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• SQL SERVER – Clustered Index and Primary Key – Contest Win Joes 2 Pros Combo (USD 198) – Day 3 of 5

  - by pinaldave

  August 2011 we ran a contest where every day we give away one book for an entire month. The contest had extreme success. Lots of people participated and lots of give away. I have received lots of questions if we are doing something similar this month. Absolutely, instead of running a contest a month long we are doing something more interesting. We are giving away USD 198 worth gift every day for this week. We are giving away Joes 2 Pros 5 Volumes (BOOK) SQL 2008 Development Certification Training Kit every day. One copy in India and One in USA. Total 2 of the giveaway (worth USD 198). All the gifts are sponsored from the Koenig Training Solution and Joes 2 Pros. The books are available here Amazon | Flipkart | Indiaplaza How to Win: Read the Question Read the Hints Answer the Quiz in Contact Form in following format Question Answer Name of the country (The contest is open for USA and India residents only) 2 Winners will be randomly selected announced on August 20th. Question of the Day: Which of the following datatype is usually NOT the best choice for Primary Key and Clustered Index? a) INT b) BIGINT c) GUID d) SMALLINT Query Hints: BIG HINT POST The clustered index is the placement order of a table’s records in memory pages. When you insert new records, then each record will be inserted into the memory page in the order it belongs. In the figure below we see another new record (Major Disarray) being inserted, in sequence, between Jonny and Rick. Since there is no room in this memory page, some records will need to shift around. The page split occurs when Irenes’ record moves to the second page. Page splits are considered very bad for performance, and there are a number of techniques to reduce, or even eliminate, the risk of page splits. You can create a clustered index on the table on any field you choose. Sometime SQL will create a clustered index for you. Often times the field having the Primary Key makes a great candidate for the clustered index. Additional Hints: I have previously discussed various concepts from SQL Server Joes 2 Pros Volume 3. SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – All about SQL Statistics SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Introduction to Page Split SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – The Clustered Index – Simple Understanding SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Geography Data Type – Calculating Distance Between Two Points on the Earth SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Sparse Data and Space Used by Sparse Data SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – System and Time Data Types SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Data Row Space Usage and NULL Storage Next Step: Answer the Quiz in Contact Form in following format Question Answer Name of the country (The contest is open for USA and India) Bonus Winner Leave a comment with your favorite article from the “additional hints” section and you may be eligible for surprise gift. There is no country restriction for this Bonus Contest. Do mention why you liked it any particular blog post and I will announce the winner of the same along with the main contest. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Bose USB audio: crackling popping sound, eventually die

  - by Richard Barrett

  I've been trying to troubleshoot this issue for a while now. Any help would be much appreciated. I'm having trouble getting my Bose "Companion 5 multimedia speakers" working with my installation of Ubuntu 12.04 (link to Bose product here: http://www.bose.com/controller?url=/shop_online/digital_music_systems/computer_speakers/companion_5/index.jsp ). The issue seems to be low level (not just Ubuntu). What happens: When I boot into Ubuntu, I can get Rhythm box to play ok. However, if I try anything else (an .avi file, a webpage, or Clementine player with mp3 files) I get crackling, popping, or choppy sounds. If I move the mouse around, especially if it seems graphic intensive, the problem gets worse (more crackling noises). The more taxing it appears to be, the more likely it is that the sound will just die altogether until I reboot. For some reason the videos at www.bloomberg.com seem especially bad for it (my sound normally goes dead in under 45 seconds and won't work until reboot). Both my desktop running Ubuntu 12.04 and my laptop (running the same) have the same crackling problem. Troubleshooting so far: A friend of mine who knows linux well tried to solve it for me without any luck. He took pulseaudio out of the equation, but still had the problem just using AlSA. Among the many things he tried was adjusting the latency, but that didn't help either. I've also tried things like adjusting the USB device settings in the config file from -2 to -1 so that it will use my USB sound and I also commented out the lines that would stop that. These don't do anything. (That really seems like it's for someone who is getting no sound at all, so it's not surprising this won't work.) My friend's laptop running his Archlinux could play my Bose USB speakers without any problems. I also tried setting my daemon.conf file to use 6 channels (based on this http://lotphelp.com/lotp/configure-ubuntu-51-surround-sound ) but that didn't work either. I recently used a DVD to boot into Ubuntu Studio 12.04 (because it uses a live audio kernel) and this happened: I got perfect sound for a minute or two When I started moving windows around while sound was playing, the sound died again. Perhaps more interesting: There is a headphone out jack on the Bose system. When I use it, the audio is perfect for all applications (even the deadly bloomberg.com videos with .avi playing at the same time and moving around windows). Also, there is an audio-in jack on the Bose system. I can use a male-to-male mini jack to go from my soundcard's output to the Bose input and then all sound works perfectly. -However, it still requires the Bose to be plugged in to USB, otherwise I lose all sound. Any thoughts? Any suggestions for trouble shooting? (Or any suggestions for somewhere else to post to solve this?) Any logs or other files I can provide to help someone help me work this out? Your help is much appreciated! Rick BTW: I sometimes get people posting responses like "My Bose USB system works great with Ubuntu 12.04," without any more details. Is there anything I should ask such people to narrow down my problem? (It's kind of annoying to hear such a response because it doesn't help solve my problem.)

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• SQL SERVER – Last Two Days to Get FREE Book – Joes 2 Pros Certification 70-433

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier this week we announced that we will be giving away FREE SQL Wait Stats book to everybody who will get SQL Server Joes 2 Pros Combo Kit. We had a fantastic response to the contest. We got an overwhelming response to the offer. We knew there would be a great response but we want to honestly say thank you to all of you for making it happen. Rick and I want to make sure that we express our special thanks to all of you who are reading our books. The offer is still on and there are two more days to avail this offer. We want to make sure that everybody who buys our most selling combo kits, we will send our other most popular SQL Wait Stats book. Please read all the details of the offer here. The books are great resources for anyone who wants to learn SQL Server from fundamentals and eventually go on the certification path of 70-433. Exam 70-433 contains following important subject and the book covers the subject of fundamental. If you are taking the exam or not taking the exam – this book is for every SQL Developer to learn the subject from fundamentals.  Create and alter tables. Create and alter views. Create and alter indexes. Create and modify constraints. Implement data types. Implement partitioning solutions. Create and alter stored procedures. Create and alter user-defined functions (UDFs). Create and alter DML triggers. Create and alter DDL triggers. Create and deploy CLR-based objects. Implement error handling. Manage transactions. Query data by using SELECT statements. Modify data by using INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements. Return data by using the OUTPUT clause. Modify data by using MERGE statements. Implement aggregate queries. Combine datasets. INTERSECT, EXCEPT Implement subqueries. Implement CTE (common table expression) queries. Apply ranking functions. Control execution plans. Manage international considerations. Integrate Database Mail. Implement full-text search. Implement scripts by using Windows PowerShell and SQL Server Management Objects (SMOs). Implement Service Broker solutions. Track data changes. Data capture Retrieve relational data as XML. Transform XML data into relational data. Manage XML data. Capture execution plans. Collect output from the Database Engine Tuning Advisor. Collect information from system metadata. Availability of Book USA - Amazon | India - Flipkart | Indiaplaza Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Friday Tips #6, Part 1

  - by Chris Kawalek

  We have a two parter this week, with this post focusing on desktop virtualization and the next one on server virtualization. Question: Why would I use the Oracle Secure Global Desktop Secure Gateway? Answer by Rick Butland, Principal Sales Consultant, Oracle Desktop Virtualization: Well, for the benefit of those who might not be familiar with client connections in Oracle Secure Global Desktop (SGD), let me back up and briefly explain. An SGD client connects to an SGD server using two distinct protocols, which, by default, require two distinct TCP ports. The first is the HTTP protocol, used by the web browser to connect to the SGD webserver on TCP port 80, or if secure connections are enabled (SSL/TLS), then TCP port 443, commonly identified as the "HTTPS" port, that is, "SSL encrypted HTTP." The second protocol from the client to the server is the Adaptive Internet Protocol, or AIP, which is used for displaying applications, transferring drive mapping data, print jobs, and so on. By default, AIP uses the TCP port 3104, or port 5307 when SSL is enabled. When SGD clients need to access SGD over a firewall, the ports that AIP requires are typically "closed"; and most administrators are reluctant, to put it mildly, to change their firewall configurations to allow AIP traffic on 3144/5307.   To avoid this problem, SGD introduced "Firewall Forwarding", a technique where, in effect, both http and AIP traffic are "multiplexed" onto a single "well-known" TCP port, that is port 443, the https port.  This is also known as single-port firewall traversal.  This technique takes advantage of the fact that, as a "well-known service", port 443 is usually "open",   allowing (encrypted) traffic to pass. At the target SGD server, the two protocols are de-multiplexed and routed appropriately. The Secure Gateway was developed in response to requirements from customers for SGD to support multi-stage DMZ's, and to avoid exposing SGD servers and the information they contain directly to connections from the Internet. The Secure Gateway acts as a reverse-proxy in the first-tier of the DMZ, accepting, authenticating, and terminating incoming client connections, and then re-encrypting the connections, and proxying them, routing them on to SGD servers, deeper in the network. The client no longer needs to know the name/IP address of the SGD servers in their network, they connect to the gateway, only. The gateway takes care of those internal network details.     The Secure Gateway supports the same "single-port firewall" capability as does "Firewall Forwarding", but offers the additional advantage of load-balancing incoming client connections amongst SGD array members, which could be cumbersome without a forward-deployed secure gateway. Load-balancing weights and policies can be monitored and tuned using the "Balancer Manager" application, and Apache mod_proxy_balancer directives.   Going forward, our architects recommend the use of the Secure Gateway over "Firewall Forwarding" for single-port firewall traversal, due to its architectural advantages, its greater flexibility and enhanced features.  Finally, it should be noted that the Secure Gateway is not separately priced; any licensed SGD customer may use the Secure Gateway component at no additional cost.   For more information, see the "Secure Gateway Administrator's Guide".

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• Friday Tips #3

  - by Chris Kawalek

  Even though yesterday was Thanksgiving here in the US, we still have a Friday tip for those of you around your computers today. In fact, we have two! The first one came in last week via our #AskOracleVirtualization Twitter hashtag. The tweet has disappeared into the ether now, but we remember the gist, so here it is: Question: Will there be an Oracle Virtual Desktop Client for Android? Answer by our desktop virtualization product development team: We are looking at Android as a supported platform for future releases. Question: How can I make a Sun Ray Client automatically connect to a virtual machine? Answer by Rick Butland, Principal Sales Consultant, Oracle Desktop Virtualization: Someone recently asked how they can assign VM’s to specific Sun Ray Desktop Units (“DTU’s”) without any user interfaction being required, without the “Desktop Selector” being displayed, or any User Directory.  That is, they wanted each Sun Ray to power on and immediately connect to a pre-assigned Solaris VM.   This can be achieved by using “tokens” for user assignment – that is, the tokens found on Smart Cards, DTU’s, or OVDC clients can be used in place of user credentials.  Note, however, that mixing “token-only” assignments and “User Directories” in the same VDI Center won’t work.   Much of this procedure is covered in the documentation, particularly here. But it can useful to have everything in one place, “cookbook-style”:  1. Create the “token-only” directory type: From the VDI administration interface, select:  “Settings”, “Company”, “New”, select the “None” radio button, and click “Next.” Enter a name for the new “Company”, and click “Next”, then “Finish.” 2. Create Desktop Providers, Pools, and VM’s as appropriate. 3. Access the Sun Ray administration interface at http://servername:1660 and login using “root” credentials, and access the token-id’s you wish to use for assignment.  If you’re using DTU tokens rather than Smart Card tokens, these can be found under the “Tokens” tab, and “Search-ing” using the “Currently Used Tokens” tab.  DTU’s can be identified by the prefix “psuedo.”   For example: 4. Copy/paste this token into the VDI administrative interface, by selecting “Users”, “New”, and pasting in the token ID, and click “OK” - for example: 5. Assign the token (DTU) to a desktop, that is, in the VDI Admin Gui, select “Pool”, “Desktop”, select the VM, and click "Assign" and select the token you want, for example: In addition to assigning tokens to desktops, you'll need to bypass the login screen.  To do this, you need to do two things:  1.  Disable VDI client authentication with:  /opt/SUNWvda/sbin/vda settings-setprops -p clientauthentication=Disabled 2. Disable the VDI login screen – to do this,  add a kiosk argument of "-n" to the Sun Ray kiosk arguments screen.   You set this on the Sun Ray administration page - "Advanced", "Kiosk Mode", "Edit", and add the “-n” option to the arguments screen, for example: 3.  Restart both the Sun Ray and VDI services: # /opt/SUNWut/sbin/utstart –c # /opt/SUNWvda/sbin/vda-service restart Remember, if you have a question for us, please post on Twitter with our hashtag (again, it's #AskOracleVirtualization), and we'll try to answer it if we can. See you next time!

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• How the SPARC T4 Processor Optimizes Throughput Capacity: A Case Study

  - by Ruud

  This white paper demonstrates the architected latency hiding features of Oracle’s UltraSPARC T2+ and SPARC T4 processors That is the first sentence from this technical white paper, but what does it exactly mean? Let's consider a very simple example, the computation of a = b + c. This boils down to the following (pseudo-assembler) instructions that need to be executed: load @b, r1 load @c, r2 add r1,r2,r3 store r3, @a The first two instructions load variables b and c from an address in memory (here symbolized by @b and @c respectively). These values go into registers r1 and r2. The third instruction adds the values in r1 and r2. The result goes into register r3. The fourth instruction stores the contents of r3 into the memory address symbolized by @a. If we're lucky, both b and c are in a nearby cache and the load instructions only take a few processor cycles to execute. That is the good case, but what if b or c, or both, have to come from very far away? Perhaps both of them are in the main memory and then it easily takes hundreds of cycles for the values to arrive in the registers. Meanwhile the processor is doing nothing and simply waits for the data to arrive. Actually, it does something. It burns cycles while waiting. That is a waste of time and energy. Why not use these cycles to execute instructions from another application or thread in case of a parallel program? That is exactly what latency hiding on the SPARC T-Series processors does. It is a hardware feature totally transparent to the user and application. As soon as there is a delay in the execution, the hardware uses these otherwise idle cycles to execute instructions from another process. As a result, the throughput capacity of the system improves because idle cycles are no longer wasted and therefore more jobs can be run per unit of time. This feature has been in the SPARC T-series from the beginning, so why this paper? The difference with previous publications on this topic is in the amount of detail given. How this all works under the hood is fully explained using two example programs. Starting from the assembly language instructions, it is demonstrated in what way these programs execute. To really see what is happening we go down to the processor pipeline level, where the gaps in the execution are, and show in what way these idle cycles are filled by other copies of the same program running simultaneously. Both the SPARC T4 as well as the older UltraSPARC T2+ processor are covered. You may wonder why the UltraSPARC T2+ is included. The focus of this work is on the SPARC T4 processor, but to explain the basic concept of latency hiding at this very low level, we start with the UltraSPARC T2+ processor because it is architecturally a much simpler design. From the single issue, in-order pipelines of this processor we then shift gears and cover how this all works on the much more advanced dual issue, out-of-order architecture of the T4. The analysis and performance experiments have been conducted on both processors. The results depend on the processor, but in all cases the theoretical estimates are confirmed by the experiments. If you're interested to read a lot more about this and find out how things really work under the hood, you can download a copy of the paper here. A paper like this could not have been produced without the help of several other people. I want to thank the co-author of this paper, Jared Smolens, for his very valuable contributions and our highly inspiring discussions. I'm also indebted to Thomas Nau (Ulm University, Germany), Shane Sigler and Mark Woodyard (both at Oracle) for their feedback on earlier versions of this paper. Karen Perkins (Perkins Technical Writing and Editing) and Rick Ramsey at Oracle were very helpful in providing editorial and publishing assistance.

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• Is This Your Idea of Disaster Recovery?

  - by rickramsey

  Don't just make do with less. Protect what you've got. By, for instance, deploying Oracle Solaris 10 inside a zone cluster. "Wait," you say, "what is a zone cluster?" It is a zone deployed across different physical servers. "Who would do that!" you ask in a mild panic. Why, an upstanding sysadmin citizen interested in protecting his or her employer's investment with appropriate high availability and disaster recovery. If one server gets wiped out by Hurricane Sandy along with pretty much the entire East Coast of the USA, your zone continues to run on the other server(s). Provided you set them up in Edinburgh. This white paper (pdf) explains what a zone cluster is and how to use it. If a white paper reminds you of having to read War and Peace in school, just use this Oracle RAC and Solaris Cluster Cheat Sheet, instead. "But wait!" you exclaim. "I didn't realize Solaris 10 offered zone clusters!" I didn't, either! And in an earlier version of this blog post I said that zone clusters were only available with Oracle Solaris 11. But Karoly Vegh pointed me to the documentation for Oracle Solaris Cluster 3.3, which explains how to manage zone clusters in Oracle Solaris 10. Bite my fist! So, the point I was trying to make is not just that you can run Oracle Solaris 10 zone clusters, but that you can run them in an Oracle Solaris 11 environment. Now let's return to our conversation and pick up where we left off ... "Oh no! Whatever shall I do?" Fear not. Remember how Oracle Solaris 11 lets you create a Solaris 10 branded zone inside a system running Oracle Solaris 11? Well, the Solaris Cluster engineers thought that was a bang-up idea, and decided to extend Oracle Solaris Cluster so that you could run your Solaris 10 applications inside the protective cocoon of an Oracle Solaris 11 zone cluster. Take advantage of the installation improvements and network virtualization capabilities of Oracle Solaris 11 while still running your application on Oracle Solaris 10. You Luddite, you. That capability is in the latest release of Oracle Solaris Cluster, version 4.1, which became available last Friday. "Last Friday! Is it too late to get a copy?" You can still get a free copy from our download center (see below). And, if you'd like to know what other goodies the 4.1 release of Oracle Solaris Cluster provides, see: What's New In Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.1 (pdf) Free download Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.1 (SPARC or x86) Tech Article: How to Upgrade to Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.0, by Tim Read. As always, you can get the latest information about Oracle Solaris Cluster, plus technical how-to articles, documentation, and more from Oracle Solaris Cluster Resource Page for Sysadmins and Developers. And don't forget about the online launch of Oracle Solaris 11.1 and Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.1, scheduled for Nov 7. "I feel so much better, now!" Think nothing of it. That's what we're here for. - Rick Website Newsletter Facebook Twitter

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• ConcurrentDictionary and updating values

  - by rboarman

  Hello, After searching via Google and coming up empty, I decided to ask the gurus here on StackOverflow. I am trying to update entries in a ConcurrentDictionary something like this: class Class1 { public int Counter { get; set; } } class Test { private ConcurrentDictionary<int, Class1> dict = new ConcurrentDictionary<int, Class1>(); public void TestIt() { foreach (var foo in dict) { foo.Value.Counter = foo.Value.Counter + 1; // Simplified example } } } Essentially I need to iterate over the dictionary and update a field on each Value. I understand from the documentation that I need to avoid using the Value property. Instead I think I need to use TryUpdate except that I don’t want to replace my whole object. Instead, I want to update a field on the object. After reading this: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/pfxteam/archive/2010/01/08/9945809.aspx Perhaps I need to use AddOrUpdate and simply do nothing in the add delegate. Does anyone have any insight as to how to do this? Thank you, Rick

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• DynamicObject and WCF support

  - by rboarman

  Hi, I was wondering if anyone has had any luck getting a DynamicObject to serialize and work with WCF? Here’s my little test: [DataContract] class MyDynamicObject : DynamicObject { [DataMember] private Dictionary<string, object> _attributes = new Dictionary<string, object>(); public override bool TryGetMember(GetMemberBinder binder, out object result) { string key = binder.Name; result = null; if (_attributes.ContainsKey(key)) result = _attributes[key]; return true; } public override bool TrySetMember(SetMemberBinder binder, object value) { _attributes.Add(binder.Name, value); return true; } } var dy = new MyDynamicObject(); var ser = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(MyDynamicObject)); var mem = new MemoryStream(); ser.WriteObject(mem, dy); The error I get is: System.Runtime.Serialization.InvalidDataContractException was unhandled Message=Type 'ElasticTest1.MyDynamicObject' cannot inherit from a type that is not marked with DataContractAttribute or SerializableAttribute. Consider marking the base type 'System.Dynamic.DynamicObject' with DataContractAttribute or SerializableAttribute, or removing them from the derived type. Any suggestions? Thanks, Rick

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• MVC controller is being called twice

  - by rboarman

  Hello, I have a controller that is being called twice from an ActionLink call. My home page has a link, that when clicked calls the Index method on the Play controller. An id of 100 is passed into the method. I think this is what is causing the issue. More on this below. Here are some code snippets: Home page: <%= Html.ActionLink(“Click Me”, "Index", "Play", new { id = 100 }, null) %> Play Controller: public ActionResult Index(int? id) { var settings = new Dictionary<string, string>(); settings.Add("Id", id.ToString()); ViewData["InitParams"] = settings.ToInitParams(); return View(); } Play view: <%@ Page Title="" Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage" %> (html <head> omitted for brevity) <body> <form id="form1" runat="server" style="height:100%"> Hello </form> </body> If I get rid of the parameter to the Index method, everything is fine. If I leave the parameter in place, then the Index method is called with 100 as the id. After returning the View, the method is called a second time with a parameter of null. I can’t seem to figure out what is triggering the second call. My first thought was to add a specific route like this: routes.MapRoute( "Play", // Route name "Play/{id}", // URL with parameters new {controller = "Play", action = "Index"} // Parameter defaults ); This had no effect other than making a prettier looking link. I am not sure where to go from here. Thank you in advance. Rick

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• Fluent config not generating mapping files

  - by rboarman

  Hello, I am trying to get Fluent nHibernate to generate mappings so I can take a look at the files and the sql. My code is based on this post and on what I can glean from the documentation. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1375146/fluent-mapping-entities-and-classmaps-in-different-assemblies I am using the latest code from git. Here’s my config code: Configuration cfg = new Configuration(); var ft = Fluently.Configure(cfg); //DbConnection by fluent ft.Database ( MsSqlConfiguration .MsSql2008 .ConnectionString("……") .ShowSql() .UseReflectionOptimizer() ); //get mapping files. ft.Mappings(m => { //set up the mapping locations m.FluentMappings.AddFromAssemblyOf<Entity>() .ExportTo(@"C:\temp"); m.Apply(cfg); }); I also tried: var sessionFactory = Fluently.Configure() .Database(MsSqlConfiguration .MsSql2008 .ShowSql() .ConnectionString(“……")) .Mappings(p => p.FluentMappings .AddFromAssemblyOf<Entity>() .ExportTo(@"c:\temp\")) .BuildSessionFactory(); I have verified that the connection string is correct. The issue is that no mapping files show up in the ExportTo folder and no sql code shows up in the output window or in the log file. No errors or exceptions are generated either. I have no idea where to go from here. Thank you in advance. Rick

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• When *not* to use prepared statements?

  - by Ben Blank

  I'm re-engineering a PHP-driven web site which uses a minimal database. The original version used "pseudo-prepared-statements" (PHP functions which did quoting and parameter replacement) to prevent injection attacks and to separate database logic from page logic. It seemed natural to replace these ad-hoc functions with an object which uses PDO and real prepared statements, but after doing my reading on them, I'm not so sure. PDO still seems like a great idea, but one of the primary selling points of prepared statements is being able to reuse them… which I never will. Here's my setup: The statements are all trivially simple. Most are in the form SELECT foo,bar FROM baz WHERE quux = ? ORDER BY bar LIMIT 1. The most complex statement in the lot is simply three such selects joined together with UNION ALLs. Each page hit executes at most one statement and executes it only once. I'm in a hosted environment and therefore leery of slamming their servers by doing any "stress tests" personally. Given that using prepared statements will, at minimum, double the number of database round-trips I'm making, am I better off avoiding them? Can I use PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_DIRECT_QUERY to avoid the overhead of multiple database trips while retaining the benefit of parametrization and injection defense? Or do the binary calls used by the prepared statement API perform well enough compared to executing non-prepared queries that I shouldn't worry about it? EDIT: Thanks for all the good advice, folks. This is one where I wish I could mark more than one answer as "accepted" — lots of different perspectives. Ultimately, though, I have to give rick his due… without his answer I would have blissfully gone off and done the completely Wrong Thing even after following everyone's advice. :-) Emulated prepared statements it is!

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• Linq join two dictionaries using a common key

  - by rboarman

  Hello, I am trying to join two Dictionary collections together based on a common lookup value. var idList = new Dictionary<int, int>(); idList.Add(1, 1); idList.Add(3, 3); idList.Add(5, 5); var lookupList = new Dictionary<int, int>(); lookupList.Add(1, 1000); lookupList.Add(2, 1001); lookupList.Add(3, 1002); lookupList.Add(4, 1003); lookupList.Add(5, 1004); lookupList.Add(6, 1005); lookupList.Add(7, 1006); // Something like this: var q = from id in idList.Keys join entry in lookupList on entry.Key equals id select entry.Value; The Linq statement above is only an example and does not compile. For each entry in the idList, pull the value from the lookupList based on matching Keys. The result should be a list of Values from lookupList (1000, 1002, 1004). What’s the easiest way to do this using Linq? Thank you, Rick

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• Getting identity from Ado.Net Update command

  - by rboarman

  My scenario is simple. I am trying to persist a DataSet and have the identity column filled in so I can add child records. Here's what I've got so far: using (SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(connStr)) { SqlDataAdapter adapter = new SqlDataAdapter("select * from assets where 0 = 1", connection); adapter.MissingMappingAction = MissingMappingAction.Passthrough; adapter.MissingSchemaAction = MissingSchemaAction.AddWithKey; SqlCommandBuilder cb = new SqlCommandBuilder(adapter); var insertCmd = cb.GetInsertCommand(true); insertCmd.Connection = connection; connection.Open(); adapter.InsertCommand = insertCmd; adapter.InsertCommand.CommandText += "; set ? = SCOPE_IDENTITY()"; adapter.InsertCommand.UpdatedRowSource = UpdateRowSource.OutputParameters; var param = new SqlParameter("RowId", SqlDbType.Int); param.SourceColumn = "RowId"; param.Direction = ParameterDirection.Output; adapter.InsertCommand.Parameters.Add(param); SqlTransaction transaction = connection.BeginTransaction(); insertCmd.Transaction = transaction; try { assetsImported = adapter.Update(dataSet.Tables["Assets"]); transaction.Commit(); } catch (Exception ex) { transaction.Rollback(); // Log an error } connection.Close(); } The first thing that I noticed, besides the fact that the identity value is not making its way back into the DataSet, is that my change to add the scope_identity select statement to the insert command is not being executed. Looking at the query using Profiler, I do not see my addition to the insert command. Questions: 1) Why is my addition to the insert command not making its way to the sql being executed on the database? 2) Is there a simpler way to have my DataSet refreshed with the identity values of the inserted rows? 3) Should I use the OnRowUpdated callback to add my child records? My plan was to loop through the rows after the Update() call and add children as needed. Thank you in advance. Rick

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• IIS6 compressing static files, but not JSON requests

  - by user500038

  I have IIS6 compression setup, and static content is being compressed correctly as per Coding Horror. Example of a static file: Response Headers Content-Length 55513 Content-Type application/x-javascript Content-Encoding gzip Last-Modified Mon, 20 Dec 2010 15:31:58 GMT Accept-Ranges bytes Vary Accept-Encoding Server Microsoft-IIS/6.0 X-Powered-By ASP.NET Date Wed, 29 Dec 2010 16:37:23 GMT Request Headers Accept */* Accept-Language en-us,en;q=0.5 Accept-Encoding gzip,deflate Accept-Charset ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7 Keep-Alive 115 Connection keep-alive As you can see, the response is correctly compressed. However with a JSON call you'll see the request with the gzip parameter correctly set: Accept application/json, text/javascript, */*; q=0.01 Accept-Language en-us,en;q=0.5 Accept-Encoding gzip,deflate Accept-Charset ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7 Keep-Alive 115 Connection keep-alive X-Requested-With XMLHttpRequest Then for the response: Cache-Control private Content-Length 6811 Content-Type application/json; charset=utf-8 Server Microsoft-IIS/6.0 X-Powered-By ASP.NET X-AspNet-Version 2.0.50727 X-AspNetMvc-Version 2.0 No gzip! I found this article by Rick Stahl, which outlines how to compress in your code, but I'd like IIS to handle this. Is this possible with IIS6?

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• missing rake tasks ??

  - by richard moss

  hi I have ran gem install rails and am running 2.3.4 but i am missing some rake tasks like 'db' and 'gems' if i run rake -T i get the following tasks. How can i get all the others ? rake apache2 # Build Apache 2 module rake clean # Remove compiled files rake clobber # Remove all generated files rake default # Build everything rake doc # Generate all documentation rake doxygen # Generate Doxygen C++ API documentation if ... rake doxygen:clobber # Remove generated Doxygen C++ API documenta... rake doxygen:force # Force generation of Doxygen C++ API docume... rake fakeroot # Create a fakeroot, useful for building nat... rake nginx # Build Nginx helper server rake package # Build all the packages rake package:clean # Remove package products rake package:debian # Create a Debian package rake package:force # Force a rebuild of the package files rake package:gem # Build the gem file passenger-2.2.4.gem rake rdoc # Build the rdoc HTML Files rake rdoc:clobber # Remove rdoc products rake rdoc:force # Force a rebuild of the RDOC files rake sloccount # Run 'sloccount' to see how much code Passe... rake test # Run all unit tests and integration tests rake test:cxx # Run unit tests for the Apache 2 and Nginx ... rake test:integration # Run all integration tests rake test:integration:apache2 # Run Apache 2 integration tests rake test:integration:nginx # Run Nginx integration tests rake test:oxt # Run unit tests for the OXT library rake test:rcov # Run coverage tests for the Ruby libraries rake test:restart # Run the 'restart' integration test infinit... rake test:ruby If anyone knows why this has happened, how i can fix it or anything else that could help, please let me know thanks alot rick

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• Parsing the Youtube API with DOM

  - by Kirk

  I'm using the Youtube API and I can retrieve the date information without a problem, but don't know how to retrieve the description information. My Code: <?php $v = "dQw4w9WgXcQ"; $url = "http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/". $v; $doc = new DOMDocument; $doc->load($url); $pub = $doc->getElementsByTagName("published")->item(0)->nodeValue; $desc = $doc->getElementsByTagName("media:description")->item(0)->nodeValue; echo "<b>Video Uploaded:</b> "; echo date( "F jS, Y", strtotime( $pub ) ); echo '<br>'; if (isset ($desc)) { echo "<b>Description:</b> "; echo $desc; echo '<br>'; } ?> Here's a link to the feed: http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/dQw4w9WgXcQ?prettyprint=true And the excerpt of code I don't know how to retrieve data from: <media:group> <media:description type='plain'>Music video by Rick Astley performing Never Gonna Give You Up. (C) 1987 PWL</media:description> </media:group> Thanks in advance.

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• Dec 5th Links: ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, jQuery, Silverlight, Visual Studio

  - by ScottGu

  Here is the latest in my link-listing series.  Also check out my VS 2010 and .NET 4 series for another on-going blog series I’m working on. [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] ASP.NET ASP.NET Code Samples Collection: J.D. Meier has a great post that provides a detailed round-up of ASP.NET code samples and tutorials from a wide variety of sources.  Lots of useful pointers. Slash your ASP.NET compile/load time without any hard work: Nice article that details a bunch of optimizations you can make to speed up ASP.NET project load and compile times. You might also want to read my previous blog post on this topic here. 10 Essential Tools for Building ASP.NET Websites: Great article by Stephen Walther on 10 great (and free) tools that enable you to more easily build great ASP.NET Websites.  Highly recommended reading. Optimize Images using the ASP.NET Sprite and Image Optimization Framework: A nice article by 4GuysFromRolla that discusses how to use the open-source ASP.NET Sprite and Image Optimization Framework (one of the tools recommended by Stephen in the previous article).  You can use this to significantly improve the load-time of your pages on the client. Formatting Dates, Times and Numbers in ASP.NET: Scott Mitchell has a great article that discusses formatting dates, times and numbers in ASP.NET.  A very useful link to bookmark.  Also check out James Michael’s DateTime is Packed with Goodies blog post for other DateTime tips. Examining ASP.NET’s Membership, Roles and Profile APIs (Part 18): Everything you could possibly want to known about ASP.NET’s built-in Membership, Roles and Profile APIs must surely be in this tutorial series. Part 18 covers how to store additional user info with Membership. ASP.NET with jQuery An Introduction to jQuery Templates: Stephen Walther has written an outstanding introduction and tutorial on the new jQuery Template plugin that the ASP.NET team has contributed to the jQuery project. Composition with jQuery Templates and jQuery Templates, Composite Rendering, and Remote Loading: Dave Ward has written two nice posts that talk about composition scenarios with jQuery Templates and some cool scenarios you can enable with them. Using jQuery and ASP.NET to Build a News Ticker: Scott Mitchell has a nice tutorial that demonstrates how to build a dynamically updated “news ticker” style UI with ASP.NET and jQuery. Checking All Checkboxes in a GridView using jQuery: Scott Mitchell has a nice post that covers how to use jQuery to enable a checkbox within a GridView’s header to automatically check/uncheck all checkboxes contained within rows of it. Using jQuery to POST Form Data to an ASP.NET AJAX Web Service: Rick Strahl has a nice post that discusses how to capture form variables and post them to an ASP.NET AJAX Web Service (.asmx). ASP.NET MVC ASP.NET MVC Diagnostics Using NuGet: Phil Haack has a nice post that demonstrates how to easily install a diagnostics page (using NuGet) that can help identify and diagnose common configuration issues within your apps. ASP.NET MVC 3 JsonValueProviderFactory: James Hughes has a nice post that discusses how to take advantage of the new JsonValueProviderFactory support built into ASP.NET MVC 3.  This makes it easy to post JSON payloads to MVC action methods. Practical jQuery Mobile with ASP.NET MVC: James Hughes has another nice post that discusses how to use the new jQuery Mobile library with ASP.NET MVC to build great mobile web applications. Credit Card Validator for ASP.NET MVC 3: Benjii Me has a nice post that demonstrates how to build a [CreditCard] validator attribute that can be used to easily validate credit card numbers are in the correct format with ASP.NET MVC. Silverlight Silverlight FireStarter Keynote and Sessions: A great blog post from John Papa that contains pointers and descriptions of all the great Silverlight content we published last week at the Silverlight FireStarter.  You can watch all of the talks online.  More details on my keynote and Silverlight 5 announcements can be found here. 31 Days of Windows Phone 7: 31 great tutorials on how to build Windows Phone 7 applications (using Silverlight).  Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit Update: David Anson has a nice post that discusses some of the additional controls provided with the Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit. Visual Studio JavaScript Editor Extensions: A nice (and free) Visual Studio plugin built by the web tools team that significantly improves the JavaScript intellisense support within Visual Studio. HTML5 Intellisense for Visual Studio: Gil has a blog post that discusses a new extension my team has posted to the Visual Studio Extension Gallery that adds HTML5 schema support to Visual Studio 2008 and 2010. Team Build + Web Deployment + Web Deploy + VS 2010 = Goodness: Visual blogs about how to enable a continuous deployment system with VS 2010, TFS 2010 and the Microsoft Web Deploy framework.  Visual Studio 2010 Emacs Emulation Extension and VIM Emulation Extension: Check out these two extensions if you are fond of Emacs and VIM key bindings and want to enable them within Visual Studio 2010. Hope this helps, Scott

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• The Winds of Change are a Blowin&rsquo;

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  For six years I have been an avid and outspoken fan and paying customer of SourceGear products…from Vault to Dragnet to Fortress and on to Vault Professional, but that is all changing now.  Not the fan part, but the paying customer part.  I’m still a huge fan.  I think that SourceGear does a great job with their product and support has been fantastic when needed (which is not very often).  I think that Eric Sink has done a fine job building a quality company and products, and I appreciate his contributions to the tech community through this blogging and books.  I still think their products are high quality and do a fantastic job of what they do.  But there’s the rub…what they do is no longer enough for me. As I have rebuilt our development team over the last couple of years, and we have begun to investigate Scrum and Kanban, I realize that I need more visibility into the progress of the team.  I need better project management tools, and this is where Vault Professional lags behind several other tools.  Granted, in the latest release (Vault 6.0) they added a nice time tracking feature, but I want more.  (Note, I did contact SourceGear about my quest for more, but apparently, the rest of their customer base has not been clamoring for this and so they have not built it.  Granted, I wasn’t clamoring for it either until just recently, but unfortunately for SourceGear, I want it now and don’t want to wait for them to build it into their system.) Ironically, it was SourceGear themselves who started to turn me on to the possibilities of other tools.  They built a limited integration with Axosoft OnTime which I read about several times on their support site (I used to regularly read and occasionally comment on their Support Forum).  I decided to check out OnTime and was very impressed with the tool for work item tracking and project management (not to mention their great Scrum Master in 10 Minutes video).  I fell in love with the capabilities of OnTime.  Unfortunately, the integration with Vault for source control management was, as I mentioned, limited.  I could have forfeited the integration between work items and source code, but there is too much benefit to linking check-ins to work items for me to give that up.  So then I did what was previously unthinkable for me, I considered switching not just the work tracking tool, but also the source code management tool.  This was really stepping outside my comfort zone because source code is Gold, and not to be trifled with.  When you find a good weapon to protect your gold, stick with it. I looked at Git and Tortoise SVN, but the integration methods for those was pretty rough compared to what I was used to.  The recommended tool from Axosoft’s point of view appeared to be RocketSVN, but I really wasn’t sure I wanted to go the “flavor of Subversion” route.  Then I started thinking about that other tool I liked back when I first chose to go with Vault, but couldn’t afford:  Team Foundation Server.  And what do you know…Microsoft has not only radically improved it over that version from back in 2006, but they also came to their senses about how it should be licensed, and it is much more affordable now.  So I started looking into the latest capabilities in the 2012 version, and I fell in love all over again. I really went deep on checking out the tools.  I watched numerous webcasts from Microsoft partners, went to a beta preview on Microsoft’s campus, and watched a lot of Channel 9 videos on the new ALM features (oooh…shiny).  Frankly, I was very impressed with the capabilities of the newest version, and figured this was probably our direction.  As an interesting twist of fate, one of my employees crossed paths with an ALM Consultant from Northwest Cadence, a local Microsoft Partner, and one of the companies that produced several of the webcasts that I had been watching.  So I gave Bryon a call and started grilling him to see if he really knew anything or was just another guy who couldn’t find a job so he called himself a consultant.  It turns out Bryon actually knows a lot, especially in an area that was becoming a frustration point for us: Branching strategies and automated builds (that’s probably a whole separate blog entry).  As we talked, Bryon suggested we look into doing a DTDPS (Developer Tools Deployment Planning Services) session with his company.  This is a service that can be paid for by Microsoft Enterprise Agreement planning services credits or SA training benefits, and, again, coincidentally, we had several that were just about to expire, so I put them to good use. The DTDPS sessions were great; and Bryon, Rick, and the rest of the folks at Northwest Cadence have been a pleasure to work with.  We have just purchased a new server for our TFS rollout and are planning the steps and options right now.  This is still a big project ahead of us to not only install and configure TFS, but also to load all of our source code (many different systems, not just one program) and transition to the new way of life with TFS, but I am convinced that it is the right move for my team at this point in time.  We need the new capabilities that are in alignment with Scrum and Kanban methodologies in order to more efficiently manage all the different projects that we have going on at one time. I would still wholeheartedly endorse SourceGear’s products and Axosoft’s OnTime for those whose needs are met by those tools, but for me and my team, I think that TFS is the right fit, and I am looking forward to the change.

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• Back Up to Tape the Way You Shop For Groceries

  - by rickramsey

  Imagine if this was how you shopped for groceries: From the end of the aisle sprint to the point where you reach the ketchup. Pull a bottle from the shelf and yell at the top of your lungs, “Got it!” Sprint back to the end of the aisle. Start again and sprint down the same aisle to the mustard, pull a bottle from the shelf and again yell for the whole store to hear, “Got it!” Sprint back to the end of the aisle. Repeat this procedure for every item you need in the aisle. Proceed to the next aisle and follow the same steps for the list of items you need from that aisle. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Not only is it horribly inefficient, it’s exhausting and can lead to wear out failures on your grocery cart, or worse, yourself. This is essentially how NetApp and some other applications write NDMP backups to tape. In the analogy, the ketchup and mustard are the files to be written, yelling “Got it!” is the equivalent of a sync mark at the end of a file, and the sprint back to the end of an aisle is the process most commonly called a “backhitch” where the drive has to back up on a tape to start writing again. Writing to tape in this way results in very slow tape drive performance and imposes unnecessary wear on the tape drive and the media, especially when writing small files. The good news is not all tape drives behave this way when writing small files. Unlike midrange LTO drives, Oracle’s StorageTek T10000D tape drive is designed to handle this scenario efficiently. The difference between the two drive types is that the T10000D drive gives you the ability to write files in a NetApp NDMP backup environment the way you would normally shop for groceries. With grocery shopping, you essentially stream through aisles picking up items as you go, and then after checking out, yell, “Got it!”, though you might do that last step silently. With the T10000D, it has a feature called the Tape Application Accelerator, which prevents the drive from having to stop after each file is written to notify NetApp or another application that the write was successful. When enabled in the T10000D tape drive, Tape Application Accelerator causes the tape drive to respond to tape mark and file sync commands differently than when disabled: A tape mark received by the tape drive is treated as a buffered tape mark. A file sync received by the tape drive is treated as a no op command. Since buffered tape marks and no op commands do not cause the tape drive to empty the contents of its buffer to tape and backhitch, the data is written to tape in significantly less time. Oracle has emulated NetApp environments with a number of different file sizes and found the following when comparing the T10000D with the Tape Application Accelerator enabled versus LTO6 tape drives. Notice how the T10000D is not only monumentally faster, but also remarkably consistent? In addition, the writing of the 50 GB of files is done without a single backhitch. The LTO6 drive, meanwhile, will perform as many as 3,800 backhitches! At the end of writing the entire set of files, the T10000D tape drive reports back to the application, in this case NetApp, that the write was successful via a tape mark. So if the Tape Application Accelerator dramatically improves performance and reliability, why wouldn’t you always have it enabled? The reason is because tape drive buffers are meant to be just temporary data repositories so in the event of a power loss, there could be data loss in certain environments for the files that resided in the buffer. Fortunately, we do have best practices depending on your environment to avoid this from happening. I highly recommend reading Maximizing Tape Performance with StorageTek T10000 Tape Drives (pdf) to decide which best practice is right for you. The white paper also digs deeper into the benefits of the Tape Application Accelerator. The white paper is free, and after downloading it you can decide for yourself whether you want to yell “Got it!” out loud or just silently to yourself. Customer Advisory Panel One final link: Oracle has started up a Customer Advisory Panel program to collect feedback from customers on their current experiences with Oracle products, as well as desires for future product development. If you would like to participate in the program, go to this link at oracle.com. photo taken on Idaho's Sacajewea Historic Biway by Rick Ramsey - Brian Zents Follow OTN on Blog | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

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• Stir Trek: Iron Man Edition Recap and Photos

  - by Brian Jackett

  If you’ve noticed my blogging activity has reduced in frequency and technical content lately it’s primarily due to all of the conferences I’ve been attending, speaking at, or planning in the past few months.  This past Friday myself and six other dedicated individuals put on Stir Trek: Iron Man Edition as the culmination of a few months of hard work.  For those unfamiliar, Stir Trek is a web developer conference that was founded last year as an event to showcase content from Microsoft’s MIX conference and end the day with a private showing of the then just-released Star Trek movie.  This year’s conference expanded from 2 to 4 content tracks and upped the number of tickets from 350 to 600.  Even more amazing was the fact that we had 592 people show up day of the event for the lowest drop-off percentage of any conference I’ve been to before.   Nerd Dinner and Swag Bags     The night before Stir Trek: Iron Man Edition we hosted a nerd dinner at the Polaris Shopping mall food court with about 30 in attendance.  Nerd dinners are a great time to meet others passionate about technology and socialize before the whirlwind of the conference hits.  After the nerd dinner 20+ volunteers headed to the conference location and helped us stuff swag bags.  This in and of itself was a monumental task of putting together 600 swag bags with numerous leaflets, sponsor items, and t-shirts.  A big thanks goes out to all who assisted us that night so that we could finish in just under 2 hours instead of taking all night.  My sleep schedule also thanks you. Morning of Stir Trek     After getting a decent amount of sleep I arrived at Marcus Crosswoods theater at 6am to begin setting up for the day.  Myself and Jody Morgan were in charge of registration so we got tables set up, laid out swag bags, and organized our volunteer crew to assist with checking-in attendees.  Despite having 600+ people registration went fairly smoothly and got the day off to a great start.  I especially appreciated the 3+ cups of coffee from Crimson Cup, a local coffee shop.  For any of you that know me you’ll know that I rarely drink coffee except a few times a year when I really need the energy, so that says a lot about how good their coffee is.   Conference Starts     Once registration was completed the day kicked off with Molly Holzschlag keynoting.  Unfortunately Molly suffered from an ear infection and wasn’t able to fly so she had a virtual keynote and a session later in the day.  I was working behind the scenes on various tasks so I was only able to drop in very briefly on the keynote and rest of the morning sessions.  Throughout the day I tried to grab at least 1 or 2 pics of each presenter.  See my album below for the full set of pics.      For lunch we ordered around 150 pizzas from Mellow Mushroom, a local pizza place (notice the theme of supporting local businesses.)  Early on we were concerned about Mellow Mushroom being able to supply that many pizzas and get them delivered (still hot) to the theater, but they did an excellent job day of the event.  I wish I had gotten some pictures of the old school VW van they delivered the pizza in, but I was just a bit busy running around trying to get theaters ready for lunch.  We had attendees from last year who specifically requested that we have Mellow Mushroom supply lunch this year and I’m glad everything worked out being able to use them again.     During the afternoon I was able to attend a few sessions and hear some great content from various speakers.  It was also nice to just sit down and get off my feet for a bit.  After the last sessions the day concluded with a raffle.  There were a few logistical and technical issues that hampered our ability to smoothly conduct the raffle.  To those of you that agree the raffle wasn’t the smoothest experience I would like to say that the Stir Trek planning committee has already begun meeting to discuss ways of improving the conference for next year.  We are also accepting feedback (both positive and negative) at the following link: click here.  If you don’t wish to use the Joind In site you can also email me directly and I’ll be sure to pass along the feedback.   Iron Man 2 Movie     Last but not least, what Stir Trek event would be complete without the feature movie.  This year’s movie was Iron Man 2.  The theater had some really cool props and promotions (see pic below) for the movie.  I really enjoyed Iron Man 2, but I would recommend brushing up on the Iron Man comics and Marvel’s plans for future movies to understand some of the plot elements that come up.  Also make sure you stay through to the end of the movie credits to see a sneak peak of something special, that’s all I’ll say. Conclusion     Again a big thanks goes out to all of the speakers, sponsors, attendees, movie theater staff, volunteers, and everyone else involved in making this event great.  Also big thanks to my fellow Stir Trek planning committee members: Jeff Blankenburg, Matt Casto, Carey Payette, Jody Morgan, Rick Kierner, and Sarah Dutkiewitcz.  I am grateful for everything I learned while helping plan this event and look forward to being involved again next year.  For those interested we are currently targeting Thor as our movie theme for 2011 and then The Avengers for 2012.  These are tentative based on release dates that could shift as we get closer, but for now look solid.   Photos Pics on Facebook (includes tagging)     Stir Trek: Iron Man Edition photos on Facebook Pics on Live site (higher res)      View Full Album         -Frog Out

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• SQLAuthority News – #SQLPASS 2012 Seattle Update – Memorylane 2009, 2010, 2011

  - by pinaldave

  Today is the first day of the SQLPASS 2012 and I will be soon posting SQL Server 2012 experience over here. Today when I landed in Seattle, I got the nostalgia feeling. I used to stay in the USA. I stayed here for more than 7 years – I studied here and I worked in USA. I had lots of friends in Seattle when I used to stay in the USA. I always wanted to visit Seattle because it is THE place. I remember once I purchased a ticket to travel to Seattle through Priceline (well it was the cheapest option and I was a student) but could not fly because of an interesting issue. I used to be Teaching Assistant of an advanced course and the professor asked me to build a pop-quiz for the course. I unfortunately had to cancel the trip. Before I returned to India – I pretty much covered every city existed in my list to must visit, except one – Seattle. It was so interesting that I never made it to Seattle even though I wanted to visit, when I was in USA. After that one time I never got a chance to travel to Seattle. After a few years I also returned to India for good. Once on Television I saw “Sleepless in Seattle” movie playing and I immediately changed the channel as it reminded me that I never made it to Seattle before. However, destiny has its own way to handle decisions. After I returned to India – I visited Seattle total of 5 times and this is my 6th visit to Seattle in less than 3 years. I was here for 3 previous SQLPASS events – 2009, 2010, and 2011 as well two Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Summit in 2009 and 2010. During these five trips I tried to catch up with all of my all friends but I realize that time has its own way of doing things. Many moved out of Seattle and many were too busy revive the old friendship but there were few who always make a point to meet me when I travel to the city. During the course of my visits I have made few fantastic new friends – Rick Morelan (Joes 2 Pros) and Greg Lynch. Every time I meet them I feel that I know them for years. I think city of Seattle has played very important part in our relationship that I got these fantastic friends. SQLPASS is the event where I find all of my SQL Friends and I look for this event for an entire year. This year’s my goal is to meet as many as new friends I can meet. If you are going to be at SQLPASS – FIND ME. I want to have a photo with you. I want to remember each name as I believe this is very important part of our life – making new friends and sustaining new friendship. Here are few of the pointers where you can find me. All Keynotes – Blogger’s Table Exhibition Booth Joes 2 Pros Booth #117 – Do not forget to stop by at the booth – I might have goodies for you – limited editions. Book Signing Events – Check details in tomorrow’s blog or stop by Booth #117 Evening Parties 6th Nov – Welcome Reception Evening Parties 7th Nov - Exhibitor Reception – Do not miss Booth #117 Evening Parties 8th Nov - Community Appreciation Party Additionally at few other locations – Embarcadero Booth In Coffee shops in Convention Center If you are SQLPASS – make sure that I find an opportunity to meet you at the event. Reserve a little time and lets have a coffee together. I will be continuously tweeting about my where about on twitter so let us stay connected on twitter. Here is my experience of my earlier experience of attending SQLPASS. SQLAuthority News – Book Signing Event – SQLPASS 2011 Event Log SQLAuthority News – Meeting SQL Friends – SQLPASS 2011 Event Log SQLAuthority News – Story of Seattle – SQLPASS 2011 Event Log SQLAuthority News – SQLPASS Nov 8-11, 2010-Seattle – An Alternative Look at Experience SQLAuthority News – Notes of Excellent Experience at SQL PASS 2009 Summit, Seattle Let us meet! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)   Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL PASS, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• Global Perspective: Oracle AppAdvantage Does its Stage Debut in the UK

  - by Tanu Sood

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Global Perspective is a monthly series that brings experiences, business needs and real-world use cases from regions across the globe. This month’s feature is a follow-up from last month’s Global Perspective note from a well known ACE Director based in EMEA. My first contribution to this blog was before Oracle Open World and I was quite excited about where this initiative would take me in my understanding of the value of Oracle Fusion Middleware. Rimi Bewtra from the Oracle AppAdvantage team came as promised to the Oracle ACE Director briefings and explained what this initiative was all about and I then asked the directors to take part in the new survey. The story was really well received and then at the SOA advisory board that many of these ACE Directors already take part in there was a further discussion on how this initiative will help customers understand the benefits of adoption. A few days later Rick Beers launched the program at a lunch of invited customer executives which included one from Pella who talked about their projects (a quick recap on that here). I wasn’t able to stay for the whole event but what really interested me was that these executives who understood the technology but where looking for how they could use them to drive their businesses. Lots of ideas were bubbling up in my head about how we can use this in user groups to help our members, and the timing was fantastic as just three weeks later we had UKOUG_Apps13, our flagship Applications conference in the UK. We had independently working with Oracle marketing in the UK on an initiative called Apps Transformation to help our members look beyond just the application they use today. We have had a Fusion community page but felt the options open are now much wider than Fusion Applications, there are acquired applications, social, mobility and of course the underlying technology, Oracle Fusion Middleware. I was really pleased to be allowed to give the Oracle AppAdvantage story as a session in our conference and we are planning a special Apps Transformation event in March where I hope the Oracle AppAdvantage team will take part and we will have the results of the survey to discuss. But, life also came full circle for me. In my first post, I talked about Andrew Sutherland and his original theory that Oracle Fusion Middleware adoption had technical drivers. Well, Andrew was a speaker at our event and he gave a potted, tech-talk free update on Oracle Open World. Andrew talked about the Prevailing Technology Winds, and what is driving this today and he talked about that in the past it was the move from simply automating processes (ERP etc), through the altering of those processes (SOA) and onto consolidation. The next drivers are around the need to predict, both faster and more accurately; how to better exploit the information that we have available. He went on to talk about The Nexus of Forces: Social, Mobile, Cloud and Information – harnessing these forces of change with Oracle technology. Gartner really likes this concept and if you want to know more you can get their paper here. All this has made me think, and I hope it will make you too. Technology can help us drive our businesses better and understanding your needs can be the first step on your journey, which was the theme of our event in the UK. I spoke to a number of the delegates and I hope to share some of their stories in later posts. If you have a story to share, the survey is at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/P335DD3 About the Author: Debra Lilley, Fujitsu Fusion Champion, UKOUG Board Member, Fusion User Experience Advocate and ACE Director. Debra has 18 years experience with Oracle Applications, with E Business Suite since 9.4.1, moving to Business Intelligence Team Leader and then Oracle Alliance Director. She has spoken at over 100 conferences worldwide and posts at debrasoraclethoughts Editor’s Note: Debra has kindly agreed to share her musings and experience in a monthly column on the Fusion Middleware blog so do stay tuned…

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• Best Method For Evaluating Existing Software or New Software

  How many of us have been faced with having to decide on an off-the-self or a custom built component, application, or solution to integrate in to an existing system or to be the core foundation of a new system? What is the best method for evaluating existing software or new software still in the design phase? One of the industry preferred methodologies to use is the Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs (ARID) evaluation process.  ARID is a hybrid mixture of the Active Design Review (ADR) methodology and the Architectural Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM). So what is ARID? ARD’s main goal is to ensure quality, detailed designs in software. One way in which it does this is by empowering reviewers by assigning generic open ended survey questions. This approach attempts to remove the possibility for allowing the standard answers such as “Yes” or “No”. The ADR process ignores the “Yes”/”No” questions due to the fact that they can be leading based on how the question is asked. Additionally these questions tend to receive less thought in comparison to more open ended questions. Common Active Design Review Questions What possible exceptions can occur in this component, application, or solution? How should exceptions be handled in this component, application, or solution? Where should exceptions be handled in this component, application, or solution? How should the component, application, or solution flow based on the design? What is the maximum execution time for every component, application, or solution? What environments can this component, application, or solution? What data dependencies does this component, application, or solution have? What kind of data does this component, application, or solution require? Ok, now I know what ARID is, how can I apply? Let’s imagine that your organization is going to purchase an off-the-shelf (OTS) solution for its customer-relationship management software. What process would we use to ensure that the correct purchase is made? If we use ARID, then we will have a series of 9 steps broken up by 2 phases in order to ensure that the correct OTS solution is purchases. Phase 1 Identify the Reviewers Prepare the Design Briefing Prepare the Seed Scenarios Prepare the Materials When identifying reviewers for a design it is preferred that they be pulled from a candidate pool comprised of developers that are going to implement the design. The believe is that developers actually implementing the design will have more a vested interest in ensuring that the design is correct prior to the start of code. Design debriefing consist of a summary of the design, examples of the design solving real world examples put in to use and should be no longer than two hours typically. The primary goal of this briefing is to adequately summarize the design so that the review members could actually implement the design. In the example of purchasing an OTS product I would attempt to review my briefing prior to its distribution with the review facilitator to ensure that nothing was excluded that should have not been. This practice will also allow me to test the length of the briefing to ensure that can be delivered in an appropriate about of time. Seed Scenarios are designed to illustrate conceptualized scenarios when applied with a set of sample data. These scenarios can then be used by the reviewers in the actual evaluation of the software, All materials needed for the evaluation should be prepared ahead of time so that they can be reviewed prior to and during the meeting. Materials Included: Presentation Seed Scenarios Review Agenda Phase 2 Present ARID Present Design Brainstorm and prioritize scenarios Apply scenarios Summarize Prior to the start of any ARID review meeting the Facilitator should define the remaining steps of ARID so that all the participants know exactly what they are doing prior to the start of the review process. Once the ARID rules have been laid out, then the lead designer presents an overview of the design which typically takes about two hours. During this time no questions about the design or rational are allowed to be asked by the review panel as a standard, but they are written down for use latter in the process. After the presentation the list of compiled questions is then summarized and sent back to the lead designer as areas that need to be addressed further. In the example of purchasing an OTS product issues could arise regarding security, the implementation needed or even if this is this the correct product to solve the needed solution. After the Design presentation a brainstorming and prioritize scenarios process begins by reducing the seed scenarios down to just the highest priority scenarios.  These will then be used to test the design for suitability. Once the selected scenarios have been defined the reviewers apply the examples provided in the presentation to the scenarios. The intended output of this process is to provide code or pseudo code that makes use of the examples provided while solving the selected seed scenarios. As a standard rule, the designers of the systems are not allowed to help the review board unless they all become stuck. When this occurs it is documented and along with the reason why the designer needed to help the review panel back on track. Once all of the scenarios have been completed the review facilitator reviews with the group issues that arise during the process. Then the reviewers will be polled as to efficacy of the review experience. References: Clements, Paul., Kazman, Rick., Klien, Mark. (2002). Evaluating Software Architectures: Methods and Case Studies Indianapolis, IN: Addison-Wesley

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• About Solaris 11 and UltraSPARC II/III/IV/IV+

  - by nospam(at)example.com (Joerg Moellenkamp)

  I know that I will get the usual amount of comments like "Oh, Jörg ? you can't be negative about Oracle" for this article. However as usual I want to explain the logic behind my reasoning. Yes ? I know that there is a lot of UltraSPARC III, IV and IV+ gear out there. But there are some very basic questions: Does your application you are currently running on this gear stops running just because you can't run Solaris 11 on it? What is the need to upgrade a system already in production to Solaris 11? I have the impression, that some people think that the systems get useless in the moment Oracle releases Solaris 11. I know that Sun sold UltraSPARC IV+ systems until 2009. The Sun SF490 introduced 2004 for example, that was a Sun SF480 with UltraSPARC IV and later with UltraSPARC IV+. And yes, Sun made some speedbumps. At that time the systems of the UltraSPARC III to IV+ generations were supported on Solaris 8, on Solaris 9 and on Solaris 10. However from my perspective we sold them to customers, which weren't able to migrate to Solaris 10 because they used applications not supported on Solaris 9 or who just didn't wanted to migrate to Solaris 10. Believe it or not ? I personally know two customers that migrated core systems to Solaris 10 in ? well 2008/9. This was especially true when the M3000 was announced in 2008 when it closed the darned single socket gap. It may be different at you site, however that's what I remember about that time when talking with customers. At first: Just because there is no Solaris 11 for UltraSPARC III, IV and IV+, it doesn't mean that Solaris 10 will go away anytime soon. I just want to point you to "Expect Lifetime Support - Hardware and Operating Systems". It states about Premier Support:Maintenance and software upgrades are included for Oracle operating systems and Oracle VM for a minimum of eight years from the general availability date.GA for Solaris 10 was in 2005. Plus 8 years ? 2013 ? at minimum. Then you can still opt for 3 years of "Extended Support" ? 2016 ? at minimum. 2016 your systems purchased in 2009 are 7 years old. Even on systems purchased at the very end of the lifetime of that system generation. That are the rules as written in the linked document. I said minimum The actual dates are even further in the future: Premier Support for Solaris 10 ends in 2015, Extended support ends 2018. Sustaining support ? indefinite. You will find this in the document "Oracle Lifetime Support Policy: Oracle Hardware and Operating Systems".So I don't understand when some people write, that Oracle is less protective about hardware investments than Sun. And for hardware it's the same as with Sun: Service 5 years after EOL as part of Premier Support. I would like to write about a different perspective as well: I have to be a little cautious here, because this is going in the roadmap area, so I will mention the public sources here: John Fowler told last year that we have to expect at at least 3x the single thread performance of T3 for T4. We have 8 cores in T4, as stated by Rick Hetherington. Let's assume for a moment that a T4 core will have the performance of a UltraSPARC core (just to simplify math and not to disclosing anything about the performance, all existing SPARC cores are considered equal). So given this pieces of information, you could consolidate 8 V215, 4 or 8 V245, 2 full blown V445,2 full blown 490, 2 full blown M3000 on a single T4 SPARC processor. The Fowler roadmap prezo talked about 4-socket systems with T4. So 32 V215, 16 to 8 V245, 8 fullblown V445, 8 full blown V490, 8 full blown M3000 in a system image. I think you get the idea. That said, most of the systems we are talking about have already amortized and perhaps it's just time to invest in new systems to yield other advantages like reduced space consumptions, like reduced power consumption, like some of the neat features sun4v gives you, and yes ? reduced number of processor licenses for Oracle and less money for Oracle HW/SW support. As much as I dislike it myself that my own UltraSPARC III and UltraSPARC II based systems won't run on Solaris 11 (and I have quite a few of them in my personal lab), I really think that the impact on production environments will be much less than most people think now. By the way: The reason for this move is a quite significant new feature. I will tell you that it was this feature, when it's out. I assume, telling just a word more could lead to much more time to blog.

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