform a method call to Application.DoEvents(); and wait for the completion of the navigation until the browser state changes to Complete in a loop. private void _GenerateWebSiteThumbnailImage() { WebBrowser m_WebBrowser = new WebBrowser(); m_WebBrowser.ScrollBarsEnabled = false; m_WebBrowser.Navigate(m_Url); m_WebBrowser.DocumentCompleted += new WebBrowserDocument CompletedEventHandler(WebBrowser_DocumentCompleted); while (m_WebBrowser.ReadyState != WebBrowserReadyState.Complete) Application.DoEvents(); m_WebBrowser.Dispose(); } The DocumentCompleted event will be fired when the navigation is completed and the browser is ready for screen shot. We will get screen shot using DrawToBitmap method as described previously which will return the bitmap of the web browser. Then the thumbnail image is generated using GetThumbnailImage method of Bitmap class passing it the required thumbnail image width and height. private void WebBrowser_DocumentCompleted(object sender, WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventArgs e) { WebBrowser m_WebBrowser = (WebBrowser)sender; m_WebBrowser.ClientSize = new Size(this.m_BrowserWidth, this.m_BrowserHeight); m_WebBrowser.ScrollBarsEnabled = false; m_Bitmap = new Bitmap(m_WebBrowser.Bounds.Width, m_WebBrowser.Bounds.Height); m_WebBrowser.BringToFront(); m_WebBrowser.DrawToBitmap(m_Bitmap, m_WebBrowser.Bounds); m_Bitmap = (Bitmap)m_Bitmap.GetThumbnailImage(m_ThumbnailWidth, m_ThumbnailHeight, null, IntPtr.Zero); } One more example here : http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/Website_URL_Screenshot.aspx

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• Beginner Geek: How to Use Multiple Monitors to Be More Productive

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Many people swear by multiple monitors, whether they’re geeks or just people who need to be productive. Why use just one monitor when you can use two or more and see more at once? Additional monitors allow you to expand your desktop, getting more screen real estate for your open programs. Windows makes it very easy to set up additional monitors, and your computer probably has the necessary ports. Why Use Multiple Monitors? Multiple monitors give you more screen real estate. Hook up multiple monitors to a computer and you can move your mouse back and forth between them, dragging programs between monitors as if you had an extra-large desktop. People who swear by multiple monitors use them to display multiple things on-screen at a time. Rather than Alt+Tabbing and task switching to glance at another window, you can just look over with your eyes and then look back to the program you’re using. Some examples of use cases for multiple monitors include: Coders who want to view their code on one display with the other display reserved for documentation. They can just glance over at the documentation and look back at their primary workspace. Anyone who needs to view something while working. Viewing a web page while writing an email, viewing another document while writing an something, or working with two large spreadsheets and having both visible at once. People who need to keep an eye on information, whether it’s email or up-to-date statistics, while working. Gamers who want to see more of the game world, extending the game across multiple displays. Geeks who just want to watch a video on one screen while doing something else on the other screen. Hooking Up Multiple Monitors Hooking up an additional monitor to your computer should be very simple. Most new computers come with more than one port for a monitor — whether DVI, HDMI, the older VGA port, or a mix. Some computers may include splitter cables that allow you to connect multiple monitors to a single port. Most laptops also come with ports that allow you to hook up an external monitor. Plug a monitor into your laptop’s DVI or VGA port and Windows will allow you to use both your laptop’s integrated display and the external monitor at once. This all depends on the ports your computer has and how your monitor connects. If you have an old VGA monitor lying around and you have a modern laptop with only DVI or HDMI connectors, you may need an adapter that allows you to plug your monitor’s VGA cable into the new port. Be sure to take your computer’s ports into account before you get another monitor for it. Managing Multiple Monitors With Windows Windows makes using multiple monitors easy. Just plug the monitor into the appropriate port on your computer and Windows should automatically extend your desktop onto it. You can now just drag and drop windows between monitors. To control how this works, right-click your Windows desktop and select Screen resolution. Choose an option from the Multiple displays box. The Extend option extends your desktop onto an additional monitor, while the other options are mainly useful if you’re using an additional monitor for presentations — for example, you could mirror your laptop’s desktop onto a large monitor or blank your laptop’s screen while it’s connected to a larger display. Be sure to arrange your monitors properly so Windows understands how your monitors are physically positioned. Windows 8 allows you to extend your Windows taskbar across multiple monitors. You’ll find this option in the taskbar’s options window — right-click the taskbar and select Properties. You can also choose where you want Windows to display taskbar buttons for open programs — on any monitor’s taskbar or only on the taskbar on the associated monitor. Windows 7 doesn’t have these convenient features built-in — your second monitor won’t have a taskbar. To extend your taskbar onto an additional monitor, you’ll need a third-party utility like the free and open-source Dual Monitor Taskbar. If you just have a single monitor, you can also use the Aero Snap feature to quickly place multiple Windows applications side by side. On Windows 7 or 8, press Windows Key + Left or Windows Key + Right to make the current window take up the left or right half of your display. You could also drag any window’s title bar to the left or right edges of your screen and release the window. How useful this feature is depends on your monitor’s size and resolution. If you have a large, high-resolution monitor, it will allow you to see a lot. If you have a smaller laptop monitor with the seemingly standard 1366×768 resolution, you won’t be able to see much of each snapped window at once, so snapping windows may not be practical. Image Credit: Chance Reecher on Flickr, Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center on Flickr, Xavier Caballe on Flickr     

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• Xml failing to deserialise

  - by Carnotaurus

  I call a method to get my pages [see GetPages(String xmlFullFilePath)]. The FromXElement method is supposed to deserialise the LitePropertyData elements to strongly type LitePropertyData objects. Instead it fails on the following line: return (T)xmlSerializer.Deserialize(memoryStream); and gives the following error: <LitePropertyData xmlns=''> was not expected. What am I doing wrong? I have included the methods that I call and the xml data: public static T FromXElement<T>(this XElement xElement) { using (var memoryStream = new MemoryStream(Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(xElement.ToString()))) { var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T)); return (T)xmlSerializer.Deserialize(memoryStream); } } public static List<LitePageData> GetPages(String xmlFullFilePath) { XDocument document = XDocument.Load(xmlFullFilePath); List<LitePageData> results = (from record in document.Descendants("row") select new LitePageData { Guid = IsValid(record, "Guid") ? record.Element("Guid").Value : null, ParentID = IsValid(record, "ParentID") ? Convert.ToInt32(record.Element("ParentID").Value) : (Int32?)null, Created = Convert.ToDateTime(record.Element("Created").Value), Changed = Convert.ToDateTime(record.Element("Changed").Value), Name = record.Element("Name").Value, ID = Convert.ToInt32(record.Element("ID").Value), LitePageTypeID = IsValid(record, "ParentID") ? Convert.ToInt32(record.Element("ParentID").Value) : (Int32?)null, Html = record.Element("Html").Value, FriendlyName = record.Element("FriendlyName").Value, Properties = record.Element("Properties") != null ? record.Element("Properties").Element("LitePropertyData").FromXElement<List<LitePropertyData>>() : new List<LitePropertyData>() }).ToList(); return results; } Here is the xml: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <root> <rows> <row> <ID>1</ID> <ImageUrl></ImageUrl> <Html>Home page</Html> <Created>01-01-2012</Created> <Changed>01-01-2012</Changed> <Name>Home page</Name> <FriendlyName>home-page</FriendlyName> </row> <row xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <Guid>edeaf468-f490-4271-bf4d-be145bc6a1fd</Guid> <ID>8</ID> <Name>Unused</Name> <ParentID>1</ParentID> <Created>2006-03-25T10:57:17</Created> <Changed>2012-07-17T12:24:30.0984747+01:00</Changed> <ChangedBy /> <LitePageTypeID xsi:nil="true" /> <Html> What is the purpose of this option? This option checks the current document for accessibility issues. It uses Bobby to provide details of whether the current web page conforms to W3C's WCAG criteria for web content accessibility. Issues with Bobby and Cynthia Bobby and Cynthia are free services that supposedly allow a user to expose web page accessibility barriers. It is something of a guide but perhaps a blunt instrument. I tested a few of the webpages that I have designed. Sure enough, my pages fall short and for good reason. I am not about to claim that Bobby and Cynthia are useless. Although it is useful and commendable tool, it project appears to be overly ambitious. Nevertheless, let me explain my issues with Bobby and Cynthia: First, certain W3C standards for designing web documents are often too strict and unworkable. For instance, in some versions W3C standards for HTML, certain tags should not include a particular attribute, whereas in others they are requisite if the document is to be ???well-formed???. The standard that a designer chooses is determined usually by the requirements specification document. This specifies which browsers and versions of those browsers that the web page is expected to correctly display. Forcing a hypertext document to conform strictly to a specific W3C standard for HTML is often no simple task. In the worst case, it cannot conform without losing some aesthetics or accessibility functionality. Second, the case of HTML documents is not an isolated case. Standards for XML, XSL, JavaScript, VBScript, are analogous. Therefore, you might imagine the problems when you begin to combine these languages and formats in an HTML document. Third, there is always more than one way to skin a cat. For example, Bobby and Cynthia may flag those IMG tags that do not contain a TITLE attribute. There might be good reason that a web developer chooses not to include the title attribute. The title attribute has a limited numbers of characters and does not support carriage returns. This is a major defect in the design of this tag. In fact, before the TITLE attribute was supported, there was the ALT attribute. Most browsers support both, yet they both perform a similar function. However, both attributes share the same deficiencies. In practice, there are instances where neither attribute would be used. Instead, for example, the developer would write some JavaScript or VBScript to circumvent these deficiencies. The concern is that Bobby and Cynthia would not notice this because it does not ???understand??? what the JavaScript does. </Html> <FriendlyName>unused</FriendlyName> <IsDeleted>false</IsDeleted> <Properties> <LitePropertyData> <Description>Image for the page</Description> <DisplayEditUI>true</DisplayEditUI> <OwnerTab>1</OwnerTab> <DisplayName>Image Url</DisplayName> <FieldOrder>1</FieldOrder> <IsRequired>false</IsRequired> <Name>ImageUrl</Name> <IsModified>false</IsModified> <ParentPageID>3</ParentPageID> <Type>String</Type> <Value xsi:type="xsd:string">smarter.jpg</Value> </LitePropertyData> <LitePropertyData> <Description>WebItemApplicationEnum</Description> <DisplayEditUI>true</DisplayEditUI> <OwnerTab>1</OwnerTab> <DisplayName>WebItemApplicationEnum</DisplayName> <FieldOrder>1</FieldOrder> <IsRequired>false</IsRequired> <Name>WebItemApplicationEnum</Name> <IsModified>false</IsModified> <ParentPageID>3</ParentPageID> <Type>Number</Type> <Value xsi:type="xsd:string">1</Value> </LitePropertyData> </Properties> <Seo> <Author>Phil Carney</Author> <Classification /> <Copyright>Carnotaurus</Copyright> <Description> What is the purpose of this option? This option checks the current document for accessibility issues. It uses Bobby to provide details of whether the current web page conforms to W3C's WCAG criteria for web content accessibility. Issues with Bobby and Cynthia Bobby and Cynthia are free services that supposedly allow a user to expose web page accessibility barriers. It is something of a guide but perhaps a blunt instrument. I tested a few of the webpages that I have designed. Sure enough, my pages fall short and for good reason. I am not about to claim that Bobby and Cynthia are useless. Although it is useful and commendable tool, it project appears to be overly ambitious. Nevertheless, let me explain my issues with Bobby and Cynthia: First, certain W3C standards for designing web documents are often too strict and unworkable. For instance, in some versions W3C standards for HTML, certain tags should not include a particular attribute, whereas in others they are requisite if the document is to be ???well-formed???. The standard that a designer chooses is determined usually by the requirements specification document. This specifies which browsers and versions of those browsers that the web page is expected to correctly display. Forcing a hypertext document to conform strictly to a specific W3C standard for HTML is often no simple task. In the worst case, it cannot conform without losing some aesthetics or accessibility functionality. Second, the case of HTML documents is not an isolated case. Standards for XML, XSL, JavaScript, VBScript, are analogous. Therefore, you might imagine the problems when you begin to combine these languages and formats in an HTML document. Third, there is always more than one way to skin a cat. For example, Bobby and Cynthia may flag those IMG tags that do not contain a TITLE attribute. There might be good reason that a web developer chooses not to include the title attribute. The title attribute has a limited numbers of characters and does not support carriage returns. This is a major defect in the design of this tag. In fact, before the TITLE attribute was supported, there was the ALT attribute. Most browsers support both, yet they both perform a similar function. However, both attributes share the same deficiencies. In practice, there are instances where neither attribute would be used. Instead, for example, the developer would write some JavaScript or VBScript to circumvent these deficiencies. The concern is that Bobby and Cynthia would not notice this because it does not ???understand??? what the JavaScript does. </Description> <Keywords>unused</Keywords> <Title>unused</Title> </Seo> </row> </rows> </root> EDIT Here are my entities: public class LitePropertyData { public virtual string Description { get; set; } public virtual bool DisplayEditUI { get; set; } public int OwnerTab { get; set; } public virtual string DisplayName { get; set; } public int FieldOrder { get; set; } public bool IsRequired { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public virtual bool IsModified { get; set; } public virtual int ParentPageID { get; set; } public LiteDataType Type { get; set; } public object Value { get; set; } } [Serializable] public class LitePageData { public String Guid { get; set; } public Int32 ID { get; set; } public String Name { get; set; } public Int32? ParentID { get; set; } public DateTime Created { get; set; } public String CreatedBy { get; set; } public DateTime Changed { get; set; } public String ChangedBy { get; set; } public Int32? LitePageTypeID { get; set; } public String Html { get; set; } public String FriendlyName { get; set; } public Boolean IsDeleted { get; set; } public List<LitePropertyData> Properties { get; set; } public LiteSeoPageData Seo { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Saves the specified XML full file path. /// </summary> /// <param name="xmlFullFilePath">The XML full file path.</param> public void Save(String xmlFullFilePath) { XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(xmlFullFilePath); XElement demoNode = this.ToXElement<LitePageData>(); demoNode.Name = "row"; doc.Descendants("rows").Single().Add(demoNode); doc.Save(xmlFullFilePath); } }

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• Closing the gap between strategy and execution with Oracle Business Intelligence 11g

  - by manan.goel(at)oracle.com

  Wikipedia defines strategy as a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. An example of this is General Electric's acquisitions and divestiture strategy (plan) designed to propel GE to number 1 or 2 place (goal) in every business segment that it operated in. Execution on the other hand can be defined as the actions taken to getting things done. In GE's case execution will be steps followed for mergers/acquisitions or divestiture. Business press has written extensively about the importance of both strategy and execution in achieving desired business objectives. Perhaps the quote from Thomas Edison says it best - "vision without execution is hallucination". Conversely, it can be said that "execution without vision" is well may be "wishful thinking". Research overwhelmingly point towards the wide gap between strategy and execution. According to a published study, 49% of surveyed executives perceive a gap between their organizations' ability to develop and communicate sound strategies and their ability to implement those strategies. Further, of these respondents, 64% don't have full confidence that their companies will be able to close the gap. Having established the severity and importance of the problem let's talk about the reasons for the strategy-execution gap. The common reasons include: -        Lack of clearly defined goals -        Lack of consistent measure of success -        Lack of ownership -        Lack of alignment -        Lack of communication -        Lack of proper execution -        Lack of monitoring       There are multiple approaches to solving the problem including organizational development practices, technology enablement etc. In most cases a combination of approaches is required to achieve the desired result. For the purposes of this discussion, I'll focus on technology.  Imagine an integrated closed loop technology platform that automates the entire management cycle from defining strategy to assigning ownership to communicating goals to achieving alignment to collaboration to taking actions to monitoring progress and achieving mid course corrections. Besides, for best ROI and lowest TCO such a system should also have characteristics like:  Complete -        Full functionality -        Rich end user access Open -        Any data source -        Any business application -        Any technology stack  Integrated -        Common metadata -        Common security -        Common system management From a capabilities perspective the system should provide the following capabilities: Define -        Strategy -        Objectives -        Ownership -        KPI's Communicate -        Pervasive -        Collaborative -        Role based -        Secure Execute -        Integrated -        Intuitive -        Secure -        Ubiquitous Monitor -        Multiple styles and formats -        Exception based -        Push & Pull Having talked about the business problem and outlined the blueprint for a technology solution, let's talk about how Oracle Business Intelligence 11g can help. Oracle Business Intelligence is a comprehensive business intelligence solution for reporting, ad hoc query and analysis, OLAP, dashboards and scorecards. Oracle's best in class BI platform is based on an architecturally integrated technology foundation that provides a unified end user experience and features a Common Enterprise Information Model, with common security, query request generation and optimization, and system management. The BI platform is ·         Complete - meaning it delivers all modes and styles of BI including reporting, ad hoc query and analysis, OLAP, dashboards and scorecards with a rich end user experience that includes visualization, collaboration, alerts and notifications, search and mobile access. ·         Open - meaning the BI platform integrates with any data source, ETL tool, business application, application server, security infrastructure, portal technology as well as any ODBC compliant third party analytical tool. The suite accesses data from multiple heterogeneous sources--including popular relational and multidimensional data sources and major ERP and CRM applications from Oracle and SAP. ·         Integrated - meaning the BI platform is based on an architecturally integrated technology foundation built on an open, standards based service oriented architecture.  The platform features a common enterprise information model, common security model and a common configuration, deployment and systems management framework. To summarize, Oracle Business Intelligence is a comprehensive, integrated BI platform that lets you define strategy, identify objectives, assign ownership, define KPI's, collaborate, take action, monitor, report and do course corrections all form a single interface and a single system. The platform's integrated metadata model and task based design ensures that the entire workflow from defining strategy to execution to monitoring is completely integrated delivering end to end visibility, transparency and agility. Click here to learn more about Oracle BI 11g. 

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• Anatomy of a .NET Assembly - CLR metadata 2

  - by Simon Cooper

  Before we look any further at the CLR metadata, we need a quick diversion to understand how the metadata is actually stored. Encoding table information As an example, we'll have a look at a row in the TypeDef table. According to the spec, each TypeDef consists of the following: Flags specifying various properties of the class, including visibility. The name of the type. The namespace of the type. What type this type extends. The field list of this type. The method list of this type. How is all this data actually represented? Offset & RID encoding Most assemblies don't need to use a 4 byte value to specify heap offsets and RIDs everywhere, however we can't hard-code every offset and RID to be 2 bytes long as there could conceivably be more than 65535 items in a heap or more than 65535 fields or types defined in an assembly. So heap offsets and RIDs are only represented in the full 4 bytes if it is required; in the header information at the top of the #~ stream are 3 bits indicating if the #Strings, #GUID, or #Blob heaps use 2 or 4 bytes (the #US stream is not accessed from metadata), and the rowcount of each table. If the rowcount for a particular table is greater than 65535 then all RIDs referencing that table throughout the metadata use 4 bytes, else only 2 bytes are used. Coded tokens Not every field in a table row references a single predefined table. For example, in the TypeDef extends field, a type can extend another TypeDef (a type in the same assembly), a TypeRef (a type in a different assembly), or a TypeSpec (an instantiation of a generic type). A token would have to be used to let us specify the table along with the RID. Tokens are always 4 bytes long; again, this is rather wasteful of space. Cutting the RID down to 2 bytes would make each token 3 bytes long, which isn't really an optimum size for computers to read from memory or disk. However, every use of a token in the metadata tables can only point to a limited subset of the metadata tables. For the extends field, we only need to be able to specify one of 3 tables, which we can do using 2 bits: 0x0: TypeDef 0x1: TypeRef 0x2: TypeSpec We could therefore compress the 4-byte token that would otherwise be needed into a coded token of type TypeDefOrRef. For each type of coded token, the least significant bits encode the table the token points to, and the rest of the bits encode the RID within that table. We can work out whether each type of coded token needs 2 or 4 bytes to represent it by working out whether the maximum RID of every table that the coded token type can point to will fit in the space available. The space available for the RID depends on the type of coded token; a TypeOrMethodDef coded token only needs 1 bit to specify the table, leaving 15 bits available for the RID before a 4-byte representation is needed, whereas a HasCustomAttribute coded token can point to one of 18 different tables, and so needs 5 bits to specify the table, only leaving 11 bits for the RID before 4 bytes are needed to represent that coded token type. For example, a 2-byte TypeDefOrRef coded token with the value 0x0321 has the following bit pattern: 0 3 2 1 0000 0011 0010 0001 The first two bits specify the table - TypeRef; the other bits specify the RID. Because we've used the first two bits, we've got to shift everything along two bits: 000000 1100 1000 This gives us a RID of 0xc8. If any one of the TypeDef, TypeRef or TypeSpec tables had more than 16383 rows (2^14 - 1), then 4 bytes would need to be used to represent all TypeDefOrRef coded tokens throughout the metadata tables. Lists The third representation we need to consider is 1-to-many references; each TypeDef refers to a list of FieldDef and MethodDef belonging to that type. If we were to specify every FieldDef and MethodDef individually then each TypeDef would be very large and a variable size, which isn't ideal. There is a way of specifying a list of references without explicitly specifying every item; if we order the MethodDef and FieldDef tables by the owning type, then the field list and method list in a TypeDef only have to be a single RID pointing at the first FieldDef or MethodDef belonging to that type; the end of the list can be inferred by the field list and method list RIDs of the next row in the TypeDef table. Going back to the TypeDef If we have a look back at the definition of a TypeDef, we end up with the following reprensentation for each row: Flags - always 4 bytes Name - a #Strings heap offset. Namespace - a #Strings heap offset. Extends - a TypeDefOrRef coded token. FieldList - a single RID to the FieldDef table. MethodList - a single RID to the MethodDef table. So, depending on the number of entries in the heaps and tables within the assembly, the rows in the TypeDef table can be as small as 14 bytes, or as large as 24 bytes. Now we've had a look at how information is encoded within the metadata tables, in the next post we can see how they are arranged on disk.

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• MySQL Connector/Net 6.6.3 Beta 2 has been released

  - by fernando

  MySQL Connector/Net 6.6.3, a new version of the all-managed .NET driver for MySQL has been released.  This is the second of two beta releases intended to introduce users to the new features in the release. This release is feature complete it should be stable enough for users to understand the new features and how we expect them to work.  As is the case with all non-GA releases, it should not be used in any production environment.  It is appropriate for use with MySQL server versions 5.0-5.6. It is now available in source and binary form from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/#downloads and mirror sites (note that not all mirror sites may be up to date at this point-if you can't find this version on some mirror, please try again later or choose another download site.) The 6.6 version of MySQL Connector/Net brings the following new features:   * Stored routine debugging   * Entity Framework 4.3 Code First support   * Pluggable authentication (now third parties can plug new authentications mechanisms into the driver).   * Full Visual Studio 2012 support: everything from Server Explorer to Intellisense&   the Stored Routine debugger. Stored Procedure Debugging ------------------------------------------- We are very excited to introduce stored procedure debugging into our Visual Studio integration.  It works in a very intuitive manner by simply clicking 'Debug Routine' from Server Explorer. You can debug stored routines, functions&   triggers. These release contains fixes specific of the debugger as well as other fixes specific of other areas of Connector/NET:   * Added feature to define initial values for InOut stored procedure arguments.   * Debugger: Fixed Visual Studio locked connection after debugging a routine.   * Fix for bug Cannot Create an Entity with a Key of Type String (MySQL bug #65289, Oracle bug #14540202).   * Fix for bug "CacheServerProperties can cause 'Packet too large' error". MySQL Bug #66578 Orabug #14593547.   * Fix for handling unnamed parameter in MySQLCommand. This fix allows the mysqlcommand to handle parameters without requiring naming (e.g. INSERT INTO Test (id,name) VALUES (?, ?) ) (MySQL Bug #66060, Oracle bug #14499549).   * Fixed end of line issue when debugging a routine.   * Added validation to avoid overwriting a routine backup file when it hasn't changed.   * Fixed inheritance on Entity Framework Code First scenarios. (MySql bug #63920 and Oracle bug #13582335).   * Fixed "Trying to customize column precision in Code First does not work" (MySql bug #65001, Oracle bug #14469048).   * Fixed bug ASP.NET Membership database fails on MySql database UTF32 (MySQL bug #65144, Oracle bug #14495292).   * Fix for MySqlCommand.LastInsertedId holding only 32 bit values (MySql bug #65452, Oracle bug #14171960).   * Fixed "Decimal type should have digits at right of decimal point", now default is 2, and user's changes in     EDM designer are recognized (MySql bug #65127, Oracle bug #14474342).   * Fix for NullReferenceException when saving an uninitialized row in Entity Framework (MySql bug #66066, Oracle bug #14479715).   * Fix for error when calling RoleProvider.RemoveUserFromRole(): causes an exception due to a wrong table being used (MySql bug #65805, Oracle bug #14405338).   * Fix for "Memory Leak on MySql.Data.MySqlClient.MySqlCommand", too many MemoryStream's instances created (MySql bug #65696, Oracle bug #14468204).   * Added ANTLR attribution notice (Oracle bug #14379162).   * Fix for debugger failing when having a routine with an if-elseif-else.   * Also the programming interface for authentication plugins has been redefined. Some limitations remains, due to the current debugger architecture:   * Some MySQL functions cannot be debugged currently (get_lock, release_lock, begin, commit, rollback, set transaction level)..   * Only one debug session may be active on a given server. The Debugger is feature complete at this point. We look forward to your feedback. Documentation ------------------------------------- You can view current Connector/Net documentation at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/connector-net.html You can find our team blog at http://blogs.oracle.com/MySQLOnWindows. You can also post questions on our forums at http://forums.mysql.com/. Enjoy and thanks for the support!

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• Basic WCF Unit Testing

  - by Brian

  Coming from someone who loves the KISS method, I was surprised to find that I was making something entirely too complicated. I know, shocker right? Now I'm no unit testing ninja, and not really a WCF ninja either, but had a desire to test service calls without a) going to a database, or b) making sure that the entire WCF infrastructure was tip top. Who does? It's not the environment I want to test, just the logic I’ve written to ensure there aren't any side effects. So, for the K.I.S.S. method: Assuming that you're using a WCF service library (you are using service libraries correct?), it's really as easy as referencing the service library, then building out some stubs for bunking up data. The service contract We’ll use a very basic service contract, just for getting and updating an entity. I’ve used the default “CompositeType” that is in the template, handy only for examples like this. I’ve added an Id property and overridden ToString and Equals. [ServiceContract] public interface IMyService { [OperationContract] CompositeType GetCompositeType(int id); [OperationContract] CompositeType SaveCompositeType(CompositeType item); [OperationContract] CompositeTypeCollection GetAllCompositeTypes(); } The implementation When I implement the service, I want to be able to send known data into it so I don’t have to fuss around with database access or the like. To do this, I first have to create an interface for my data access: public interface IMyServiceDataManager { CompositeType GetCompositeType(int id); CompositeType SaveCompositeType(CompositeType item); CompositeTypeCollection GetAllCompositeTypes(); } For the purposes of this we can ignore our implementation of the IMyServiceDataManager interface inside of the service. Pretend it uses LINQ to Entities to map its data, or maybe it goes old school and uses EntLib to talk to SQL. Maybe it talks to a tape spool on a mainframe on the third floor. It really doesn’t matter. That’s the point. So here’s what our service looks like in its most basic form: public CompositeType GetCompositeType(int id) { //sanity checks if (id == 0) throw new ArgumentException("id cannot be zero."); return _dataManager.GetCompositeType(id); } public CompositeType SaveCompositeType(CompositeType item) { return _dataManager.SaveCompositeType(item); } public CompositeTypeCollection GetAllCompositeTypes() { return _dataManager.GetAllCompositeTypes(); } But what about the datamanager? The constructor takes care of that. I don’t want to expose any testing ability in release (or the ability for someone to swap out my datamanager) so this is what we get: IMyServiceDataManager _dataManager; public MyService() { _dataManager = new MyServiceDataManager(); } #if DEBUG public MyService(IMyServiceDataManager dataManager) { _dataManager = dataManager; } #endif The Stub Now it’s time for the rubber to meet the road… Like most guys that ever talk about unit testing here’s a sample that is painting in *very* broad strokes. The important part however is that within the test project, I’ve created a bunk (unit testing purists would say stub I believe) object that implements my IMyServiceDataManager so that I can deal with known data. Here it is: internal class FakeMyServiceDataManager : IMyServiceDataManager { internal FakeMyServiceDataManager() { Collection = new CompositeTypeCollection(); Collection.AddRange(new CompositeTypeCollection { new CompositeType { Id = 1, BoolValue = true, StringValue = "foo 1", }, new CompositeType { Id = 2, BoolValue = false, StringValue = "foo 2", }, new CompositeType { Id = 3, BoolValue = true, StringValue = "foo 3", }, }); } CompositeTypeCollection Collection { get; set; } #region IMyServiceDataManager Members public CompositeType GetCompositeType(int id) { if (id <= 0) return null; return Collection.SingleOrDefault(m => m.Id == id); } public CompositeType SaveCompositeType(CompositeType item) { var existing = Collection.SingleOrDefault(m => m.Id == item.Id); if (null != existing) { Collection.Remove(existing); } if (item.Id == 0) { item.Id = Collection.Count > 0 ? Collection.Max(m => m.Id) + 1 : 1; } Collection.Add(item); return item; } public CompositeTypeCollection GetAllCompositeTypes() { return Collection; } #endregion } So it’s tough to see in this example why any of this is necessary, but in a real world application you would/should/could be applying much more logic within your service implementation. This all serves to ensure that between refactorings etc, that it doesn’t send sparking cogs all about or let the blue smoke out. Here’s a simple test that brings it all home, remember, broad strokes: [TestMethod] public void MyService_GetCompositeType_ExpectedValues() { FakeMyServiceDataManager fake = new FakeMyServiceDataManager(); MyService service = new MyService(fake); CompositeType expected = fake.GetCompositeType(1); CompositeType actual = service.GetCompositeType(2); Assert.AreEqual<CompositeType>(expected, actual, "Objects are not equal. Expected: {0}; Actual: {1};", expected, actual); } Summary That’s really all there is to it. You could use software x or framework y to do the exact same thing, but in my case I just didn’t really feel like it. This speaks volumes to my not yet ninja unit testing prowess.

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• Implications of Java 6 End of Public Updates for EBS Users

  - by Steven Chan (Oracle Development)

  The Support Roadmap for Oracle Java is published here: Oracle Java SE Support Roadmap The latest updates to that page (as of Sept. 19, 2012) state (emphasis added): Java SE 6 End of Public Updates Notice After February 2013, Oracle will no longer post updates of Java SE 6 to its public download sites. Existing Java SE 6 downloads already posted as of February 2013 will remain accessible in the Java Archive on Oracle Technology Network. Developers and end-users are encouraged to update to more recent Java SE versions that remain available for public download. For enterprise customers, who need continued access to critical bug fixes and security fixes as well as general maintenance for Java SE 6 or older versions, long term support is available through Oracle Java SE Support . What does this mean for Oracle E-Business Suite users? EBS users fall under the category of "enterprise users" above.  Java is an integral part of the Oracle E-Business Suite technology stack, so EBS users will continue to receive Java SE 6 updates after February 2013. In other words, nothing will change for EBS users after February 2013.  EBS users will continue to receive critical bug fixes and security fixes as well as general maintenance for Java SE 6. These Java SE 6 updates will be made available to EBS users for the Extended Support periods documented in the Oracle Lifetime Support policy document for Oracle Applications (PDF): EBS 11i Extended Support ends November 2013 EBS 12.0 Extended Support ends January 2015 EBS 12.1 Extended Support ends December 2018 Will EBS users be forced to upgrade to JRE 7 for Windows desktop clients? No. This upgrade will be highly recommended but currently remains optional. JRE 6 will be available to Windows users to run with EBS for the duration of your respective EBS Extended Support period.  Updates will be delivered via My Oracle Support, where you can continue to receive critical bug fixes and security fixes as well as general maintenance for JRE 6 desktop clients.  The certification of Oracle E-Business Suite with JRE 7 (for desktop clients accessing EBS Forms-based content) is in its final stages.  If you plan to upgrade your EBS desktop clients to JRE 7 when that certification is released, you can get a head-start on that today. Coexistence of JRE 6 and JRE 7 on Windows desktops The upgrade to JRE 7 will be highly recommended for EBS users, but some users may need to run both JRE 6 and 7 on their Windows desktops for reasons unrelated to the E-Business Suite. Most EBS configurations with IE and Firefox use non-static versioning by default. JRE 7 will be invoked instead of JRE 6 if both are installed on a Windows desktop. For more details, see "Appendix B: Static vs. Non-static Versioning and Set Up Options" in Notes 290801.1 and 393931.1. Applying Updates to JRE 6 and JRE 7 to Windows desktops Auto-update will keep JRE 7 up-to-date for Windows users with JRE 7 installed. Auto-update will only keep JRE 7 up-to-date for Windows users with both JRE 6 and 7 installed.  JRE 6 users are strongly encouraged to apply the latest Critical Patch Updates as soon as possible after each release. The Jave SE CPUs will be available via My Oracle Support.  EBS users can find more information about JRE 6 and 7 updates here: Information Center: Installation & Configuration for Oracle Java SE (Note 1412103.2) The dates for future Java SE CPUs can be found on the Critical Patch Updates, Security Alerts and Third Party Bulletin.  An RSS feed is available on that site for those who would like to be kept up-to-date. What will Mac users need? Oracle will provide updates to JRE 7 for Mac OS X users. EBS users running Macs will need to upgrade to JRE 7 to receive JRE updates. The certification of Oracle E-Business Suite with JRE 7 for Mac-based desktop clients accessing EBS Forms-based content is underway. Mac users waiting for that certification may find this article useful: How to Reenable Apple Java 6 Plug-in for Mac EBS Users Will EBS users be forced to upgrade to JDK 7 for EBS application tier servers? No. This upgrade will be highly recommended but will be optional for EBS application tier servers running on Windows, Linux, and Solaris.  You can choose to remain on JDK 6 for the duration of your respective EBS Extended Support period.  If you remain on JDK 6, you will continue to receive critical bug fixes and security fixes as well as general maintenance for JDK 6. The certification of Oracle E-Business Suite with JDK 7 for EBS application tier servers on Windows, Linux, and Solaris as well as other platforms such as IBM AIX and HP-UX is planned.  Customers running platforms other than Windows, Linux, and Solaris should refer to their Java vendors's sites for more information about their support policies. Related Articles Planning Bulletin for JRE 7: What EBS Customers Can Do Today EBS 11i and 12.1 Support Timeline Changes Frequently Asked Questions about Latest EBS Support Changes Critical Patch Updates During EBS 11i Exception to Sustaining Support Period

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• Summit reflections

  - by Rob Farley

  So far, my three PASS Summit experiences have been notably different to each other. My first, I wasn’t on the board and I gave two regular sessions and a Lightning Talk in which I told jokes. My second, I was a board advisor, and I delivered a precon, a spotlight and a Lightning Talk in which I sang. My third (last week), I was a full board director, and I didn’t present at all. Let’s not talk about next year. I’m not sure there are many options left. This year, I noticed that a lot more people recognised me and said hello. I guess that’s potentially because of the singing last year, but could also be because board elections can bring a fair bit of attention, and because of the effort I’ve put in through things like 24HOP... Yeah, ok. It’d be the singing. My approach was very different though. I was watching things through different eyes. I looked for the things that seemed to be working and the things that didn’t. I had staff there again, and was curious to know how their things were working out. I knew a lot more about what was going on behind the scenes to make various things happen, and although very little about the Summit was actually my responsibility (based on not having that portfolio), my perspective had moved considerably. Before the Summit started, Board Members had been given notebooks – an idea Tom (who heads up PASS’ marketing) had come up with after being inspired by seeing Bill walk around with a notebook. The plan was to take notes about feedback we got from people. It was a good thing, and the notebook forms a nice pair with the SQLBits one I got a couple of years ago when I last spoke there. I think one of the biggest impacts of this was that during the first keynote, Bill told everyone present about the notebooks. This set a tone of “we’re listening”, and a number of people were definitely keen to tell us things that would cause us to pull out our notebooks. PASSTV was a new thing this year. Justin, the host, featured on the couch and talked a lot of people about a lot of things, including me (he talked to me about a lot of things, I don’t think he talked to a lot people about me). Reaching people through online methods is something which interests me a lot – it has huge potential, and I love the idea of being able to broadcast to people who are unable to attend in person. I’m keen to see how this medium can be developed over time. People who know me will know that I’m a keen advocate of certification – I've been SQL certified since version 6.5, and have even been involved in creating exams. However, I don’t believe in studying for exams. I think training is worthwhile for learning new skills, but the goal should be on learning those skills, not on passing an exam. Exams should be for proving that the skills are there, not a goal in themselves. The PASS Summit is an excellent place to take exams though, and with an attitude of professional development throughout the event, why not? So I did. I wasn’t expecting to take one, but I was persuaded and took the MCM Knowledge Exam. I hadn’t even looked at the syllabus, but tried it anyway. I was very tired, and even fell asleep at one point during it. I’ll find out my result at some point in the future – the Prometric site just says “Tested” at the moment. As I said, it wasn’t something I was expecting to do, but it was good to have something unexpected during the week. Of course it was good to catch up with old friends and make new ones. I feel like every time I’m in the US I see things develop a bit more, with more and more people knowing who I am, who my staff are, and recognising the LobsterPot brand. I missed being a presenter, but I definitely enjoyed seeing many friends on the list of presenters. I won’t try to list them, because there are so many these days that people might feel sad if I don’t mention them. For those that I managed to see, I was pleased to see that the majority of them have lifted their presentation skills since I last saw them, and I happily told them as much. One person who I will mention was Paul White, who travelled from New Zealand to his first PASS Summit. He gave two sessions (a regular session and a half-day), packed large rooms of people, and had everyone buzzing with enthusiasm. I spoke to him after the event, and he told me that his expectations were blown away. Paul isn’t normally a fan of crowds, and the thought of 4000 people would have been scary. But he told me he had no idea that people would welcome him so well, be so friendly and so down to earth. He’s seen the significance of the SQL Server community, and says he’ll be back. It’ll be good to see him there. Will you be there too?

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• JavaOne 2012 Sunday Strategy Keynote

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  At the Sunday Strategy Keynote, held at the Masonic Auditorium, Hasan Rizvi, EVP, Middleware and Java Development, stated that the theme for this year's JavaOne is: “Make the future Java”-- meaning that Java continues in its role as the most popular, complete, productive, secure, and innovative development platform. But it also means, he qualified, the process by which we make the future Java -- an open, transparent, collaborative, and community-driven evolution. "Many of you have bet your businesses and your careers on Java, and we have bet our business on Java," he said.Rizvi detailed the three factors they consider critical to the success of Java--technology innovation, community participation, and Oracle's leadership/stewardship. He offered a scorecard in these three realms over the past year--with OS X and Linux ARM support on Java SE, open sourcing of JavaFX by the end of the year, the release of Java Embedded Suite 7.0 middleware platform, and multiple releases on the Java EE side. The JCP process continues, with new JSR activity, and JUGs show a 25% increase in participation since last year. Oracle, meanwhile, continues its commitment to both technology and community development/outreach--with four regional JavaOne conferences last year in various part of the world, as well as the release of Java Magazine, with over 120,000 current subscribers. Georges Saab, VP Development, Java SE, next reviewed features of Java SE 7--the first major revision to the platform under Oracle's stewardship, which has included near-monthly update releases offering hundreds of fixes, performance enhancements, and new features. Saab indicated that developers, ISVs, and hosting providers have all been rapid adopters of the platform. He also noted that Oracle's entire Fusion middleware stack is supported on SE 7. The supported platforms for SE 7 has also increased--from Windows, Linux, and Solaris, to OS X, Linux ARM, and the emerging ARM micro-server market. "In the last year, we've added as many new platforms for Java, as were added in the previous decade," said Saab.Saab also explored the upcoming JDK 8 release--including Project Lambda, Project Nashorn (a modern implementation of JavaScript running on the JVM), and others. He noted that Nashorn functionality had already been used internally in NetBeans 7.3, and announced that they were planning to contribute the implementation to OpenJDK. Nandini Ramani, VP Development, Java Client, ME and Card, discussed the latest news pertaining to JavaFX 2.0--releases on Windows, OS X, and Linux, release of the FX Scene Builder tool, the JavaFX WebView component in NetBeans 7.3, and an OpenJFX project in OpenJDK. Nandini announced, as of Sunday, the availability for download of JavaFX on Linux ARM (developer preview), as well as Scene Builder on Linux. She noted that for next year's JDK 8 release, JavaFX will offer 3D, as well as third-party component integration. Avinder Brar, Senior Software Engineer, Navis, and Dierk König, Canoo Fellow, next took the stage and demonstrated all that JavaFX offers, with a feature-rich, animation-rich, real-time cargo management application that employs Canoo's just open-sourced Dolphin technology.Saab also explored Java SE 9 and beyond--Jigsaw modularity, Penrose Project for interoperability with OSGi, improved multi-tenancy for Java in the cloud, and Project Sumatra. Phil Rogers, HSA Foundation President and AMD Corporate Fellow, explored heterogeneous computing platforms that combine the CPU and the parallel processor of the GPU into a single piece of silicon and shared memory—a hardware technology driven by such advanced functionalities as HD video, face recognition, and cloud workloads. Project Sumatra is an OpenJDK project targeted at bringing Java to such heterogeneous platforms--with hardware and software experts working together to modify the JVM for these advanced applications and platforms.Ramani next discussed the latest with Java in the embedded space--"the Internet of things" and M2M--declaring this to be "the next IT revolution," with Java as the ideal technology for the ecosystem. Last week, Oracle released Java ME Embedded 3.2 (for micro-contollers and low-power devices), and Java Embedded Suite 7.0 (a middleware stack based on Java SE 7). Axel Hansmann, VP Strategy and Marketing, Cinterion, explored his company's use of Java in M2M, and their new release of EHS5, the world's smallest 3G-capable M2M module, running Java ME Embedded. Hansmaan explained that Java offers them the ability to create a "simple to use, scalable, coherent, end-to-end layer" for such diverse edge devices.Marc Brule, Chief Financial Office, Royal Canadian Mint, also explored the fascinating use-case of JavaCard in his country's MintChip e-cash technology--deployable on smartphones, USB device, computer, tablet, or cloud. In parting, Ramani encouraged developers to download the latest releases of Java Embedded, and try them out.Cameron Purdy, VP, Fusion Middleware Development and Java EE, summarized the latest developments and announcements in the Enterprise space--greater developer productivity in Java EE6 (with more on the way in EE 7), portability between platforms, vendors, and even cloud-to-cloud portability. The earliest version of the Java EE 7 SDK is now available for download--in GlassFish 4--with WebSocket support, better JSON support, and more. The final release is scheduled for April of 2013. Nicole Otto, Senior Director, Consumer Digital Technology, Nike, explored her company's Java technology driven enterprise ecosystem for all things sports, including the NikeFuel accelerometer wrist band. Looking beyond Java EE 7, Purdy mentioned NoSQL database functionality for EE 8, the concurrency utilities (possibly in EE 7), some of the Avatar projects in EE 7, some in EE 8, multi-tenancy for the cloud, supporting SaaS applications, and more.Rizvi ended by introducing Dr. Robert Ballard, oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer in Residence--part of Oracle's philanthropic relationship with the National Geographic Society to fund K-12 education around ocean science and conservation. Ballard is best known for having discovered the wreckage of the Titanic. He offered a fascinating video and overview of the cutting edge technology used in such deep-sea explorations, noting that in his early days, high-bandwidth exploration meant that you’d go down in a submarine and "stick your face up against the window." Now, it's a remotely operated, technology telepresence--"I think of my Hercules vehicle as my equivalent of a Na'vi. When I go beneath the sea, I actually send my spirit." Using high bandwidth satellite links, such amazing explorations can now occur via smartphone, laptop, or whatever platform. Ballard’s team regularly offers live feeds and programming out to schools and the world, spanning 188 countries--with embedding educators as part of the expeditions. It's technology at its finest, inspiring the next-generation of scientists and explorers!

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