recurring job schedule - Page 193

Customize the Background in Boxee

- by DigitalGeekery

Are you a Boxee user who thinks the default background is little boring? Today we’ll take a look at how to freshen up the look of Boxee by changing the background. Boxee Background When you log into Boxee, select the Settings button at the upper left corner of the Home page. Select General on the Settings screen. When you select or hover your mouse over the Background Image button, you’ll see options to set a background image or set a background image folder. You’ll have the option of settings a single static image as your background, or choosing an images folder. If you choose a folder, Boxee will rotate through the images in the folder. To set Background images folder, select that option. Browse for your image folder.. And then select OK. Boxee will rotate through the images in the folder. Images will change every ten seconds. If you prefer a single static image, select Set background image Choose a image and select OK. Now just enjoy you nice new backgrounds. If you ever wish to revert back to the default Boxee background, simply select Reset Images on the Settings \ General screen. Adding your own backgrounds is a nice way to customize your Boxee experience. Ideally, you’ll want to choose high resolution images and images oriented as landscape rather than portrait. If you are unfamiliar with Boxee, check out our article on getting started with Boxee. Looking for a Boxee remote? Read how to use your iPhone or iPod Touch as a Boxee remote. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Integrate Boxee with Media Center in Windows 7Using Pandora in BoxeeWatch Netflix Instant Movies in BoxeeUse your iPhone or iPod Touch as a Boxee RemoteCustomize the Windows 7 Logon Screen TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Use ILovePDF To Split and Merge PDF Files TimeToMeet is a Simple Online Meeting Planning Tool Easily Create More Bookmark Toolbars in Firefox Filevo is a Cool File Hosting & Sharing Site Get a free copy of WinUtilities Pro 2010 World Cup Schedule

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What's your advise on a potential legal suit? [closed]

- by ohho

I [xxx app developer] received an email from Apple that a developer [of yyy app] believes I am "infringing their copyright." Description of Issue: [xxx developer] copied my application (my application is [yyy]) feature by feature. Even their donation model is completely copied from my application. Their first release was significantly later than mine, which implies copying of the application rather than parallel development. I suffered significant financial losses because of their actions, in additional to promotion problems as many people are confused with their product. My advertising was based around the idea of a "free [yyy] application for an iPhone" and they have just taken that as a title for their application. I would appreciate if someone takes a look at their release schedule and compare it to my releases. Additionally, please take a look at their functionality and how it point by point copies the functionality of my older releases. I am asking Apple to remove their application from the App Store, and ban them from resubmitting it. Thank you for your time! [yyy developer], the developer of the [yyy] application. My response was: The code of [xxx] is written by myself, using Apple public API. The graphics elements are designed by myself. The user interface and app control are independently designed and different from other [similar type] apps (please judge yourself). In-app Purchase is iOS Apple standard API. iAd is Apple iOS standard API. I don't think features can be owned exclusively. In fact, my app comes with fewer features, as I prefer minimalist design. I don't think idea can be owned exclusively. Apple responded: Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, Apple cannot serve as arbiter for disputes among third parties. Please contact [yyy developer] directly regarding your actions. You can reach [yyy developer] through: [...]. We look forward to confirmation from both parties that this issue has been resolved. If this issue is not resolved shortly, Apple may be forced to pull your application(s) from the App Store. Then I sent my response above to [yyy developer]. [yyy developer] then asked me "to provide (my) legal address and contact details that (his) lawyer requires to file a copyright infringement suit." IMO, I don't think the [yyy developer]'s claim on "feature by feature" copy is valid. I have fewer features, completely different user interface design. However, I don't think I can afford a legal action for an app of so little financial return. So what's your advise on this? Should I just let Apple pull my app? Or is there any alternative I can consider? FYI ... UI of [xxx app]: and UI of [yyy app]:

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What Makes a Good Design Critic? CHI 2010 Panel Review

- by Applications User Experience

Author: Daniel Schwartz, Senior Interaction Designer, Oracle Applications User Experience Oracle Applications UX Chief Evangelist Patanjali Venkatacharya organized and moderated an innovative and stimulating panel discussion titled "What Makes a Good Design Critic? Food Design vs. Product Design Criticism" at CHI 2010, the annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. The panelists included Janice Rohn, VP of User Experience at Experian; Tami Hardeman, a food stylist; Ed Seiber, a restaurant architect and designer; Jonathan Kessler, a food critic and writer at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and Larry Powers, Chef de Cuisine at Shaun's restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. Building off the momentum of his highly acclaimed panel at CHI 2009 on what interaction design can learn from food design (for which I was on the other side as a panelist), Venkatacharya brought together new people with different roles in the restaurant and software interaction design fields. The session was also quite delicious -- but more on that later. Criticism, as it applies to food and product or interaction design, was the tasty topic for this forum and showed that strong parallels exist between food and interaction design criticism. Figure 1. The panelists in discussion: (left to right) Janice Rohn, Ed Seiber, Tami Hardeman, and Jonathan Kessler. The panelists had great insights to share from their respective fields, and they enthusiastically discussed as if they were at a casual collegial dinner. Jonathan Kessler stated that he prefers to have one professional critic's opinion in general than a large sampling of customers, however, "Web sites like Yelp get users excited by the collective approach. People are attracted to things desired by so many." Janice Rohn added that this collective desire was especially true for users of consumer products. Ed Seiber remarked that while people looked to the popular view for their target tastes and product choices, "professional critics like John [Kessler] still hold a big weight on public opinion." Chef Powers indicated that chefs take in feedback from all sources, adding, "word of mouth is very powerful. We also look heavily at the sales of the dishes to see what's moving; what's selling and thus successful." Hearing this discussion validates our design work at Oracle in that we listen to our users (our diners) and industry feedback (our critics) to ensure an optimal user experience of our products. Rohn considers that restaurateur Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business, which is about creating successful restaurant experiences, has many applicable parallels to user experience design. Meyer actually argues that the customer is not always right, but that "they must always feel heard." Seiber agreed, but noted "customers are not designers," and while designers need to listen to customer feedback, it is the designer's job to synthesize it. Seiber feels it's the critic's job to point out when something is missing or not well-prioritized. In interaction design, our challenges are quite similar, if not parallel. Software tasks are like puzzles that are in search of a solution on how to be best completed. As a food stylist, Tami Hardeman has the demanding and challenging task of presenting food to be as delectable as can be. To present food in its best light requires a lot of creativity and insight into consumer tastes. It's no doubt then that this former fashion stylist came up with the ultimate catch phrase to capture the emotion that clients want to draw from their users: "craveability." The phrase was a hit with the audience and panelists alike. Sometime later in the discussion, Seiber remarked, "designers strive to apply craveability to products, and I do so for restaurants in my case." Craveabilty is also very applicable to interaction design. Creating straightforward and smooth workflows for users of Oracle Applications is a primary goal for my colleagues. We want our users to really enjoy working with our products where it makes them more efficient and better at their jobs. That's our "craveability." Patanjali Venkatacharya asked the panel, "if a design's "craveability" appeals to some cultures but not to others, then what is the impact to the food or product design process?" Rohn stated that "taste is part nature and part nurture" and that the design must take the full context of a product's usage into consideration. Kessler added, "good design is about understanding the context" that the experience necessitates. Seiber remarked how important seat comfort is for diners and how the quality of seating will add so much to the complete dining experience. Sometimes if these non-food factors are not well executed, they can also take away from an otherwise pleasant dining experience. Kessler recounted a time when he was dining at a restaurant that actually had very good food, but the photographs hanging on all the walls did not fit in with the overall décor and created a negative overall dining experience. While the tastiness of the food is critical to a restaurant's success, it is a captivating complete user experience, as in interaction design, which will keep customers coming back and ultimately making the restaurant a hit. Figure 2. Patnajali Venkatacharya enjoyed the Sardian flatbread salad. As a surprise Chef Powers brought out a signature dish from Shaun's restaurant for all the panelists to sample and critique. The Sardinian flatbread dish showcased Atlanta's taste for fresh and local produce and cheese at its finest as a salad served on a crispy flavorful flat bread. Hardeman said it could be photographed from any angle, a high compliment coming from a food stylist. Seiber really enjoyed the colors that the dish brought together and thought it would be served very well in a casual restaurant on a summer's day. The panel really appreciated the taste and quality of the different components and how the rosemary brought all the flavors together. Seiber remarked that "a lot of effort goes into the appearance of simplicity." Rohn indicated that the same notion holds true with software user interface design. A tremendous amount of work goes into crafting straightforward interfaces, including user research, prototyping, design iterations, and usability studies. Design criticism for food and software interfaces clearly share many similarities. Both areas value expert opinions and user feedback. Both areas understand the importance of great design needing to work well in its context. Last but not least, both food and interaction design criticism value "craveability" and how having users excited about experiencing and enjoying the designs is an important goal. Now if we can just improve the taste of software user interfaces, people may choose to dine on their enterprise applications over a fresh organic salad.

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Manageability at Oracle Openworld: a Guide to sessions for Partners

- by Javier Puerta

A large number of sessions focusing on Manageability will be taking place during the week of Oracle Openworld in San Francisco. To help you organize your schedule I am including below a list of sessions and events around Manageability that you will find of interest. PARTNER SPECIFIC SESSIONS Date/Time/Location Session Monday, October 1st, 2011 at 15:30 - 18:00 PST Grand Hyatt San Francisco 345 Stockton Street, San Francisco (Conference Theater) (It is a 15 minute walk from OOW Moscone Center. See directions here) Exadata & Manageability EMEA Partner Community Forum.- Listen to other partners share their experiences in selling and implementing Exadata and Manageability projects, and have a direct dialogue with some of the Oracle executives that are driving the strategy of the company in these areas. Agenda Welcome - Hans-Peter Kipfer, VP, Engineered Systems Oracle EMEA Next challenges in building and managing clouds - Javier Cabrerizo, VP, Business Development for Exadata, Oracle Corp. Partner Experiences: IT modernization, simplification and cost reduction: The case of a customer in Transportation & Logistics with custom applications and SAP. - Francisco Bermudez, Country Leader Infrastructure Services, Capgemini, Spain Nvision cloud project - Dmitry Krasilov, Head of Oracle Competence Center, Nvision Group, Russia From Exadata Ready to Exadata Optimized: An ISV Experience - Miguel Alves, Product Business Solutions Manager, WeDo Technologies, Portugal To confirm your participation send an email to [email protected] Tuesday, Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM - Marriott Marquis - Golden Gate A Developing Services for Private and Public Clouds.- The Oracle Cloud provides new business opportunities, secures business applications and data, and provides operational efficiencies and cost savings. For customers lacking the skill or time to architect, develop, or build a cloud, there is a growing demand for services practice partners that can deliver and manage Oracle Cloud solutions. In this session,• Become familiar with services examples and use cases that demonstrate how an Oracle Cloud can provide a solution to a customer’s needs today• Learn about Oracle architecture and best practices available for an Oracle Cloud instances• Identify the right Oracle technology and the optimal model for meeting customer needs while providing excellent revenues and an optimal margin for services delivered Wednesday, Oct 3, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Marriott Marquis - Golden Gate B Using Management Already Built into Oracle Products: Oracle Enterprise Manager .- Engineered into Oracle products are management capabilities ready to be used. In this session, applicable to all partners, understand the growing market opportunities and how to use or include Oracle Enterprise Manager as part of your solution or services. Other Cloud sessions for Partners at the Oracle PartnerNetwork Exchange Click here.- OOW CUSTOMER SESSIONS Download the Focus On Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c (and Private Cloud) guide for a full list of Exadata OOW sessions.

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T-SQL Tuesday #31 - Logging Tricks with CONTEXT_INFO

- by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

This month's T-SQL Tuesday is being hosted by Aaron Nelson [b | t], fellow Atlantan (the city in Georgia, not the famous sunken city, or the resort in the Bahamas) and covers the topic of logging (the recording of information, not the harvesting of trees) and maintains the fine T-SQL Tuesday tradition begun by Adam Machanic [b | t] (the SQL Server guru, not the guy who fixes cars, check the spelling again, there will be a quiz later). This is a trick I learned from Fernando Guerrero [b | t] waaaaaay back during the PASS Summit 2004 in sunny, hurricane-infested Orlando, during his session on Secret SQL Server (not sure if that's the correct title, and I haven't used parentheses in this paragraph yet). CONTEXT_INFO is a neat little feature that's existed since SQL Server 2000 and perhaps even earlier. It lets you assign data to the current session/connection, and maintains that data until you disconnect or change it. In addition to the CONTEXT_INFO() function, you can also query the context_info column in sys.dm_exec_sessions, or even sysprocesses if you're still running SQL Server 2000, if you need to see it for another session. While you're limited to 128 bytes, one big advantage that CONTEXT_INFO has is that it's independent of any transactions. If you've ever logged to a table in a transaction and then lost messages when it rolled back, you can understand how aggravating it can be. CONTEXT_INFO also survives across multiple SQL batches (GO separators) in the same connection, so for those of you who were going to suggest "just log to a table variable, they don't get rolled back": HA-HA, I GOT YOU! Since GO starts a new batch all variable declarations are lost. Here's a simple example I recently used at work. I had to test database mirroring configurations for disaster recovery scenarios and measure the network throughput. I also needed to log how long it took for the script to run and include the mirror settings for the database in question. I decided to use AdventureWorks as my database model, and Adam Machanic's Big Adventure script to provide a fairly large workload that's repeatable and easily scalable. My test would consist of several copies of AdventureWorks running the Big Adventure script while I mirrored the databases (or not). Since Adam's script contains several batches, I decided CONTEXT_INFO would have to be used. As it turns out, I only needed to grab the start time at the beginning, I could get the rest of the data at the end of the process. The code is pretty small: declare @time binary(128)=cast(getdate() as binary(8)) set context_info @time ... rest of Big Adventure code ... go use master; insert mirror_test(server,role,partner,db,state,safety,start,duration) select @@servername, mirroring_role_desc, mirroring_partner_instance, db_name(database_id), mirroring_state_desc, mirroring_safety_level_desc, cast(cast(context_info() as binary(8)) as datetime), datediff(s,cast(cast(context_info() as binary(8)) as datetime),getdate()) from sys.database_mirroring where db_name(database_id) like 'Adv%'; I declared @time as a binary(128) since CONTEXT_INFO is defined that way. I couldn't convert GETDATE() to binary(128) as it would pad the first 120 bytes as 0x00. To keep the CAST functions simple and avoid using SUBSTRING, I decided to CAST GETDATE() as binary(8) and let SQL Server do the implicit conversion. It's not the safest way perhaps, but it works on my machine. :) As I mentioned earlier, you can query system views for sessions and get their CONTEXT_INFO. With a little boilerplate code this can be used to monitor long-running procedures, in case you need to kill a process, or are just curious how long certain parts take. In this example, I added code to Adam's Big Adventure script to set CONTEXT_INFO messages at strategic places I want to monitor. (His code is in UPPERCASE as it was in the original, mine is all lowercase): declare @msg binary(128) set @msg=cast('Altering bigProduct.ProductID' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg go ALTER TABLE bigProduct ALTER COLUMN ProductID INT NOT NULL GO set context_info 0x0 go declare @msg1 binary(128) set @msg1=cast('Adding pk_bigProduct Constraint' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg1 go ALTER TABLE bigProduct ADD CONSTRAINT pk_bigProduct PRIMARY KEY (ProductID) GO set context_info 0x0 go declare @msg2 binary(128) set @msg2=cast('Altering bigTransactionHistory.TransactionID' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg2 go ALTER TABLE bigTransactionHistory ALTER COLUMN TransactionID INT NOT NULL GO set context_info 0x0 go declare @msg3 binary(128) set @msg3=cast('Adding pk_bigTransactionHistory Constraint' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg3 go ALTER TABLE bigTransactionHistory ADD CONSTRAINT pk_bigTransactionHistory PRIMARY KEY NONCLUSTERED(TransactionID) GO set context_info 0x0 go declare @msg4 binary(128) set @msg4=cast('Creating IX_ProductId_TransactionDate Index' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg4 go CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX IX_ProductId_TransactionDate ON bigTransactionHistory(ProductId,TransactionDate) INCLUDE(Quantity,ActualCost) GO set context_info 0x0 This doesn't include the entire script, only those portions that altered a table or created an index. One annoyance is that SET CONTEXT_INFO requires a literal or variable, you can't use an expression. And since GO starts a new batch I need to declare a variable in each one. And of course I have to use CAST because it won't implicitly convert varchar to binary. And even though context_info is a nullable column, you can't SET CONTEXT_INFO NULL, so I have to use SET CONTEXT_INFO 0x0 to clear the message after the statement completes. And if you're thinking of turning this into a UDF, you can't, although a stored procedure would work. So what does all this aggravation get you? As the code runs, if I want to see which stage the session is at, I can run the following (assuming SPID 51 is the one I want): select CAST(context_info as varchar(128)) from sys.dm_exec_sessions where session_id=51 Since SQL Server 2005 introduced the new system and dynamic management views (DMVs) there's not as much need for tagging a session with these kinds of messages. You can get the session start time and currently executing statement from them, and neatly presented if you use Adam's sp_whoisactive utility (and you absolutely should be using it). Of course you can always use xp_cmdshell, a CLR function, or some other tricks to log information outside of a SQL transaction. All the same, I've used this trick to monitor long-running reports at a previous job, and I still think CONTEXT_INFO is a great feature, especially if you're still using SQL Server 2000 or want to supplement your instrumentation. If you'd like an exercise, consider adding the system time to the messages in the last example, and an automated job to query and parse it from the system tables. That would let you track how long each statement ran without having to run Profiler. #TSQL2sDay

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Java Spotlight Episode 78: Jasper Potts on the JavaFX Scene Builder

- by Roger Brinkley

Tweet An interview with Jasper Potts about the new JavaFX Scene Builder. Joining us this week on the Java All Star Developer Panel are Dalibor Topic, Java Free and Open Source Software Ambassador and Arun Gupta, Java EE Guy. Right-click or Control-click to download this MP3 file. You can also subscribe to the Java Spotlight Podcast Feed to get the latest podcast automatically. If you use iTunes you can open iTunes and subscribe with this link: Java Spotlight Podcast in iTunes. Show Notes News JavaFX Scene Builder Developer Preview available for testing. Java EE Unlock the Java EE 6 Platform using NetBeans 7.1 Tuning GlassFish for Production JSF 2.2 Update from Ed Burns John Rose at Microsoft's Lang.NEXT summit Recording of John's Java 8 presentation Jeroen Frijters' presentation on IKVM.NET Martin Odersky's keynote JVM Language Summit 2012 July 30 – August 1; Oracle Santa Clara (same as last year) CFP coming in a few days JVM Language Summit 2011 Presentations & Recordings Proposed development schedule for JDK 8 Say hello to Mathias Axelsson Events April 11, Cleveland JUG, Cleveland, OH April 12, GreenJUG, Greenville, SC April 17-18, JavaOne Russia, Moscow Russia April 18–20, Devoxx France, Paris, France April 17-20, GIDS, Bangalore April 21, Java Summit, Chennai April 26, Mix-IT, Lyon, France, May 3-4, JavaOne India, Hyderabad, India May 5, Bangalore, Pune, ?? - JUG outreach May 7, OTN Developer Day, Mumbai May 8, OTN Developer Day, Delhi Feature InterviewJasper Potts is the Developer Experience Architect for the Java Client Group at Oracle. Responsible for technical design for everything thats sis on the core platform including Controls, Tools, Samples and Blueprints. Formally a lead engineer on the JavaFX & Swing teams working on the new JavaFX UI Controls and Graphics frameworks. Also responsible for designing, developing and presenting demos during the keynotes at JavaOne and Devoxx. A JavaOne Rockstar presenter having presented many sessions on JavaFX and Swing at many conferences. Prior to Sun he founded Xerto a desktop applications company developing Imagery a Java professional photo management application. In this interview Jasper talks about the recently release JavaFX Scene Builder. Mail Bag What’s Cool Contribute to GlassFish in Five Different Ways Stephen Chin and James Weaver join Oracle Adam Bien - Building Java FX 2 Libraries From Source With Maven 3 Paul Sandoz - Java Boomerang Building Jigsaw on Mac OS X using VirtualBox Mandy Chung: Jigsaw for Mac OS X

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Mexico leading in Business Transformation Strategies:

- by [email protected]

By John Burke Group Vice President Oracle Applications Business Unit I recently completed a business tour in Mexico, and was surprised by both the economic vibrancy of the country and the thought leadership expressed by many of the customers I met. An example of the economic vibrancy of the country: across the street from my hotel was the local Bentley dealership, Coach Store, Yves Saint Laurent and of course a Starbucks. I only made it to Starbucks. Both the Coach Store and YSL had a line of folks waiting to get in... As for thought leadership, there were several illustrations only on the first day. I had the opportunity to meet with a branch of the Mexican Federal Government. Their questions were not about clerical task automation, far from it! We discussed citizen on-line access to fees and services - for example looking up the duty on an international goods shipment, or tracking that my taxes have been received, or the status of my request for a certain service. Eligibility, policies and status. Having an integrated rules or policy automation system that would allow businesses and citizens to access accurate information and ensure the proper collection of fees and payment for 3rd party provided services. Then in the afternoon, I met with the owner of a roofing company (note: most roofs in Mexico are flat and made of cement). This CEO started discussing how he wanted to transform his business from a cement products company to a service company and market 5-10-15 year service contracts which would guarantee the structural integrity of the roof and of course that the roof would remain waterproof. Although his products were guaranteed, they required an annual inspection and most home owners never schedule that inspection until it is too late and water damage has occurred. These emergency calls reduce his margin and reduce customer satisfaction. This lead to a discussion of business models in general and why long term differentiation can only come from service, not just for the music or news industries, but also for roofing companies! I completely agreed with the transformational concepts described in both meetings and quickly understood why there is a Bentley dealership near my hotel.

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SQL Saturday #162 Cambridge

- by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

Despite the efforts of American Airlines, this past weekend I attended the first SQL Saturday in the UK! Hosted by the SQLCambs Chapter of PASS and organized by Mark (b|t) & Lorraine Broadbent, ably assisted by John Martin (b|t), Mark Pryce-Maher (b|t) and other folks whose names I've unfortunately forgotten, it was held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, which is completely surrounded by Cambridge University. On Friday, they presented 3 pre-conference sessions given by the brilliant American Cloud & DBA Guru, Buck Woody (b|t), the brilliant Danish SQL Server Internals Guru, Mark Rasmussen (b|t), and the brilliant Scottish Business Intelligence Guru and recent Outstanding Pass Volunteer, Jen Stirrup (b|t). While I would have loved to attend any of their pre-cons (having seen them present several times already), finances and American Airlines ultimately made that impossible. But not to worry, I caught up with them during the regular sessions and at the speaker dinner. And I got back the money they all owed me. (Actually I owed Mark some money) The schedule was jam-packed even with only 4 tracks, there were 8 regular slots, a lunch session for sponsor presentations, and a 15 minute keynote given by Buck Woody, who besides giving an excellent history of SQL Server at Microsoft (and before), also explained the source of the "unknown contact" image that appears in Outlook. Hint: it's not Buck himself. Amazingly, and against all better judgment, I even got to present at SQL Saturday 162! I did a 5 minute Lightning Talk on Regular Expressions in SSMS. I then did a regular 50 minute session on Constraints. You can download the content for the regular session at that link, and for the regular expression presentation here. I had a great time and had a great audience for both of my sessions. You would never have guessed this was the first event for the organizers, everything went very smoothly, especially for the number of attendees and the relative smallness of the space. The event sponsors also deserve a lot of credit for making themselves fit in a small area and for staying through the entire event until the giveaways at the very end. Overall this was one of the best SQL Saturdays I've ever attended and I have to congratulate Mark B, Lorraine, John, Mark P-M, and all the volunteers and speakers for making this an astoundingly hard act to follow! Well done!

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MythTV lost recordings - "No recordings available" and no recording rules either

- by nimasmi

I have a c.6 year old mythtv database. I recently upgraded from Ubuntu 10.04 to 12.04. This brought a MythTV upgrade from 0.24 to 0.25, which went well. Today, all my recordings have disappeared. They still exist in the /var/lib/mythtv/recordings folder, and the 'M' key in the Watch Recordings page says that there are 201 recordings available somewhere, but they will not display. See screenshot: (implicit thanks to whomever upvoted this, giving me sufficient reputation to upload images) Changing the filter does not remedy the fact that there is nothing shown in the lists. My Upcoming Recordings screen says that there are no rules set, but my list of previously recorded shows is still there, and has an entry from as recently as 3am today. mythbackend --printsched gives the following: user@box:~$ mythbackend --printsched 2012-09-22 12:59:20.537008 C mythbackend version: fixes/0.25 [v0.25.2-15-g46cab93] www.mythtv.org 2012-09-22 12:59:20.537043 C Qt version: compile: 4.8.1, runtime: 4.8.1 2012-09-22 12:59:20.537048 N Enabled verbose msgs: general 2012-09-22 12:59:20.537076 N Setting Log Level to LOG_INFO 2012-09-22 12:59:20.537142 I Added logging to the console 2012-09-22 12:59:20.537152 I Added database logging to table logging 2012-09-22 12:59:20.537279 N Setting up SIGHUP handler 2012-09-22 12:59:20.537373 N Using runtime prefix = /usr 2012-09-22 12:59:20.537394 N Using configuration directory = /home/user/.mythtv 2012-09-22 12:59:20.537999 I Assumed character encoding: en_GB.UTF-8 2012-09-22 12:59:20.538599 N Empty LocalHostName. 2012-09-22 12:59:20.538610 I Using localhost value of box 2012-09-22 12:59:20.538792 I Testing network connectivity to '192.168.1.2' 2012-09-22 12:59:20.539420 I Starting process manager 2012-09-22 12:59:20.541412 I Starting IO manager (read) 2012-09-22 12:59:20.541715 I Starting IO manager (write) 2012-09-22 12:59:20.541836 I Starting process signal handler 2012-09-22 12:59:20.684497 N Setting QT default locale to EN_GB 2012-09-22 12:59:20.684694 I Current locale EN_GB 2012-09-22 12:59:20.684813 N Reading locale defaults from /usr/share/mythtv//locales/en_gb.xml 2012-09-22 12:59:20.697623 I New static DB connectionDataDirectCon 2012-09-22 12:59:20.704769 I MythCoreContext: Connecting to backend server: 192.168.1.2:6543 (try 1 of 1) Calculating Schedule from database. Inputs, Card IDs, and Conflict info may be invalid if you have multiple tuners. 2012-09-22 12:59:27.710538 E MythSocket(21dfcd0:14): readStringList: Error, timed out after 7000 ms. 2012-09-22 12:59:27.710592 C Protocol version check failure. The response to MYTH_PROTO_VERSION was empty. This happens when the backend is too busy to respond, or has deadlocked in due to bugs or hardware failure. Things I have tried so far: restart the backend restart the frontend run mythtv-setup and check database passwords and IP addresses change the frontend setting for backend IP from localhost to 192.168.1.2 (the backend/frontend's IP) run optimize_mythdb.pl Other suggestions appreciated.

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What Am I doing for my 5 months 1 week old baby for his first cold?

- by Rekha

With my limited friends circle with babies, I heard that babies in their fifth month usually gets affected by cold all of a sudden. This is unavoidable and I feel it is good for the babies as they start developing their immune system right on. We usually take our son for a small walk so that he is able to explore the world out there. We have been taking him for a stroll almost everyday since we was 3 months old. But only now he is getting his first cold. So things happen only now I think. Till that day I had somehow brought some routine for him for his feed and naps during day time. Night time is still sleepless ones anyway. So when he first got his cold, that night it went on as usual getting up every few hours. From the next day on, he stopped feeding at the usual time. In the night he goes for 8-10 hours between feeds but still wakes up every two hours and cries for about 10 minutes and when we lift him for sometime, he goes back to sleep. Now to the point what all to expect: * Babies starts feeding frequently * Babies spit up increases * They dislike the food they liked before (we have just started solid foods as per our pediatricians advice) * Since they cannot breathe properly, they cannot sleep for a long time *Pees and poops less frequently. What all we did for our baby to make him comfortable during this time: * Feed the baby less quantity and more frequently whenever they expect to feed (Do not follow the schedule) * When the quantity is less, spit ups is also less * If the baby does not like the food (vegetable or fruit), avoid them till they get back to normal * Try to elevate their head while sleeping ( we used the cradle – sitting position, bouncer, car seat and finally all four sides we placed firm pillows so that he does not roll and kept a pillow for his head till his hip – this one is recommended usually but we have an eye on him always) * No need for any medicines – it will take a week for them to get back to normal whether or not we gives medicines * We applied home made Cold Reliever (heat 2 teaspoons of coconut oil with a small camphor piece till the camphor disappears – then cool the mixture) on his chest, back, neck and feet and covered the feet with socks in the nights * Bathe him everyday – hot (that your baby can withstand) * Whenever possible give him a steam bath (open the hot showers for sometime in the bathroom and close the doors. When the steam is bearable, close the shower and take the baby inside the bathroom for sometime) * Also use a bulb syringe provided in the hospital to clear the nose (use some saline water drops for ease) * Cuddle him when he cries But please do take him to his doctor if he has fever and other symptoms other than cold or the cold persists for more than 5 – 7 days. Image Credit : MiriamBJDolls

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JCP EC Nomination Materials for 2012

- by heathervc

The nomination period of the 2012 Annual JCP EC Elections will begin at the end of September 2012. The JCP will be accept self-nominations for 2 seats on what will become the merged JCP EC, starting 28 September, with the nomination period ending on Thursday, 11 October. JCP Members (JSPA 2 primary contacts) will receive messages with instructions for nominating and their login credentials via email. You will need this credential information to login and complete the nomination.The JCP EC Special Election schedule is posted online in the JCP calendar, highlights are below:Nominations for elected seats: 28 September-11 OctoberBallot (ratified and elected): 16-29 OctoberNew members take office: 13 November The ballot with nominees for ratified and nominated seats begins on 16 October. The results will also be available on jcp.org on 30 October. If you are attending JavaOne 2012 in San Francisco, there are several events happening that you may be interested in attending, in particular the following BOF session.Meet the JCP Executive Committee CandidatesSession ID: BOF6307Location: Hilton San Francisco - Golden Gate 3/4/5Date and Time: 10/2/12, 4:30 PM - 5:15 PM We will also be hosting a call for all of the candidates following the nomination period. The following information is required for self-nomination.1) Contact information/Biography Each EC seat is represented by two people - a primary and alternate representative. Provide the following information for each representative: - Name - Title - Email Address - Mailing Address - Phone Number - Fax - A brief biography (3-5 sentences/~100-200 words) for primary contact - Photograph (prefer jpg format, head only shot) for primary contactBios and photos for the EC members are posted here:http://jcp.org/en/press/news/ec-feature_MEhttp://jcp.org/en/press/news/ec-feature_SE2) Qualification StatementA brief (2-3 paragraph) description of your qualifications for an EC seat; this is a Qualification Statement for the organization you represent. It should include the value and perspective you bring to the EC, your interests in the JCP program, as well as a summary of your current participation or planned participation in the JCP program (your entire organization)--JSRs, participation on Expert Groups, meetings/events attended, etc. This statement will appear on the ballot and will convince community members that they should vote for you, so please include relevant information about your experience within the JCP program and your investments in Java technology.A few sample qualification statements are available here.3) Position PaperOne of the pieces of information we make available to the JCP membership for voting purposes is a position paper. If you would like to provide this type of information for the ballot, please prepare in pdf format for posting. This would be more detail on areas that you would put focus into during your tenure on the JCP EC.You can read more about some of the topics under discussion in the EC here, including links to JCP.Next materials. If you have an interest in participating in the JCP EC, please start preparing these materials now. We look forward to a successful election process.

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Testing Workflows – Test-After

- by Timothy Klenke

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TimothyK/archive/2014/05/30/testing-workflows-ndash-test-after.aspxIn this post I’m going to outline a few common methods that can be used to increase the coverage of of your test suite. This won’t be yet another post on why you should be doing testing; there are plenty of those types of posts already out there. Assuming you know you should be testing, then comes the problem of how do I actual fit that into my day job. When the opportunity to automate testing comes do you take it, or do you even recognize it? There are a lot of ways (workflows) to go about creating automated tests, just like there are many workflows to writing a program. When writing a program you can do it from a top-down approach where you write the main skeleton of the algorithm and call out to dummy stub functions, or a bottom-up approach where the low level functionality is fully implement before it is quickly wired together at the end. Both approaches are perfectly valid under certain contexts. Each approach you are skilled at applying is another tool in your tool belt. The more vectors of attack you have on a problem – the better. So here is a short, incomplete list of some of the workflows that can be applied to increasing the amount of automation in your testing and level of quality in general. Think of each workflow as an opportunity that is available for you to take. Test workflows basically fall into 2 categories: test first or test after. Test first is the best approach. However, this post isn’t about the one and only best approach. I want to focus more on the lesser known, less ideal approaches that still provide an opportunity for adding tests. In this post I’ll enumerate some test-after workflows. In my next post I’ll cover test-first. Bug Reporting When someone calls you up or forwards you a email with a vague description of a bug its usually standard procedure to create or verify a reproduction plan for the bug via manual testing and log that in a bug tracking system. This can be problematic. Often reproduction plans when written down might skip a step that seemed obvious to the tester at the time or they might be missing some crucial environment setting. Instead of data entry into a bug tracking system, try opening up the test project and adding a failing unit test to prove the bug. The test project guarantees that all aspects of the environment are setup properly and no steps are missing. The language in the test project is much more precise than the English that goes into a bug tracking system. This workflow can easily be extended for Enhancement Requests as well as Bug Reporting. Exploratory Testing Exploratory testing comes in when you aren’t sure how the system will behave in a new scenario. The scenario wasn’t planned for in the initial system requirements and there isn’t an existing test for it. By definition the system behaviour is “undefined”. So write a new unit test to define that behaviour. Add assertions to the tests to confirm your assumptions. The new test becomes part of the living system specification that is kept up to date with the test suite. Examples This workflow is especially good when developing APIs. When you are finally done your production API then comes the job of writing documentation on how to consume the API. Good documentation will also include code examples. Don’t let these code examples merely exist in some accompanying manual; implement them in a test suite. Example tests and documentation do not have to be created after the production API is complete. It is best to write the example code (tests) as you go just before the production code. Smoke Tests Every system has a typical use case. This represents the basic, core functionality of the system. If this fails after an upgrade the end users will be hosed and they will be scratching their heads as to how it could be possible that an update got released with this core functionality broken. The tests for this core functionality are referred to as “smoke tests”. It is a good idea to have them automated and run with each build in order to avoid extreme embarrassment and angry customers. Coverage Analysis Code coverage analysis is a tool that reports how much of the production code base is exercised by the test suite. In Visual Studio this can be found under the Test main menu item. The tool will report a total number for the code coverage, which can be anywhere between 0 and 100%. Coverage Analysis shouldn’t be used strictly for numbers reporting. Companies shouldn’t set minimum coverage targets that mandate that all projects must have at least 80% or 100% test coverage. These arbitrary requirements just invite gaming of the coverage analysis, which makes the numbers useless. The analysis tool will break down the coverage by the various classes and methods in projects. Instead of focusing on the total number, drill down into this view and see which classes have high or low coverage. It you are surprised by a low number on a class this is an opportunity to add tests. When drilling through the classes there will be generally two types of reaction to a surprising low test coverage number. The first reaction type is a recognition that there is low hanging fruit to be picked. There may be some classes or methods that aren’t being tested, which could easy be. The other reaction type is “OMG”. This were you find a critical piece of code that isn’t under test. In both cases, go and add the missing tests. Test Refactoring The general theme of this post up to this point has been how to add more and more tests to a test suite. I’ll step back from that a bit and remind that every line of code is a liability. Each line of code has to be read and maintained, which costs money. This is true regardless whether the code is production code or test code. Remember that the primary goal of the test suite is that it be easy to read so that people can easily determine the specifications of the system. Make sure that adding more and more tests doesn’t interfere with this primary goal. Perform code reviews on the test suite as often as on production code. Hold the test code up to the same high readability standards as the production code. If the tests are hard to read then change them. Look to remove duplication. Duplicate setup code between two or more test methods that can be moved to a shared function. Entire test methods can be removed if it is found that the scenario it tests is covered by other tests. Its OK to delete a test that isn’t pulling its own weight anymore. Remember to only start refactoring when all the test are green. Don’t refactor the tests and the production code at the same time. An automated test suite can be thought of as a double entry book keeping system. The unchanging, passing production code serves as the tests for the test suite while refactoring the tests. As with all refactoring, it is best to fit this into your regular work rather than asking for time later to get it done. Fit this into the standard red-green-refactor cycle. The refactor step no only applies to production code but also the tests, but not at the same time. Perhaps the cycle should be called red-green-refactor production-refactor tests (not quite as catchy). That about covers most of the test-after workflows I can think of. In my next post I’ll get into test-first workflows.

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Java Spotlight Episode 111: Bruno Souza @brjavaman and Fabiane Nardon @fabianenardonon StoryTroop @storytroop

- by Roger Brinkley

Interview with Bruno Souza and Fabiane Nardon on StoryTroop. Right-click or Control-click to download this MP3 file. You can also subscribe to the Java Spotlight Podcast Feed to get the latest podcast automatically. If you use iTunes you can open iTunes and subscribe with this link: Java Spotlight Podcast in iTunes. Show Notes News End of Puplic Updates for JDK 6 Bean Valdiation 1.1 public review approved Two key JSRs accepted in time for JavaEE7 Public_JCP EC_meeting_audio_and materials posted Devoxx UK and Devoxx France CFP open JPA 2.1 Schema Generation WebSocket, Java EE 7, and GlassFish Events Dec 3-5, jDays, Göteborg, Sweden Dec 4-6, JavaOne Latin America, Sao Paolo, Brazil Dec 14-15, IndicThreads, Pune, India JCP Spec Lead Call December on Developing a TCK JCP EC Face to Face Meeting, January 15-16, West Coast USA Feature InterviewBruno Souza is a Java Developer and Open Source Evangelist at Summa Technologies, and a Cloud Expert at ToolsCloud. Nurturing developer communities is a personal passion, and Bruno worked actively with Java, NetBeans, Open Solaris, OFBiz, and many other open source communities. As founder and coordinator of SouJava (The Java Users Society), one of the world's largest Java User Groups, Bruno leaded the expansion of the Java movement in Brazil. Founder of the Worldwide Java User Groups Community, Bruno helped the creation and organization of hundreds of JUGs worldwide. A Java Developer since the early days, Bruno participated in some of the largest Java projects in Brazil.Fabiane Nardon is a computer scientist who is passionate about creating software that will positively change the world we live in. She was the architect of the Brazilian Healthcare Information System, considered the largest JavaEE application in the world and winner of the 2005 Duke's Choice Award. She leaded several communities, including the JavaTools Community at java.net, where 800+ open source projects were born. She is a frequent speaker at conferences in Brazil and abroad, including JavaOne, OSCON, Jfokus, JustJava and more. She’s also the author of several technical articles and member of the program committee of several conferences as JavaOne, OSCON, TDC. She was chosen a Java Champion by Sun Microsystems as a recognition of her contribution to the Java ecosystem. Currently, she works as a tools expert at ToolsCloud and in companies she co-founded, where she is helping to shape new disruptive Internet based services.StoryTroop is a space where we combine multiple perspectives about a story. This creates an understanding of that story like never seen before. Pieces of a story are organized in time and space and anyone can add a different perspective.What’s Cool Geek Bike Ride at JavaOne LAD Devoxx UK (Mar 26, 27) and FR (Mar 27 - 29) CFP jFokus schedule is firming up Nashorn Blog 1,500 @JavaSpotlight Twitter followers

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How should I pitch moving to an agile/iterative development cycle with mandated 3-week deployments?

- by Wayne M

I'm part of a small team of four, and I'm the unofficial team lead (I'm lead in all but title, basically). We've largely been a "cowboy" environment, with no architecture or structure and everyone doing their own thing. Previously, our production deployments would be every few months without being on a set schedule, as things were added/removed to the task list of each developer. Recently, our CIO (semi-technical but not really a programmer) decided we will do deployments every three weeks; because of this I instantly thought that adopting an iterative development process (not necessarily full-blown Agile/XP, which would be a huge thing to convince everyone else to do) would go a long way towards helping manage expectations properly so there isn't this far-fetched idea that any new feature will be done in three weeks. IMO the biggest hurdle is that we don't have ANY kind of development approach in place right now (among other things like no CI or automated tests whatsoever). We don't even use Waterfall, we use "Tell Developer X to do a task, expect him to do everything and get it done". Are there any pointers that would help me start to ease us towards an iterative approach and A) Get the other developers on board with it and B) Get management to understand how iterative works? So far my idea involves trying to set up a CI server and get our build process automated (it takes about 10-20 minutes right now to simply build the application to put it on our development server), since pushing tests and/or TDD will be met with a LOT of resistance at this point, and constantly force us to break larger projects into smaller chunks that could be done iteratively in a three-week cycle; my only concern is that, unless I'm misunderstanding, an agile/iterative process may or may not release the software (depending on the project scope you might have "working" software after three weeks, but there isn't enough of it that works to let users make use of it), while I think the expectation here from management is that there will always be something "ready to go" in three weeks, and that disconnect could cause problems. On that note, is there any literature or references that explains the agile/iterative approach from a business standpoint? Everything I've seen only focuses on the developers, how to do it, but nothing seems to describe it from the perspective of actually getting the buy-in from the businesspeople.

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Am 10.02. startet WebCast-Serie für Java Entwickler und WebLogic Interessenten: WebLogic Developer - Get the latest on Oracle WebLogic Server and Java EE 6

- by Thomas Leopold

v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 21 false false false DE X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Accelerate Your Development with Oracle WebLogic Suite Many organisations are reducing travel, conference, and training budgets for their developers without any change to the results expected of those developers. So how can you keep up with the latest developments?By receiving training, delivered free of charge, at your desk!Join us during February and March for a series of online events designed and run by the development team at Oracle. Learn how Oracle WebLogic Suite enables a whole new level of productivity for enterprise developers.Virtual Developer Day - 10th FebruaryStarting with our Virtual Developer Day on 10th February, join us for a blend of hands-on labs, live chat and presentations covering the latest on WebLogic, Java EE 6 and the programming tenets that have made it a true platform breakthrough.Weekly WebLogic Webcasts from 17th February to 17th MarchAfterwards, join us every week from 17th February to 17th March for our weekly one-hour webcasts where we will show you how to build an application from the ground up using Java and JEE technologies. Presented by the engineering team for WebLogic, these webcasts will be of great value to developers and architects, not just those already using WebLogic.For registration, full session abstracts and schedule please click here. Don't miss out! Register now to join our virtual events and keep up with all the latest developments. Find out more and register now Copyright © 2011, Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates.All rights reserved. Contact Us | Legal Notices and Terms of Use | Privacy Statement

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Finally, upgrade from Nokia X3 to Samsung Galaxy S III

This time, something slightly different but nonetheless not less interesting, hopefully. Living on a remote island like Mauritius, ill-praised 'Cyber Island' in the Indian Ocean, has its advantages in life style and relaxed environment to life in but in terms of technological aspects it can be quite a nightmare. Well, I guess this might be different story to report about... one day. Cyber Island Mauritius Despite it's shiny advertisement as Cyber Island and business in ICT hub to Africa, Mauritius is not on the latest track of available models in computer hardware or, in the context of this article, cellulars or smart-phone, or communication technology in general. Okay, I have to admit that this statement is only partly true. Money can buy, even here in Mauritius. Luckily, there are ways and ways to deal with this outcry of modern, read: technological, civilisation issues. Online shopping you might think? Yes, for sure, until you discover in your checkout procedure that a small island in the Indian Ocean isn't a preferred destination for delivery and the precious time you spent on putting your items into your cart and feeding your personal level of anticipation gets ruined on the last stint. Ordering from abroad saves you money Anyway, I got in touch with my personal courier and luckily there were some extra-kilos left in the luggage. First obstacle sorted, we have a Transporter! Okay, on the next occasion off to Amazon online and using their Prime service for fast delivery. Actually, the order was placed on Saturday evening and everything got delivered on Tuesday morning - nice job in less than 72 hours. Okay, among the items of that shopping rush I ordered a shiny Samsung Galaxy S III 16GB in oceanic blue - did I mention, that you hardly get a blue model in Mauritius? - for my BWE. Interesting side-notes: First, Amazon Germany dropped the prices for roughly 30% on the S3, and we got the 16GB model for less than 500 Euro (or approx. Rs. 19.500,-) compared to the usual Rs. 27.000,- on the local market. It even varies whether the local price is inclusive or exclusive VAT (15%). Second, since a while she was bothering me to get an iPhone and an iPad for her, fair enough I thought, decent hardware, posh design and reliable services. Until we watched the 'magical' introduction of Samsung's new models at the IFA exhibition, she read the bashing comments on Google+ on the iPhone 5 and I gave her a brief summary on the law suit between Apple and Samsung in the USA. So, yes, Samsung USA is right, the next big thing is already here - literally. My BWE loves the look and touch of the Galaxy S3. And for me it was more cost-effective in terms of purchases done at the App Store, ups, Play Store. Transfer of contacts, text messages and media files Okay, now that the hardware is in place, how to transfer all those contacts, text messages, media files, etc. between those two devices? In the past, I used to use the Nokia Communication Suite between various models but now for Android? Well, as usual Google and Bing are reliable friends and among the first hits I came across an article about How to Transfer Contacts from Nokia to Android. Couldn't be easier, right? Well, sort of... my main Windows systems are already running on Windows 8, and this actually caused problems with the mobile/smart-phone device drivers. The article provides the download for an older version 1.10 which upgrades to 2.11 (as time of writing this entry) but both couldn't get the Galaxy S3 and the Nokia connected. Shame on me... the product page clearly doesn't mention Windows 8 (for now) and Windows 8 isn't available for the general audience at all... After I took a spare machine running on Windows Vista everything went smooth. Software installed, upgrade done, device drivers for Android automatically downloaded and installed, and the same painless routine for the Nokia part. I think, I rebooted the system twice during the whole setup procedure but hey, it was more or less a distraction while coding some stuff in ASP.NET MVC and Telerik Kendo UI. The transfer of contacts and text messages was done via Wondershare MobileGo for Android, and all media files by moving the additional microSD card from one device to the other. But even without an external SD card, it would have been very easy to copy the files via Windows Explorer directly. Little catch and excellent service Fine, we are almost done and the only step left is to shift the SIM card... Ouch, gotcha! The X3 uses a standard size SIM card while the S III only accepts microSIM form factor. What an irony, bigger smartphone needs smaller SIM card. Luckily, the next showroom of Emtel is just 5 mins away up the road, and the service staff over there know their job. Finally, after roughly 10 mins of paper work, activation and small chit-chat, the S3 came to life on the mobile network. Owning a smart-phone now and knowing that my BWE would like to interact more on social networks away from home, especially to upload pictures and provide local 'check-ins', I activated a data package for her in advance, too. Even that it is Saturday, everything was already done and ready to be used. Nice bonus: The Emtel clerk directly offered me to set up the configuration for the Emtel data services, yes sure, go ahead, this saves me to search for that in the settings. Okay, spoiler-alert here, setting a static APN to access the Emtel network and the internet wouldn't be a challenge. But hey, she already had the phone in her hands and I could keep my eyes on the children. Well done, Emtel! Resume Thanks to the useful software package by Wondershare is was a hands-free experience to transfer all the data from a Nokia mobile on Symbian S60 to a Samsung Galaxy S III on Android Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). In the future, this wont be a serious issue at all anymore thanks to synchronisation services and cloud storage. And for now, I'm only waiting for the official upgrades for Jelly Bean.

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Breakfast Keynote, More at Gartner IAM Summit This Week

- by Tanu Sood

Gartner Identity and Access Management Conference We look forward to seeing you at the.... Gartner Identity and Access Management Conference Oracle is proud to be a Silver Sponsor of the Gartner Identity and Access Management Summit happening December 3 - 5 in Las Vegas, NV. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear Oracle Senior VP of Identity Management, Amit Jasuja, present Trends in Identity Management at our keynote presentation and breakfast on Tuesday, December 4th at 7:30 a.m. Everyone that attends is entered into a raffle to win a free JAWBONE JAMBOX wireless speaker system. Also, don’t forget to visit the Oracle Booth to mingle with your peers and speak to Oracle experts. Learn how Oracle Identity Management solutions are enabling the Social, Mobile, and Cloud (SoMoClo) environments. Visit Oracle Booth #S15 to: View a demonstration of our latest release - Oracle Identity Management 11g R2 Visit our virtual collateral rack and download useful resources Enter to win a JAWBONE JAMBOX Wireless Speaker System Exhibit Hall Hours Monday, December 3 — 11:45 a.m. – 1:45 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. – 8:15 p.m. Tuesday, December 4 — 11:45 a.m. – 2:45 p.m. To schedule a meeting with Oracle Identity Management executives and experts at Gartner IAM, please email us or speak to your account representative. We look forward to seeing you at the Gartner Identity and Access Management Summit! Visit Oracle at Booth #S15 Gartner IAM SummitDecember 3 - 5, 2012 Caesars Palace Attend our Keynote Breakfast Trends in Identity Management Tuesday, December 4, 2012 7:15 a.m. - 8:00 a.m., Octavius 16 Speakers: Amit Jasuja, Senior Vice President, Identity Management Oracle Ranjan Jain, Enterprise Architect, Cisco As enterprises embrace mobile and social applications, security and audit have moved into the foreground. The way we work and connect with our customers is changing dramatically and this means re-thinking how we secure the interaction and enable the experience. Work is an activity not a place - mobile access enables employees to work from any device anywhere and anytime. Organizations are utilizing "flash teams" - instead of a dedicated group to solve problems, organizations utilize more cross-functional teams. Work is now social - email collaboration will be replaced by dynamic social media style interaction. In this session, we will examine these three secular trends and discuss how organizations can secure the work experience and adapt audit controls to address the "new work order". Stay Connected: For more information, please visit www.oracle.com/identity. Copyright © 2012, Oracle. All rights reserved. Contact Us | Legal Notices and Terms of Use | Privacy Statement SEO100120175 Oracle Corporation - Worldwide Headquarters, 500 Oracle Parkway, OPL - E-mail Services, Redwood Shores, CA 94065, United States Your privacy is important to us. You can login to your account to update your e-mail subscriptions or you can opt-out of all Oracle Marketing e-mails at any time.Please note that opting-out of Marketing communications does not affect your receipt of important business communications related to your current relationship with Oracle such as Security Updates, Event Registration notices, Account Management and Support/Service communications.

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Oracle Open World 2012 is Here!

- by thatjeffsmith

Just a quick post today and then probably not much more until next week. Speaking, running hands on labs, meets and greets, and trying to keep up with folks like @oraclenerd means I won’t have much time to write until I get home from San Francisco. Wanted to give a quick shout out to my co-worker and partner-in-Product Management-crime, Ashley Chen this morning. She signed me up for a run across the Golden Gate and back with @bamcgill a few months ago…mostly with my permission. The only thing was, I didn’t run at the time, and that’s basically a 5k. But having goals is good. And yesterday I met a big goal of mine – not looking stupid trying to run across the Golden Gate Bridge. Ok, I did the run and mabye looked a little bit stupid. Ashley, Barry, and I Pre-Run Perfect weather and no fog to cloud the view! So the pre-show fun is over and now it’s time for the show fun to begin. At Oracle Open World? Come by our demo pods. We’re with the other Database folks in the back right-hand corner. We’ll have folks on hand to talk and show Oracle SQL Developer, Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler, Migrations, and Oracle APEX Listener. Oracle SQL Developer Demo Pod I have the full schedule of SQL Developer presentations and hands on labs here. I know there’s a lot of news on tap this week in the world of Oracle, and we’ll start talking more about it soon. So be sure to subscribe to my feed if you don’t want to miss any of my posts. And I promise not to post any more pictures me. Speaking of pictures, thanks to @dmcghan – or as I call him, ‘Dan the Man’ for running with us and being our official portrait photographer! If you don’t follow him, he’s a great fountain of knowledge in the Oracle APEX world and is one of our ACEs.

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Split Internet Explorer into Dual-Panes

- by Asian Angel

If you have a wide screen monitor then you may want to make better use of Internet Explorer’s browser window area. Now you can split the browser window into dual-panes as needed with the IE Split browser plugin. Note: Requires .NET Framework 2.0 or higher (link provided below). IE Split in Action If you are using an older version of this software here is something to keep in mind before upgrading to the 2.0 release. Once you have installed IE Split you will notice a new toolbar added to your browser. As seen here, you can condense it down tightly and access it using the drop-down bar. A closer look at the drop-down bar. Notice the address bar…this will be for the left pane when you split the browser window. Here is our browser split into dual-panes. There are two address bars and two tab/title bars each corresponding to their appropriate pane. It may look slightly backwards at first but is not hard to get used to. A better view of the left pane with the IE Split navigation & title bars showing. Note: The title bar can be hidden if desired. And the right pane. You can also have multiple “split” tabs open if needed. There is nothing quite like getting double the value for the same amount of space. When you no longer need dual-panes open just click on the “x” to close IE Split down. All back to normal again. Conclusion While might not be for everyone this can still be useful for those who need side-by-side access to websites without using multiple separate windows. Links Download IE-Split Download the Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (Standalone Installer) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Set Up Multi-Pane Viewing in FirefoxWhy Can’t I Turn the Details/Preview Panes On or Off in Windows Vista Explorer?Split a text file in half (or any percentage) on Ubuntu LinuxMysticgeek Blog: A Look at Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 on Windows XPMake Ctrl+Tab in Internet Explorer 7 Use Most Recent Order TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Filevo is a Cool File Hosting & Sharing Site Get a free copy of WinUtilities Pro 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate Customize Everything Related to Dates, Times, Currency and Measurement in Windows 7 Google Earth replacement Icon (Icons we like)

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24 Hours of PASS coming up soon!

- by Rob Farley

Massive thanks to all the people that have been shouting about this event already. I’ve seen quite a number of blog posts about it, and rather than listing some and missing others, please assume I’ve noticed your blog and accept my thanks. But in case this is all news to you – the next 24 Hours of PASS event is less than a fortnight away (Sep 20/21)! And there’s lots of info about it at http://www.sqlpass.org/24hours/fall2012/ (Don’t ask why it’s “Fall 2012”. Apparently that’s what this time of year is called in at least two countries. I would call it “Spring”, personally, but do appreciate that it’s “Autumn” in the Northern Hemisphere...) Yes, I blogged about it on the PASS blog a few weeks ago, but haven’t got around to writing about it here yet. As always, 24HOP is going to have some amazing content. But it’s going to be pointing at the larger event, which now less than two months away. That’s right, this 24HOP is the Summit 2012 Preview event. Most of the precon speakers are going to be represented, as are half-day session presenters, quite a few of the Spotlight presenters and some of the Microsoft speakers too. When you look down the list of sessions at http://www.sqlpass.org/24hours/fall2012/SessionsbySchedule.aspx, you’ll find yourself wondering how you can fit them all in. Luckily, that’s not my problem. For me, it’s just about making sure that you can get to hear these people present, and get a taste for the amazing time that you’ll have if you can come to the Summit. I see this 24HOP as the kind of thing that will just drive you crazy if you can’t get to the Summit. There will be so much great content, and every one of these presenters will be delivering even more than this at the Summit itself. If you tune into Jason Strate’s 24HOP session on the Plan Cache and are impressed – well, you can get to a longer session by him on that same topic at the Summit. And the same goes for all of them. If you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself looking at the Summit schedule, wishing you could get to several presentations for every time slot. So get yourself registered for 24HOP and help yourself make that decision. And if you can’t go to the Summit, tune in anyway. You’ll still learn a lot, and you might just be able to help persuade someone to send you to the Summit after all (before the price goes up after Sep 30).

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Finally, upgrade from Nokia X3 to Samsung Galaxy S III

This time, something slightly different but nonetheless not less interesting, hopefully. Living on a remote island like Mauritius, ill-praised 'Cyber Island' in the Indian Ocean, has its advantages in life style and relaxed environment to life in but in terms of technological aspects it can be quite a nightmare. Well, I guess this might be different story to report about... one day. Cyber Island Mauritius Despite it's shiny advertisement as Cyber Island and business in ICT hub to Africa, Mauritius is not on the latest track of available models in computer hardware or, in the context of this article, cellulars or smart-phone, or communication technology in general. Okay, I have to admit that this statement is only partly true. Money can buy, even here in Mauritius. Luckily, there are ways and ways to deal with this outcry of modern, read: technological, civilisation issues. Online shopping you might think? Yes, for sure, until you discover in your checkout procedure that a small island in the Indian Ocean isn't a preferred destination for delivery and the precious time you spent on putting your items into your cart and feeding your personal level of anticipation gets ruined on the last stint. Ordering from abroad saves you money Anyway, I got in touch with my personal courier and luckily there were some extra-kilos left in the luggage. First obstacle sorted, we have a Transporter! Okay, on the next occasion off to Amazon online and using their Prime service for fast delivery. Actually, the order was placed on Saturday evening and everything got delivered on Tuesday morning - nice job in less than 72 hours. Okay, among the items of that shopping rush I ordered a shiny Samsung Galaxy S III 16GB in oceanic blue - did I mention, that you hardly get a blue model in Mauritius? - for my BWE. Interesting side-notes: First, Amazon Germany dropped the prices for roughly 30% on the S3, and we got the 16GB model for less than 500 Euro (or approx. Rs. 19.500,-) compared to the usual Rs. 27.000,- on the local market. It even varies whether the local price is inclusive or exclusive VAT (15%). Second, since a while she was bothering me to get an iPhone and an iPad for her, fair enough I thought, decent hardware, posh design and reliable services. Until we watched the 'magical' introduction of Samsung's new models at the IFA exhibition, she read the bashing comments on Google+ on the iPhone 5 and I gave her a brief summary on the law suit between Apple and Samsung in the USA. So, yes, Samsung USA is right, the next big thing is already here - literally. My BWE loves the look and touch of the Galaxy S3. And for me it was more cost-effective in terms of purchases done at the App Store, ups, Play Store. Transfer of contacts, text messages and media files Okay, now that the hardware is in place, how to transfer all those contacts, text messages, media files, etc. between those two devices? In the past, I used to use the Nokia Communication Suite between various models but now for Android? Well, as usual Google and Bing are reliable friends and among the first hits I came across an article about How to Transfer Contacts from Nokia to Android. Couldn't be easier, right? Well, sort of... my main Windows systems are already running on Windows 8, and this actually caused problems with the mobile/smart-phone device drivers. The article provides the download for an older version 1.10 which upgrades to 2.11 (as time of writing this entry) but both couldn't get the Galaxy S3 and the Nokia connected. Shame on me... the product page clearly doesn't mention Windows 8 (for now) and Windows 8 isn't available for the general audience at all... After I took a spare machine running on Windows Vista everything went smooth. Software installed, upgrade done, device drivers for Android automatically downloaded and installed, and the same painless routine for the Nokia part. I think, I rebooted the system twice during the whole setup procedure but hey, it was more or less a distraction while coding some stuff in ASP.NET MVC and Telerik Kendo UI. The transfer of contacts and text messages was done via Wondershare MobileGo for Android, and all media files by moving the additional microSD card from one device to the other. But even without an external SD card, it would have been very easy to copy the files via Windows Explorer directly. Little catch and excellent service Fine, we are almost done and the only step left is to shift the SIM card... Ouch, gotcha! The X3 uses a standard size SIM card while the S III only accepts microSIM form factor. What an irony, bigger smartphone needs smaller SIM card. Luckily, the next showroom of Emtel is just 5 mins away up the road, and the service staff over there know their job. Finally, after roughly 10 mins of paper work, activation and small chit-chat, the S3 came to life on the mobile network. Owning a smart-phone now and knowing that my BWE would like to interact more on social networks away from home, especially to upload pictures and provide local 'check-ins', I activated a data package for her in advance, too. Even that it is Saturday, everything was already done and ready to be used. Nice bonus: The Emtel clerk directly offered me to set up the configuration for the Emtel data services, yes sure, go ahead, this saves me to search for that in the settings. Okay, spoiler-alert here, setting a static APN to access the Emtel network and the internet wouldn't be a challenge. But hey, she already had the phone in her hands and I could keep my eyes on the children. Well done, Emtel! Resume Thanks to the useful software package by Wondershare is was a hands-free experience to transfer all the data from a Nokia mobile on Symbian S60 to a Samsung Galaxy S III on Android Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). In the future, this wont be a serious issue at all anymore thanks to synchronisation services and cloud storage. And for now, I'm only waiting for the official upgrades for Jelly Bean.

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DOAG 2012 and Educause 2012

- by Chris Kawalek

Oracle understands the value of desktop virtualization and how customers have really embraced it as a top tier method to deliver access to applications and data. Just as supporting operating systems other than Windows in the enterprise desktop space started to become necessary perhaps 5-7 years ago, supporting desktop virtualization with VDI, application virtualization, thin clients, and tablet access is becoming necessary today in 2012. Any application strategy needs to have a secure mobile component, and a solution that gives you a holistic strategy across both mobile and fixed-asset (i.e., desktop PCs) devices is crucial to success. This means it's probably useful to learn about desktop virtualization, even if it's not in your typical area of responsibility. A good way to do that is at one of the many trade shows where we exhibit. Here are two examples: DOAG 2012 Conference + Exhibition The DOAG Conference is fast approaching, starting November 20th in Nuremberg, Germany. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might remember that we attended last year as well. This conference is fantastic for us because we get to speak directly to users of Oracle products. In many cases, those DBAs, IT managers, and other infrastructure folks are looking for ways to deal with the burgeoning BYOD model, as well as ways of streamlining their standard desktop and access technologies. We have a couple of sessions where you can learn a great deal about how Oracle can help with these points. Session Schedule (look under "Infrastruktur & Hardware") The two sessions focused on desktop virtualization are: Oracle VDI Best Practice unter Linux (Oracle VDI Best Practice Under Linux) Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Implementierungen und Praxiserfahrungen (Virtual Desktop Infrastructures Implementations and Best Practices) We will also have experts on hand at the booth to answer your questions on using desktop virtualization. If you're at the show, please stop by and say hello to our team there! Educause 2012 Another good example is Educause. We've gone the last few years to show off a slough of education oriented applications and capabilities in the Oracle product portfolio. And every year, we display those applications through Oracle desktop virtualization. This means the demonstration can easily be setup ahead of time and replicated out to however many "demo pods" that we have available. There's no need for our product teams to setup individual laptops for demos -- we can display a standardized Windows desktop virtual machine with their apps all ready to go on a whole bunch of devices like your standard trade show laptop, our Sun Ray Clients, and iPad. Educause 2012 just wrapped, so we're sorry we missed you this year. But there is always next year! Until then, here are a few pictures from this year's show: You can also watch this video to see how Catholic Education Australia uses Oracle Secure Global Desktop to help cope with the ever changing ways that people access their applications. -Chris

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Oracle's Integrated Systems Management and Support Experience

- by Scott McNeil

With its recent launch, Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g introduced a new approach to integrated systems management and support. What this means is taking both areas of IT management and vendor support and combining them into one integrated comprehensive and centralized platform. Traditional Ways Under the traditional method, IT operational teams would often focus on running their systems using management tools that weren’t connected to their vendor’s support systems. If you needed support with a product, administrators would often contact the vendor by phone or visit the vendor website for support and then log a service request in order to fix the issues. This method was also very time consuming, as administrators would have to collect their software configurations, operating systems and hardware settings, then manually enter them into an online form or recite them to a support analyst on the phone. For the vendor, they had to analyze all the configuration data to recreate the problem in order to solve it. This approach was very manual, uncoordinated and error-prone where duplication between the customer and vendor frequently occurred. A Better Support Experience By removing the boundaries between support, IT management tools and the customer’s IT infrastructure, Oracle paved the way for a better support experience. This was achieved through integration between Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g and My Oracle Support. Administrators can not only manage their IT infrastructure and applications through Oracle Enterprise Manager’s centralized console but can also receive proactive alerts and patch recommendations right within the console they use day-in-day-out. Having one single source of information saves time and potentially prevents unforeseen problems down the road. All for One, and One for All The first step for you is to allow Oracle Enterprise Manager to upload configuration data into Oracle’s secure configuration repository, where it can be analyzed for potential issues or conflicts for all customers. A fix to a problem encountered by one customer may actually be relevant to many more. The integration between My Oracle Support and Oracle Enterprise Manager allows all customers who may be impacted by the problem to receive a notification about the fix. Once the alert appears in Oracle Enterprise Manager’s console, the administrator can take his/her time to do further investigations using automated workflows provided in Oracle Enterprise Manager to analyze potential conflicts. Finally, administrators can schedule a time to test and automatically apply the fix to all the systems that need it. In the end, this helps customers maintain their service levels without compromise and avoid experiencing unplanned downtime that may result from potential issues or conflicts. This new paradigm of integrated systems management and support helps customers keep their systems secure, compliant, and up-to-date, while eliminating the traditional silos between IT management and vendor support. Oracle’s next generation platform also works hand-in-hand to provide higher quality of service to business users while at the same time making life for administrators less complicated. For more information on Oracle’s integrated systems management and support experience, be sure to visit our Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Resource Center for the latest customer videos, webcast, and white papers.

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Oracle OpenWorld 2013 – Wrap up by Sven Bernhardt

- by JuergenKress

OOW 2013 is over and we’re heading home, so it is time to lean back and reflecting about the impressions we have from the conference. First of all: OOW was great! It was a pleasure to be a part of it. As already mentioned in our last blog article: It was the biggest OOW ever. Parallel to the conference the America’s Cup took place in San Francisco and the Oracle Team America won. Amazing job by the team and again congratulations from our side Back to the conference. The main topics for us are: Oracle SOA / BPM Suite 12c Adaptive Case management (ACM) Big Data Fast Data Cloud Mobile Below we will go a little more into detail, what are the key takeaways regarding the mentioned points: Oracle SOA / BPM Suite 12c During the five days at OOW, first details of the upcoming major release of Oracle SOA Suite 12c and Oracle BPM Suite 12c have been introduced. Some new key features are: Managed File Transfer (MFT) for transferring big files from a source to a target location Enhanced REST support by introducing a new REST binding Introduction of a generic cloud adapter, which can be used to connect to different cloud providers, like Salesforce Enhanced analytics with BAM, which has been totally reengineered (BAM Console now also runs in Firefox!) Introduction of templates (OSB pipelines, component templates, BPEL activities templates) EM as a single monitoring console OSB design-time integration into JDeveloper (Really great!) Enterprise modeling capabilities in BPM Composer These are only a few points from what is coming with 12c. We are really looking forward for the new realese to come out, because this seems to be really great stuff. The suite becomes more and more integrated. From 10g to 11g it was an evolution in terms of developing SOA-based applications. With 12c, Oracle continues it’s way – very impressive. Adaptive Case Management Another fantastic topic was Adaptive Case Management (ACM). The Oracle PMs did a great job especially at the demo grounds in showing the upcoming Case Management UI (will be available in 11g with the next BPM Suite MLR Patch), the roadmap and the differences between traditional business process modeling. They have been very busy during the conference because a lot of partners and customers have been interested Big Data Big Data is one of the current hype themes. Because of huge data amounts from different internal or external sources, the handling of these data becomes more and more challenging. Companies have a need for analyzing the data to optimize their business. The challenge is here: the amount of data is growing daily! To store and analyze the data efficiently, it is necessary to have a scalable and flexible infrastructure. Here it is important that hardware and software are engineered to work together. Therefore several new features of the Oracle Database 12c, like the new in-memory option, have been presented by Larry Ellison himself. From a hardware side new server machines like Fujitsu M10 or new processors, such as Oracle’s new M6-32 have been announced. The performance improvements, when using one of these hardware components in connection with the improved software solutions were really impressive. For more details about this, please take look at our previous blog post. Regarding Big Data, Oracle also introduced their Big Data architecture, which consists of: Oracle Big Data Appliance that is preconfigured with Hadoop Oracle Exdata which stores a huge amount of data efficently, to achieve optimal query performance Oracle Exalytics as a fast and scalable Business analytics system Analysis of the stored data can be performed using SQL, by streaming the data directly from Hadoop to an Oracle Database 12c. Alternatively the analysis can be directly implemented in Hadoop using “R”. In addition Oracle BI Tools can be used to analyze the data. Fast Data Fast Data is a complementary approach to Big Data. A huge amount of mostly unstructured data comes in via different channels with a high frequency. The analysis of these data streams is also important for companies, because the incoming data has to be analyzed regarding business-relevant patterns in real-time. Therefore these patterns must be identified efficiently and performant. To do so, in-memory grid solutions in combination with Oracle Coherence and Oracle Event Processing demonstrated very impressive how efficient real-time data processing can be. One example for Fast Data solutions that was shown during the OOW was the analysis of twitter streams regarding customer satisfaction. The feeds with negative words like “bad” or “worse” have been filtered and after a defined treshold has been reached in a certain timeframe, a business event was triggered. Cloud Another key trend in the IT market is of course Cloud Computing and what it means for companies and their businesses. Oracle announced their Cloud strategy and vision – companies can focus on their real business while all of the applications are available via Cloud. This also includes Oracle Database or Oracle Weblogic, so that companies can also build, deploy and run their own applications within the cloud. Three different approaches have been introduced: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Platform as a Service (PaaS) Software as a Service (SaaS) Using the IaaS approach only the infrastructure components will be managed in the Cloud. Customers will be very flexible regarding memory, storage or number of CPUs because those parameters can be adjusted elastically. The PaaS approach means that besides the infrastructure also the platforms (such as databases or application servers) necessary for running applications will be provided within the Cloud. Here customers can also decide, if installation and management of these infrastructure components should be done by Oracle. The SaaS approach describes the most complete one, hence all applications a company uses are managed in the Cloud. Oracle is planning to provide all of their applications, like ERP systems or HR applications, as Cloud services. In conclusion this seems to be a very forward-thinking strategy, which opens up new possibilities for customers to manage their infrastructure and applications in a flexible, scalable and future-oriented manner. As you can see, our OOW days have been very very interresting. We collected many helpful informations for our projects. The new innovations presented at the confernce are great and being part of this was even greater! We are looking forward to next years’ conference! Links: http://www.oracle.com/openworld/index.html http://thecattlecrew.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/first-impressions-from-oracle-open-world-2013 SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Mix Forum Technorati Tags: cattleCrew,Sven Bernhard,OOW2013,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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Probation is Over: PASS Board Year 1, Q2

- by Denise McInerney

Though it's not always official every job begins with a probation period. You start out with lots of questions and every day you find out how much more you have to learn. Usually after a few months you discover that you can actually answer some questions and have at least an idea of what you are supposed to be doing. Now at the end of my second quarter on the "job" of serving on the PASS Board I have reached that point. My probation period is over. The last three months were busy for the entire Board with the budget process, an in-person meeting and moving forward with PASS Global Growth plans. I had also set a specific goal for myself for my 2nd quarter: to see the Board to adopt a Code of Conduct for the PASS Summit. Code of Conduct When I ran for the Board I included my desire to see PASS establish a code of conduct in my campaign platform. I was motivated to do this for a few reasons. Other technical conferences have had incidents of harassment. Most of these did not have a policy in place prior to having a problem, though several conference organizers have since adopted anti-harassment policies or codes of conduct. I felt it would be in PASS' interest to establish a policy so we would be prepared should there be an incident. "This is Community" Adopting a code of conduct would reinforce our community orientation and send a message about the positive character of the Summit. PASS is a leader among technical organizations for its promotion and support of women. Adopting a code of conduct would further demonstrate our leadership in this area. After researching similar polices from other organizations I published a first draft in April. I solicited feedback from the Board, HQ staff and some PASS members. Incorporating that feedback I presented version 4 at the May Board meeting, where we had a good discussion. You can read the meeting minutes for details. I incorporated points from the Board discussion as well as feedback from a legal review to produce a final version which has been submitted to the Board. It will be discussed at the Board meeting July 12. You can read the full text at the end of this post. Virtual Chapters In the first quarter we started ramping up marketing support for the Virtual Chapters. Since then each edition of the Connector has highlighted a different VC to help get out the message about the variety of eductional opporutnities that are offered. These VC profiles will continue in the coming months. I was very pleased to welcome the new DBA Fundamentals VC which is geared toward new DBAs, people who are considering entering the field and those transitioning from a different IT role. Thanks to the contributions of Erin Stellato, Michelle Nalliah and Karla Landrum we published a "Virtual Chapter Guidebook". This document includes great advice on how to build and promote a VC. It's also a reference for how things work, from budgets to webinar hosting. I think this document will be extremely valuable to all our VC leaders and am grateful to those who put it together. Board Meeting/SQL Rally The Board met in May in Dallas. Among the items discussed were Global Growth, the budget, future events and the upcoming elections. We covered a lot of ground in two days and I will again refer you to the meeting minutes for details. The meeting schedule allowed us to participate in the SQL Rally networking events and one full day of the conference. I enjoyed having the opportunity to meet and talk with many PASS members. And my hat is off to the SQL Rally organizers who put on an outstanding event. Global Growth PASS has undertaken a major intitiative to reach and engage SQL Server professionals around the world. This Global Growth plan is ambitious and will have a significant impact on the strategic direction of the organization. We have been reaching out to the community for feedback, including hosting Twitter chats and live Town Hall meetings. I co-hosted two of these events and appreciated hearing the different perspectives of the people who participated If you have not done so I encourage you to read about the Global Growth vision and proposed governance changes and submit your feedback. FY13 Budget July 1 is the beginning of PASS' fiscal year, which makes the end of June the deadline for approving a budget. Each director submits a budget for his or her portfolio. For the Virtual Chapter portfolio I focused on how we can allocate resources to grow the VCs. Budgeting is a give-and-take process, and while I didn't get everything I asked for I'm pleased the FY13 budget includes a significant increase in financial support for the Virtual Chapters. Many people put a lot of work into the budget, but no two people deserve credit more than VP of Finance Douglas McDowell and Accounting Manager Sandy Cherry. Thanks to both of them for getting us across the goal line on time. SQL Saturday I attended SQL Saturdays in Orange Co. CA and Phoenix. It's always inspiring to see the enthusiasm in the community for learning and networking. These events are successful due to the hard work of many volunteers. Thanks to the organizers in both cities for all your efforts. Next Up This quarter we'll be gearing up plans for the VCs at the Summit and exploring ways the VCs can best support PASS' Global Growth work. I'll also be wrapping up work on the Code of Conduct and attending a Board meeting in September. And I will be at SQL Saturday #144 in Sacramento later this month. Here is the language of the Code of Conduct I have submitted to the Board for consideration: PASS Code of Conduct The PASS Summit provides database professionals from a variety of backgrounds with an opportunity to connect, share and learn. We value the strong sense of community that characterizes this event and we seek to foster an inclusive, professional atmosphere. We are dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, religion or any other protected classification. Everyone at the Summit is expected to follow the Code of Conduct. This includes but is not limited to: PASS Staff, Exhibitors, Speakers, Attendees and anyone affiliated with the event. Participants are expected to follow the Code of Conduct at all Summit events, including PASS-sponsored social events. Participant behavior Harassment includes, but is not limited to, offensive verbal comments related to gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, religion, or any other protected classification. Intimidation, threats, stalking, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact and unwelcome attention will also be considered harassment. Similarly, sexual, racist, derogatory, threatening or other inappropriate language and imagery are not appropriate for any conference venue, including sessions. Recourse If a participant engages in any conduct that is prohibited under this Code of Conduct, the conference organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender or expelling the offender from the conference. No refunds will be granted to attendees expelled from the Summit due to violations of the Code of Conduct. If you are being harassed, witness harassment, or have any other concerns, please contact a member of conference staff immediately. Conference staff can be identified by their “Headquarters/Staff” shirts and are trained to handle the situation appropriately. A Code of Conduct Committee (CCC) made up of the Executive Manager and three members of the Board of Directors designated by the President will be authorized to take action in response to an incident or behavior that violates the Code of Conduct.

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