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• Visual Studio App.config XML Transformation

  - by João Angelo

  Visual Studio 2010 introduced a much-anticipated feature, Web configuration transformations. This feature allows to configure a web application project to transform the web.config file during deployment based on the current build configuration (Debug, Release, etc). If you haven’t already tried it there is a nice step-by-step introduction post to XML transformations on the Visual Web Developer Team Blog and for a quick reference on the supported syntax you have this MSDN entry. Unfortunately there are some bad news, this new feature is specific to web application projects since it resides in the Web Publishing Pipeline (WPP) and therefore is not officially supported in other project types like such as a Windows applications. The keyword here is officially because Vishal Joshi has a nice blog post on how to extend it’s support to app.config transformations. However, the proposed workaround requires that the build action for the app.config file be changed to Content instead of the default None. Also from the comments to the said post it also seems that the workaround will not work for a ClickOnce deployment. Working around this I tried to remove the build action change requirement and at the same time add ClickOnce support. This effort resulted in a single MSBuild project file (AppConfig.Transformation.targets) available for download from GitHub. It integrates itself in the build process so in order to add app.config transformation support to an existing Windows Application Project you just need to import this targets file after all the other import directives that already exist in the *.csproj file. Before – Without App.config transformation support ... <Import Project="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" /> <Target Name="BeforeBuild"> </Target> <Target Name="AfterBuild"> </Target> </Project> After – With App.config transformation support ... <Import Project="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" /> <Import Project="C:\MyExtensions\AppConfig.Transformation.targets" /> <Target Name="BeforeBuild"> </Target> <Target Name="AfterBuild"> </Target> </Project> As a final disclaimer, the testing time was limited so any problem that you find let me know. The MSBuild project invokes the mage tool so the Framework SDK must be installed. Update: I finally had some spare time and was able to check the problem reported by Geoff Smith and believe the problem is solved. The Publish command inside Visual Studio triggers a build workflow different than through MSBuild command line and this was causing problems. I posted a new version in GitHub that should now support ClickOnce deployment with app.config tranformation from within Visual Studio and MSBuild command line. Also here is a link for the sample application used to test the new version using the Publish command with the install location set to be from a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM and selected that the application will not check for updates. Thanks to Geoff for spotting the problem.

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• Sneak peek at next generation Three MiFi unit – Huawei E585

  - by Liam Westley

  Last Wednesday I was fortunate to be invited to a sneak preview of the next generation Three MiFi unit, the Huawei E585. Many thanks to all those who posted questions both via this blog or via @westleyl on Twitter. I think I made sure I asked every question posed to the MiFi product manager from Three UK, and so here's the answers you were after. What is a MiFi? For those who are wondering, a MiFi unit is a 3G broadband modem combined with a WiFi access point, providing 3G broadband data access to up to five devices simultaneously via standard WiFi connections. What is different? It appears the prime task of enhancing the MiFi was to improve the user experience and user interface, both in terms of the device hardware and within the management software to configure the device.  I think this was a very sensible decision as these areas had substantial room for improvement. Single button operation to switch on, enable WiFi and connect to 3G Improved OELD display (see below), replacing the multi coloured LEDs; including signal strength, SMS notifications, the number of connected clients and data usage Management is via a web based dashboard accessible from any web browser. This is a big win for those running Linux, Mac OS/X, iPad users and, for me, as I can now configure the device from Windows 7 64-bit Charging is via micro USB, the new standard for small USB devices; you cannot use your old charger for the new MiFi unit Automatic reconnection when regaining a signal Improved charging time, which should allow recharging of the device when in use Although subjective, the black and silver design does look more classy than the silver and white plastic of the original MiFi What is the same? Virtually the same size and weight The battery is the same unit as the original MiFi so you’ll have a handy spare if you upgrade Data plans remain the same as the current MiFi, so cheapest price for upgraders will be £49 pay as you go Still only works on 3G networks, with no fallback to GPRS or EDGE There is no specific upgrade path for existing three customers, either from dongle or from the original MiFi My opinion I think three have concentrated on the correct areas of usability and user experience rather than trying to add new whizz bang technology features which aren’t of interest to mainstream users. The one button operation and the improved device display will make it much easier to use when out and about. If the automatic reconnection proves reliable that will remove a major bugbear that I experienced the previous evening when travelling on the First Great Western line from Paddington to Didcot Parkway.  The signal was repeatedly lost as we sped through tunnels and cuttings, and without automatic reconnection is was a real pain to keep pressing the data button on the MiFi to re-establish my data connection. And finally, the web based dashboard will mean I no longer need to resort to my XP based netbook to configure the SSID and password. My everyday laptop runs Windows 7 64-bit which appears to confuse the older 3 WiFi manager which cannot locate the MiFi when connected. Links to other sites, and other images of the device Good first impressions from Ben Smith, http://thereallymobileproject.com/2010/06/3uk-announce-a-new-mifi-with-a-screen/ Also, a round up of other sneak preview posts, http://www.3mobilebuzz.com/2010/06/11/mifi-round-two-your-view/ Pictures Here is a comparison of the old MiFi device next to the new device, complete with OLED display and the Huawei logo now being a prominent feature on the front of the device. One of my fellow bloggers had a Linux based netbook, showing off the web based dashboard complete with Text messages panel to manage SMS. And finally, I never thought that my blog sub title would ever end up printed onto a cup cake, ... and here's some of the other cup cakes ...

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• SQLAuthority News – Professional Development and Community

  - by pinaldave

  I was recently invited by Hyderabad Techies to deliver a keynote for their 16-day online session called TECH THUNDERS. This event has been running from May 15 and will continue up to the end of the month May 30). There would be a total of 30 sessions. In every evening of those 16 day, there will be either one or two sessions from several noted industry experts. It is the same group which has received the Microsoft Community Impact Award as the Best User Group in India as for developers. I have never talked about Professional Development before. Even if this was my first time to do so, I still accepted the wonderful challenge for the sake of the thousands of audience who were expected to attend this online event. Time is of the essence; I had 15 minutes to deliver the keynote and open the event. The reason why I was nervous was because I had to cover precisely only 15 minutes- no more, no less. If I had an hour, I would have been very confident because I knew I could do a good job for sure. However, I still needed to open the event as great as it can be even if the time was short. I finally created a 6-slide small presentation. In reality, there were only two pages which had the main contents of my keynote, and the remaining slides were just wrappers and decors. You can download the complete slide deck from here. The image used in the slide deck is a curtsy of blog reader Roger Smith who sent it to me. The slide in which I spent a good amount of time is the slide which talks about Professional Development. The content of the slide is as follows: Today, Technology and You Keep your eyes, ears and senses open – Stay Active! You are not the first one who faced the problem – Search Online! Learn the web – Blogs, Forums and Friends! Trust the Technology, Not Print – Test Everything! Community and You! I had a very little time creating the slide deck as I was busy the whole day doing the Advanced SQL Server Training. I had put together these slides during the tea/coffee break of my session. Though it was just a six-bullet point, I had received quite a few emails right after keynote requesting me to talk more about this subject and share the details of my slide deck. I have talked with the event organizer and he will put the keynote online very soon. The subject of the talk is very simple; it revolves around the community. Time has changed, and Internet has come a long way from where it was many years ago. Now that we are all connected, help via the Internet and useful software is easily available around us. In fact, RSS, Newletters and few other technologies have progressed so much that the help through news is now being delivered to our door steps, instead of going out and seeking them. Sometimes, a simple search online solves a lot of problems of many developers. The community is now the first stop for any developer when he or she needs help or just wants to hang around and share some thoughts. I strongly suggest everybody to be a part of the Tech Community. Be it online, offline community or just a local user group, I strongly advise all of you to get involved. I am active in the Community, and I must say I recommend getting drawn into it. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL User Group, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Community

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• Something for the weekend - Whats the most complex query?

  - by simonsabin

  Whenever I teach about SQL Server performance tuning I try can get across the message that there is no such thing as a table. Does that sound odd, well it isn't, trust me. Rather than tables you need to consider structures. You have 1. Heaps 2. Indexes (b-trees) Some people split indexes in two, clustered and non-clustered, this I feel confuses the situation as people associate clustered indexes with sorting, but don't associate non clustered indexes with sorting, this is wrong. Clustered and non-clustered indexes are the same b-tree structure(and even more so with SQL 2005) with the leaf pages sorted in a linked list according to the keys of the index.. The difference is that non clustered indexes include in their structure either, the clustered key(s), or the row identifier for the row in the table (see http://sqlblog.com/blogs/kalen_delaney/archive/2008/03/16/nonclustered-index-keys.aspx for more details). Beyond that they are the same, they have key columns which are stored on the root and intermediary pages, and included columns which are on the leaf level. The reason this is important is that this is how the optimiser sees the world, this means it can use any of these structures to resolve your query. Even if your query only accesses one table, the optimiser can access multiple structures to get your results. One commonly sees this with a non-clustered index scan and then a key lookup (clustered index seek), but importantly it's not restricted to just using one non-clustered index and the clustered index or heap, and that's the challenge for the weekend. So the challenge for the weekend is to produce the most complex single table query. For those clever bods amongst you that are thinking, great I will just use lots of xquery functions, sorry these are the rules. 1. You have to use a table from AdventureWorks (2005 or 2008) 2. You can add whatever indexes you like, but you must document these 3. You cannot use XQuery, Spatial, HierarchyId, Full Text or any open rowset function. 4. You can only reference your table once, i..e a FROM clause with ONE table and no JOINs 5. No Sub queries. The aim of this is to show how the optimiser can use multiple structures to build the results of a query and to also highlight why the optimiser is doing that. How many structures can you get the optimiser to use? As an example create these two indexes on AdventureWorks2008 create index IX_Person_Person on Person.Person (lastName, FirstName,NameStyle,PersonType) create index IX_Person_Person on Person.Person(BusinessentityId,ModifiedDate)with drop_existing    select lastName, ModifiedDate   from Person.Person  where LastName = 'Smith' You will see that the optimiser has decided to not access the underlying clustered index of the table but to use two indexes above to resolve the query. This highlights how the optimiser considers all storage structures, clustered indexes, non clustered indexes and heaps when trying to resolve a query. So are you up to the challenge for the weekend to produce the most complex single table query? The prize is a pdf version of a popular SQL Server book, or a physical book if you live in the UK.  

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• Configuring Fed Authentication Methods in OIF / IdP

  - by Damien Carru

  In this article, I will provide examples on how to configure OIF/IdP to map OAM Authentication Schemes to Federation Authentication Methods, based on the concepts introduced in my previous entry. I will show examples for the three protocols supported by OIF: SAML 2.0 SSO SAML 1.1 SSO OpenID 2.0 Enjoy the reading! Configuration As I mentioned in my previous article, mapping Federation Authentication Methods to OAM Authentication Schemes is protocol dependent, since the methods are defined in the various protocols (SAML 2.0, SAML 1.1, OpenID 2.0). As such, the WLST commands to set those mappings will involve: Either the SP Partner Profile and affect all Partners referencing that profile, which do not override the Federation Authentication Method to OAM Authentication Scheme mappings Or the SP Partner entry, which will only affect the SP Partner It is important to note that if an SP Partner is configured to define one or more Federation Authentication Method to OAM Authentication Scheme mappings, then all the mappings defined in the SP Partner Profile will be ignored. WLST Commands The two OIF WLST commands that can be used to define mapping Federation Authentication Methods to OAM Authentication Schemes are: addSPPartnerProfileAuthnMethod() to define a mapping on an SP Partner Profile, taking as parameters: The name of the SP Partner Profile The Federation Authentication Method The OAM Authentication Scheme name addSPPartnerAuthnMethod() to define a mapping on an SP Partner , taking as parameters: The name of the SP Partner The Federation Authentication Method The OAM Authentication Scheme name Note: I will discuss in a subsequent article the other parameters of those commands. In the next sections, I will show examples on how to use those methods: For SAML 2.0, I will configure the SP Partner Profile, that will apply all the mappings to SP Partners referencing this profile, unless they override mapping definition For SAML 1.1, I will configure the SP Partner. For OpenID 2.0, I will configure the SP/RP Partner SAML 2.0 Test Setup In this setup, OIF is acting as an IdP and is integrated with a remote SAML 2.0 SP partner identified by AcmeSP. In this test, I will perform Federation SSO with OIF/IdP configured to: Use LDAPScheme as the Authentication Scheme Use BasicScheme as the Authentication Scheme Map BasicSessionScheme  to  the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:Password Federation Authentication Method Use OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme as the Authentication Scheme Map OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme to  the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport Federation Authentication Method LDAPScheme as Authentication Scheme Using the OOTB settings regarding user authentication in OAM, the user will be challenged via a FORM based login page based on the LDAPScheme. Also the default Federation Authentication Method mappings configuration maps only the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport to LDAPScheme (also marked as the default scheme used for authentication), FAAuthScheme, BasicScheme and BasicFAScheme. After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would issue an Assertion similar to: <samlp:Response ...>    <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>    <samlp:Status>        <samlp:StatusCode Value="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:status:Success"/>    </samlp:Status>    <saml:Assertion ...>        <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>        <dsig:Signature>            ...        </dsig:Signature>        <saml:Subject>            <saml:NameID ...>[email protected]</saml:NameID>            <saml:SubjectConfirmation Method="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:cm:bearer">                <saml:SubjectConfirmationData .../>            </saml:SubjectConfirmation>        </saml:Subject>        <saml:Conditions ...>            <saml:AudienceRestriction>                <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp</saml:Audience>            </saml:AudienceRestriction>        </saml:Conditions>        <saml:AuthnStatement AuthnInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" SessionIndex="id-6i-Dm0yB-HekG6cejktwcKIFMzYE8Yrmqwfd0azz" SessionNotOnOrAfter="2014-03-21T21:53:55Z">            <saml:AuthnContext>                <saml:AuthnContextClassRef>                   urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport                </saml:AuthnContextClassRef>            </saml:AuthnContext>        </saml:AuthnStatement>    </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> BasicScheme as Authentication Scheme For this test, I will switch the default Authentication Scheme for the SP Partner Profile to BasicScheme instead of LDAPScheme. I will use the OIF WLST setSPPartnerProfileDefaultScheme() command and specify which scheme to be used as the default for the SP Partner Profile referenced by AcmeSP (which is saml20-sp-partner-profile in this case: getFedPartnerProfile("AcmeSP", "sp") ): Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the setSPPartnerProfileDefaultScheme() command:setSPPartnerProfileDefaultScheme("saml20-sp-partner-profile", "BasicScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() The user will now be challenged via HTTP Basic Authentication defined in the BasicScheme for AcmeSP. Also, as noted earlier, the default Federation Authentication Method mappings configuration maps only the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport to LDAPScheme (also marked as the default scheme used for authentication), FAAuthScheme, BasicScheme and BasicFAScheme. After authentication via HTTP Basic Authentication, OIF/IdP would issue an Assertion similar to: <samlp:Response ...>    <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>    <samlp:Status>        <samlp:StatusCode Value="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:status:Success"/>    </samlp:Status>    <saml:Assertion ...>        <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>        <dsig:Signature>            ...        </dsig:Signature>        <saml:Subject>            <saml:NameID ...>[email protected]</saml:NameID>            <saml:SubjectConfirmation Method="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:cm:bearer">                <saml:SubjectConfirmationData .../>            </saml:SubjectConfirmation>        </saml:Subject>        <saml:Conditions ...>            <saml:AudienceRestriction>                <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp</saml:Audience>            </saml:AudienceRestriction>        </saml:Conditions>        <saml:AuthnStatement AuthnInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" SessionIndex="id-6i-Dm0yB-HekG6cejktwcKIFMzYE8Yrmqwfd0azz" SessionNotOnOrAfter="2014-03-21T21:53:55Z">            <saml:AuthnContext>                <saml:AuthnContextClassRef>                   urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport                </saml:AuthnContextClassRef>            </saml:AuthnContext>        </saml:AuthnStatement>    </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> Mapping BasicScheme To change the Federation Authentication Method mapping for the BasicScheme to urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:Password instead of urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport for the saml20-sp-partner-profile SAML 2.0 SP Partner Profile (the profile to which my AcmeSP Partner is bound to), I will execute the addSPPartnerProfileAuthnMethod() method: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the addSPPartnerProfileAuthnMethod() command:addSPPartnerProfileAuthnMethod("saml20-sp-partner-profile", "urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:Password", "BasicScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() After authentication via HTTP Basic Authentication, OIF/IdP would now issue an Assertion similar to (see that the AuthnContextClassRef was changed from PasswordProtectedTransport to Password): <samlp:Response ...>    <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>    <samlp:Status>        <samlp:StatusCode Value="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:status:Success"/>    </samlp:Status>    <saml:Assertion ...>        <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>        <dsig:Signature>            ...        </dsig:Signature>        <saml:Subject>            <saml:NameID ...>[email protected]</saml:NameID>            <saml:SubjectConfirmation Method="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:cm:bearer">                <saml:SubjectConfirmationData .../>            </saml:SubjectConfirmation>        </saml:Subject>        <saml:Conditions ...>            <saml:AudienceRestriction>                <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp</saml:Audience>            </saml:AudienceRestriction>        </saml:Conditions>        <saml:AuthnStatement AuthnInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" SessionIndex="id-6i-Dm0yB-HekG6cejktwcKIFMzYE8Yrmqwfd0azz" SessionNotOnOrAfter="2014-03-21T21:53:55Z">            <saml:AuthnContext>                <saml:AuthnContextClassRef>                   urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:Password                </saml:AuthnContextClassRef>            </saml:AuthnContext>        </saml:AuthnStatement>    </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme as Authentication Scheme For this test, I will switch the default Authentication Scheme for the SP Partner Profile to OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme instead of BasicScheme. I will use the OIF WLST setSPPartnerProfileDefaultScheme() command and specify which scheme to be used as the default for the SP Partner Profile referenced by AcmeSP (which is saml20-sp-partner-profile in this case: getFedPartnerProfile("AcmeSP", "sp") ): Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the setSPPartnerProfileDefaultScheme() command:setSPPartnerProfileDefaultScheme("saml20-sp-partner-profile", "OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() The user will now be challenged via FORM defined in the OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme for AcmeSP. Contrarily to LDAPScheme and BasicScheme, the OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme is not mapped by default to any Federation Authentication Methods. As such, OIF/IdP will not be able to find a Federation Authentication Method and will set the method in the SAML Assertion to the OAM Authentication Scheme name. After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would issue an Assertion similar to (see the AuthnContextClassRef set to OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme): <samlp:Response ...>    <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>    <samlp:Status>        <samlp:StatusCode Value="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:status:Success"/>    </samlp:Status>    <saml:Assertion ...>        <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>        <dsig:Signature>            ...        </dsig:Signature>        <saml:Subject>            <saml:NameID ...>[email protected]</saml:NameID>            <saml:SubjectConfirmation Method="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:cm:bearer">                <saml:SubjectConfirmationData .../>            </saml:SubjectConfirmation>        </saml:Subject>        <saml:Conditions ...>            <saml:AudienceRestriction>                <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp</saml:Audience>            </saml:AudienceRestriction>        </saml:Conditions>        <saml:AuthnStatement AuthnInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" SessionIndex="id-6i-Dm0yB-HekG6cejktwcKIFMzYE8Yrmqwfd0azz" SessionNotOnOrAfter="2014-03-21T21:53:55Z">            <saml:AuthnContext>                <saml:AuthnContextClassRef> OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme                </saml:AuthnContextClassRef>            </saml:AuthnContext>        </saml:AuthnStatement>    </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> Mapping OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme To add the OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme  to the Federation Authentication Method urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport mapping, I will execute the addSPPartnerProfileAuthnMethod() method: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the addSPPartnerProfileAuthnMethod() command:addSPPartnerProfileAuthnMethod("saml20-sp-partner-profile", "urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport", "OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would now issue an Assertion similar to (see that the method was changed from OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme to PasswordProtectedTransport): <samlp:Response ...>    <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>    <samlp:Status>        <samlp:StatusCode Value="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:status:Success"/>    </samlp:Status>    <saml:Assertion ...>        <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>        <dsig:Signature>            ...        </dsig:Signature>        <saml:Subject>            <saml:NameID ...>[email protected]</saml:NameID>            <saml:SubjectConfirmation Method="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:cm:bearer">                <saml:SubjectConfirmationData .../>            </saml:SubjectConfirmation>        </saml:Subject>        <saml:Conditions ...>            <saml:AudienceRestriction>                <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp</saml:Audience>            </saml:AudienceRestriction>        </saml:Conditions>        <saml:AuthnStatement AuthnInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" SessionIndex="id-6i-Dm0yB-HekG6cejktwcKIFMzYE8Yrmqwfd0azz" SessionNotOnOrAfter="2014-03-21T21:53:55Z">            <saml:AuthnContext>                <saml:AuthnContextClassRef>                   urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport                </saml:AuthnContextClassRef>            </saml:AuthnContext>        </saml:AuthnStatement>    </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> SAML 1.1 Test Setup In this setup, OIF is acting as an IdP and is integrated with a remote SAML 1.1 SP partner identified by AcmeSP. In this test, I will perform Federation SSO with OIF/IdP configured to: Use LDAPScheme as the Authentication Scheme Use OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme as the Authentication Scheme Map OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme to  the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport Federation Authentication Method Use LDAPScheme as the Authentication Scheme Map LDAPScheme to  the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport Federation Authentication Method LDAPScheme as Authentication Scheme Using the OOTB settings regarding user authentication in OAM, the user will be challenged via a FORM based login page based on the LDAPScheme. Also the default Federation Authentication Method mappings configuration maps only the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password to LDAPScheme (also marked as the default scheme used for authentication), FAAuthScheme, BasicScheme and BasicFAScheme. After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would issue an Assertion similar to: <samlp:Response ...>    <samlp:Status>        <samlp:StatusCode Value="samlp:Success"/>    </samlp:Status>    <saml:Assertion Issuer="https://idp.com/oam/fed" ...>        <saml:Conditions ...>            <saml:AudienceRestriction>                <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp/ssov11</saml:Audience>            </saml:AudienceRestriction>        </saml:Conditions>        <saml:AuthnStatement AuthenticationInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" AuthenticationMethod="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password">            <saml:Subject>                <saml:NameIdentifier ...>[email protected]</saml:NameIdentifier>                <saml:SubjectConfirmation>                   <saml:ConfirmationMethod>                       urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:cm:bearer                   </saml:ConfirmationMethod>                </saml:SubjectConfirmation>            </saml:Subject>        </saml:AuthnStatement>        <dsig:Signature>            ...        </dsig:Signature>    </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme as Authentication Scheme For this test, I will switch the default Authentication Scheme for the SP Partner to OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme instead of LDAPScheme. I will use the OIF WLST setSPPartnerDefaultScheme() command and specify which scheme to be used as the default for the SP Partner: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the setSPPartnerDefaultScheme() command:setSPPartnerDefaultScheme("AcmeSP", "OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() The user will be challenged via FORM defined in the OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme for AcmeSP. Contrarily to LDAPScheme, the OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme is not mapped by default to any Federation Authentication Methods (in the SP Partner Profile). As such, OIF/IdP will not be able to find a Federation Authentication Method and will set the method in the SAML Assertion to the OAM Authentication Scheme name. After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would issue an Assertion similar to (see the AuthenticationMethod set to OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme): <samlp:Response ...>    <samlp:Status>        <samlp:StatusCode Value="samlp:Success"/>    </samlp:Status>    <saml:Assertion Issuer="https://idp.com/oam/fed" ...>        <saml:Conditions ...>            <saml:AudienceRestriction>                <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp/ssov11</saml:Audience>            </saml:AudienceRestriction>        </saml:Conditions>        <saml:AuthnStatement AuthenticationInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" AuthenticationMethod="OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme">            <saml:Subject>                <saml:NameIdentifier ...>[email protected]</saml:NameIdentifier>                <saml:SubjectConfirmation>                   <saml:ConfirmationMethod>                       urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:cm:bearer                   </saml:ConfirmationMethod>                </saml:SubjectConfirmation>            </saml:Subject>        </saml:AuthnStatement>        <dsig:Signature>            ...        </dsig:Signature>    </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> Mapping OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme To map the OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme  to the Federation Authentication Method urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password for this SP Partner only, I will execute the addSPPartnerAuthnMethod() method: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the addSPPartnerAuthnMethod() command:addSPPartnerAuthnMethod("AcmeSP", "urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password", "OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would now issue an Assertion similar to (see that the method was changed from OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme to password): <samlp:Response ...>    <samlp:Status>        <samlp:StatusCode Value="samlp:Success"/>    </samlp:Status>    <saml:Assertion Issuer="https://idp.com/oam/fed" ...>        <saml:Conditions ...>            <saml:AudienceRestriction>                <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp/ssov11</saml:Audience>            </saml:AudienceRestriction>        </saml:Conditions>        <saml:AuthnStatement AuthenticationInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" AuthenticationMethod="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password">            <saml:Subject>                <saml:NameIdentifier ...>[email protected]</saml:NameIdentifier>                <saml:SubjectConfirmation>                   <saml:ConfirmationMethod>                       urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:cm:bearer                   </saml:ConfirmationMethod>                </saml:SubjectConfirmation>            </saml:Subject>        </saml:AuthnStatement>        <dsig:Signature>            ...        </dsig:Signature>    </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> LDAPScheme as Authentication Scheme I will now show that by defining a Federation Authentication Mapping at the Partner level, this now ignores all mappings defined at the SP Partner Profile level. For this test, I will switch the default Authentication Scheme for this SP Partner back to LDAPScheme, and the Assertion issued by OIF/IdP will not be able to map this LDAPScheme to a Federation Authentication Method anymore, since A Federation Authentication Method mapping is defined at the SP Partner level and thus the mappings defined at the SP Partner Profile are ignored The LDAPScheme is not listed in the mapping at the Partner level I will use the OIF WLST setSPPartnerDefaultScheme() command and specify which scheme to be used as the default for this SP Partner: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the setSPPartnerDefaultScheme() command:setSPPartnerDefaultScheme("AcmeSP", "LDAPScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would issue an Assertion similar to (see the AuthenticationMethod set to LDAPScheme): <samlp:Response ...>    <samlp:Status>        <samlp:StatusCode Value="samlp:Success"/>    </samlp:Status>    <saml:Assertion Issuer="https://idp.com/oam/fed" ...>        <saml:Conditions ...>            <saml:AudienceRestriction>                <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp/ssov11</saml:Audience>            </saml:AudienceRestriction>        </saml:Conditions>        <saml:AuthnStatement AuthenticationInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" AuthenticationMethod="LDAPScheme">            <saml:Subject>                <saml:NameIdentifier ...>[email protected]</saml:NameIdentifier>                <saml:SubjectConfirmation>                   <saml:ConfirmationMethod>                       urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:cm:bearer                   </saml:ConfirmationMethod>                </saml:SubjectConfirmation>            </saml:Subject>        </saml:AuthnStatement>        <dsig:Signature>            ...        </dsig:Signature>    </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> Mapping LDAPScheme at Partner Level To fix this issue, we will need to add the LDAPScheme  to the Federation Authentication Method urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password mapping for this SP Partner only. I will execute the addSPPartnerAuthnMethod() method: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the addSPPartnerAuthnMethod() command:addSPPartnerAuthnMethod("AcmeSP", "urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password", "LDAPScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would now issue an Assertion similar to (see that the method was changed from LDAPScheme to password): <samlp:Response ...>    <samlp:Status>        <samlp:StatusCode Value="samlp:Success"/>    </samlp:Status>    <saml:Assertion Issuer="https://idp.com/oam/fed" ...>        <saml:Conditions ...>            <saml:AudienceRestriction>                <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp/ssov11</saml:Audience>            </saml:AudienceRestriction>        </saml:Conditions>        <saml:AuthnStatement AuthenticationInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" AuthenticationMethod="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password">            <saml:Subject>                <saml:NameIdentifier ...>[email protected]</saml:NameIdentifier>                <saml:SubjectConfirmation>                   <saml:ConfirmationMethod>                       urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:cm:bearer                   </saml:ConfirmationMethod>                </saml:SubjectConfirmation>            </saml:Subject>        </saml:AuthnStatement>        <dsig:Signature>            ...        </dsig:Signature>    </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> OpenID 2.0 In the OpenID 2.0 flows, the RP must request use of PAPE, in order for OIF/IdP/OP to include PAPE information. For OpenID 2.0, the configuration will involve mapping a list of OpenID 2.0 policies to a list of Authentication Schemes. The WLST command will take a list of policies, delimited by the ',' character, instead of SAML 2.0 or SAML 1.1 where a single Federation Authentication Method had to be specified. Test Setup In this setup, OIF is acting as an IdP/OP and is integrated with a remote OpenID 2.0 SP/RP partner identified by AcmeRP. In this test, I will perform Federation SSO with OIF/IdP configured to: Use LDAPScheme as the Authentication Scheme Map LDAPScheme to  the http://schemas.openid.net/pape/policies/2007/06/phishing-resistant and http://openid-policies/password-protected policies Federation Authentication Methods (the second one is a custom for this use case) LDAPScheme as Authentication Scheme Using the OOTB settings regarding user authentication in OAM, the user will be challenged via a FORM based login page based on the LDAPScheme. No Federation Authentication Method is defined OOTB for OpenID 2.0, so if the IdP/OP issue an SSO response with a PAPE Response element, it will specify the scheme name instead of Federation Authentication Methods After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would issue an SSO Response similar to: https://acme.com/openid?refid=id-9PKVXZmRxAeDYcgLqPm36ClzOMA-&openid.ns=http%3A%2F%2Fspecs.openid.net%2Fauth%2F2.0&openid.mode=id_res&openid.op_endpoint=https%3A%2F%2Fidp.com%2Fopenid&openid.claimed_id=https%3A%2F%2Fidp.com%2Fopenid%3Fid%3Did-38iCmmlAVEXPsFjnFVKArfn5RIiF75D5doorhEgqqPM%3D&openid.identity=https%3A%2F%2Fidp.com%2Fopenid%3Fid%3Did-38iCmmlAVEXPsFjnFVKArfn5RIiF75D5doorhEgqqPM%3D&openid.return_to=https%3A%2F%2Facme.com%2Fopenid%3Frefid%3Did-9PKVXZmRxAeDYcgLqPm36ClzOMA-&openid.response_nonce=2014-03-24T19%3A20%3A06Zid-YPa2kTNNFftZkgBb460jxJGblk2g--iNwPpDI7M1&openid.assoc_handle=id-6a5S6zhAKaRwQNUnjTKROREdAGSjWodG1el4xyz3&openid.ns.ax=http%3A%2F%2Fopenid.net%2Fsrv%2Fax%2F1.0&openid.ax.mode=fetch_response&openid.ax.type.attr0=http%3A%2F%2Fsession%2Fcount&openid.ax.value.attr0=1&openid.ax.type.attr1=http%3A%2F%2Fopenid.net%2Fschema%2FnamePerson%2Ffriendly&openid.ax.value.attr1=My+name+is+Bobby+Smith&openid.ax.type.attr2=http%3A%2F%2Fschemas.openid.net%2Fax%2Fapi%2Fuser_id&openid.ax.value.attr2=bob&openid.ax.type.attr3=http%3A%2F%2Faxschema.org%2Fcontact%2Femail&openid.ax.value.attr3=bob%40oracle.com&openid.ax.type.attr4=http%3A%2F%2Fsession%2Fipaddress&openid.ax.value.attr4=10.145.120.253&openid.ns.pape=http%3A%2F%2Fspecs.openid.net%2Fextensions%2Fpape%2F1.0&openid.pape.auth_time=2014-03-24T19%3A20%3A05Z&openid.pape.auth_policies=LDAPScheme&openid.signed=op_endpoint%2Cclaimed_id%2Cidentity%2Creturn_to%2Cresponse_nonce%2Cassoc_handle%2Cns.ax%2Cax.mode%2Cax.type.attr0%2Cax.value.attr0%2Cax.type.attr1%2Cax.value.attr1%2Cax.type.attr2%2Cax.value.attr2%2Cax.type.attr3%2Cax.value.attr3%2Cax.type.attr4%2Cax.value.attr4%2Cns.pape%2Cpape.auth_time%2Cpape.auth_policies&openid.sig=mYMgbGYSs22l8e%2FDom9NRPw15u8%3D Mapping LDAPScheme To map the LDAP Scheme to the http://schemas.openid.net/pape/policies/2007/06/phishing-resistant and http://openid-policies/password-protected policies Federation Authentication Methods, I will execute the addSPPartnerAuthnMethod() method (the policies will be comma separated): Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the addSPPartnerAuthnMethod() command:addSPPartnerAuthnMethod("AcmeRP", "http://schemas.openid.net/pape/policies/2007/06/phishing-resistant,http://openid-policies/password-protected", "LDAPScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would now issue an Assertion similar to (see that the method was changed from LDAPScheme to the two policies): https://acme.com/openid?refid=id-9PKVXZmRxAeDYcgLqPm36ClzOMA-&openid.ns=http%3A%2F%2Fspecs.openid.net%2Fauth%2F2.0&openid.mode=id_res&openid.op_endpoint=https%3A%2F%2Fidp.com%2Fopenid&openid.claimed_id=https%3A%2F%2Fidp.com%2Fopenid%3Fid%3Did-38iCmmlAVEXPsFjnFVKArfn5RIiF75D5doorhEgqqPM%3D&openid.identity=https%3A%2F%2Fidp.com%2Fopenid%3Fid%3Did-38iCmmlAVEXPsFjnFVKArfn5RIiF75D5doorhEgqqPM%3D&openid.return_to=https%3A%2F%2Facme.com%2Fopenid%3Frefid%3Did-9PKVXZmRxAeDYcgLqPm36ClzOMA-&openid.response_nonce=2014-03-24T19%3A20%3A06Zid-YPa2kTNNFftZkgBb460jxJGblk2g--iNwPpDI7M1&openid.assoc_handle=id-6a5S6zhAKaRwQNUnjTKROREdAGSjWodG1el4xyz3&openid.ns.ax=http%3A%2F%2Fopenid.net%2Fsrv%2Fax%2F1.0&openid.ax.mode=fetch_response&openid.ax.type.attr0=http%3A%2F%2Fsession%2Fcount&openid.ax.value.attr0=1&openid.ax.type.attr1=http%3A%2F%2Fopenid.net%2Fschema%2FnamePerson%2Ffriendly&openid.ax.value.attr1=My+name+is+Bobby+Smith&openid.ax.type.attr2=http%3A%2F%2Fschemas.openid.net%2Fax%2Fapi%2Fuser_id&openid.ax.value.attr2=bob&openid.ax.type.attr3=http%3A%2F%2Faxschema.org%2Fcontact%2Femail&openid.ax.value.attr3=bob%40oracle.com&openid.ax.type.attr4=http%3A%2F%2Fsession%2Fipaddress&openid.ax.value.attr4=10.145.120.253&openid.ns.pape=http%3A%2F%2Fspecs.openid.net%2Fextensions%2Fpape%2F1.0&openid.pape.auth_time=2014-03-24T19%3A20%3A05Z&openid.pape.auth_policies=http%3A%2F%2Fschemas.openid.net%2Fpape%2Fpolicies%2F2007%2F06%2Fphishing-resistant+http%3A%2F%2Fopenid-policies%2Fpassword-protected&openid.signed=op_endpoint%2Cclaimed_id%2Cidentity%2Creturn_to%2Cresponse_nonce%2Cassoc_handle%2Cns.ax%2Cax.mode%2Cax.type.attr0%2Cax.value.attr0%2Cax.type.attr1%2Cax.value.attr1%2Cax.type.attr2%2Cax.value.attr2%2Cax.type.attr3%2Cax.value.attr3%2Cax.type.attr4%2Cax.value.attr4%2Cns.pape%2Cpape.auth_time%2Cpape.auth_policies&openid.sig=mYMgbGYSs22l8e%2FDom9NRPw15u8%3D In the next article, I will cover how OIF/IdP can be configured so that an SP can request a specific Federation Authentication Method to challenge the user during Federation SSO.Cheers,Damien Carru

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• SQL SERVER – Merge Operations – Insert, Update, Delete in Single Execution

  - by pinaldave

  This blog post is written in response to T-SQL Tuesday hosted by Jorge Segarra (aka SQLChicken). I have been very active using these Merge operations in my development. However, I have found out from my consultancy work and friends that these amazing operations are not utilized by them most of the time. Here is my attempt to bring the necessity of using the Merge Operation to surface one more time. MERGE is a new feature that provides an efficient way to do multiple DML operations. In earlier versions of SQL Server, we had to write separate statements to INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE data based on certain conditions; however, at present, by using the MERGE statement, we can include the logic of such data changes in one statement that even checks when the data is matched and then just update it, and similarly, when the data is unmatched, it is inserted. One of the most important advantages of MERGE statement is that the entire data are read and processed only once. In earlier versions, three different statements had to be written to process three different activities (INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE); however, by using MERGE statement, all the update activities can be done in one pass of database table. I have written about these Merge Operations earlier in my blog post over here SQL SERVER – 2008 – Introduction to Merge Statement – One Statement for INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE. I was asked by one of the readers that how do we know that this operator was doing everything in single pass and was not calling this Merge Operator multiple times. Let us run the same example which I have used earlier; I am listing the same here again for convenience. --Let’s create Student Details and StudentTotalMarks and inserted some records. USE tempdb GO CREATE TABLE StudentDetails ( StudentID INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, StudentName VARCHAR(15) ) GO INSERT INTO StudentDetails VALUES(1,'SMITH') INSERT INTO StudentDetails VALUES(2,'ALLEN') INSERT INTO StudentDetails VALUES(3,'JONES') INSERT INTO StudentDetails VALUES(4,'MARTIN') INSERT INTO StudentDetails VALUES(5,'JAMES') GO CREATE TABLE StudentTotalMarks ( StudentID INTEGER REFERENCES StudentDetails, StudentMarks INTEGER ) GO INSERT INTO StudentTotalMarks VALUES(1,230) INSERT INTO StudentTotalMarks VALUES(2,255) INSERT INTO StudentTotalMarks VALUES(3,200) GO -- Select from Table SELECT * FROM StudentDetails GO SELECT * FROM StudentTotalMarks GO -- Merge Statement MERGE StudentTotalMarks AS stm USING (SELECT StudentID,StudentName FROM StudentDetails) AS sd ON stm.StudentID = sd.StudentID WHEN MATCHED AND stm.StudentMarks > 250 THEN DELETE WHEN MATCHED THEN UPDATE SET stm.StudentMarks = stm.StudentMarks + 25 WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN INSERT(StudentID,StudentMarks) VALUES(sd.StudentID,25); GO -- Select from Table SELECT * FROM StudentDetails GO SELECT * FROM StudentTotalMarks GO -- Clean up DROP TABLE StudentDetails GO DROP TABLE StudentTotalMarks GO The Merge Join performs very well and the following result is obtained. Let us check the execution plan for the merge operator. You can click on following image to enlarge it. Let us evaluate the execution plan for the Table Merge Operator only. We can clearly see that the Number of Executions property suggests value 1. Which is quite clear that in a single PASS, the Merge Operation completes the operations of Insert, Update and Delete. I strongly suggest you all to use this operation, if possible, in your development. I have seen this operation implemented in many data warehousing applications. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Joins, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Merge

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• Travelling MVP #4: DevReach 2012

  - by DigiMortal

  Our next stop after Varna was Sofia where DevReach happens. DevReach is one of my favorite conferences in Europe because of sensible prices and strong speakers line-up. Also they have VIP-party after conference and this is good event to meet people you don’t see every day, have some discussion with speakers and find new friends. Our trip from Varna to Sofia took about 6.5 hours on bus. As I was tired from last evening it wasn’t problem for me as I slept half the trip. After smoking pause in Velike Tarnovo I watched movies from bus TV. We had supper later in city center Happy’s – place with good meat dishes and nice service. And next day it begun…. :) DevReach 2012 DevReach is held usually in Arena Mladost. It’s near airport and Telerik office. The event is organized by local MVP Martin Kulov together with Telerik. Two days of sessions with strong speakers is good reason enough for me to go to visit some event. Some topics covered by sessions: Windows 8 development web development SharePoint Windows Azure Windows Phone architecture Visual Studio Practically everybody can find some interesting session in every time slot. As the Arena is not huge it is very easy to go from one sessions to another if selected session for time slot is not what you expected. On the second floor of Arena there are many places where you can eat. There are simple chunk-food places like Burger King and also some restaurants. If you are hungry you will find something for your taste for sure. Also you can buy beer if it is too hot outside :) Weather was very good for October – practically Estonian summer – 25C and over. Sessions I visited Here is the list of sessions I visited at DevReach 2012: DevReach 2012 Opening & Welcome Messsage with Martin Kulov and Stephen Forte Principled N-Tier Solution Design with Steve Smith Data Patterns for the Cloud with Brian Randell .NET Garbage Collection Performance Tips with Sasha Goldshtein Building Secured, Scalable, Low-latency Web Applications with the Windows Azure Platform with Ido Flatow It’s a Knockout! MVVM Style Web Applications with Charles Nurse Web Application Architecture – Lessons Learned from Adobe Brackets with Brian Rinaldi Demystifying Visual Studio 2012 Performance Tools with Martin Kulov SPvNext – A Look At All the Exciting And New Features In SharePoint with Sahil Malik Portable Libraries – Why You Should Care with Lino Tadros I missed some sessions because of some death march projects that are going and that I have to coordinate but it was not big loss as I had time to walk around in session venue neighborhood and see Sofia Business Park. Next year again! I will be there again next year and hopefully more guys from Estonia will join me. I think it’s good idea to take short vacation for DevReach time and do things like we did this time – Bucharest, Varna, Sofia. It’s only good idea to plan some more free time so we are not very much in hurry and also we have no work stuff to do on the trip. This far this trip has been one of best trips I have organized and I will go and meet all those guys in this region again! :)

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• SQL SERVER – Quiz and Video – Introduction to Hierarchical Query using a Recursive CTE

  - by pinaldave

  This blog post is inspired from SQL Queries Joes 2 Pros: SQL Query Techniques For Microsoft SQL Server 2008 – SQL Exam Prep Series 70-433 – Volume 2.[Amazon] | [Flipkart] | [Kindle] | [IndiaPlaza] This is follow up blog post of my earlier blog post on the same subject - SQL SERVER – Introduction to Hierarchical Query using a Recursive CTE – A Primer. In the article we discussed various basics terminology of the CTE. The article further covers following important concepts of common table expression. What is a Common Table Expression (CTE) Building a Recursive CTE Identify the Anchor and Recursive Query Add the Anchor and Recursive query to a CTE Add an expression to track hierarchical level Add a self-referencing INNER JOIN statement Above six are the most important concepts related to CTE and SQL Server.  There are many more things one has to learn but without beginners fundamentals one can’t learn the advanced  concepts. Let us have small quiz and check how many of you get the fundamentals right. Quiz 1) You have an employee table with the following data. EmpID FirstName LastName MgrID 1 David Kennson 11 2 Eric Bender 11 3 Lisa Kendall 4 4 David Lonning 11 5 John Marshbank 4 6 James Newton 3 7 Sally Smith NULL You need to write a recursive CTE that shows the EmpID, FirstName, LastName, MgrID, and employee level. The CEO should be listed at Level 1. All people who work for the CEO will be listed at Level 2. All of the people who work for those people will be listed at Level 3. Which CTE code will achieve this result? WITH EmpList AS (SELECT Boss.EmpID, Boss.FName, Boss.LName, Boss.MgrID, 1 AS Lvl FROM Employee AS Boss WHERE Boss.MgrID IS NULL UNION ALL SELECT E.EmpID, E.FirstName, E.LastName, E.MgrID, EmpList.Lvl + 1 FROM Employee AS E INNER JOIN EmpList ON E.MgrID = EmpList.EmpID) SELECT * FROM EmpList WITH EmpListAS (SELECT EmpID, FirstName, LastName, MgrID, 1 as Lvl FROM Employee WHERE MgrID IS NULL UNION ALL SELECT EmpID, FirstName, LastName, MgrID, 2 as Lvl ) SELECT * FROM BossList WITH EmpList AS (SELECT EmpID, FirstName, LastName, MgrID, 1 as Lvl FROM Employee WHERE MgrID is NOT NULL UNION SELECT EmpID, FirstName, LastName, MgrID, BossList.Lvl + 1 FROM Employee INNER JOIN EmpList BossList ON Employee.MgrID = BossList.EmpID) SELECT * FROM EmpList 2) You have a table named Employee. The EmployeeID of each employee’s manager is in the ManagerID column. You need to write a recursive query that produces a list of employees and their manager. The query must also include the employee’s level in the hierarchy. You write the following code segment: WITH EmployeeList (EmployeeID, FullName, ManagerName, Level) AS ( –PICK ANSWER CODE HERE ) SELECT EmployeeID, FullName, ” AS [ManagerID], 1 AS [Level] FROM Employee WHERE ManagerID IS NULL UNION ALL SELECT emp.EmployeeID, emp.FullName mgr.FullName, 1 + 1 AS [Level] FROM Employee emp JOIN Employee mgr ON emp.ManagerID = mgr.EmployeeId SELECT EmployeeID, FullName, ” AS [ManagerID], 1 AS [Level] FROM Employee WHERE ManagerID IS NULL UNION ALL SELECT emp.EmployeeID, emp.FullName, mgr.FullName, mgr.Level + 1 FROM EmployeeList mgr JOIN Employee emp ON emp.ManagerID = mgr.EmployeeId Now make sure that you write down all the answers on the piece of paper. Watch following video and read earlier article over here. If you want to change the answer you still have chance. Solution 1) 1 2) 2 Now compare let us check the answers and compare your answers to following answers. I am very confident you will get them correct. Available at USA: Amazon India: Flipkart | IndiaPlaza Volume: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Please leave your feedback in the comment area for the quiz and video. Did you know all the answers of the quiz? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• GRUB 2 problem after Mac OS X update

  - by vallllll

  I have a MacBook Pro in dual boot Mac OS X / Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin). When I boot it I have a rEFIt menu, and I can chose between Mac OS X and Linux. A few days ago I have updated Mac OS X from 10.7 (Lion) to 10.8 (Mountain Lion) using a .dmg image provided by my company. Since then when I select Linux in rEFIt it says: No bootable device --insert boot disk and press any key I have tried going to rEFIt partitioning tool. This is what I got: As suggested in Mac OSX Mavericks update rEFIT broken I wanted to fix the issue the same way as AndrewM, but I don't have the option "MBR table must be updated". Then I booted on Ubuntu 12.04 CD, chose repair broken system, chose root patition /dev/sda6 as this is where my Ubuntu file system is. I got a shell, but I don't really know how to repair the poblem since if it was just Windows dual boot. A GRUB update would solve the issue, but here I don't know where the GRUB 2 is installed. Here are results from Parted, and it is a bit confusing for me as the Mac partition is the one with boot: As you can see the entry 1 is an EFI system partition and is the boot partition, so I wonder if I should install GRUB there or in sda6, which is the Ubuntu filesystem. I am not sure should I work on rEFIt shell or Ubuntu. Unfortunately, I don't remember where GRUB was before update. UPDATE: using same link above I have tried RoundSparrow hilltx answer and installed rEFInd, but the result is same.... still no bootable device when I select Linux. UPDATE 2: just used alternate CD again, mounted on /dev/sda6 and the ran update-grub. It seemed to wok and started listing all my kernels. But after rebooting several times still no bootable device when I select Linux in rEFInd. UDATE 3: Have tried to boot from Ubuntu cd and select "boot from first available filesystem. I got error and dropped to grub rescue shell. I even followed the indications on this link but was unable to boot as I tried to use sdb6 but no luck UPDATE 4 as per Rob Smith request here is out put from ls -l $(find /EFI -iname "*.efi") *MACOSX -rw-r--r--@ 1 root admin 55048 29 oct 17:44 /EFI/refind/drivers_x64/btrfs_x64.efi -rw-r--r--@ 1 root admin 38888 29 oct 17:44 /EFI/refind/drivers_x64/ext2_x64.efi -rw-r--r--@ 1 root admin 39304 29 oct 17:44 /EFI/refind/drivers_x64/ext4_x64.efi -rw-r--r--@ 1 root admin 43432 29 oct 17:44 /EFI/refind/drivers_x64/hfs_x64.efi -rw-r--r--@ 1 root admin 38984 29 oct 17:44 /EFI/refind/drivers_x64/iso9660_x64.efi -rw-r--r--@ 1 root admin 43656 29 oct 17:44 /EFI/refind/drivers_x64/reiserfs_x64.efi -rw-r--r--@ 1 root admin 175016 29 oct 17:44 /EFI/refind/refind_x64.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 73232 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/dbounce.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 763248 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/dhclient.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 67024 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/drawbox.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 71312 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/dumpfv.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 84848 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/dumpprot.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 472912 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/ed.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 143856 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/edit.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 1801008 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/ftp.efi -rw-r--r--@ 1 root admin 47848 29 oct 17:44 /EFI/tools/gptsync_x64.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 320560 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/hexdump.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 286384 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/hostname.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 534416 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/ifconfig.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 395344 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/loadarg.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 587408 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/ping.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 730416 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/pppd.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 561360 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/route.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 1961712 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/shell.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 750224 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/tcpipv4.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 4048 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/textmode.efi -rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 320656 7 mar 2010 /EFI/tools/which.efi *LINUX

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• SQL SERVER – Why Do We Need Master Data Management – Importance and Significance of Master Data Management (MDM)

  - by pinaldave

  Let me paint a picture of everyday life for you.  Let’s say you and your wife both have address books for your groups of friends.  There is definitely overlap between them, so that you both have the addresses for your mutual friends, and there are addresses that only you know, and some only she knows.  They also might be organized differently.  You might list your friend under “J” for “Joe” or even under “W” for “Work,” while she might list him under “S” for “Joe Smith” or under your name because he is your friend.  If you happened to trade, neither of you would be able to find anything! This is where data management would be very important.  If you were to consolidate into one address book, you would have to set rules about how to organize the book, and both of you would have to follow them.  You would also make sure that poor Joe doesn’t get entered twice under “J” and under “S.” This might be a familiar situation to you, whether you are thinking about address books, record collections, books, or even shopping lists.  Wherever there is a lot of data to consolidate, you are going to run into problems unless everyone is following the same rules. I’m sure that my readers can figure out where I am going with this.  What is SQL Server but a computerized way to organize data?  And Microsoft is making it easier and easier to get all your “addresses” into one place.  In the  2008 version of SQL they introduced a new tool called Master Data Services (MDS) for Master Data Management, and they have improved it for the new 2012 version. MDM was hailed as a major improvement for business intelligence.  You might not think that an organizational system is terribly exciting, but think about the kind of “address books” a company might have.  Many companies have lots of important information, like addresses, credit card numbers, purchase history, and so much more.  To organize all this efficiently so that customers are well cared for and properly billed (only once, not never or multiple times!) is a major part of business intelligence. MDM comes into play because it will comb through these mountains of data and make sure that all the information is consistent, accurate, and all placed in one database so that employees don’t have to search high and low and waste their time. MDM also has operational MDM functions.  This is not a redundancy.  Operational MDM means that when one employee updates one bit of information in the database, for example – updating a new address for a customer, operational MDM ensures that this address is updated throughout the system so that all departments will have the correct information. Another cool thing about MDM is that it features Master Data Services Configuration Manager, which is exactly what it sounds like.  It has a built-in “helper” that lets you set up your database quickly, easily, and with the correct configurations.  While talking about cool features, I can’t skip over the add-in for Excel.  This allows you to link certain data to Excel files for easier sharing and uploading. In summary, I want to emphasize that the scariest part of the database is slowly disappearing.  Everyone knows that a database – one consolidated area for all your data – is a good idea, but the idea of setting one up is daunting.  But SQL Server is making data management easier and easier with features like Master Data Services (MDS). Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Master Data Services, MDM

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• Automated SSRS deployment with the RS utility

  - by Stacy Vicknair

  If you’re familiar with SSRS and development you are probably aware of the SSRS web services. The RS utility is a tool that comes with SSRS that allows for scripts to be executed against against the SSRS web service without needing to create an application to consume the service. One of the better benefits of using this format rather than writing an application is that the script can be modified by others who might be involved in the creation and addition of scripts or management of the SSRS environment.   Reporting Services Scripter Jasper Smith from http://www.sqldbatips.com created Reporting Services Scripter to assist with the created of a batch process to deploy an entire SSRS environment. The helper scripts below were created through the modification of his generated scripts. Why not just use this tool? You certainly can. For me, the volume of scripts generated seems less maintainable than just using some common methods extracted from these scripts and creating a deployment in a single script file. I would, however, recommend this as a product if you do not think that your environment will change drastically or if you do not need to deploy with a higher level of control over the deployment. If you just need to replicate, this tool works great. Executing with RS.exe Executing a script against rs.exe is fairly simple. The Script Half the battle is having a starting point. For the scripting I needed to do the below is the starter script. A few notes: This script assumes integrated security. This script assumes your reports have one data source each. Both of the above are just what made sense for my scenario and are definitely modifiable to accommodate your needs. If you are unsure how to change the scripts to your needs, I recommend Reporting Services Scripter to help you understand how the differences. The script has three main methods: CreateFolder, CreateDataSource and CreateReport. Scripting the server deployment is just a process of recreating all of the elements that you need through calls to these methods. If there are additional elements that you need to deploy that aren’t covered by these methods, again I suggest using Reporting Services Scripter to get the code you would need, convert it to a repeatable method and add it to this script! Public Sub Main() CreateFolder("/", "Data Sources") CreateFolder("/", "My Reports") CreateDataSource("/Data Sources", "myDataSource", _ "Data Source=server\instance;Initial Catalog=myDatabase") CreateReport("/My Reports", _ "MyReport", _ "C:\myreport.rdl", _ True, _ "/Data Sources", _ "myDataSource") End Sub   Public Sub CreateFolder(parent As String, name As String) Dim fullpath As String = GetFullPath(parent, name) Try RS.CreateFolder(name, parent, GetCommonProperties()) Console.WriteLine("Folder created: {0}", name) Catch e As SoapException If e.Detail.Item("ErrorCode").InnerText = "rsItemAlreadyExists" Then Console.WriteLine("Folder {0} already exists and cannot be overwritten", fullpath) Else Console.WriteLine("Error : " + e.Detail.Item("ErrorCode").InnerText + " (" + e.Detail.Item("Message").InnerText + ")") End If End Try End Sub   Public Sub CreateDataSource(parent As String, name As String, connectionString As String) Try RS.CreateDataSource(name, parent,False, GetDataSourceDefinition(connectionString), GetCommonProperties()) Console.WriteLine("DataSource {0} created successfully", name) Catch e As SoapException Console.WriteLine("Error : " + e.Detail.Item("ErrorCode").InnerText + " (" + e.Detail.Item("Message").InnerText + ")") End Try End Sub   Public Sub CreateReport(parent As String, name As String, location As String, overwrite As Boolean, dataSourcePath As String, dataSourceName As String) Dim reportContents As Byte() = Nothing Dim warnings As Warning() = Nothing Dim fullpath As String = GetFullPath(parent, name)   'Read RDL definition from disk Try Dim stream As FileStream = File.OpenRead(location) reportContents = New [Byte](stream.Length-1) {} stream.Read(reportContents, 0, CInt(stream.Length)) stream.Close()   warnings = RS.CreateReport(name, parent, overwrite, reportContents, GetCommonProperties())   If Not (warnings Is Nothing) Then Dim warning As Warning For Each warning In warnings Console.WriteLine(Warning.Message) Next warning Else Console.WriteLine("Report: {0} published successfully with no warnings", name) End If   'Set report DataSource references Dim dataSources(0) As DataSource   Dim dsr0 As New DataSourceReference dsr0.Reference = dataSourcePath Dim ds0 As New DataSource ds0.Item = CType(dsr0, DataSourceDefinitionOrReference) ds0.Name=dataSourceName dataSources(0) = ds0     RS.SetItemDataSources(fullpath, dataSources)   Console.Writeline("Report DataSources set successfully")       Catch e As IOException Console.WriteLine(e.Message) Catch e As SoapException Console.WriteLine("Error : " + e.Detail.Item("ErrorCode").InnerText + " (" + e.Detail.Item("Message").InnerText + ")") End Try End Sub     Public Function GetCommonProperties() As [Property]() 'Common CatalogItem properties Dim descprop As New [Property] descprop.Name = "Description" descprop.Value = "" Dim hiddenprop As New [Property] hiddenprop.Name = "Hidden" hiddenprop.Value = "False"   Dim props(1) As [Property] props(0) = descprop props(1) = hiddenprop Return props End Function   Public Function GetDataSourceDefinition(connectionString as String) Dim definition As New DataSourceDefinition definition.CredentialRetrieval = CredentialRetrievalEnum.Integrated definition.ConnectString = connectionString definition.Enabled = True definition.EnabledSpecified = True definition.Extension = "SQL" definition.ImpersonateUser = False definition.ImpersonateUserSpecified = True definition.Prompt = "Enter a user name and password to access the data source:" definition.WindowsCredentials = False definition.OriginalConnectStringExpressionBased = False definition.UseOriginalConnectString = False Return definition End Function   Private Function GetFullPath(parent As String, name As String) As String If parent = "/" Then Return parent + name Else Return parent + "/" + name End If End Function

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• Have you ever wondered...?

  - by diana.gray

  I've often wondered why folks do the same thing over and over. For some of us, it's because we "don't get it" and there's an abundance of TV talk shows that will help us analyze the why of it. Dr. Phil is all too eager to ask "...and how's that working for you?". But I'm not referring to being stuck in a destructive pattern or denial. I'm really talking about doing something over and over because you have found a joy, a comfort, a boost of energy from an activity or event. For example, how many times have I planted bulbs in November or December only to be amazed by their reach, colors, and fragrance in early spring? Or baked fresh cookies and allowed the aroma to fill the house? Or kissed a sleeping baby held gently in my arms and being reminded of how tiny and fragile we all are. I've often wondered why it is that I get so much out of something I've done so many times. I think it's because I've changed. The activity may be the same but in the preceding days, months and years I've had new experiences, challenges, joys and sorrows that have shaped me. I'm different. The same is true about attending the Professional Businesswomen of California (PBWC) conference. Although the conference is an annual event held at San Francisco's Moscone Center, I still enjoy being with 3,000 other women like me. Yes, we work at different companies and in different industries, have different lifestyles and are at different stages in our professional careers and personal lives; but we are all alike in that we bring the NEW me each year that we attend. This year I can cheer when Safra Catz, President of Oracle, encourages us to trust our intuition; that "if something doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense". And I can warmly introduce myself to Lisa Askins, Cheryl Melching's business partner at Center Stage Group, when I would have been too intimated to do so last year. This year I can commit to new challenges such as "no whining, no excuses and no gossip" as suggested by Roxanne Emmerich, a goal that I would have wavered on last year. I can also embrace the suggestion given by Dr. Ian Smith to "spend one hour each day" on me - giving myself time to rejuvenate. A friend, when asked if she was attending PBWC this year, said "I've attended the conference several times and there's nothing new!" My perspective is that WE are what makes PBWC's annual conference new. We are far different in 2010 than we were in 2009. We are learning, growing, developing and shedding and that's what makes the conference fresh, vibrant, rewarding, and lasting. It is the diversity of women coming together that makes it new. By sharing our experiences, we discover. By meeting with one another professionally and personally, we connect. And by applying the wisdom learned, we shine. We are reNEW-ed. It shows in our fresh ideas, confident interactions, strategic decisions and successful businesses. This refreshed approach is what our companies want and need, our families depend on, our communities and nation look to for creative solutions to pressing concerns. Thanks Oracle for your continued support and thanks PBWC for providing an annual day to be reNEW-ed.

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• OTN ArchBeat Top 10 for September 2012

  - by Bob Rhubart

  The results are in... Listed below are the Top 10 most popular items shared via the OTN ArchBeat Facebook Page for the month of September 2012. The Real Architects of Los Angeles - OTN Architect Day - Oct 25 No gossip. No drama. No hair pulling. Just a full day of technical sessions and peer interaction focused on using Oracle technologies in today's cloud and SOA architectures. The event is free, but seating is limited, so register now. Thursday October 25, 2012. 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Sofitel Los Angeles, 8555 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90048. Oracle Fusion Middleware Security: Attaching OWSM policies to JRF-based web services clients "OWSM (Oracle Web Services Manager) is Oracle's recommended method for securing SOAP web services," says Oracle Fusion Middleware A-Team member Andre Correa. "It provides agents that encapsulate the necessary logic to interact with the underlying software stack on both service and client sides. Such agents have their behavior driven by policies. OWSM ships with a bunch of policies that are adequate to most common real world scenarios." His detailed post shows how to make it happen. Oracle 11gR2 RAC on Software Defined Network (SDN) (OpenvSwitch, Floodlight, Beacon) | Gilbert Stan "The SDN [software defined network] idea is to separate the control plane and the data plane in networking and to virtualize networking the same way we have virtualized servers," explains Gil Standen. "This is an idea whose time has come because VMs and vmotion have created all kinds of problems with how to tell networking equipment that a VM has moved and to preserve connectivity to VPN end points, preserve IP, etc." H/T to Oracle ACE Director Tim Hall for the recommendation. Process Oracle OER Events using a simple Web Service | Bob Webster Bob Webster's post "provides an example of a simple web service that processes Oracle Enterprise Repository (OER) Events. The service receives events from OER and utilizes the OER REX API to implement simple OER automations for selected event types." Understanding Oracle BI 11g Security vs Legacy Oracle BI 10g | Christian Screen "After conducting a large amount of Oracle BI 10g to Oracle BI 11g upgrades and after writing the Oracle BI 11g book,"says Oracle ACE Christian Screen, "I still continually get asked one of the most basic questions regarding security in Oracle BI 11g; How does it compare to Oracle BI 10g? The trail of questions typically goes on to what are the differences? And, how do we leverage our current Oracle BI 10g security table schema in Oracle BI 11g?" OIM-OAM-OAAM integration using TAP – Request Flow you must understand!! | Atul Kumar Atul Kumar's post addresses "key points and request flow that you must understand" when integrating three Oracle Identity Management product Oracle Identity Management, Oracle Access Management, and Oracle Adaptive Access Manager. Adding a runtime LOV for a taskflow parameter in WebCenter | Yannick Ongena Oracle ACE Yannick Ongena illustrates how to customize the parameters tab for a taskflow in WebCenter. Tips on Migrating from AquaLogic .NET Accelerator to WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET | Scott Nelson "It has been a very winding path and this blog entry is intended to share both the lessons learned and relevant approaches that led to those learnings," says Scott Nelson. "Like most journeys of discovery, it was not a direct path, and there are notes to let you know when it is practical to skip a section if you are in a hurry to get from here to there." 15 Lessons from 15 Years as a Software Architect | Ingo Rammer In this presentation from the GOTO Conference in Copenhagen, Ingo Rammer shares 15 tips regarding people, complexity and technology that he learned doing software architecture for 15 years. WebCenter Content (WCC) Trace Sections | ECM Architect ECM Architect Kevin Smith shares a detailed technical post covering WebCenter Content (WCC) Trace Sections. Thought for the Day "Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se." — Charles Eames (June 17, 1907 – August 21, 1978) Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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• Drinking Our Own Champagne: Fusion Accounting Hub at Oracle

  - by Di Seghposs

  A guest post by Corey West, Senior Vice President, Oracle's Corporate Controller and Chief Accounting Officer There's no better story to tell than one about Oracle using its own products with blowout success. Here's how this one goes. As you know, Oracle has increased its share of the software market through a number of high-profile acquisitions. Legally combining companies is a very complicated process -- it can take months to complete, especially for the acquisitions with offices in several countries, each with its own unique laws and regulations. It's a mission critical and time sensitive process to roll an acquired company's legacy systems (running vital operations, such as accounts receivable and general ledger (GL)) into the existing systems at Oracle. To date, we've run our primary financial ledgers in E-Business Suite R12 -- and we've successfully met the requirements of the business and closed the books on time every single quarter. But there's always room for improvement and that comes in the form of Fusion Applications. We are now live on Fusion Accounting Hub (FAH), which is the first critical step in moving to a full Fusion Financials instance. We started with FAH so that we could design a global chart of accounts. Eventually, every transaction in every country will originate from this global chart of accounts -- it becomes the structure for managing our business more uniformly. In conjunction, we're using Oracle Hyperion Data Relationship Management (DRM) to centralize and automate governance of our global chart of accounts and related hierarchies, which will help us lower our costs and greatly reduce risk. Each month, we have to consolidate data from our primary general ledgers. We have been able to simplify this process considerably using FAH. We can now submit our primary ledgers running in E-Business Suite (EBS) R12 directly to FAH, eliminating the need for more than 90 redundant consolidation ledgers. Also we can submit incrementally, so if we need to book an adjustment in a primary ledger after close, we can do so without re-opening it and re-submitting. As a result, we have earlier visibility to period-end actuals during the close. A goal of this implementation, and one that we successfully achieved, is that we are able to use FAH globally with no customization. This means we have the ability to fully deploy ledger sets at the consolidation level, plus we can use standard functionality for currency translation and mass allocations. We're able to use account monitoring and drill down functionality from the consolidation level all the way through to EBS primary ledgers and sub-ledgers, which allows someone to click through a transaction appearing at the consolidation level clear through to its original source, a significant productivity enhancement when doing research. We also see a significant improvement in reporting using Essbase cube and Hyperion Smart View. Specifically, "the addition of an Essbase cube on top of the GL gives us tremendous versatility to automate and speed our elimination process," says Claire Sebti, Senior Director of Corporate Accounting at Oracle. A highlight of this story is that FAH is running in a co-existence environment. Our plan is to move to Fusion Financials in steps, starting with FAH. Next, our Oracle Financial Services Software subsidiary will move to a full Fusion Financials instance. Then we'll replace our EBS instance with Fusion Financials. This approach allows us to plan in steps, learn as we go, and not overwhelm our teams. It also reduces the risk that comes with moving the entire instance at once. Maria Smith, Vice President of Global Controller Operations, is confident about how they've positioned themselves to uptake more Fusion functionality and is eager to "continue to drive additional efficiency and cost savings." In this story, the happy customers are Oracle controllers, financial analysts, accounting specialists, and our management team that get earlier access to more flexible reporting. "Fusion Accounting Hub simplifies our processes and gives us more transparency into account activity," raves Alex SanJuan, Senior Director, Record to Report Strategic Process Owner. Overall, the team has been very impressed with the usability and functionality of FAH and are pleased with the quantifiable improvements. Claire Sebti states, "Our WD5 close activities have been reduced by at least four hours of system processing time, just for the consolidation group." Fusion Accounting Hub is an inspiring beginning to our Fusion Financials implementation story. There's no doubt it's going to be an international bestseller! Corey West, Senior Vice President Oracle's Corporate Controller and Chief Accounting Officer

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• JavaScript Data Binding Frameworks

  - by dwahlin

  Data binding is where it’s at now days when it comes to building client-centric Web applications. Developers experienced with desktop frameworks like WPF or web frameworks like ASP.NET, Silverlight, or others are used to being able to take model objects containing data and bind them to UI controls quickly and easily. When moving to client-side Web development the data binding story hasn’t been great since neither HTML nor JavaScript natively support data binding. This means that you have to write code to place data in a control and write code to extract it. Although it’s certainly feasible to do it from scratch (many of us have done it this way for years), it’s definitely tedious and not exactly the best solution when it comes to maintenance and re-use. Over the last few years several different script libraries have been released to simply the process of binding data to HTML controls. In fact, the subject of data binding is becoming so popular that it seems like a new script library is being released nearly every week. Many of the libraries provide MVC/MVVM pattern support in client-side JavaScript apps and some even integrate directly with server frameworks like Node.js. Here’s a quick list of a few of the available libraries that support data binding (if you like any others please add a comment and I’ll try to keep the list updated): AngularJS MVC framework for data binding (although closely follows the MVVM pattern). Backbone.js MVC framework with support for models, key/value binding, custom events, and more. Derby Provides a real-time environment that runs in the browser an in Node.js. The library supports data binding and templates. Ember Provides support for templates that automatically update as data changes. JsViews Data binding framework that provides “interactive data-driven views built on top of JsRender templates”. jQXB Expression Binder Lightweight jQuery plugin that supports bi-directional data binding support. KnockoutJS MVVM framework with robust support for data binding. For an excellent look at using KnockoutJS check out John Papa’s course on Pluralsight. Meteor End to end framework that uses Node.js on the server and provides support for data binding on  the client. Simpli5 JavaScript framework that provides support for two-way data binding. WinRT with HTML5/JavaScript If you’re building Windows 8 applications using HTML5 and JavaScript there’s built-in support for data binding in the WinJS library.   I won’t have time to write about each of these frameworks, but in the next post I’m going to talk about my (current) favorite when it comes to client-side JavaScript data binding libraries which is AngularJS. AngularJS provides an extremely clean way – in my opinion - to extend HTML syntax to support data binding while keeping model objects (the objects that hold the data) free from custom framework method calls or other weirdness. While I’m writing up the next post, feel free to visit the AngularJS developer guide if you’d like additional details about the API and want to get started using it.

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• Slides and Code from my Silverlight MVVM Talk at DevConnections

  - by dwahlin

  I had a great time at the DevConnections conference in Las Vegas this year where Visual Studio 2010 and Silverlight 4 were launched. While at the conference I had the opportunity to give a full-day Silverlight workshop as well as 4 different talks and met a lot of people developing applications in Silverlight. I also had a chance to appear on a live broadcast of Channel 9 with John Papa, Ward Bell and Shawn Wildermuth, record a video with Rick Strahl covering jQuery versus Silverlight and record a few podcasts on Silverlight and ASP.NET MVC 2.  It was a really busy 4 days but I had a lot of fun chatting with people and hearing about different business problems they were solving with ASP.NET and/or Silverlight. Thanks to everyone who attended my sessions and took the time to ask questions and stop by to talk one-on-one. One of the talks I gave covered the Model-View-ViewModel pattern and how it can be used to build architecturally sound applications. Topics covered in the talk included: Understanding the MVVM pattern Benefits of the MVVM pattern Creating a ViewModel class Implementing INotifyPropertyChanged in a ViewModelBase class Binding a ViewModel declaratively in XAML Binding a ViewModel with code ICommand and ButtonBase commanding support in Silverlight 4 Using InvokeCommandBehavior to handle additional commanding needs Working with ViewModels and Sample Data in Blend Messaging support with EventBus classes, EventAggregator and Messenger My personal take on code in a code-beside file (I’m all in favor of it when used appropriately for message boxes, child windows, animations, etc.) One of the samples I showed in the talk was intended to teach all of the concepts mentioned above while keeping things as simple as possible.  The sample demonstrates quite a few things you can do with Silverlight and the MVVM pattern so check it out and feel free to leave feedback about things you like, things you’d do differently or anything else. MVVM is simply a pattern, not a way of life so there are many different ways to implement it. If you’re new to the subject of MVVM check out the following resources. I wish this talk would’ve been recorded (especially since my live and canned demos all worked :-)) but these resources will help get you going quickly. Getting Started with the MVVM Pattern in Silverlight Applications Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) Explained Laurent Bugnion’s Excellent Talk at MIX10     Download sample code and slides from my DevConnections talk     For more information about onsite, online and video training, mentoring and consulting solutions for .NET, SharePoint or Silverlight please visit http://www.thewahlingroup.com.

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• Silverlight Cream for March 22, 2010 -- #817

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Bart Czernicki, Tim Greenfield, Andrea Boschin(-2-), AfricanGeek, Fredrik Normén, Ian Griffiths, Christian Schormann, Pete Brown, Jeff Handley, Brad Abrams, and Tim Heuer. Shoutout: At the beginning of MIX10, Brad Abrams reported Silverlight 4 and RIA Services Release Candidate Available NOW From SilverlightCream.com: Using the Bing Maps Silverlight control on the Windows Phone 7 Bart Czernicki has a very cool BingMaps and WP7 tutorial up... you're going to want to bookmark this one for sure! Code included and external links... thanks Bart! Silverlight Rx DataClient within MVVM Tim Greenfield has a great post up about Rx and MVVM with Silverlight 3. Lots of good insight into Rx and interesting code bits. SilverVNC - a VNC Viewer with Silverlight 4.0 RC Andrea Boschin digs into Silverlight 4 RC and it's full-trust on sockets and builds an implementation of RFB protocol... give it a try and give Andrea some feedback. Chromeless Window for OOB applications in Silverlight 4.0 RC Andrea Boschin also has a post up on investigating the OOB no-chrome features in SL4RC. Windows Phone 7 and WCF AfricanGeek has his latest video tutorial up and it's on WCF and WP7... I've got a feeling we're all going to have to get our arms around this. Some steps for moving WCF RIA Services Preveiw to the RC version Fredrik Normén details his steps in transitioning to the RC version of RIA Services. Silverlight Business Apps: Module 8.5 - The Value of MEF with Silverlight Ian Griffiths has a video tutorial up at Channel 9 on MEF and Silverlight, posted by John Papa Introducing Blend 4 – For Silverlight, WPF and Windows Phone Christian Schormann has an early MIX10 post up about te new features in Expression Blend with regard to Silverlight, WPF, and WP7. Building your first Silverlight for Windows Phone Application Pete Brown has his first post up on building a WP7 app with the MIX10 bits. Lookups in DataGrid and DataForm with RIA Services Jeff Handley elaborates on a post by someone else about using lookup data in the DataGrid and DataForm with RIA Services Silverlight 4 + RIA Services - Ready for Business: Starting a New Project with the Business Application Template Brad Abrams is starting a series highlighting the key features of Silverlight 4 and RIA with the new releases. He has a post up Silverlight 4 + RIA Services - Ready for Business: Index, including links and source. Then in this first post of the series, he introduces the Business Application Template. Custom Window Chrome and Events Watch a tutorial video by Tim Heuer on creating custom chrome for OOB apps. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Silverlight Cream for March 29, 2010 -- #824

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: smartyP(-2-), Al Pascual, Mike Taulty, Shawn Burke(-2-), Vikram Pendse, Tomasz Janczuk, Lee, and Alexey Zakharov. Shoutouts: Jeff Weber announced New Silverlight Game “Snow Spill” by Nick Avery of Liserd Arts Games John Papa summarized links to all the Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 Sessions from MIX 10 Tim Heuer has a post up about OData and the MIX10 feed: MIX10: Yet another way to view video content sessions using their OData feed From SilverlightCream.com: Creating a Windows Phone 7 Metro Style Pivot Application [Part 1] smartyP has a two-part video tutorial up on creating a WP7 pivot navigation app using Expression Blend. He's also looking for feedback. Creating a Windows Phone 7 Metro Style Pivot Application [Part 2] In part 2, smartyP adds gestures to his navigation. He also has some good external links listed. Al Pascual: My First Windows Phone 7 Application Al Pascual extends the MIX10 keynote WP7 sample by adding the ability to send tweets ... with all the code. Silverlight 4 RC and the “silent installation” Mike Taulty discusses and demonstrates installing an OOB app without having to visit a webpage to get it. In other words, pass it around on a USB drive, send it in email, etc. iPhone SDK vs Windows Phone 7 Series SDK Challenge, Part 1: Hello World! Shawn Burke has a 2-part series up comparing iPhone and WP7 development looking at how easy it is to code and lines of code produced by the tools. This first post is the classic Hello World. Check out the comments as well. iPhone SDK vs. Windows Phone 7 Series SDK Challenge, Part 2: MoveMe Shawn Burke's part 2 is comparing the classic iPhone 'MoveMe' app... again, check out all the comments. Silverlight 4 : Indic Support in Silverlight Vikram Pendse demonstrates using the Microsoft Indic Language Input tool. He has some screen shots and discussion about fonts in Silverlight. Comparison of HTTP polling duplex and net.tcp performance in Silverlight 4 RC Tomasz Janczuk is checking out Silverlight4 RC and has a comparison up of the performance of the three mechanisms for asynch data push for the server to the client/. Summary rows in Datagrid with multiple groups Lee revisted a post that displayed Summary/Totals in the group header to also support multiple groups now. Silverlight Commands Hacks: Passing EventArgs as CommandParameter to DelegateCommand triggered by EventTrigger Alexey Zakharov suggests a workaround 'InvokeDelegateCommandAction' to keep Blend from ignoring event args. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• E 2.0 Value Metaphors

  - by Tom Tonkin

  I guess I have been doing this too long. I can easily see the value of Enterprise 2.0 technology for an organization, but find it a challenge at times to convey that same value to others. I also know that I'm not the only one that has that issue. Others, that have that same passion, also suffer from being, perhaps, too close to the market. I was having this same discussion with a few colleagues when one of them suggested that metaphors might be a good vehicle to communicate the value to those that are not as familiar.  One such metaphor was discussed.Apparently,back in the early 50's, there was a great Air Force aviator and military strategist by the name of John Boyd.  Without going into a ton of detail (you can search him on the internet), what made Colonel Boyd great was that he never lost a dog fight.  As a matter of fact, they called him 'Forty-Second Boyd' since he claimed to be able to beat anyone in any type of aircraft in less than forty seconds, even if his aircraft was inferior to his opponents.His approach as was unique.  He observed over time that there was a pattern on how aviators  engaged in a dogfight.  He called this method OODA.   It describes how a person or, in our case, an organization, would react to an event.  OODA is an acrostic for Observation, Orientation, Decision and Action.  Again, there is a lot more on the internet about this.A pilot would go through this loop several times during a dogfight and Boyd would try to predict this loop and interrupt it by changing the landscape of the actual dogfight.  This would give Boyd an advantage and be able to predict what his opponent would do and then counterattack.Boyd went on to say that many companies have a similar reaction loop and that by understanding that loop, organizations would be able to adjust better to market conditions, predict what the competition is doing and reposition themselves to gain competitive advantages. So, our metaphor would be that Enterprise 2.0 provides companies greater visibility of their business by connecting to employees, customers and partners in a collaborative fashion.  This, in turn, helps them navigate through the tough times and provide lines of sight to more innovative ideas.  Innovation is that last tool for companies to achieve competitive advantage (maybe a discusion for another post).Perhaps this is more wordy than some other metaphor, but it does allow for an interesting  dialogue to start and maybe even a framwork to fullfill the promise of E 2.0. So, I'm sure there are many more metaphors for the value that E 2.0 brings to organzaitons. Do you have one to share? Please comment below and thanks for stopping by.

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• Silverlight Cream for March 11, 2010 -- #812

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Walter Ferrari, Viktor Larsson, Bill Reiss(-2-, -3-, -4-), Jonathan van de Veen, Walt Ritscher, Jobi Joy, Pete Brown, Mike Taulty, and Mark Miller. Shoutouts: Going to MIX10? John Papa announced Got Questions? Ask the Experts at MIX10 Pete Brown listed The Essential WPF/Silverlight/XNA Developer and Designer Toolbox From SilverlightCream.com: How to extend Bing Maps Silverlight with an elevation profile graph - Part 2 In this second and final tutorial, Walter Ferrari adds elevation to his previous BingMaps post. I'm glad someone else worked this out for me :) Navigating AWAY from your Silverlight page Viktor Larsson has a post up on how to navigate to something other than your Silverlight page like maybe a mailto ... SilverSprite: Not just for XNA games any more Bill Reiss has a new version of SilverSprite up on CodePlex and if you're planning on doing any game development, you should check this out for sure Space Rocks game step 1: The game loop Bill Reiss has a tutorial series on Game development that he's beginning ... looks like a good thing to jump in on and play along. This first one is all about the game loop. Space Rocks game step 2: Sprites (part 1) In Part 2, Bill Reiss begins a series on Sprites in game development and positioning it. Space Rocks game step 3: Sprites (part 2) Bill Reiss's Part 3 is a follow-on tutorial on Sprites and moving according to velocity... fun stuff :) Adventures while building a Silverlight Enterprise application part No. 32 Jonathan van de Veen is discussing debugging and the evil you can get yourself wrapped up in... his scenario is definitely one to remember. Streaming Silverlight media from a Dropbox.com account Read the comments and the agreements, but I think Walt Ritscher's idea of using DropBox to serve up Streaming media is pretty cool! UniformGrid for Silverlight Jobi Joy wanted a UniformGrid like he's familiar with in WPF. Not finding one in the SDK or Toolkit, he converted the WPF one to Silverlight .. all good for you and me :) How to Get Started in WPF or Silverlight: A Learning Path for New Developers Pete Brown has a nice post up describing resources, tutorials, blogs, and books for devs just getting into Silveright or WPF, and thanks for the shoutout, Pete! Silverlight 4, MEF and the DeploymentCatalog ( again :-) ) Mike Taulty is revisiting the DeploymentCatalog to wrap it up in a class like he did the PackageCatalog previously MVVM with Prism 101 – Part 6b: Wrapping IClientChannel Mark Miller is back with a Part 6b on MVVM with Prism, and is answering some questions from the previous post and states his case against the client service proxy. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    MIX10

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• Taking AIIM at Social

  - by Christie Flanagan

  Today we are pleased to have a guest post from Christian Finn (@cfinn).  Christian is Senior Director of Product Management for Oracle WebCenter and heads up the WebCenter evangelist team.Last week I had the privilege of speaking at AIIM’s new conference in San Francisco.  AIIM, for those of you not familiar with it, is a global community of information professionals and got its start with ECM and imaging long ago. With 65,000+ members, AIIM has now set about broadening its scope to focus more on the intersection between systems of record (think traditional ECM) and systems of engagement (think social solutions).  So AIIM’s conference is a natural place to be for WebCenter types like me, who have a foot in both of those worlds.AIIM used to have their name on a very large tradeshow, but have changed direction now to run a small, intimate conference.  The lineup of keynotes was terrific, including David Pogue of The New York Times, Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, and Ted Schadler, author of Empowered among many thought-provoking and engaging speakers. (Note: Ted will soon be featured in our Social Business webcast series. Stay tuned.)John Mancini and his team at AIIM did a fabulous job running the event and the engagement from the 450 attendees was sustained over the two and a half days.  Our proudest moment was having three finalists up for AIIM awards including: San Joaquin County, CA, for a justice case management system using WebCenter Content and Oracle BPM; Medtronic and Fishbowl Solutions for their innovative iPad solutions on WebCenter Content, and the government of Louisville, Kentucky/Jefferson County for their accounts payable solution using WebCenter Content’s Image & Process Management.  The highlight of the awards night was San Joaquin winning the small organization award against some tough competition.In addition to the conversations sparked at the show, AIIM promoted the whitepapers their industry task forces have produced on the impact and opportunities created by systems of engagement and systems of record. The task forces were led by: Geoffrey Moore, the renowned high tech marketing guru and author of Crossing The Chasm; and Andrew McAfee, who coined the term and wrote the book, Enterprise 2.0. (Note: Andy will also be featured soon on the Social Business webcast series.)  These free papers make short, excellent reading and you can download them on the AIIM website: Moore highlights the changes to Enterprise IT that the social revolution will engender, and McAfee covers where and how organizations are finding value in using social techniques to foster innovation, to scale Q&A across the organization, and to connect sales and marketing for greater efficiency and effectiveness. Moore’s whitepaper is here and McAfee’s whitepapers are available here. For the benefit of those who did not get a chance to attend the AIIM conference, I’ll be posting the topics of my AIIM presentation, “Three Principles for Fixing Your Broken Organization,” here on the WebCenter blog over the rest of this week and next in a series of posts.  

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• The Minimalist Approach to Content Governance - Retire Phase

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

   Originally posted by John Brunswick. Good news - the Retire Phase is actually more fun than the Manage Phase. During the Retire Phase our content management team should not have to track down content creators if the Request Phase of this process was completed successfully. The ownership meta data, success criteria and time stamp that was applied to the original content submission will help to manage content at the end of the content life cycle. The Retire Phase will provide the opportunity for us to prune irrelevant content items through archiving or deletion, keeping the content system clear of irrelevant information, streamlining users ability to browse and search for content.   1. Act on Metrics Established during the Request Phase Why - Some information is only relevant for a given amount of time. In Content Platform Migration Strategy - Artifacts vs Perishable Content we examined two content types - Artifacts and Perishable content. Understanding the differences between Artifacts and Perishable content will allow us to explicitly respect their various lifespans. Additionally, some content may have been part of a project that failed to meet the success criteria outlined in the Request Phase. Any content that did not meet the metrics outlined in the Request Phase should be considered for deletion. How - Thankfully by adhering to to The Minimalist Approach to Content Governance our content should have some level of meta data associated with it that will allow us to quickly sort and understand how to deal with it. Content Management Systems like Oracle's Universal Content Management (UCM) natively allow you to create and save advanced searches that can use content meta data like folders, author, expiration date, security settings and custom meta data to pull back listings of content for examination. Additionally, analytics are available for all content items that allow us to determine if the usage is meeting success criteria that may have been previously outlined during the request phase. The lists that are produced from these approaches can be quickly reviewed for each project with the content owners and based on the nature of the content and success criteria undergo archiving or deletion. Impact - Retiring content that is no longer relevant will allow end users to have fast and relevant access to information across your enterprise. As we mentioned in our first post in this series - it is easy to quickly start producing content, but the challenge is ensuring that the environment is easy to navigate and use on the third week and during the third year. The light level of effort that was placed into the Request Phase of this process will set us up to keep content clean and relevant for a long time to come. With an up-to-date content repository users will be able to quickly find access to the information that is critical to their work processes. You might not get a holiday named in your honor managing the content system, but will appreciate their quick access to quality information.

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• JavaFX 2.0 at Devoxx 2011

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  JavaFX Sessions Abound JavaFX had a big presence at Devoxx 2011 as witnessed by the number of sessions this year given by leading JavaFX movers and shakers.     “JavaFX 2.0 -- A Java Developer's Guide” by Java Champions Stephen Chin and Peter Pilgrim     “JavaFX 2.0 Hands On” by Jasper Potts and Richard Bair     “Animation Bringing your User Interfaces to Life” by Michael Heinrichs and John Yoong (JavaFX development team)     “Complete Guide to Writing Custom Bindings in JavaFX 2.0” by Michael Heinrichs (JavaFX development team)     “Java Rich Clients with JavaFX 2.0” by Jasper Potts and Richard Bair     “JavaFX Properties & Bindings for Experts” (and those who want to become experts) by Michael Heinrichs (JavaFX development team)     “JavaFX Under the Hood” by Richard Bair     “JavaFX Open Mic” with Jasper Potts and Richard Bair With the release of JavaFX 2.0 and Oracle’s move towards an open development model with an open bug database already created, it’s a great time for developers to take the JavaFX plunge. One Devoxx attendee, Mark Stephens, a developer at IDRsolutions blogged about a problem he was having setting up JavaFX on NetBeans to work on his Mac. He wrote: “I’ve tried desperate measures (I even read and reread the instructions) but it did not help. Luckily, I am at Devoxx at the moment and there seem to be a lot of JavaFX gurus here (and it is running on all their Macs). So I asked them… It turns out that sometimes the software does not automatically pickup the settings like it should do if you give it the JavaFX SDK path. The solution is actually really simple (isn’t it always once you know). Enter these values manually and it will work.” He simply entered certain values and his problem was solved. He thanked Java Champion Stephen Chin, “for a great talk at Devoxx and putting me out of my misery.” JavaFX in Java Magazine Over in the November/December 2011 issue of Java Magazine, Oracle’s Simon Ritter, well known for his creative Java inventions at JavaOne, has an article up titled “JavaFX and Swing Integration” in which he shows developers how to use the power of JavaFX to migrate Swing interfaces to JavaFX. The consensus among JavaFX experts is that JavaFX is the next step in the evolution of Java as a rich client platform. In the same issue Java Champion and JavaFX maven James Weaver has an article, “Using Transitions for Animation in JavaFX 2.0”. In addition, Oracle’s Vice President of Java Client Development, Nandini Ramani, provides the keys to unlock the mysteries of JavaFX 2.0 in her Java Magazine interview. Look for the JavaFX community to grow and flourish in coming years.

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• The 2010 Life Insurance Conference - Washington, DC

  - by [email protected]

  How ironic to be in Washington, DC on April 15 - TAX DAY! Fortunately, I avoided IRS offices and attended the much more enjoyable 2010 Life Insurance Conference, presented by LIMRA, LOMA SOA and ACLI. This year's conference offered a variety of tracks focused on the Life Industry including Distribution/Marketing Marketing, Administration, Actuarial/Product Development, Regulatory, Reinsurance and Strategic Management. President and CEO of the ACLI, Frank Keating, opened the event by moderating a session titled "Executive Viewpoint on new Opportunities." Guest speakers included Ted Mathas, President and CEO of NY Life, and John Walters, President and CEO of Hartford Life. Both speakers were insightful as they shared the challenges and opportunities each company faces and the key role life insurance companies play in our society and the global economy. There were several key themes that were reiterated in multiple sessions throughout the conference - the economy is on the rebound, optimism is growing, consumer spending is up and an uptick in employment is likely to follow. The threat of a double dip recession has seemed to passed. Good news for our industry, and welcomed by all in attendance. Of special interest to me, given my background, was some research shared by both The Nolan Group and Novarica in separate sessions. Both firms indicate that policy administration upgrades/replacement projects remain a top priority in 2010. Carriers continue to invest in modern technology. Modern ultra-configurable systems enable carriers to switch from a waterfall to an agile project methodology, which often entails a "culture change" within an organization. Other themes heard throughout the two-day event: Virtually all sessions focused on People, Process and Technology! Product innovation, agility and speed to market are as important as ever. Social Networks and Twitter are becoming more popular ways of communicating with both field and dispersed staff. Several sessions focused on the application, new business and underwriting process. Companies continue looking for ways to increase market agility, accelerate speed to market, address cost issues and improve service levels across the process. They recognize the need to ease the way to do business with both producers and consumers. Author and economic futurist Jeff Thredgold presented an entertaining, informative and humorous general session on Wednesday afternoon that focused on the US and global economies, financial markets and retirement outlook. Thredgold did not disappoint anyone with his message! The Thursday morning general session was keynoted by Therese Vaughan (CEO - NAIC) and Thomas Crawford (President of C2 Group). Both speakers gave a poignant view of the recent financial crisis and discussed "Putting the Pieces Back Together." Therese spoke of the recent financial turmoil and likely changes to regulations to the financial services sector. Tom's topics focused on economic recovery and the political environment in Washington, and how that impacts our industry. Next year's event will be April 11-13, 2011 in Las Vegas. Roger A.Soppe, CLU, LUTCF, is the Senior Director of Insurance Strategy, Oracle Insurance.

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• The Legend of the Filtered Index

  - by Johnm

  Once upon a time there was a big and bulky twenty-nine million row table. He tempestuously hoarded data like a maddened shopper amid a clearance sale. Despite his leviathan nature and eager appetite he loved to share his treasures. Multitudes from all around would embark upon an epiphanous journey to sample contents of his mythical purse of knowledge. After a long day of performing countless table scans the table was overcome with fatigue. After a short period of unavailability, he decided that he needed to consider a new way to share his prized possessions in a more efficient manner. Thus, a non-clustered index was born. She dutifully directed the pilgrims that sought the table's data - no longer would those despicable table scans darken the doorsteps of this quaint village. and yet, the table's veracious appetite did not wane. Any bit or byte that wondered near him was consumed with vigor. His columns and rows continued to expand beyond the expectations of even the most liberal estimation. As his rows grew grander they became more difficult to organize and maintain. The once bright and cheerful disposition of the non-clustered index began to dim. The wait time for those who sought the table's treasures began to increase. Some of those who came to nibble upon the banquet of knowledge even timed-out and never realized their aspired enlightenment. After a period of heart-wrenching introspection, the table decided to drop the index and attempt another solution. At the darkest hour of the table's desperation came a grand flash of light. As his eyes regained their vision there stood several creatures who looked very similar to his former, beloved, non-clustered index. They all spoke in unison as they introduced themselves: "Fear not, for we come to organize your data and direct those who seek to partake in it. We are the filtered index." Immediately, the filtered indexes began to scurry about. One took control of the past quarter's data. Another took control of the previous quarter's data. All of the remaining filtered indexes followed suit. As the nearly gluttonous habits of the table scaled forward more filtered indexes appeared. Regardless of the table's size, all of the eagerly awaiting data seekers were delivered data as quickly as a Jimmy John's sandwich. The table was moved to tears. All in the land of data rejoiced and all lived happily ever after, at least until the next data challenge crept from the fearsome cave of the unknown. The End.

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