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• Contracting as a Software Developer in the UK

  - by Frez

  Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} Having had some 15 years’ experience of working as a software contractor, I am often asked by developers who work as permanent employees (permies) about the pros and cons of working as a software consultant through my own limited company and whether the move would be a good one for them. Whilst it is possible to contract using other financial vehicles such as umbrella companies, this article will only consider limited companies as that is what I have experience of using. Contracting or consultancy requires a different mind-set from being a permanent member of staff, and not all developers are capable of this shift in attitude. Whilst you can look forward to an increase in the money you take home, there are real risks and expenses you would not normally be exposed to as a permie. So let us have a look at the pros and cons: Pros: More money There is no doubt that whilst you are working on contracts you will earn significantly more than you would as a permanent employee. Furthermore, working through a limited company is more tax efficient. Less politics You really have no need to involve yourself in office politics. When the end of the day comes you can go home and not think or worry about the power struggles within the company you are contracted to. Your career progression is not tied to the company. Expenses from gross income All your expenses of trading as a business will come out of your company’s gross income, i.e. before tax. This covers travelling expenses provided you have not been at the same client/location for more than two years, internet subscriptions, professional subscriptions, software, hardware, accountancy services and so on. Cons: Work is more transient Contracts typically range from a couple of weeks to a year, although will most likely start at 3 months. However, most contracts are extended either because the project you have been brought in to help with takes longer to deliver than expected, the client decides they can use you on other aspects of the project, or the client decides they would like to use you on other projects. The temporary nature of the work means that you will have down-time between contracts while you secure new opportunities during which time your company will have no income. You may need to attend several interviews before securing a new contract. Accountancy expenses Your company is a separate entity and there are accountancy requirements which, unless you like paperwork, means your company will need to appoint an accountant to prepare your company’s accounts. It may also be worth purchasing some accountancy software, so talk to your accountant about this as they may prefer you to use a particular software package so they can integrate it with their systems. VAT You will need to register your company for VAT. This is tax neutral for you as the VAT you charge your clients you will pass onto the government less any VAT you are reclaiming from expenses, but it is additional paperwork to undertake each quarter. It is worth checking out the Fixed Rate VAT Scheme that is available, particularly after the initial expenses of setting up your company are over. No training Clients take you on based on your skills, not to train you when they will lose that investment at the end of the contract, so understand that it is unlikely you will receive any training funded by a client. However, learning new skills during a contract is possible and you may choose to accept a contract on a lower rate if this is guaranteed as it will help secure future contracts. No financial extras You will have no free pension, life, accident, sickness or medical insurance unless you choose to purchase them yourself. A financial advisor can give you all the necessary advice in this area, and it is worth taking seriously. A year after I started as a consultant I contracted a serious illness, this kept me off work for over two months, my client was very understanding and it could have been much worse, so it is worth considering what your options might be in the case of illness, death and retirement. Agencies Whilst it is possible to work directly for end clients there are pros and cons of working through an agency.  The main advantage is cash flow, you invoice the agency and they typically pay you within a week, whereas working directly for a client could have you waiting up to three months to be paid. The downside of working for agencies, especially in the current difficult times, is that they may go out of business and you then have difficulty getting the money you are owed. Tax investigation It is possible that the Inland Revenue may decide to investigate your company for compliance with tax law. Insurance is available to cover you for this. My personal recommendation would be to join the PCG as this insurance is included as a benefit of membership, Professional Indemnity Some agencies require that you are covered by professional indemnity insurance; this is a cost you would not incur as a permie. Travel Unless you live in an area that has an abundance of opportunities, such as central London, it is likely that you will be travelling further, longer and with more expense than if you were permanently employed at a local company. This not only affects you monetarily, but also your quality of life and the ability to keep fit and healthy. Obtaining finance If you want to secure a mortgage on a property it can be more difficult or expensive, especially if you do not have three years of audited accounts to show a mortgage lender.   Caveat This post is my personal opinion and should not be used as a definitive guide or recommendation to contracting and whether it is suitable for you as an individual, i.e. I accept no responsibility if you decide to take up contracting based on this post and you fare badly for whatever reason.

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• Summit Time!

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  Boy, how time flies!  I can hardly believe that the 2011 PASS Summit is just one week away.  Maybe it snuck up on me because it’s a few weeks earlier than last year.  Whatever the cause, I am really looking forward to next week.  The PASS Summit is the largest SQL Server conference in the world and a fantastic networking opportunity thrown in for no additional charge.  Here are a few thoughts to help you maximize the week. Networking As Karen Lopez (blog | @DataChick) mentioned in her presentation for the Professional Development Virtual Chapter just a couple of weeks ago, “Don’t wait until you need a new job to start networking.”  You should always be working on your professional network.  Some people, especially technical-minded people, get confused by the term networking.  The first image that used to pop into my head was the image of some guy standing, awkwardly, off to the side of a cocktail party, trying to shmooze those around him.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  If you’re good at that sort of thing, and you can strike up a conversation with some stranger and learn all about them in 5 minutes, and walk away with your next business deal all but approved by the lawyers, then congratulations.  But if you’re not, and most of us are not, I have two suggestions for you.  First, register for Don Gabor’s 2-hour session on Tuesday at the Summit called Networking to Build Business Contacts.  Don is a master at small talk, and at teaching others, and in just those two short hours will help you with important tips about breaking the ice, remembering names, and smooth transitions into and out of conversations.  Then go put that great training to work right away at the Tuesday night Welcome Reception and meet some new people; which is really my second suggestion…just meet a few new people.  You see, “networking” is about meeting new people and being friendly without trying to “work it” to get something out of the relationship at this point.  In fact, Don will tell you that a better way to build the connection with someone is to look for some way that you can help them, not how they can help you. There are a ton of opportunities as long as you follow this one key point: Don’t stay in your hotel!  At the least, get out and go to the free events such as the Tuesday night Welcome Reception, the Wednesday night Exhibitor Reception, and the Thursday night Community Appreciation Party.  All three of these are perfect opportunities to meet other professionals with a similar job or interest as you, and you never know how that may help you out in the future.  Maybe you just meet someone to say HI to at breakfast the next day instead of eating alone.  Or maybe you cross paths several times throughout the Summit and compare notes on different sessions you attended.  And you just might make new friends that you look forward to seeing year after year at the Summit.  Who knows, it might even turn out that you have some specific experience that will help out that other person a few months’ from now when they run into the same challenge that you just overcame, or vice-versa.  But the point is, if you don’t get out and meet people, you’ll never have the chance for anything else to happen in the future. One more tip for shy attendees of the Summit…if you can’t bring yourself to strike up conversation with strangers at these events, then at the least, after you sit through a good session that helps you out, go up to the speaker and introduce yourself and thank them for taking the time and effort to put together their presentation.  Ideally, when you do this, tell them WHY it was beneficial to you (e.g. “Now I have a new idea of how to tackle a problem back at the office.”)  I know you think the speakers are all full of confidence and are always receiving a ton of accolades and applause, but you’re wrong.  Most of them will be very happy to hear first-hand that all the work they put into getting ready for their presentation is paying off for somebody. Training With over 170 technical sessions at the Summit, training is what it’s all about, and the training is fantastic!  Of course there are the big-name trainers like Paul Randall, Kimberly Tripp, Kalen Delaney, Itzik Ben-Gan and several others, but I am always impressed by the quality of the training put on by so many other “regular” members of the SQL Server community.  It is amazing how you don’t have to be a published author or otherwise recognized as an “expert” in an area in order to make a big impact on others just by sharing your personal experience and lessons learned.  I would rather hear the story of, and lessons learned from, “some guy or gal” who has actually been through an issue and came out the other side, than I would a trained professor who is speaking just from theory or an intellectual understanding of a topic. In addition to the three full days of regular sessions, there are also two days of pre-conference intensive training available.  There is an extra cost to this, but it is a fantastic opportunity.  Think about it…you’re already coming to this area for training, so why not extend your stay a little bit and get some in-depth training on a particular topic or two?  I did this for the first time last year.  I attended one day of extra training and it was well worth the time and money.  One of the best reasons for it is that I am extremely busy at home with my regular job and family, that it was hard to carve out the time to learn about the topic on my own.  It worked out so well last year that I am doubling up and doing two days or “pre-cons” this year. And then there are the DVDs.  I think these are another great option.  I used the online schedule builder to get ready and have an idea of which sessions I want to attend and when they are (much better than trying to figure this out at the last minute every day).  But the problem that I have run into (seems this happens every year) is that nearly every session block has two different sessions that I would like to attend.  And some of them have three!  ACK!  That won’t work!  What is a guy supposed to do?  Well, one option is to purchase the DVDs which are recordings of the audio and projected images from each session so you can continue to attend sessions long after the Summit is officially over.  Yes, many (possibly all) of these also get posted online and attendees can access those for no extra charge, but those are not necessarily all available as quickly as the DVD recording are, and the DVDs are often more convenient than downloading, especially if you want to share the training with someone who was not able to attend in person. Remember, I don’t make any money or get any other benefit if you buy the DVDs or from anything else that I have recommended here.  These are just my own thoughts, trying to help out based on my experiences from the 8 or so Summits I have attended.  There is nothing like the Summit.  It is an awesome experience, fantastic training, and a whole lot of fun which is just compounded if you’ll take advantage of the first part of this article and make some new friends along the way.

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• Oracle Tutor: Top 10 to Implement Sustainable Policies and Procedures

  - by emily.chorba(at)oracle.com

  Overview Your organization (executives, managers, and employees) understands the value of having written business process documents (process maps, procedures, instructions, reference documents, and form abstracts). Policies and procedures should be documented because they help to reduce the range of individual decisions and encourage management by exception: the manager only needs to give special attention to unusual problems, not covered by a specific policy or procedure. As more and more procedures are written to cover recurring situations, managers will begin to make decisions which will be consistent from one functional area to the next.Companies should take a project management approach when implementing an environment for a sustainable documentation program and do the following:1. Identify an Executive Champion2. Put together a winning team3. Assign ownership4. Centralize publishing5. Establish the Document Maintenance Process Up Front6. Document critical activities only7. Document actual practice8. Minimize documentation9. Support continuous improvement10. Keep it simple 1. Identify an Executive ChampionAppoint a top down driver. Select one key individual to be a mentor for the procedure planning team. The individual should be a senior manager, such as your company president, CIO, CFO, the vice-president of quality, manufacturing, or engineering. Written policies and procedures can be important supportive aids when known to express the thinking for the chief executive officer and / or the president and to have his or her full support. 2. Put Together a Winning TeamChoose a strong Project Management Leader and staff the procedure planning team with management members from cross functional groups. Make sure team members have the responsibility - and the authority - to make things happen.The winning team should consist of the Documentation Project Manager, Document Owners (one for each functional area), a Document Controller, and Document Specialists (as needed). The Tutor Implementation Guide has complete job descriptions for these roles. 3. Assign Ownership It is virtually impossible to keep process documentation simple and meaningful if employees who are far removed from the activity itself create it. It is impossible to keep documentation up-to-date when responsibility for the document is not clearly understood.Key to the Tutor methodology, therefore, is the concept of ownership. Each document has a single owner, who is responsible for ensuring that the document is necessary and that it reflects actual practice. The owner must be a person who is knowledgeable about the activity and who has the authority to build consensus among the persons who participate in the activity as well as the authority to define or change the way an activity is performed. The owner must be an advocate of the performers and negotiate, not dictate practices.In the Tutor environment, a document's owner is the only person with the authority to approve an update to that document. 4. Centralize Publishing Although it is tempting (especially in a networked environment and with document management software solutions) to decentralize the control of all documents -- with each owner updating and distributing his own -- Tutor promotes centralized publishing by assigning the Document Administrator (gate keeper) to manage the updates and distribution of the procedures library. 5. Establish a Document Maintenance Process Up Front (and stick to it) Everyone in your organization should know they are invited to suggest changes to procedures and should understand exactly what steps to take to do so. Tutor provides a set of procedures to help your company set up a healthy document control system. There are many document management products available to automate some of the document change and maintenance steps. Depending on the size of your organization, a simple document management system can reduce the effort it takes to track and distribute document changes and updates. Whether your company decides to store the written policies and procedures on a file server or in a database, the essential tasks for maintaining documents are the same, though some tasks are automated. 6. Document Critical Activities Only The best way to keep your documentation simple is to reduce the number of process documents to a bare minimum and to include in those documents only as much detail as is absolutely necessary. The first step to reducing process documentation is to document only those activities that are deemed critical. Not all activities require documentation. In fact, some critical activities cannot and should not be standardized. Others may be sufficiently documented with an instruction or a checklist and may not require a procedure. A document should only be created when it enhances the performance of the employee performing the activity. If it does not help the employee, then there is no reason to maintain the document. Activities that represent little risk (such as project status), activities that cannot be defined in terms of specific tasks (such as product research), and activities that can be performed in a variety of ways (such as advertising) often do not require documentation. Sometimes, an activity will evolve to the point where documentation is necessary. For example, an activity performed by single employee may be straightforward and uncomplicated -- that is, until the activity is performed by multiple employees. Sometimes, it is the interaction between co-workers that necessitates documentation; sometimes, it is the complexity or the diversity of the activity.7. Document Actual Practices The only reason to maintain process documentation is to enhance the performance of the employee performing the activity. And documentation can only enhance performance if it reflects reality -- that is, current best practice. Documentation that reflects an unattainable ideal or outdated practices will end up on the shelf, unused and forgotten.Documenting actual practice means (1) auditing the activity to understand how the work is really performed, (2) identifying best practices with employees who are involved in the activity, (3) building consensus so that everyone agrees on a common method, and (4) recording that consensus.8. Minimize Documentation One way to keep it simple is to document at the highest level possible. That is, include in your documents only as much detail as is absolutely necessary.When writing a document, you should ask yourself, What is the purpose of this document? That is, what problem will it solve?By focusing on this question, you can target the critical information.• What questions are the end users likely to have?• What level of detail is required?• Is any of this information extraneous to the document's purpose? Short, concise documents are user friendly and they are easier to keep up to date. 9. Support Continuous Improvement Employees who perform an activity are often in the best position to identify improvements to the process. In other words, continuous improvement is a natural byproduct of the work itself -- but only if the improvements are communicated to all employees who are involved in the process, and only if there is consensus among those employees.Traditionally, process documentation has been used to dictate performance, to limit employees' actions. In the Tutor environment, process documents are used to communicate improvements identified by employees. How does this work? The Tutor methodology requires a process document to reflect actual practice, so the owner of a document must routinely audit its content -- does the document match what the employees are doing? If it doesn't, the owner has the responsibility to evaluate the process, to build consensus among the employees, to identify "best practices," and to communicate these improvements via a document update. Continuous improvement can also be an outgrowth of corrective action -- but only if the solutions to problems are communicated effectively. The goal should be to solve a problem once and only once, which means not only identifying the solution, but ensuring that the solution becomes part of the process. The Tutor system provides the method through which improvements and solutions are documented and communicated to all affected employees in a cost-effective, timely manner; it ensures that improvements are not lost or confined to a single employee. 10. Keep it Simple Process documents don't have to be complex and unfriendly. In fact, the simpler the format and organization, the more likely the documents will be used. And the simpler the method of maintenance, the more likely the documents will be kept up-to-date. Keep it simply by:• Minimizing skills and training required• Following the established Tutor document format and layout• Avoiding technology just for technology's sake No other rule has as major an impact on the success of your internal documentation as -- keep it simple. Learn More For more information about Tutor, visit Oracle.Com or the Tutor Blog. Post your questions at the Tutor Forum.   Emily Chorba Principle Product Manager Oracle Tutor & BPM 

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• Windows Phone Developer Spotlight: Nikolai Joukov

  - by Lori Lalonde

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/lorilalonde/archive/2014/06/04/windows-phone-developer-spotlight-nikolai-joukov.aspxAs part of an ongoing series, I plan to include a spotlight post on people within the community that are stars in their field and area of expertise. For my first spotlight post, I interviewed Nikolai Joukov, who is a regular attendee at my local area .NET User Group (CTTDNUG), and has also participated in many of the Mobile and Cloud workshops we have hosted over the past few years. Nikolai stood out immediately, because of his passion for developing mobile apps, his interest in continuous learning, and his drive to publish quality apps that people will find useful and entertaining. Background: Nikolai immigrated to Canada in 1995, and has been working in IT since 1997. He moved on to become an independent contractor in 2005, and has worked at various large scale organizations over the course of his career, including BMO, Enbridge, Economical Insurance, Equitable Life, Manulife and Sun Life. Nikolai is an accomplished Windows Phone and Windows Store publisher, with 11 published Windows Phone apps, and 8 published Windows Store apps. He has almost 6000 downloads and favourable reviews. Q & A with Nikolai How many years have you been developing Windows Phone apps? 2 years When did you develop your very first Windows Phone app, and what was it about? Actually, the very first app I wrote was for the Microsoft “Smart Phone” back in 2004. This phone was given to me by Microsoft during the Developers Days Conference in Toronto. It was some kind of experimental model named Smart Phone, but you had to use VB 3 to develop the applications. Needless to say, this was not very successful at that time. My app was a Stock Trades Calculator. Very primitive, but it was working for me. The phone was heavy and the battery barely lasted 4 hours. Microsoft stopped supporting it few months later and the phone stopped working shortly after, but I still have it as a souvenir. For Windows Phone, my first app was “Trip Packing Assistant”. This is a simple trip packing check list that allows you to list items by category, set required quantity of items, and mark off the item in the list when it is packed. I designed it for me and my wife Galina, since we love to travel and this program helps manage our list for us. How did you get started in Windows Phone development? I have to say thanks to our .NET User Group for introducing me to Windows Phone development. I was intrigued and decided to give it a try. In October 2012 during a 2 day training event that ObjectSharp hosted in London, I met Bruce Johnson. On his advice, I registered for Developer Movement, and it is was a good push to actually complete the apps that I started. You have a great series of travel guide apps both for Windows Phone and Windows Store. Tell us about how you came up with the idea to develop those apps and what process you went through to put it all together. Like I said earlier, my wife and I love to travel. Before I created Trip Packing Assistant, every time we were planning to travel somewhere new, Galina would spend 3-4 weeks doing research. She would create a Word document with all of the information. We didn’t want to have to carry our laptop with us all the time, so we printed out the Word document she created, and would take it with us. After we returned from the trip, we would bring back tons of pictures and materials. Then our friends started to ask us about our materials before they planned their trips to the same places we had visited. So I decided to give it a try and started making apps for Windows Phone and for Windows 8. I hope these applications will help people who are planning to travel. So, all of the pictures used in the travel apps you created were actually taken by you during these amazing trips? Yes Do you have another Windows Store/Windows Phone project in development right now? If so, can you give us a hint at what it will be about? I want to stay with travel apps for now. But this time I will try to write an app for us (Galina and I). Usually we go on the trip, then I write the apps after we have all this beautiful pictures in our hands. We are planning a trip to Rome. This app will not have the pictures, but I want to add a map with points of interest and all information that can be useful for us. Then we will go on our trip and test it on location. As well I am planning to work on my existing apps to make them better. What learning resources would you recommend for other developers that want to get started in Window Store and Windows Phone development? I would start with dev.windowsphone.com to get all tools and samples, also links to training materials. I like MVA (Microsoft Virtual Academy). Their videos are really useful and it is free. Pluralsight is good too but it is not free and I do not have a subscription anymore. Our .NET User Group meetings give good insights too. I went to all meetings and full day training events. When you start to develop your app, you need to do research for specific questions that arise during development. The Developer Portal and Nokia Developer are good resources too. Wrap Up Thanks Nikolai for participating in my first Spotlight blog post! Shown below is Nikolai’s publisher page in the Windows Phone Store and his publisher page in the Windows Store. Simply click on it to be taken to there to check out his portfolio of apps. Be sure to download his apps and try them out! They are all free! Nikolai’s Windows Phone apps   Nikolai’s Windows Store Apps

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• SQL SERVER – Windows File/Folder and Share Permissions – Notes from the Field #029

  - by Pinal Dave

  [Note from Pinal]: This is a 29th episode of Notes from the Field series. Security is the task which we should give it to the experts. If there is a small overlook or misstep, there are good chances that security of the organization is compromised. This is very true, but there are always devils’s advocates who believe everyone should know the security. As a DBA and Administrator, I often see people not taking interest in the Windows Security hiding behind the reason of not expert of Windows Server. We all often miss the important mission statement for the success of any organization – Teamwork. In this blog post Brian tells the story in very interesting lucid language. Read On! In this episode of the Notes from the Field series database expert Brian Kelley explains a very crucial issue DBAs and Developer faces on their production server. Linchpin People are database coaches and wellness experts for a data driven world. Read the experience of Brian in his own words. When I talk security among database professionals, I find that most have at least a working knowledge of how to apply security within a database. When I talk with DBAs in particular, I find that most have at least a working knowledge of security at the server level if we’re speaking of SQL Server. One area I see continually that is weak is in the area of Windows file/folder (NTFS) and share permissions. The typical response is, “I’m a database developer and the Windows system administrator is responsible for that.” That may very well be true – the system administrator may have the primary responsibility and accountability for file/folder and share security for the server. However, if you’re involved in the typical activities surrounding databases and moving data around, you should know these permissions, too. Otherwise, you could be setting yourself up where someone is able to get to data he or she shouldn’t, or you could be opening the door where human error puts bad data in your production system. File/Folder Permission Basics: I wrote about file/folder permissions a few years ago to give the basic permissions that are most often seen. Here’s what you must know as a minimum at the file/folder level: Read - Allows you to read the contents of the file or folder. Having read permissions allows you to copy the file or folder. Write  – Again, as the name implies, it allows you to write to the file or folder. This doesn’t include the ability to delete, however, nothing stops a person with this access from writing an empty file. Delete - Allows the file/folder to be deleted. If you overwrite files, you may need this permission. Modify - Allows read, write, and delete. Full Control - Same as modify + the ability to assign permissions. File/Folder permissions aggregate, unless there is a DENY (where it trumps, just like within SQL Server), meaning if a person is in one group that gives Read and antoher group that gives Write, that person has both Read and Write permissions. As you might expect me to say, always apply the Principle of Least Privilege. This likely means that any additional permission you might add does not need Full Control. Share Permission Basics: At the share level, here are the permissions. Read - Allows you to read the contents on the share. Change - Allows you to read, write, and delete contents on the share. Full control - Change + the ability to modify permissions. Like with file/folder permissions, these permissions aggregate, and DENY trumps. So What Access Does a Person / Process Have? Figuring out what someone or some process has depends on how the location is being accessed: Access comes through the share (\\ServerName\Share) – a combination of permissions is considered. Access is through a drive letter (C:\, E:\, S:\, etc.) – only the file/folder permissions are considered. The only complicated one here is access through the share. Here’s what Windows does: Figures out what the aggregated permissions are at the file/folder level. Figures out what the aggregated permissions are at the share level. Takes the most restrictive of the two sets of permissions. You can test this by granting Full Control over a folder (this is likely already in place for the Users local group) and then setting up a share. Give only Read access through the share, and that includes to Administrators (if you’re creating a share, likely you have membership in the Administrators group). Try to read a file through the share. Now try to modify it. The most restrictive permission is the Share level permissions. It’s set to only allow Read. Therefore, if you come through the share, it’s the most restrictive. Does This Knowledge Really Help Me? In my experience, it does. I’ve seen cases where sensitive files were accessible by every authenticated user through a share. Auditors, as you might expect, have a real problem with that. I’ve also seen cases where files to be imported as part of the nightly processing were overwritten by files intended from development. And I’ve seen cases where a process can’t get to the files it needs for a process because someone changed the permissions. If you know file/folder and share permissions, you can spot and correct these types of security flaws. Given that there are a lot of database professionals that don’t understand these permissions, if you know it, you set yourself apart. And if you’re able to help on critical processes, you begin to set yourself up as a linchpin (link to .pdf) for your organization. If you want to get started with performance tuning and database security with the help of experts, read more over at Fix Your SQL Server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: Notes from the Field, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Security, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• Looking into the JQuery Image Zoom Plugin

  - by nikolaosk

  I have been using JQuery for a couple of years now and it has helped me to solve many problems on the client side of web development.  You can find all my posts about JQuery in this link. In this post I will be providing you with a hands-on example on the JQuery Image Zoom Plugin.If you want you can have a look at this post, where I describe the JQuery Cycle Plugin.You can find another post of mine talking about the JQuery Carousel Lite Plugin here.I will be writing more posts regarding the most commonly used JQuery Plugins. I have been using extensively this plugin in my websites.You can use this plugin to move mouse around an image and see a zoomed in version of a portion of it. In this hands-on example I will be using Expression Web 4.0.This application is not a free application. You can use any HTML editor you like. You can use Visual Studio 2012 Express edition. You can download it here.  You can download this plugin from this link I launch Expression Web 4.0 and then I type the following HTML markup (I am using HTML 5) <html lang="en">  <head>    <title>Liverpool Legends</title>        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" >        <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">        <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-1.8.3.min.js"> </script>     <script type="text/javascript" src="jqzoom.pack.1.0.1.js"></script>        <script type="text/javascript">        $(function () {            $(".nicezoom").jqzoom();        });    </script>       </head>  <body>    <header>        <h1>Liverpool Legends</h1>    </header>        <div id="main">            <a href="championsofeurope-large.jpg" class="nicezoom" title="Champions">        <img src="championsofeurope.jpg"  title="Champions">    </a>          </div>            <footer>        <p>All Rights Reserved</p>      </footer>     </body>  </html>   This is a very simple markup. I have added one large and one small image (make sure you use your own when trying this example) I have added references to the JQuery library (current version is 1.8.3) and the JQuery Image Zoom Plugin. Then I add 2 images in the main div element.Note the class nicezoom inside the href element. The Javascript code that makes it all happen follows.    <script type="text/javascript">        $(function () {            $(".nicezoom").jqzoom();        });    </script>     It couldn't be any simpler than that. I view my simple in Internet Explorer 10 and it works as expected. I have tested this simple solution in all major browsers and it works fine.Inside the head section we can add another Javascript script utilising some more options regarding the zoom plugin.   <script type="text/javascript">            $(function () {        var options = {                  zoomType: 'standard',                  lens:true,                  preloadImages: true,                  alwaysOn:false,                  zoomWidth: 400,                  zoomHeight: 350,                  xOffset:190,                  yOffset:80,                  position:'right'                          };          $('.nicezoom').jqzoom(options);      });         </script> I would like to explain briefly what some of those options mean. zoomType - Other admitted option values are 'reverse','drag','innerzoom' zoomWidth - The popup window width showing the zoomed area zoomHeight - The popup window height showing the zoomed area xOffset - The popup window x offset from the small image.  yOffset - The popup window y offset from the small image.  position - The popup window position.Admitted values:'right' ,'left' ,'top' ,'bottom' preloadImages - if set to true,jqzoom will preload large images. You can test it yourself and see the results in your favorite browser. Hope it helps!!!

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• Communities - The importance of exchange and discussion

  Communication with your environment is an essential part of everyone's life. And it doesn't matter whether you are actually living in a rural area in the middle of nowhere, within the pulsating heart of a big city, or in my case on a wonderful island in the Indian Ocean. The ability to exchange your thoughts, your experience and your worries with another person helps you to get different points of view and new ideas on how to resolve an issue you might be confronted with. Benefits of community work What happens to be common sense in your daily life, also applies to your work environment. Working in IT, or ICT as it is called in Mauritius, requires a lot of reading and learning. Not only during your lectures at the university but with your colleagues in a project assignment and hopefully with 'unknown' pals in the universe of online communities. At least I can say that I learned quite a lot from other developers code, their responses in various forums, their numerous blog articles, and while attending local user group meetings. When I started to work as a professional software developer (or engineer some may say) years ago I immediately checked the existence of communities on the programming language, the database technology and other vital information on software development in general. Luckily, it wasn't too difficult to find. My employer had a subscription of the monthly magazines and newsletters of a national organisation which also run the biggest forum in that area. Getting in touch with other developers and reading their common problems but also solutions was a huge benefit to my growth. Image courtesy of Michael Kappel (CC BY-NC 2.0) Active participation and regular contribution to this community gave me some nice advantages, too. Within three years I was listed as a conference speaker at the annual developer's conference and provided several sessions on different topics during consecutive years. Back in 2004, I took over the responsibility and management of the monthly meetings of a regional user group, and organised it for more than two years. Furthermore, I was invited to the newly-founded community program of Microsoft Germany (Community Leader/Insider Program - CLIP). My website on Active FoxPro Pages was nominated in the second batch of online communities. Due to my community work and providing advice to others, I had the honour to be awarded as Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) - Visual Developer for Visual FoxPro in the years 2006 and 2007. It was a great experience to meet with other like-minded people and I'm really grateful for that. Just in case, more details are listed in my Curriculum Vitae. But this all changed when I moved to Mauritius... Cyber island Mauritius? During the first months in Mauritius I was way too busy to think about community activities at all. First of all, there was the new company that had to be set up, the new staff had to be trained and of course the communication work-flows and so on with the project managers back in Germany had to be sorted out, too. Second, I had to get a grip of my private matters like getting the basics for my new household or exploring the neighbourhood, and last but not least I needed a break from the hectic and intensive work prior to my departure. As soon as the sea literally calmed down, I started to have conversations with my colleagues about communities and user groups. Sadly, it turned out that there were none, or at least no one was aware of any at that time. Oh oh, what did I do? Anyway, having this kind of background and very positive experience with off-line and on-line activities I decided for myself that some day I'm going to found a community in Mauritius for all kind of IT/ICT-related fields. The main focus might be on software development but not on a certain technology or methodology. It was clear to me that it should be an open infrastructure and anyone is welcome to join, to experience, to share and to contribute if they would like to. That was the idea at that time... Ok, fast-forward to recent events. At the end of October 2012 I was invited to an event called Open Days organised by Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands together with other local partners and resellers. There I got in touch with local Technical Evangelist Arnaud Meslier and we had a good conversation on communities during the breaks. Eventually, I left a good impression on him, as we are having chats on Facebook or Skype irregularly. Well, seeing that my personal and professional surroundings have been settled and running smooth, having that great exchange and contact with Microsoft IOI (again), and being really eager to re-animate my intentions from 2007, I recently founded a new community: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community - #MSCC It took me a while to settle down with the name but it was obvious that the community should not be attached to one single technology, like ie. .NET user group, Oracle developers, or Joomla friends (these are fictitious names). There are several other reasons why I came up with 'Craftsmanship' as the core topic of this community. The expression of 'engineering' didn't feel right with the fields covered. Software development in all kind of facets is a craft, and therefore demands a lot of practice but also guidance from more experienced developers. It also includes the process of designing, modelling and drafting the ideas. Has to deal with various types of tests and test methodologies, and of course should be focused on flexible and agile ways of acting. In order to meet and to excel a customer's request for a solution. Next, I was looking for an easy way to handle the organisation of events and meeting appointments. Using all kind of social media platforms like Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, Xing, etc. I was never really confident about their features of event handling. More by chance I stumbled upon Meetup.com and in combination with the other entities (G+ Communities, FB Pages or in Groups) I am looking forward to advertise and manage all future activities here: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community This is a community for those who care and are proud of what they do. For those developers, regardless how experienced they are, who want to improve and master their craft. This is a community for those who believe that being average is just not good enough. I know, there are not many 'craftsmen' yet but it's a start... Let's see how it looks like by the end of the year. There are free smartphone apps for Android and iOS from Meetup.com that allow you to keep track of meetings and to stay informed on latest updates. And last but not least, there will be a Trello workspace to collect and share ideas and provide downloads of slides, etc. Sharing is caring! As mentioned, the #MSCC is present in various social media networks in order to cover as many people as possible here in Mauritius. Following is an overview of the current networks: Twitter - Latest updates and quickies Google+ - Community channel Facebook - Community Page LinkedIn - Community Group Trello - Collaboration workspace to share and develop ideas Hopefully, this covers the majority of computer-related people in Mauritius. Please spread the word about the #MSCC between your colleagues, your friends and other interested 'geeks'. Your future looks bright Running and participating in a user group or any kind of community usually provides quite a number of advantages for anyone. On the one side it is very joyful for me to organise appointments and get in touch with people that might be interested to present a little demo of their projects or their recent problems they had to tackle down, and on the other side there are lots of companies that have various support programs or sponsorships especially tailored for user groups. At the moment, I already have a couple of gimmicks that I would like to hand out in small contests or raffles during one of the upcoming meetings, and as said, companies provide all kind of goodies, books free of charge, or sometimes even licenses for communities. Meeting other software developers or IT guys also opens up your point of view on the local market and there might be interesting projects or job offers available, too. A community like the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community is great for freelancers, self-employed, students and of course employees. Meetings will be organised on a regular basis, and I'm open to all kind of suggestions from you. Please leave a comment here in blog or join the conversations in the above mentioned social networks. Let's get this community up and running, my fellow Mauritians!

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• Get your TFS 2012 task board demo ready in under 1 minute

  - by Tarun Arora

  Release Notes – http://tfsdemosetup.codeplex.com/  | Download | Source Code | Report a Bug | Ideas In this blog post, I’ll show you how to use the ‘TfsDemoSetup’ application to configure and setup the TFS 2012 task board for a demo in well less than 1 minute Step 1 – Note what you get with a newly created Team Project Create a new Team Project on TFS Preview         2. Click Create Project         3. The project creation has completed        4. Open the team web access and have a look at the home page Note – Since I created the project I am the only Team Member       A default Team by the name AdventureWorks Team has been created       A few sprints have been assigned to the default team but no dates for sprint start and end have been specified        A default Area Path for the team is missing       Step 2. Download the TFS Demo Setup Console application from Codeplex 1. Navigate to the TFS Demo Setup project on codeplex https://tfsdemosetup.codeplex.com/       2. Download Instructions and TFSDemo_<version>      3. Follow the steps in the Instructions.txt file      4. Unzip TFSDemo_<version> and open the target folder. Two important files in this folder, DemoDictionary.xml – This file contains the settings using which the demo environment will be setup SetupTfsDemo.exe – This will run the TFS demo environment setup application       Step 3 – Configure the setup (i.e. team name, members, sprint dates, etc) 1. Open up DemoDictionary.xml      2. Walkthrough DemoDictionary.xml             a. Basic Team Details         <Name> – Specify the name of the team         <Description> – Specify a description to go with the team         <SetAsDefaultTeam> – This accepts a value “true/false” when set to true, the newly created team will be set as the default team in the project         <BacklogIterationPath> – Specify a backlog iteration path for the team     b. Iterations – The iterations you specify here will be set as the Teams iterations        <Iterations> – Accepts multiple <Iteration> nodes.        <Iteration> – This is the most granular level of an Iteration        <Path> – The path to the sprint, sample values, Release 1\Sprint 1 or Release 2\Sprint 2        <StartDate> – The sprint start date, this accepts the format yyyy-MM-dd        <FinishDate> – The sprint finish date, this accepts the format yyyy-MM-dd     c. Team Members – Team Members that need to be added to the newly created team will be added under this section         <TeamMembers> – Accepts multiple <TeamMember> nodes.         <TeamMember> – This is the most granular level of a Team Member         <User> – This accepts the username, if you are running this against TFSPreview then the live id of the user will need to be passed. If you are running this against TFS Server then the user id i.e. Domain\UserName will need to be passed          <Team> – Specify the name of the team that you want the user to be assigned to.     d. WorkItems – This section will allow you to add work items (product backlog Items and linked tasks) to the current sprint of the team         <WorkItems> – Accepts multiple <WorkItem> nodes.         <WorkItem> – Accepts one <ProductBacklogItem> and multiple <Task> nodes         <ProductBacklogItem> – Used to create a Product Backlog Item type work item               <Title> – The title of the Product Backlog Item               <Description> – The description of the Product Backlog Type Work Item               <AssignedTo> – Used to assign the work item to a team member. The team member name or email address can be passed.               <Effort> – The total effort required to complete the Product Backlog Item         <Task> – Used to create a linked task to the Product Backlog type work item               <Title> – The title of the task type work item               <Description> – The description of the Task Type Work Item               <AssignedTo> – Used to assign the work item to a team member. The team member name or email address can be passed.               <RemainingWork> – The remaining effort to complete the task type work item Step 4 – Setup the demo environment against the newly created Team Project 1. Run SetupTfsDemo.exe    2. Enter Y or y on the prompt to continue setting up TFS Demo setup.     3. Select the newly created Team project, for this blogpost I had created the Team Project – AdventureWorks, so that is what I’ll select in the Connect to TFS Server pop up    3. Click Connect and follow the messages that are written to the console application       Step 5 – Validate that the Demo environment is set up as per the configuration 1. The team web access is all lit up You have a Sprint, a burn down chart, team members…    2. The team Demo has been added and has been set up as the default team    3. The Sprint Backlog Iteration path, Sprints and Sprint start and finish dates have been set    4. The default area path has been setup    5. Taskboard – Backlog items view    6. Taskboard – Team members view      Step 6 – Exception Handling! 1. This solution has been tested against TFS 2012 Service/Server for the Scrum 2.1 process template. 2. You are likely to run into an exception if you mess up the config file 3. If the team already exists and you run the console app to set up the team (with the same name) you will run into exceptions. Please remember this is just an alpha release, if you have any feedback please leave a comment! Didn’t I say that it would just take 1 minute, Enjoy!

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• 5 Ways Android Still Disappoints (Me)

  - by TStewartDev

  Let me make this clear: I'm annoyed with Apple. I don't like their current policies and I don't like where Steve Jobs is taking the company. In general, I don't like it when any one company gets too much control in a market. When that happens, the leading company dictates the game and as consumers, our options all but disappear. That said, I'm still going to buy a new iPhone next week. My Apple-hating friends seem to desperately want me to go Android instead, but frankly, it's not good enough for me, and here are the reasons why. The Modern WinMo One of the reasons that Microsoft has identified for Windows Mobile's rapid decline is the breadth of hardware. They exercised little control over manufacturer's implementations. In theory, that sounds great. We as consumers have lots of choice. In practice, though, it meant among other things that updates to the devices were left up to the manufacturers. As a result, that rarely happened. (I'm still bitter at Toshiba for leaving me hanging back in 2002.) And now, Google is doing the same thing with Android. Case in point: my wife has a Motorola Backflip that we bought in April. It was released in March. Motorola says it will get Android 2.1 "sometime in Q3". Great. Meanwhile, I pull down the latest version of iPhone OS (now iOS) and install it the same day it's released. You may say that I can't judge Android by one lazy manufacturer. Yup, I sure can. With Apple, my original iPhone has been supported perfectly for 3 years. With Android, I will have to wait for upgrades after Google releases them, possibly indefinitely. Not cool. AT&T We signed a new contract with AT&T in April to get my wife's phone. I've had a reasonable experience with them. I don't imagine my experience with Verizon would be any better, and I'm relatively confident that Sprint doesn't have the coverage it takes to work well for us. The fact is, AT&T, for whatever reason, doesn't have jack for Android phones. May not be Android's fault, but it's still a shortcoming that prevents me from having it just like the iPhone's exclusivity keeps some folks on other networks from having it. Innovation? What Innovation? Android has a nice dashboard and a great notification system and… nothing else original. I keep reading about how disappointing the iPhone is nowadays. "It has no innovation," people say. Who does? Android has modeled its behavior after the iPhone. That's fine, but if all you've got is a similar product and I'm invested both skill-wise and app-wise in my current platform, why should I change? Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 looks somewhat innovative, and I'm pretty excited to see what they'll bring to the table, but that's another six months away, at least. I've got a 3 year old phone that has some annoying issues now (thanks to recent encounters with water). I need a new phone now. Is This Going to Work? There's no shortage of criticism of Apple over its App Store policies, and I've vented my own anger about it. However, I will give them credit: their screening of apps has done a great job of weeding out the crap and gives an excellent indication that the app will work on my device. How about Android? Nope. It might work on your phone. Maybe. You'll have to try it to see. Get burned by it? Well, write a nasty review to try to keep others from making the mistake you did. If you don't mind doing that stuff, then Android is the platform for you. Personally, I'd rather have a receptionist screening out the telemarketing and survey calls than hang up on them myself, but that's your call. Slow, Slowing, Slower All this yapping about multitasking. This is an area I've been on Apple's side from the beginning. Sorry folks, but this is the number one reason I hated Windows Mobile: the longer you use it, the slower it gets because it doesn't kill apps. I'm with Steve Jobs on this one: if you see a task manager, we're doing it wrong. I don't want to have to manually kill apps. I hate doing that on Windows let alone on a mobile device. To me, priority one should be keeping the device speedy. Waiting for your device to respond is unacceptable. Bonus! Taken from iPhone Letdown? 8 Things Apple Didn't Announce, here are my responses: 4G Yeah, let me know if your area actually has it. I live in Lincoln, Nebraska. No carrier is going to have 4G here for at least 3 years. Meanwhile, you still get to pay for it. Yay! Cloud iTunes/OTA Sync You got me here. Of course, whether or not your Android device will be able to do it is always a good question. 3G Video Chat You got me here, too. I'm sure you spent countless hours in front of your phone with video chat. Also, I can't wait for the "No Video Chat While Driving" laws. Mobile Hotspot This is a neat feature, but as the author points out, it's left up to the carrier whether to implement it or not. Pretty sure any Android phones that come to AT&T won't have this enabled in the foreseeable future. Is Verizon even allowing this? I just figured Sprint was because they're failing so hard at keeping customers. Free MobileMe I use Google's services with my iPhone. The only people I know who use MobileMe are Apple fanboys and fangirls. If you choose to pay for a service that you can get for free, that's your decision, not Apple's. Voice Input Voice input has been available on phones (even "dumb" phones) for years now. iPhone does have the ability, though limited. Why don't I hear people telling their phones what to do? Maybe because it's still easier to use your fingers than talk to it. Get back to me when this becomes an important feature. Free Navigation Maybe this will be a bigger deal to me now that I'm getting a phone with GPS, but when using my buddy's 3gs, Google maps has worked just fine. Maybe I just don't trust turn-by-turn navigation enough to want it. Dashboard The only legitimate complaint on this list, to me. iPhone's home screen is pathetic, doubly so for the iPad. What a waste of perfectly usable space. I also want to add notifications to this list. Android's notification panel is far superior to the iPhone's. I don't want to hunt all over my screen to find little red dots. Put 'em in one place, Apple.

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• BI Applications overview

  - by sv744

  Welcome to Oracle BI applications blog! This blog will talk about various features, general roadmap, description of functionality and implementation steps related to Oracle BI applications. In the first post we start with an overview of the BI apps and will delve deeper into some of the topics below in the upcoming weeks and months. If there are other topics you would like us to talk about, pl feel free to provide feedback on that. The Oracle BI applications are a set of pre-built applications that enable pervasive BI by providing role-based insight for each functional area, including sales, service, marketing, contact center, finance, supplier/supply chain, HR/workforce, and executive management. For example, Sales Analytics includes role-based applications for sales executives, sales management, as well as front-line sales reps, each of whom have different needs. The applications integrate and transform data from a range of enterprise sources—including Siebel, Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP, and others—into actionable intelligence for each business function and user role. This blog  starts with the key benefits and characteristics of Oracle BI applications. In a series of subsequent blogs, each of these points will be explained in detail. Why BI apps? Demonstrate the value of BI to a business user, show reports / dashboards / model that can answer their business questions as part of the sales cycle. Demonstrate technical feasibility of BI project and significantly lower risk and improve success Build Vs Buy benefit Don’t have to start with a blank sheet of paper. Help consolidate disparate systems Data integration in M&A situations Insulate BI consumers from changes in the OLTP Present OLTP data and highlight issues of poor data / missing data – and improve data quality and accuracy Prebuilt Integrations BI apps support prebuilt integrations against leading ERP sources: Fusion Applications, E- Business Suite, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards, Siebel, SAP Co-developed with inputs from functional experts in BI and Applications teams. Out of the box dimensional model to source model mappings Multi source and Multi Instance support Rich Data Model    BI apps have a very rich dimensionsal data model built over 10 years that incorporates best practises from BI modeling perspective as well as reflect the source system complexities  Thanks for reading a long post, and be on the lookout for future posts.  We will look forward to your valuable feedback on these topics as well as suggestions on what other topics would you like us to cover. I Conformed dimensional model across all business subject areas allows cross functional reporting, e.g. customer / supplier 360 Over 360 fact tables across 7 product areas CRM – 145, SCM – 47, Financials – 28, Procurement – 20, HCM – 27, Projects – 18, Campus Solutions – 21, PLM - 56 Supported by 300 physical dimensions Support for extensive calendars; Gregorian, enterprise and ledger based Conformed data model and metrics for real time vs warehouse based reporting  Multi-tenant enabled Extensive BI related transformations BI apps ETL and data integration support various transformations required for dimensional models and reporting requirements. All these have been distilled into common patterns and abstracted logic which can be readily reused across different modules Slowly Changing Dimension support Hierarchy flattening support Row / Column Hybrid Hierarchy Flattening As Is vs. As Was hierarchy support Currency Conversion :-  Support for 3 corporate, CRM, ledger and transaction currencies UOM conversion Internationalization / Localization Dynamic Data translations Code standardization (Domains) Historical Snapshots Cycle and process lifecycle computations Balance Facts Equalization of GL accounting chartfields/segments Standardized values for categorizing GL accounts Reconciliation between GL and subledgers to track accounted/transferred/posted transactions to GL Materialization of data only available through costly and complex APIs e.g. Fusion Payroll, EBS / Fusion Accruals Complex event Interpretation of source data – E.g. o    What constitutes a transfer o    Deriving supervisors via position hierarchy o    Deriving primary assignment in PSFT o    Categorizing and transposition to measures of Payroll Balances to specific metrics to support side by side comparison of measures of for example Fixed Salary, Variable Salary, Tax, Bonus, Overtime Payments. o    Counting of Events – E.g. converting events to fact counters so that for example the number of hires can easily be added up and compared alongside the total transfers and terminations. Multi pass processing of multiple sources e.g. headcount, salary, promotion, performance to allow side to side comparison. Adding value to data to aid analysis through banding, additional domain classifications and groupings to allow higher level analytical reporting and data discovery Calculation of complex measures examples: o    COGs, DSO, DPO, Inventory turns  etc o    Transfers within a Hierarchy or out of / into a hierarchy relative to view point in hierarchy. Configurability and Extensibility support  BI apps offer support for extensibility for various entities as automated extensibility or part of extension methodology Key Flex fields and Descriptive Flex support  Extensible attribute support (JDE)  Conformed Domains ETL Architecture BI apps offer a modular adapter architecture which allows support of multiple product lines into a single conformed model Multi Source Multi Technology Orchestration – creates load plan taking into account task dependencies and customers deployment to generate a plan based on a customers of multiple complex etl tasks Plan optimization allowing parallel ETL tasks Oracle: Bit map indexes and partition management High availability support    Follow the sun support. TCO BI apps support several utilities / capabilities that help with overall total cost of ownership and ensure a rapid implementation Improved cost of ownership – lower cost to deploy On-going support for new versions of the source application Task based setups flows Data Lineage Functional setup performed in Web UI by Functional person Configuration Test to Production support Security BI apps support both data and object security enabling implementations to quickly configure the application as per the reporting security needs Fine grain object security at report / dashboard and presentation catalog level Data Security integration with source systems  Extensible to support external data security rules Extensive Set of KPIs Over 7000 base and derived metrics across all modules Time series calculations (YoY, % growth etc) Common Currency and UOM reporting Cross subject area KPIs (analyzing HR vs GL data, drill from GL to AP/AR, etc) Prebuilt reports and dashboards 3000+ prebuilt reports supporting a large number of industries Hundreds of role based dashboards Dynamic currency conversion at dashboard level Highly tuned Performance The BI apps have been tuned over the years for both a very performant ETL and dashboard performance. The applications use best practises and advanced database features to enable the best possible performance. Optimized data model for BI and analytic queries Prebuilt aggregates& the ability for customers to create their own aggregates easily on warehouse facts allows for scalable end user performance Incremental extracts and loads Incremental Aggregate build Automatic table index and statistics management Parallel ETL loads Source system deletes handling Low latency extract with Golden Gate Micro ETL support Bitmap Indexes Partitioning support Modularized deployment, start small and add other subject areas seamlessly Source Specfic Staging and Real Time Schema Support for source specific operational reporting schema for EBS, PSFT, Siebel and JDE Application Integrations The BI apps also allow for integration with source systems as well as other applications that provide value add through BI and enable BI consumption during operational decision making Embedded dashboards for Fusion, EBS and Siebel applications Action Link support Marketing Segmentation Sales Predictor Dashboard Territory Management External Integrations The BI apps data integration choices include support for loading extenral data External data enrichment choices : UNSPSC, Item class etc. Extensible Spend Classification Broad Deployment Choices Exalytics support Databases :  Oracle, Exadata, Teradata, DB2, MSSQL ETL tool of choice : ODI (coming), Informatica Extensible and Customizable Extensible architecture and Methodology to add custom and external content Upgradable across releases

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• Controlling the Sizing of the af:messages Dialog

  - by Duncan Mills

  Over the last day or so a small change in behaviour between 11.1.2.n releases of ADF and earlier versions has come to my attention. This has concerned the default sizing of the dialog that the framework automatically generates to handle the display of JSF messages being handled by the <af:messages> component. Unlike a normal popup, you don't have a physical <af:dialog> or <af:window> to set the sizing on in your page definition, so you're at the mercy of what the framework provides. In this case the framework now defines a fixed 250x250 pixel content area dialog for these messages, which can look a bit weird if the message is either very short, or very long. Unfortunately this is not something that you can control through the skin, instead you have to be a little more creative. Here's the solution I've come up with.  Unfortunately, I've not found a supportable way to reset the dialog so as to say  just size yourself based on your contents, it is actually possible to do this by tweaking the correct DOM objects, but I wanted to start with a mostly supportable solution that only uses the best practice of working through the ADF client side APIs. The Technique The basic approach I've taken is really very simple.  The af:messages dialog is just a normal richDialog object, it just happens to be one that is pre-defined for you with a particular known name "msgDlg" (which hopefully won't change). Knowing this, you can call the accepted APIs to control the content width and height of that dialog, as our meerkat friends would say, "simples" 1 The JavaScript For this example I've defined three JavaScript functions.   The first does all the hard work and is designed to be called from server side Java or from a page load event to set the default. The second is a utility function used by the first to validate the values you're about to use for height and width. The final function is one that can be called from the page load event to set an initial default sizing if that's all you need to do. Function resizeDefaultMessageDialog() /**  * Function that actually resets the default message dialog sizing.  * Note that the width and height supplied define the content area  * So the actual physical dialog size will be larger to account for  * the chrome containing the header / footer etc.  * @param docId Faces component id of the document  * @param contentWidth - new content width you need  * @param contentHeight - new content height  */ function resizeDefaultMessageDialog(docId, contentWidth, contentHeight) {   // Warning this value may change from release to release   var defMDName = "::msgDlg";   //Find the default messages dialog   msgDialogComponent = AdfPage.PAGE.findComponentByAbsoluteId(docId + defMDName); // In your version add a check here to ensure we've found the right object!   // Check the new width is supplied and is a positive number, if so apply it.   if (dimensionIsValid(contentWidth)){       msgDialogComponent.setContentWidth(contentWidth);   }   // Check the new height is supplied and is a positive number, if so apply it.   if (dimensionIsValid(contentHeight)){       msgDialogComponent.setContentHeight(contentHeight);   } }  Function dimensionIsValid()  /**  * Simple function to check that sensible numeric values are   * being proposed for a dimension  * @param sampleDimension   * @return booolean  */ function dimensionIsValid(sampleDimension){     return (!isNaN(sampleDimension) && sampleDimension > 0); } Function  initializeDefaultMessageDialogSize() /**  * This function will re-define the default sizing applied by the framework   * in 11.1.2.n versions  * It is designed to be called with the document onLoad event  */ function initializeDefaultMessageDialogSize(loadEvent){   //get the configuration information   var documentId = loadEvent.getSource().getProperty('documentId');   var newWidth = loadEvent.getSource().getProperty('defaultMessageDialogContentWidth');   var newHeight = loadEvent.getSource().getProperty('defaultMessageDialogContentHeight');   resizeDefaultMessageDialog(documentId, newWidth, newHeight); } Wiring in the Functions As usual, the first thing we need to do when using JavaScript with ADF is to define an af:resource  in the document metaContainer facet <af:document>   ....     <f:facet name="metaContainer">     <af:resource type="javascript" source="/resources/js/hackMessagedDialog.js"/>    </f:facet> </af:document> This makes the script functions available to call.  Next if you want to use the option of defining an initial default size for the dialog you use a combination of <af:clientListener> and <af:clientAttribute> tags like this. <af:document title="MyApp" id="doc1">   <af:clientListener method="initializeDefaultMessageDialogSize" type="load"/>   <af:clientAttribute name="documentId" value="doc1"/>   <af:clientAttribute name="defaultMessageDialogContentWidth" value="400"/>   <af:clientAttribute name="defaultMessageDialogContentHeight" value="150"/>  ...   Just in Time Dialog Sizing  So  what happens if you have a variety of messages that you might add and in some cases you need a small dialog and an other cases a large one? Well in that case you can re-size these dialogs just before you submit the message. Here's some example Java code: FacesContext ctx = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();          //reset the default dialog size for this message ExtendedRenderKitService service =              Service.getRenderKitService(ctx, ExtendedRenderKitService.class); service.addScript(ctx, "resizeDefaultMessageDialog('doc1',100,50);");          FacesMessage msg = new FacesMessage("Short message"); msg.setSeverity(FacesMessage.SEVERITY_ERROR); ctx.addMessage(null, msg);  So there you have it. This technique should, at least, allow you to control the dialog sizing just enough to stop really objectionable whitespace or scrollbars. 1 Don't worry if you don't get the reference, lest's just say my kids watch too many adverts.

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• Sending notification after an event has remained open for a specified period

  - by Loc Nhan

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Enterprise Manager (EM) 12c allows you to create an incident rule to send a notification and/or create an incident after an event has been open for a specified period. Such an incident rule will help prevent premature alerts on issues that may correct themselves within a certain amount of time. For example, there are some agents in an unstable network area, and often there are communication failures between the agents and the OMS lasting three, four minutes at a time. In this scenario, you may only want to receive alerts after an agent in that area has been in the Agent Unreachable status for at least five minutes. Note: Many non-target availability metrics allow users to specify the “number of occurrences” or the number of consecutive times metric values reach thresholds before a notification is sent. It is best to use the feature for such metrics. This article provides a step-by-step guide for creating an incident rule set to cater for the above scenario, that is, to create an incident and send a notification after the Agent Unreachable event has remained open for a five-minute duration. Steps to create the incident rule 1.     Log on to the console and navigate to Setup -> Incidents -> Incident Rules. Note: A non-super user requires the Create Enterprise Rule Set privilege, which is a resource privilege, to create an incident rule. The Incident Rules - All Enterprise Rules page displays. 2.     Click Create Rule Set … The Create Rule Set page displays. 3.     Enter a name for the rule set (e.g. Rule set for agents in flaky network areas), optionally enter a description, and leave everything else at default values, and click + Add. The Search and Select: Targets page pops up. Note:  While you can create a rule set for individual targets, it is a best practice to use a group for this purpose. 4.     Select an appropriate group, e.g. the AgentsInFlakyNework group. The Select button becomes enabled, click the button. The Create Rule Set page displays. 5.     Leave everything at default values, and click the Rules tab. The Create Rule Set page displays. 6.     Click Create… The Select Type of Rule to Create page pops up. 7.     Leave the Incoming events and updates to events option selected, and click Continue. The Create New Rule : Select Events page displays. 8.     Select Target Availability from the Type drop-down list. The page shows more options for Target Availability. 9.     Select the Specific events of type Target Availability option, and click + Add. The Select Target Availability events page pops up. 10.   Select Agent from the Target Type dropdown list. The page expands. 11.   Click the Agent unreachable checkbox, and click OK. Note: If you want to also receive a notification when the event is cleared, click the Agent unreachable end checkbox as well before clicking OK. The Create New Rule : Select Events page displays. 12.   Click Next. The Create New Rule : Add Actions page displays. 13.   Click + Add. The Add Actions page displays. 14.   Do the following: a.     Select the Only execute the actions if specified conditions match option (You don’t want the action to trigger always). The following options appear in the Conditions for Actions section. b.     Select the Event has been open for specified duration option. The Conditions for actions section expands. c.     Change the values of Event has been open for to 5 Minutes as shown below. d.     In the Create Incident or Update Incident section, click the Create Incident checkbox as following: e.     In the Notifications section, enter an appropriate EM user or email address in the E-mail To field. f.     Click Continue (in the top right hand corner). The Create New Rule : Add Actions page displays. 15.   Click Next. The Create New Rule : Specify name and Description page displays. 16.   Enter a rule name, and click Next. The Create New Rule : Review page appears. 17.   Click Continue, and proceed to save the rule set. The incident rule set creation completes. After one of the agents in the group specified in the rule set is stopped for over 5 minutes, EM will send a mail notification and create an incident as shown in the following screenshot. In conclusion, you have seen the steps to create an example incident rule set that only creates an incident and triggers a notification after an event has been open for a specified period. Such an incident rule can help prevent unnecessary incidents and alert notifications leaving EM administrators time to more important tasks. - Loc Nhan

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• What's New in Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.2?

  - by Fat Bloke

  A year is a long time in the IT industry. Since the last VirtualBox feature release, which was a little over a year ago, we've seen: new releases of cool new operating systems, such as Windows 8, ChromeOS, and Mountain Lion; we've seen a myriad of new Linux releases from big Enterprise class distributions like Oracle 6.3, to accessible desktop distros like Ubuntu 12.04 and Fedora 17; and we've also seen the spec of a typical PC or laptop double in power. All of these events have influenced our new VirtualBox version which we're releasing today. Here's how... Powerful hosts  One of the trends we've seen is that as the average host platform becomes more powerful, our users are consistently running more and more vm's. Some of our users have large libraries of vm's of various vintages, whilst others have groups of vm's that are run together as an assembly of the various tiers in a multi-tiered software solution, for example, a database tier, middleware tier, and front-ends.  So we're pleased to unveil a more powerful VirtualBox Manager to address the needs of these users: VM Groups Groups allow you to organize your VM library in a sensible way, e.g.  by platform type, by project, by version, by whatever. To create groups you can drag one VM onto another or select one or more VM's and choose Machine...Group from the menu bar. You can expand and collapse groups to save screen real estate, and you can Enter and Leave a group (think iPad navigation here) by using the right and left arrow keys when groups are selected. But groups are more than passive folders, because you can now also perform operations on groups, rather than all the individual VMs. So if you have a multi-tiered solution you can start the whole stack up with just one click. Autostart Many VirtualBox users run dedicated services in their VMs, for example, running a Wiki. With these types of VM workloads, you really want the VM start up when the host machine boots up. So with 4.2 we've introduced a cross-platform Auto-start mechanism to allow you to treat VMs as host services. Headless VM Launching With VM's such as web servers, wikis, and other types of server-class workloads, the Console of the VM is pretty much redundant. For some time now VirtualBox has offered a separate launch mechanism for these VM's, namely the command-line interface commands VBoxHeadless or VBoxManage startvm ... --type headless commands. But with 4.2 we also allow you launch headless VMs from the Manager. Simply hold down Shift when launching the VM from the Manager.  It's that easy. But how do you stop a headless VM? Well, with 4.2 we allow you to Close the VM from the Manager. (BTW best to use the ACPI Shutdown method which allows the guest VM to close down gracefully.) Easy VM Creation For our expert users, the  New VM Wizard was a little tiresome, so now there's a faster 2-click VM creation mode. Just Hide the description when creating a new VM. Powerful VMs  As the hosts have become more powerful, so are the guests that are running inside them. Here are some of the 4.2 features to accommodate them: Virtual Network Interface Cards  With 4.2, it's now possible to create VMs with up to 36 NICs, when using the ICH9 chipset emulation. But with great power comes great responsibility (didn't Obi-Wan say something similar?), and so we have also introduced bandwidth limiting to prevent a rogue VM stealing the whole pipe. VLAN tagging Some of our users leverage VLANs extensively so we've enhanced the E1000 NICs to support this.  Processor Performance If you are running a CPU which supports Nested Paging (aka EPT in the Intel world) such as most of the Core i5 and i7 CPUs, or are running an AMD Bulldozer or later, you should see some performance improvements from our work with these processors. And while we're talking Processors, we've added support for some of the more modern VIA CPUs too. Powerful Automation Because VirtualBox runs atop a fully blown operating system, it makes sense to leverage the capabilities of the host to run scripts that can drive the guest VMs. Guest Automation was introduced in a prior release but with 4.2 we've revamped the APIs to allow a richer and more powerful set of operations to be executed by the guest. Check out the IGuest APIs in the VirtualBox Programming Guide and Reference (SDK). Powerful Platforms  All the hardcore engineering that has gone into 4.2 has been done for a purpose and that is to deliver a fast and powerful engine that can run almost any x86 OS because of the integrity of the virtualization. So we're pleased to add support for these platforms: Mac OS X "Mountain Lion"  Windows 8 Windows Server 2012 Ubuntu 12.04 (“Precise Pangolin”) Fedora 17 Oracle Linux 6.3  Here's the proof: We don't have time to go into the myriad of smaller improvements such as support for burning audio CDs from a guest, bi-directional clipboard control,  drag-and-drop of files into Linux guests, etc. so we'll leave that as an exercise for the user as soon as you've downloaded from the Oracle or community site and taken a peek at the User Guide. So all in all, a pretty solid release, one that we hope you'll enjoy discovering. - FB 

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• Can't get running JPA2 with Hibernate and Maven

  - by erlord

  Have been trying the whole day long and googled the ** out of the web ... in vain. You are my last hope: Here's my code: The Entity: package sas.test.model; import javax.persistence.Entity; import javax.persistence.Id; @Entity public class Employee { @Id private int id; private String name; private long salary; public Employee() {} public Employee(int id) { this.id = id; } public int getId() { return id; } public void setId(int id) { this.id = id; } public String getName() { return name; } public void setName(String name) { this.name = name; } public long getSalary() { return salary; } public void setSalary (long salary) { this.salary = salary; } } The service class: package sas.test.dao; import sas.test.model.Employee; import javax.persistence.*; import java.util.List; public class EmployeeService { protected EntityManager em; public EmployeeService(EntityManager em) { this.em = em; } public Employee createEmployee(int id, String name, long salary) { Employee emp = new Employee(id); emp.setName(name); emp.setSalary(salary); em.persist(emp); return emp; } public void removeEmployee(int id) { Employee emp = findEmployee(id); if (emp != null) { em.remove(emp); } } public Employee raiseEmployeeSalary(int id, long raise) { Employee emp = em.find(Employee.class, id); if (emp != null) { emp.setSalary(emp.getSalary() + raise); } return emp; } public Employee findEmployee(int id) { return em.find(Employee.class, id); } } And the main class: package sas.test.main; import javax.persistence.*; import java.util.List; import sas.test.model.Employee; import sas.test.dao.EmployeeService; public class ExecuteMe { public static void main(String[] args) { EntityManagerFactory emf = Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory("EmployeeService"); EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager(); EmployeeService service = new EmployeeService(em); // create and persist an employee em.getTransaction().begin(); Employee emp = service.createEmployee(158, "John Doe", 45000); em.getTransaction().commit(); System.out.println("Persisted " + emp); // find a specific employee emp = service.findEmployee(158); System.out.println("Found " + emp); // find all employees // List<Employee> emps = service.findAllEmployees(); // for (Employee e : emps) // System.out.println("Found employee: " + e); // update the employee em.getTransaction().begin(); emp = service.raiseEmployeeSalary(158, 1000); em.getTransaction().commit(); System.out.println("Updated " + emp); // remove an employee em.getTransaction().begin(); service.removeEmployee(158); em.getTransaction().commit(); System.out.println("Removed Employee 158"); // close the EM and EMF when done em.close(); emf.close(); } } Finally my confs. pom.xml: <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd"> <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion> <groupId>Test_JPA_CRUD</groupId> <artifactId>Test_JPA_CRUD</artifactId> <packaging>jar</packaging> <version>1.0</version> <name>Test_JPA_CRUD</name> <url>http://maven.apache.org</url> <repositories> <repository> <id>maven2-repository.dev.java.net</id> <name>Java.net Repository for Maven</name> <url>http://download.java.net/maven/2/ </url> <layout>default</layout> </repository> <repository> <id>maven.org</id> <name>maven.org Repository</name> <url>http://repo1.maven.org/maven2</url> <releases> <enabled>true</enabled> </releases> <snapshots> <enabled>true</enabled> </snapshots> </repository> </repositories> <dependencies> <dependency> <groupId>junit</groupId> <artifactId>junit</artifactId> <version>4.8.1</version> <scope>test</scope> </dependency> <!-- <dependency> <groupId>javax</groupId> <artifactId>javaee-api</artifactId> <version>6.0</version> </dependency> --> <!-- <dependency> <groupId>javax.persistence</groupId> <artifactId>persistence-api</artifactId> <version>1.0</version> </dependency> --> <!-- JPA2 provider --> <dependency> <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId> <artifactId>hibernate-entitymanager</artifactId> <version>3.4.0.GA</version> </dependency> <!-- JDBC driver --> <dependency> <groupId>org.apache.derby</groupId> <artifactId>derby</artifactId> <version>10.5.3.0_1</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId> <artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId> <version>3.3.2.GA</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId> <artifactId>ejb3-persistence</artifactId> <version>3.3.2.Beta1</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId> <artifactId>hibernate-annotations</artifactId> <version>3.4.0.GA</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId> <artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId> <version>1.5.2</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>log4j</groupId> <artifactId>log4j</artifactId> <version>1.2.14</version> </dependency> </dependencies> <build> <plugins> <!-- compile with mvn assembly:assembly --> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.2</version> </plugin> <!-- compile with mvn assembly:assembly --> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.2-beta-2</version> <configuration> <descriptorRefs> <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef> </descriptorRefs> <archive> <manifest> <mainClass>sas.test.main.ExecuteMe</mainClass> </manifest> </archive> </configuration> <executions> <execution> <phase>package</phase> </execution> </executions> </plugin> <plugin> <!-- Force UTF-8 & Java-Version 1.6 --> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId> <configuration> <source>1.6</source> <target>1.6</target> <!--<encoding>utf-8</encoding>--> </configuration> </plugin> </plugins> </build> </project> and the persistence.xml, which, I promise, is in the classpath of the target: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <persistence version="1.0" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_1_0.xsd http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence "> <persistence-unit name="EmployeeService" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL"> <provider>org.hibernate.ejb.HibernatePersistence</provider> <class>sas.test.model.Employee</class> <properties> <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.driver" value="org.apache.derby.jdbc.EmbeddedDriver"/> <property name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.DerbyDialect"/> <property name="hibernate.show_sql" value="true"/> <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.url" value="jdbc:derby:webdb;create=true"/> </properties> </persistence-unit> </persistence> As you may have noticed from some commented code, I tried both, the Hibernate and the J2EE 6 implementation of JPA2.0, however, both failed. The above-mentioned code ends up with following error: log4j:WARN No appenders could be found for logger (org.hibernate.cfg.annotations.Version). log4j:WARN Please initialize the log4j system properly. Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: The user must supply a JDBC connection at org.hibernate.connection.UserSuppliedConnectionProvider.getConnection(UserSuppliedConnectionProvider.java:54) at org.hibernate.jdbc.ConnectionManager.openConnection(ConnectionManager.java:446) at org.hibernate.jdbc.ConnectionManager.getConnection(ConnectionManager.java:167) at org.hibernate.jdbc.JDBCContext.connection(JDBCContext.java:142) Any idea what's going wrong? Any "Hello World" maven/JPA2 demo that actually runs? I couldn't get any of those provided by google's search running. Thanx in advance.

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• Prepping a conference

  - by Laurent Bugnion

  I have had the chance to talk at many conferences these past few years, and came up with a way to prepare them which works really well for me. Most importantly, it would make it quite easy to overcome an emergency (for example if my laptop would suddenly lose data). The whole code as well as the slides and other documents are in the cloud. I also use source control for my demos, so that I always have the latest and the greatest, but also a history of changes I made to my demos. Finally I have a system of code snippets which works great, and I often had very positive remarks from the audience regarding that. Putting everything in the cloud The one thing I used to be the most scared of was a sudden crash of my laptop, and being unable to restore in time for a conference. Most conferences ask speakers to send slides a few days (or weeks…) in advance, but let's face it, we all have last minute changes to our talks and I always come in the conference with updated slides that I pass to the management team. The answer to that dilemma used to be working off memory sticks, and that worked not bad. However last year I started putting all the documents relating to a conference in a DropBox folder, and that works great too. Obviously DropBox works only if you have connectivity, so if I for instance update slides while on an international flight, I cannot save to the cloud. The obvious answer to that is to backup everything on a memory stick… but I have to admit, I have been trusting my luck and working off my laptop HD and then synching everything to the cloud after landing. Of course on some US national flights you get WiFi on board, so in that case it is even simpler :) Usually after the conference is done, I remove the files from DropBox and copy them to their "final destination". They are backed up from there to BackBlaze, the great online backup service I am using routinely (I currently have about 90GB of data in BackBlaze). Outlining the presentations I like to have a written outline of my presentations written somewhere. I keep it simple, just write the various sections of the presentation with timing. I guess it is a remnant of the time when I was a private pilot, and using checklists for flight preparation. For example: Demo about designability 15' (0:37) Switch to Blend Open MainPage.xaml Create a DataTemplate ... Here I can immediately see during the presentation if I am taking too much time for my demo (0:37 is where I need to be when I am done with this section of the presentation, and 15' is the time that this particular section takes). I keep these sections reasonable, I don't detail every step of the preparation. Typically I have one such section for every 10-15 minutes of my talks. Yes, I am timing my presentations. I keep adjusting these numbers when I rehearse, and this really helps to feel more confident during the presentations. This is especially important for presentations that are long, like my MIX11 demo which clocked at 57 minutes (I had a lot of stuff to show…). Such presentations are risky, because if anything goes wrong, you will have to cut stuff, so the answer to that is: Rehearse, rehearse and when you're done rehearsing, rehearse a little more. I also have a "Preparation" section where I outline what I need to do before a presentation. For instance: Preparation Reboot in VHD Make sure MSN and Twitter are not running. Open VS10 and load demo Open Blend and load demo Run the WP7 emulator ... I typically start preparing my laptop an hour before the talk, starting everything I need to start and then putting my laptop to sleep. Saving and printing the outline, Timing Printing is a real problem because it is really hard to find a printer at most conference venues, and also quite hard in hotels. To solve that, I simply write everything in OneNote (synched to the cloud, now you start to know what I like ;) and then I print it to a PDF (I use CutePDFWriter) that I save to my Kindle. During the presentation, I read the outline off the Kindle (I mostly just need a quick check to see how I am timing). For timing during the presentation, I use the free tool ChronoGPS on my Windows Phone 7, but of course any phone these days has a clock/chrono application. In some conferences, they even have timers that the presenters can see, but they tend to count down and I prefer to count up… so I just use my own :) Source control for demos For demos, I create a separate folder and use Mercurial as source control. Mercurial has the huge advantage (over SVN or TFS) to work offline too, so I can commit while on a plane, and all the history is saved. Then when I have connectivity I push everything to the cloud (I am using the fantastic Trunksapp.com for my private repositories). Here too the obvious downside is the risk of losing my last changes if my laptop crashes before I can push to the cloud, and here too the obvious answer would be to work from a memory stick… though I have to admit I didn't do that lately (except when I was writing Silverlight 4 Unleashed, where I was really paranoid…) And code snippets? I am one of these presenters who hates to type in front of an audience. I can type really fast (writing two books has this advantage, it really teaches you to touch type and be fast at it) but in the context of an audience, on a stage where it is often damn cold (an issue I had a lot in past conferences, air conditioning can freeze your fingers and make it really hard to type), it doesn't work as well. I don't know for you, but I really dislike seeing a presentation where the speaker uses the backspace key more often than others ;) To solve that, I like to have my code ready in snippets, and drag them to the screen. Then I can spend time explaining each code snippet, while highlighting portions of the code (always highlight what you talk about, the audience often doesn't even see the cursor and doesn't know where you are on the screen!) Over the years I have used various solutions for code snippets, and now I have one which works really well… if you take a few precautions! I use the Visual Studio Toolbox. Preparing the code snippets You can store code snippets in the Toolbox for anything, XAML, C# etc. I arrange the snippets in the order in which I need them, which is a great way to remember what comes next in the presentation. I also separate them by topic, to make it easier to find them, for example when I switch to the slides and then back to the code. Remember that no matter how experienced you are, you will feel more nervous on stage than while you are preparing, so any way to make it easier for you is going to be beneficial to the audience. To store a code snippet, I do the following: Open the final demo that you want to show to the audience in Visual Studio. In your code, select a snippet of code that you want to explain in particular. Make sure that the Visual Studio Toolbox is open (menu View, Toolbox or Ctrl-Alt-X). Drag the selected snippet from the code window to the toolbox. (if needed) drag the snippet to the correct location (for example between two other code snippets so that you can access it as you speak through the demo). Right click on the snippet and select Rename Item from the context menu. Select a meaningful name. For me I use the following conventions: If it is a method, I use the method's name. If it is not a whole method, I use a descriptive name. If it is the content of a method (i.e. the body only, without the method's signature), I use "-> MethodName". This reminds me during the presentation that this is only the body, and that I need to insert that into an existing signature. This is the case, for instance, when I use Visual Studio to automatically generate the members of an interface’s implementation; then I only need to insert my snippet inside the generated method body. Saving the snippets This is the most important!! It happened to me a few times that VS10 lost its settings. When that happens, the snippets are lost too! Yeah that really sucks, especially (as it happened once) when this is the case about an hour before a talk… Stress and sweat follows, not good conditions to start a talk in front of an audience believe me. Thankfully, saving snippets is really easy with the following steps: Select the menu Tools, Import and Export Settings. Select Export selected environment settings and press Next. Uncheck All Settings. Then expand General Settings and select Toolbox (only!). Press Next. Select your source control folder and save under a meaningful name (for instance Snippets.vssettings). Commit to source control and push to the cloud. By the way, this also has the advantage of applying source control to the snippets file (which is an XML file), so you get history for free on that file! Reimporting the snippets If VS loses its settings and you need to reimport the snippets, this can be done super easily and very fast. Make sure that the Toolbox is empty. When you import snippets, they are merged with existing ones, they do not replace the content of the Toolbox. Unless merging is really what you want, make sure that your Toolbox is clean before you import, it is really easier. Select the menu Tools, Import and Export Settings. Select Import selected environment settings and press Next. Select No, just import new settings and press Next. Press Browse and select the Snippets.vssettings file. Press Finish. Et voila, all your snippets appear again in the Toolbox. Whew, the worst was averted and you can start your demo without sweating! (I had to do that once literally 5 minutes before the start of a demo, while my laptop was already hooked to the projector, and it went just fine). What about special tools? When using special tools (for example beta versions of tools you have an early access to), or a special configuration of your laptop, things can get tricky because you cannot really be sure that you will get a laptop with the same tools and the same configuration at the conference. To solve that, I use the following precautions: I make my demos from a Virtual Hard Disk. The great John Papa made a very easy-to-follow web page where he explains how to create a VHD and install Win7 to it. This gives you the full power of your laptop (as fast as booting from the metal). For me, I have a basic configuration that I saved on a USB harddrive (Win7 plus drivers, basic settings for desktop, folder options, taskbar etc) and Visual Studio 2010 SP1 on it. When preparing, I start by copying this "basis VHD" to my laptop. I install additional tools and configurations. I save the VHD back to the USB harddrive in a different folder. This would allow me to reinstall my demo environment quite fast, for example in case of harddrive failure. Replace the harddrive, copy the VHD to it, configure the BCD and you can start. Unfortunately this only works if the laptop itself still works. In the worst case of total failure, my security is to back all the installers up: The installers I use are synched on all my laptops and backed up to BackBlaze. If the worst happens and my laptop is absolutely broken, I can download the installer from BackBlaze and install on another laptop. This of course takes some time, and if that happens 5 minutes before a presentation, well… I don't have an answer to that, except of course crossing my fingers. Still, all that gives me additional security. Conclusion Remember folks, talking to an audience, large or small, will make you nervous. Just ask Scott Hanselman :) The goal here is to create the best possible conditions for you, and to create an environment where everything is saved and easy to restore, where everything is well known and provides you with additional confidence. The cooler you feel before the presentation (and during ;)), the better your presentation will be. Here too, the goal is to provide the best user experience you can have, which in turn will make it more enjoyable for your audience! Happy presenting :) Laurent   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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• Convert from Procedural to Object Oriented Code

  - by Anthony

  I have been reading Working Effectively with Legacy Code and Clean Code with the goal of learning strategies on how to begin cleaning up the existing code-base of a large ASP.NET webforms application. This system has been around since 2005 and since then has undergone a number of enhancements. Originally the code was structured as follows (and is still largely structured this way): ASP.NET (aspx/ascx) Code-behind (c#) Business Logic Layer (c#) Data Access Layer (c#) Database (Oracle) The main issue is that the code is procedural masquerading as object-oriented. It virtually violates all of the guidelines described in both books. This is an example of a typical class in the Business Logic Layer: public class AddressBO { public TransferObject GetAddress(string addressID) { if (StringUtils.IsNull(addressID)) { throw new ValidationException("Address ID must be entered"); } AddressDAO addressDAO = new AddressDAO(); return addressDAO.GetAddress(addressID); } public TransferObject Insert(TransferObject addressDetails) { if (StringUtils.IsNull(addressDetails.GetString("EVENT_ID")) || StringUtils.IsNull(addressDetails.GetString("LOCALITY")) || StringUtils.IsNull(addressDetails.GetString("ADDRESS_TARGET")) || StringUtils.IsNull(addressDetails.GetString("ADDRESS_TYPE_CODE")) || StringUtils.IsNull(addressDetails.GetString("CREATED_BY"))) { throw new ValidationException( "You must enter an Event ID, Locality, Address Target, Address Type Code and Created By."); } string addressID = Sequence.GetNextValue("ADDRESS_ID_SEQ"); addressDetails.SetValue("ADDRESS_ID", addressID); string syncID = Sequence.GetNextValue("SYNC_ID_SEQ"); addressDetails.SetValue("SYNC_ADDRESS_ID", syncID); TransferObject syncDetails = new TransferObject(); Transaction transaction = new Transaction(); try { AddressDAO addressDAO = new AddressDAO(); addressDAO.Insert(addressDetails, transaction); // insert the record for the target TransferObject addressTargetDetails = new TransferObject(); switch (addressDetails.GetString("ADDRESS_TARGET")) { case "PARTY_ADDRESSES": { addressTargetDetails.SetValue("ADDRESS_ID", addressID); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("ADDRESS_TYPE_CODE", addressDetails.GetString("ADDRESS_TYPE_CODE")); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("PARTY_ID", addressDetails.GetString("PARTY_ID")); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("EVENT_ID", addressDetails.GetString("EVENT_ID")); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("CREATED_BY", addressDetails.GetString("CREATED_BY")); addressDAO.InsertPartyAddress(addressTargetDetails, transaction); break; } case "PARTY_CONTACT_ADDRESSES": { addressTargetDetails.SetValue("ADDRESS_ID", addressID); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("ADDRESS_TYPE_CODE", addressDetails.GetString("ADDRESS_TYPE_CODE")); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("PUBLIC_RELEASE_FLAG", addressDetails.GetString("PUBLIC_RELEASE_FLAG")); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("CONTACT_ID", addressDetails.GetString("CONTACT_ID")); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("EVENT_ID", addressDetails.GetString("EVENT_ID")); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("CREATED_BY", addressDetails.GetString("CREATED_BY")); addressDAO.InsertContactAddress(addressTargetDetails, transaction); break; } << many more cases here >> default: { break; } } // synchronise SynchronisationBO synchronisationBO = new SynchronisationBO(); syncDetails = synchronisationBO.Synchronise("I", transaction, "ADDRESSES", addressDetails.GetString("ADDRESS_TARGET"), addressDetails, addressTargetDetails); // commit transaction.Commit(); } catch (Exception) { transaction.Rollback(); throw; } return new TransferObject("ADDRESS_ID", addressID, "SYNC_DETAILS", syncDetails); } << many more methods are here >> } It has a lot of duplication, the class has a number of responsibilities, etc, etc - it is just generally 'un-clean' code. All of the code throughout the system is dependent on concrete implementations. This is an example of a typical class in the Data Access Layer: public class AddressDAO : GenericDAO { public static readonly string BASE_SQL_ADDRESSES = "SELECT " + " a.address_id, " + " a.event_id, " + " a.flat_unit_type_code, " + " fut.description as flat_unit_description, " + " a.flat_unit_num, " + " a.floor_level_code, " + " fl.description as floor_level_description, " + " a.floor_level_num, " + " a.building_name, " + " a.lot_number, " + " a.street_number, " + " a.street_name, " + " a.street_type_code, " + " st.description as street_type_description, " + " a.street_suffix_code, " + " ss.description as street_suffix_description, " + " a.postal_delivery_type_code, " + " pdt.description as postal_delivery_description, " + " a.postal_delivery_num, " + " a.locality, " + " a.state_code, " + " s.description as state_description, " + " a.postcode, " + " a.country, " + " a.lock_num, " + " a.created_by, " + " TO_CHAR(a.created_datetime, '" + SQL_DATETIME_FORMAT + "') as created_datetime, " + " a.last_updated_by, " + " TO_CHAR(a.last_updated_datetime, '" + SQL_DATETIME_FORMAT + "') as last_updated_datetime, " + " a.sync_address_id, " + " a.lat," + " a.lon, " + " a.validation_confidence, " + " a.validation_quality, " + " a.validation_status " + "FROM ADDRESSES a, FLAT_UNIT_TYPES fut, FLOOR_LEVELS fl, STREET_TYPES st, " + " STREET_SUFFIXES ss, POSTAL_DELIVERY_TYPES pdt, STATES s " + "WHERE a.flat_unit_type_code = fut.flat_unit_type_code(+) " + "AND a.floor_level_code = fl.floor_level_code(+) " + "AND a.street_type_code = st.street_type_code(+) " + "AND a.street_suffix_code = ss.street_suffix_code(+) " + "AND a.postal_delivery_type_code = pdt.postal_delivery_type_code(+) " + "AND a.state_code = s.state_code(+) "; public TransferObject GetAddress(string addressID) { //Build the SELECT Statement StringBuilder selectStatement = new StringBuilder(BASE_SQL_ADDRESSES); //Add WHERE condition selectStatement.Append(" AND a.address_id = :addressID"); ArrayList parameters = new ArrayList{DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("addressID", OracleDbType.Decimal, addressID)}; // Execute the SELECT statement Query query = new Query(); DataSet results = query.Execute(selectStatement.ToString(), parameters); // Check if 0 or more than one rows returned if (results.Tables[0].Rows.Count == 0) { throw new NoDataFoundException(); } if (results.Tables[0].Rows.Count > 1) { throw new TooManyRowsException(); } // Return a TransferObject containing the values return new TransferObject(results); } public void Insert(TransferObject insertValues, Transaction transaction) { // Store Values string addressID = insertValues.GetString("ADDRESS_ID"); string syncAddressID = insertValues.GetString("SYNC_ADDRESS_ID"); string eventID = insertValues.GetString("EVENT_ID"); string createdBy = insertValues.GetString("CREATED_BY"); // postal delivery string postalDeliveryTypeCode = insertValues.GetString("POSTAL_DELIVERY_TYPE_CODE"); string postalDeliveryNum = insertValues.GetString("POSTAL_DELIVERY_NUM"); // unit/building string flatUnitTypeCode = insertValues.GetString("FLAT_UNIT_TYPE_CODE"); string flatUnitNum = insertValues.GetString("FLAT_UNIT_NUM"); string floorLevelCode = insertValues.GetString("FLOOR_LEVEL_CODE"); string floorLevelNum = insertValues.GetString("FLOOR_LEVEL_NUM"); string buildingName = insertValues.GetString("BUILDING_NAME"); // street string lotNumber = insertValues.GetString("LOT_NUMBER"); string streetNumber = insertValues.GetString("STREET_NUMBER"); string streetName = insertValues.GetString("STREET_NAME"); string streetTypeCode = insertValues.GetString("STREET_TYPE_CODE"); string streetSuffixCode = insertValues.GetString("STREET_SUFFIX_CODE"); // locality/state/postcode/country string locality = insertValues.GetString("LOCALITY"); string stateCode = insertValues.GetString("STATE_CODE"); string postcode = insertValues.GetString("POSTCODE"); string country = insertValues.GetString("COUNTRY"); // esms address string esmsAddress = insertValues.GetString("ESMS_ADDRESS"); //address/GPS string lat = insertValues.GetString("LAT"); string lon = insertValues.GetString("LON"); string zoom = insertValues.GetString("ZOOM"); //string validateDate = insertValues.GetString("VALIDATED_DATE"); string validatedBy = insertValues.GetString("VALIDATED_BY"); string confidence = insertValues.GetString("VALIDATION_CONFIDENCE"); string status = insertValues.GetString("VALIDATION_STATUS"); string quality = insertValues.GetString("VALIDATION_QUALITY"); // the insert statement StringBuilder insertStatement = new StringBuilder("INSERT INTO ADDRESSES ("); StringBuilder valuesStatement = new StringBuilder("VALUES ("); ArrayList parameters = new ArrayList(); // build the insert statement insertStatement.Append("ADDRESS_ID, EVENT_ID, CREATED_BY, CREATED_DATETIME, LOCK_NUM "); valuesStatement.Append(":addressID, :eventID, :createdBy, SYSDATE, 1 "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("addressID", OracleDbType.Decimal, addressID)); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("eventID", OracleDbType.Decimal, eventID)); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("createdBy", OracleDbType.Varchar2, createdBy)); // build the insert statement if (!StringUtils.IsNull(syncAddressID)) { insertStatement.Append(", SYNC_ADDRESS_ID"); valuesStatement.Append(", :syncAddressID"); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("syncAddressID", OracleDbType.Decimal, syncAddressID)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(postalDeliveryTypeCode)) { insertStatement.Append(", POSTAL_DELIVERY_TYPE_CODE"); valuesStatement.Append(", :postalDeliveryTypeCode "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("postalDeliveryTypeCode", OracleDbType.Varchar2, postalDeliveryTypeCode)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(postalDeliveryNum)) { insertStatement.Append(", POSTAL_DELIVERY_NUM"); valuesStatement.Append(", :postalDeliveryNum "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("postalDeliveryNum", OracleDbType.Varchar2, postalDeliveryNum)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(flatUnitTypeCode)) { insertStatement.Append(", FLAT_UNIT_TYPE_CODE"); valuesStatement.Append(", :flatUnitTypeCode "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("flatUnitTypeCode", OracleDbType.Varchar2, flatUnitTypeCode)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(lat)) { insertStatement.Append(", LAT"); valuesStatement.Append(", :lat "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("lat", OracleDbType.Decimal, lat)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(lon)) { insertStatement.Append(", LON"); valuesStatement.Append(", :lon "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("lon", OracleDbType.Decimal, lon)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(zoom)) { insertStatement.Append(", ZOOM"); valuesStatement.Append(", :zoom "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("zoom", OracleDbType.Decimal, zoom)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(flatUnitNum)) { insertStatement.Append(", FLAT_UNIT_NUM"); valuesStatement.Append(", :flatUnitNum "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("flatUnitNum", OracleDbType.Varchar2, flatUnitNum)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(floorLevelCode)) { insertStatement.Append(", FLOOR_LEVEL_CODE"); valuesStatement.Append(", :floorLevelCode "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("floorLevelCode", OracleDbType.Varchar2, floorLevelCode)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(floorLevelNum)) { insertStatement.Append(", FLOOR_LEVEL_NUM"); valuesStatement.Append(", :floorLevelNum "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("floorLevelNum", OracleDbType.Varchar2, floorLevelNum)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(buildingName)) { insertStatement.Append(", BUILDING_NAME"); valuesStatement.Append(", :buildingName "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("buildingName", OracleDbType.Varchar2, buildingName)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(lotNumber)) { insertStatement.Append(", LOT_NUMBER"); valuesStatement.Append(", :lotNumber "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("lotNumber", OracleDbType.Varchar2, lotNumber)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(streetNumber)) { insertStatement.Append(", STREET_NUMBER"); valuesStatement.Append(", :streetNumber "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("streetNumber", OracleDbType.Varchar2, streetNumber)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(streetName)) { insertStatement.Append(", STREET_NAME"); valuesStatement.Append(", :streetName "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("streetName", OracleDbType.Varchar2, streetName)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(streetTypeCode)) { insertStatement.Append(", STREET_TYPE_CODE"); valuesStatement.Append(", :streetTypeCode "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("streetTypeCode", OracleDbType.Varchar2, streetTypeCode)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(streetSuffixCode)) { insertStatement.Append(", STREET_SUFFIX_CODE"); valuesStatement.Append(", :streetSuffixCode "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("streetSuffixCode", OracleDbType.Varchar2, streetSuffixCode)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(locality)) { insertStatement.Append(", LOCALITY"); valuesStatement.Append(", :locality"); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("locality", OracleDbType.Varchar2, locality)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(stateCode)) { insertStatement.Append(", STATE_CODE"); valuesStatement.Append(", :stateCode"); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("stateCode", OracleDbType.Varchar2, stateCode)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(postcode)) { insertStatement.Append(", POSTCODE"); valuesStatement.Append(", :postcode "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("postcode", OracleDbType.Varchar2, postcode)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(country)) { insertStatement.Append(", COUNTRY"); valuesStatement.Append(", :country "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("country", OracleDbType.Varchar2, country)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(esmsAddress)) { insertStatement.Append(", ESMS_ADDRESS"); valuesStatement.Append(", :esmsAddress "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("esmsAddress", OracleDbType.Varchar2, esmsAddress)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(validatedBy)) { insertStatement.Append(", VALIDATED_DATE"); valuesStatement.Append(", SYSDATE "); insertStatement.Append(", VALIDATED_BY"); valuesStatement.Append(", :validatedBy "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("validatedBy", OracleDbType.Varchar2, validatedBy)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(confidence)) { insertStatement.Append(", VALIDATION_CONFIDENCE"); valuesStatement.Append(", :confidence "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("confidence", OracleDbType.Decimal, confidence)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(status)) { insertStatement.Append(", VALIDATION_STATUS"); valuesStatement.Append(", :status "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("status", OracleDbType.Varchar2, status)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(quality)) { insertStatement.Append(", VALIDATION_QUALITY"); valuesStatement.Append(", :quality "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("quality", OracleDbType.Decimal, quality)); } // finish off the statement insertStatement.Append(") "); valuesStatement.Append(")"); // build the insert statement string sql = insertStatement + valuesStatement.ToString(); // Execute the INSERT Statement Dml dmlDAO = new Dml(); int rowsAffected = dmlDAO.Execute(sql, transaction, parameters); if (rowsAffected == 0) { throw new NoRowsAffectedException(); } } << many more methods go here >> } This system was developed by me and a small team back in 2005 after a 1 week .NET course. Before than my experience was in client-server applications. Over the past 5 years I've come to recognise the benefits of automated unit testing, automated integration testing and automated acceptance testing (using Selenium or equivalent) but the current code-base seems impossible to introduce these concepts. We are now starting to work on a major enhancement project with tight time-frames. The team consists of 5 .NET developers - 2 developers with a few years of .NET experience and 3 others with little or no .NET experience. None of the team (including myself) has experience in using .NET unit testing or mocking frameworks. What strategy would you use to make this code cleaner, more object-oriented, testable and maintainable?

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• git push >> fatal: no configured push destination

  - by Marc

  I'm still going through some guides on RoR and i'm stuck here at "Deploying the demo app" I followed instructions: " With the completion of microposts resources, now is a good time to push the repository up to GitHub: " $ git add . $ git commit -a -m "Finish demo app" $ git push What happened wrong here was the push part.. it outputted this: $ git push fatal: No configured push destination. Either specify the URL from the command-line or configure a remote repository using git remote add < name < url git push < name So i tried following the insturctions by doing this command: $git remote add demo_app 'www.github.com/levelone/demo_app' fatal: remote demo_app already exists. So i push: $git push demo_app fatal: 'www.github.com/levelone/demo_app' does not appear to be a git repository fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly What can i do here? Any help would be much appreciated. -Marc

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• TeamCity error: svn: connection refused by the server

  - by chrisk

  We have a Continuous Integration environment setup with TeamCity and subversion. TeamCity gets the latest source from svn and does a build (Visual Studio) on every commit. Sometimes we get the following TeamCity error when the build runs. Doing a couple of force builds gets TeamCity running succesfully. Build errors [12:35:24]: Patch is broken, can be found in file: C:\TeamCity\buildAgent\temp\cache\temp6036patch_803[12:35:24]: RunBuildException when running build stage UpdateSourcesFromServer: Failed to build patch for build 519 {build id=803}, VCS root: svn: https://svn.myDomain.com/repos/myApplication {id=2}, due to error: org.tmatesoft.svn.core.SVNException: svn: connection refused by the server svn: REPORT request failed on '/repos/myApplication/!svn/vcc/default' Any ideas why this might be happening ?

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• Bitnami redmine error SVN

  - by Evgeniy

  I'm installing the Bitnami Redmine stack (redmine + subversion). Firstly I install configure and test it locally (Ubuntu 14.04 LTS). And everything is OK. I install Bitnami stack on server (Red Hat 4.4.7-4) and configure SVN. I commit files into SVN and connect project into Redmine with SVN repository, but when I try see it Rredmine displays 404 error. In the Redmine log file I see the following errors: Started GET "/redmine/projects/web-user-panel/repository" for 127.0.0.1 at 2014-04-24 11:34:20 +0300 Processing by RepositoriesController#show as HTML Parameters: {"id"=>"web-user-panel"} Current user: user (id=13) Error parsing svn output: #<REXML::ParseException: No close tag for /lists/list> /var/www/html/redmine/ruby/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rexml/parsers/treeparser.rb:28:in `parse' /var/www/html/redmine/ruby/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rexml/document.rb:245:in `build' /var/www/html/redmine/ruby/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rexml/document.rb:43:in `initialize' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.17/lib/active_support/xml_mini/rexml.rb:30:in `new' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.17/lib/active_support/xml_mini/rexml.rb:30:in `parse' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.17/lib/active_support/xml_mini.rb:80:in `parse' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/lib/redmine/scm/adapters/abstract_adapter.rb:313:in `parse_xml' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/lib/redmine/scm/adapters/subversion_adapter.rb:106:in `block in entries' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/lib/redmine/scm/adapters/abstract_adapter.rb:258:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/lib/redmine/scm/adapters/abstract_adapter.rb:258:in `block in shellout' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/lib/redmine/scm/adapters/abstract_adapter.rb:255:in `popen' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/lib/redmine/scm/adapters/abstract_adapter.rb:255:in `shellout' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/lib/redmine/scm/adapters/abstract_adapter.rb:212:in `shellout' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/lib/redmine/scm/adapters/subversion_adapter.rb:100:in `entries' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/app/models/repository.rb:198:in `scm_entries' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/app/models/repository.rb:203:in `entries' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/app/controllers/repositories_controller.rb:116:in `show' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_controller/metal/implicit_render.rb:4:in `send_action' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/abstract_controller/base.rb:167:in `process_action' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_controller/metal/rendering.rb:10:in `process_action' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/abstract_controller/callbacks.rb:18:in `block in process_action' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.17/lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:491:in `_run__2883861927089110970__process_action__2542827355008294621__callbacks' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.17/lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:405:in `__run_callback' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.17/lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:385:in `_run_process_action_callbacks' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.17/lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:81:in `run_callbacks' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/abstract_controller/callbacks.rb:17:in `process_action' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_controller/metal/rescue.rb:29:in `process_action' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_controller/metal/instrumentation.rb:30:in `block in process_action' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.17/lib/active_support/notifications.rb:123:in `block in instrument' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.17/lib/active_support/notifications/instrumenter.rb:20:in `instrument' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.17/lib/active_support/notifications.rb:123:in `instrument' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_controller/metal/instrumentation.rb:29:in `process_action' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_controller/metal/params_wrapper.rb:207:in `process_action' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.17/lib/active_record/railties/controller_runtime.rb:18:in `process_action' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/abstract_controller/base.rb:121:in `process' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/abstract_controller/rendering.rb:45:in `process' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_controller/metal.rb:203:in `dispatch' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_controller/metal/rack_delegation.rb:14:in `dispatch' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_controller/metal.rb:246:in `block in action' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:73:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:73:in `dispatch' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:36:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/journey-1.0.4/lib/journey/router.rb:68:in `block in call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/journey-1.0.4/lib/journey/router.rb:56:in `each' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/journey-1.0.4/lib/journey/router.rb:56:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:608:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-openid-1.3.1/lib/rack/openid.rb:98:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/best_standards_support.rb:17:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.4.5/lib/rack/etag.rb:23:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.4.5/lib/rack/conditionalget.rb:25:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/head.rb:14:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/params_parser.rb:21:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/flash.rb:242:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.4.5/lib/rack/session/abstract/id.rb:210:in `context' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.4.5/lib/rack/session/abstract/id.rb:205:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/cookies.rb:341:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.17/lib/active_record/query_cache.rb:64:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.17/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:479:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/callbacks.rb:28:in `block in call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.17/lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:405:in `_run__1805290955544829105__call__1486932417638469082__callbacks' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.17/lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:405:in `__run_callback' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.17/lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:385:in `_run_call_callbacks' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.17/lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:81:in `run_callbacks' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/callbacks.rb:27:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/remote_ip.rb:31:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/debug_exceptions.rb:16:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/show_exceptions.rb:56:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.2.17/lib/rails/rack/logger.rb:32:in `call_app' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.2.17/lib/rails/rack/logger.rb:16:in `block in call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.17/lib/active_support/tagged_logging.rb:22:in `tagged' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.2.17/lib/rails/rack/logger.rb:16:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/request_id.rb:22:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.4.5/lib/rack/methodoverride.rb:21:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.4.5/lib/rack/runtime.rb:17:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.2.17/lib/active_support/cache/strategy/local_cache.rb:72:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.4.5/lib/rack/lock.rb:15:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.2.17/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/static.rb:63:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-cache-1.2/lib/rack/cache/context.rb:136:in `forward' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-cache-1.2/lib/rack/cache/context.rb:245:in `fetch' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-cache-1.2/lib/rack/cache/context.rb:185:in `lookup' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-cache-1.2/lib/rack/cache/context.rb:66:in `call!' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-cache-1.2/lib/rack/cache/context.rb:51:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.2.17/lib/rails/engine.rb:484:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.2.17/lib/rails/application.rb:231:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.2.17/lib/rails/railtie/configurable.rb:30:in `method_missing' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.4.5/lib/rack/builder.rb:134:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.4.5/lib/rack/urlmap.rb:64:in `block in call' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.4.5/lib/rack/urlmap.rb:49:in `each' /var/www/html/redmine/apps/redmine/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.4.5/lib/rack/urlmap.rb:49:in `call' /var/www/html/redmine/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/passenger-4.0.40/lib/phusion_passenger/rack/thread_handler_extension.rb:74:in `process_request' /var/www/html/redmine/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/passenger-4.0.40/lib/phusion_passenger/request_handler/thread_handler.rb:141:in `accept_and_process_next_request' /var/www/html/redmine/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/passenger-4.0.40/lib/phusion_passenger/request_handler/thread_handler.rb:109:in `main_loop' /var/www/html/redmine/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/passenger-4.0.40/lib/phusion_passenger/request_handler.rb:448:in `block (3 levels) in start_threads' ... No close tag for /lists/list Line: 4 Position: 93 Last 80 unconsumed characters: Output was: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <lists> <list path="svn://127.0.0.1/voxysuser"> Rendered common/error.html.erb within layouts/base (0.1ms) Completed 404 Not Found in 69.1ms (Views: 15.1ms | ActiveRecord: 3.0ms) How can I resolve this problem? I googled it, but similar problem fixed should be fixed 3 years ago. I'm installing the latest Bitnami Redmine 2.5.1-1 stack. UPDATE Well, I found next way. If I use the http protocol it works fine, but I should remove access for svn by web. That's why I create virtual host on localhost and get info from svn use 127.0.0.1 IP. <VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:8000> <Location /repo> DAV svn SVNPath "PATH_TO_MY_REPOSITORY" </Location> And this it work good.

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• IIS7 - Lock Violation error, HTTP handlers, modules, and the <clear /> element

  - by Daniel Schaffer

  I have an ASP.NET site that uses its own set of HTTP handlers and does not need any modules. So, in IIS6, all I had to do was this in my web.config: <httpModules> <clear /> </httpModules> However, if I try to do the same in the system.webServer area for IIS7, I get a 500 error when I try to view the site, and in IIS manager when I try to view the handler mappings, I get a popup box with the message: There was an error while performing this operation Details: Filename: \?\C:\Sites\TheWebSiteGoesHere\web.config Line number: 39 Error: Lock violation Line 39 is where the <clear /> element is. Some googling led me to a solution involving running this command: %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe unlock config -section:system.webServer/modules ...but that did not solve the problem.

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• NHibernate, and odd "Session is Closed!" errors

  - by Sekhat

  Note: Now that I've typed this out, I have to apologize for the super long question, however, I think all the code and information presented here is in some way relevant. Okay, I'm getting odd "Session Is Closed" errors, at random points in my ASP.NET webforms application. Today, however, it's finally happening in the same place over and over again. I am near certain that nothing is disposing or closing the session in my code, as the bits of code that use are well contained away from all other code as you'll see below. I'm also using ninject as my IOC, which may / may not be important. Okay, so, First my SessionFactoryProvider and SessionProvider classes: SessionFactoryProvider public class SessionFactoryProvider : IDisposable { ISessionFactory sessionFactory; public ISessionFactory GetSessionFactory() { if (sessionFactory == null) sessionFactory = Fluently.Configure() .Database( MsSqlConfiguration.MsSql2005.ConnectionString(p => p.FromConnectionStringWithKey("QoiSqlConnection"))) .Mappings(m => m.FluentMappings.AddFromAssemblyOf<JobMapping>()) .BuildSessionFactory(); return sessionFactory; } public void Dispose() { if (sessionFactory != null) sessionFactory.Dispose(); } } SessionProvider public class SessionProvider : IDisposable { ISessionFactory sessionFactory; ISession session; public SessionProvider(SessionFactoryProvider sessionFactoryProvider) { this.sessionFactory = sessionFactoryProvider.GetSessionFactory(); } public ISession GetCurrentSession() { if (session == null) session = sessionFactory.OpenSession(); return session; } public void Dispose() { if (session != null) { session.Dispose(); } } } These two classes are wired up with Ninject as so: NHibernateModule public class NHibernateModule : StandardModule { public override void Load() { Bind<SessionFactoryProvider>().ToSelf().Using<SingletonBehavior>(); Bind<SessionProvider>().ToSelf().Using<OnePerRequestBehavior>(); } } and as far as I can tell work as expected. Now my BaseDao<T> class: BaseDao public class BaseDao<T> : IDao<T> where T : EntityBase { private SessionProvider sessionManager; protected ISession session { get { return sessionManager.GetCurrentSession(); } } public BaseDao(SessionProvider sessionManager) { this.sessionManager = sessionManager; } public T GetBy(int id) { return session.Get<T>(id); } public void Save(T item) { using (var transaction = session.BeginTransaction()) { session.SaveOrUpdate(item); transaction.Commit(); } } public void Delete(T item) { using (var transaction = session.BeginTransaction()) { session.Delete(item); transaction.Commit(); } } public IList<T> GetAll() { return session.CreateCriteria<T>().List<T>(); } public IQueryable<T> Query() { return session.Linq<T>(); } } Which is bound in Ninject like so: DaoModule public class DaoModule : StandardModule { public override void Load() { Bind(typeof(IDao<>)).To(typeof(BaseDao<>)) .Using<OnePerRequestBehavior>(); } } Now the web request that is causing this is when I'm saving an object, it didn't occur till I made some model changes today, however the changes to my model has not changed the data access code in anyway. Though it changed a few NHibernate mappings (I can post these too if anyone is interested) From as far as I can tell, BaseDao<SomeClass>.Get is called then BaseDao<SomeOtherClass>.Get is called then BaseDao<TypeImTryingToSave>.Save is called. it's the third call at the line in Save() using (var transaction = session.BeginTransaction()) that fails with "Session is Closed!" or rather the exception: Session is closed! Object name: 'ISession'. Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. Exception Details: System.ObjectDisposedException: Session is closed! Object name: 'ISession'. And indeed following through on the Debugger shows the third time the session is requested from the SessionProvider it is indeed closed and not connected. I have verified that Dispose on my SessionFactoryProvider and on my SessionProvider are called at the end of the request and not before the Save call is made on my Dao. So now I'm a little stuck. A few things pop to mind. Am I doing anything obviously wrong? Does NHibernate ever close sessions without me asking to? Any workarounds or ideas on what I might do? Thanks in advance

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• What is the equivalent of Oracle’s REF CURSOR in MySQL when using JDBC?

  - by dacracot

  In Oracle I can declare a reference cursor... TYPE t_spool IS REF CURSOR RETURN spool%ROWTYPE; ...and use it to pass a cursor as the return value... FUNCTION end_spool RETURN t_spool AS v_spool t_spool; BEGIN COMMIT; OPEN v_spool FOR SELECT * FROM spool WHERE key = g_spool_key ORDER BY seq; RETURN v_spool; END end_spool; ...and then capture it as a result set using JDBC... private Connection conn; private CallableStatement stmt; private OracleResultSet rset; [...clip...] stmt = conn.prepareCall("{ ? = call " + call + "}"); stmt.registerOutParameter(1, OracleTypes.CURSOR); stmt.execute(); rset = (OracleResultSet)stmt.getObject(1); What is the equivalent in MySQL?

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• JPA/Hibernate and MySQL transaction isolation level

  - by armandino

  I have a native query that does a batch insert into a MySQL database: String sql = "insert into t1 (a, b) select x, y from t2 where x = 'foo'"; EntityTransaction tx = entityManager.getTransaction(); try { tx.begin(); int rowCount = entityManager.createNativeQuery(sql).executeUpdate(); tx.commit(); return rowCount; } catch(Exception ex) { tx.rollback(); log.error(...); } This query causes a deadlock: while it reads from t2 with insert .. select, another process tries to insert a row into t2. I don't care about the consistency of reads from t2 when doing an insert .. select and want to set the transaction isolation level to READ_UNCOMMITTED. How do I go about setting it in JPA backed by Hibernate?

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• Linux e1000e (Intel networking driver) problems galore, where do I start?

  - by Evan Carroll

  I'm currently having a major problem with e1000e (not working at all) in Ubuntu Maverick (1.0.2-k4), after resume I'm getting a lot of stuff in dmesg: [ 9085.820197] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: PCI INT A disabled [ 9089.907756] e1000e: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - 1.0.2-k4 [ 9089.907762] e1000e: Copyright (c) 1999 - 2009 Intel Corporation. [ 9089.907797] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: Disabling ASPM L1 [ 9089.907827] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16 [ 9089.907857] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: setting latency timer to 64 [ 9089.908529] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: irq 44 for MSI/MSI-X [ 9089.908922] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: Disabling ASPM L0s [ 9089.908954] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: (unregistered net_device): PHY reset is blocked due to SOL/IDER session. [ 9090.024625] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: eth0: (PCI Express:2.5GB/s:Width x1) 00:0a:e4:3e:ce:74 [ 9090.024630] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: eth0: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection [ 9090.024712] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: eth0: MAC: 2, PHY: 2, PBA No: 005302-003 [ 9090.109492] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: irq 44 for MSI/MSI-X [ 9090.164219] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: irq 44 for MSI/MSI-X and, a bunch of [ 2128.005447] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: eth0: Detected Hardware Unit Hang: [ 2128.005452] TDH <89> [ 2128.005454] TDT <27> [ 2128.005456] next_to_use <27> [ 2128.005458] next_to_clean <88> [ 2128.005460] buffer_info[next_to_clean]: [ 2128.005463] time_stamp <6e608> [ 2128.005465] next_to_watch <8a> [ 2128.005467] jiffies <6f929> [ 2128.005469] next_to_watch.status <0> [ 2128.005471] MAC Status <80080703> [ 2128.005473] PHY Status <796d> [ 2128.005475] PHY 1000BASE-T Status <4000> [ 2128.005477] PHY Extended Status <3000> [ 2128.005480] PCI Status <10> I decided to compile the latest stable e1000e to 1.2.17, now I'm getting: [ 9895.678050] e1000e: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - 1.2.17-NAPI [ 9895.678055] e1000e: Copyright(c) 1999 - 2010 Intel Corporation. [ 9895.678098] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: Disabling ASPM L1 [ 9895.678129] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16 [ 9895.678162] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: setting latency timer to 64 [ 9895.679136] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: irq 44 for MSI/MSI-X [ 9895.679160] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: Disabling ASPM L0s [ 9895.679192] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: (unregistered net_device): PHY reset is blocked due to SOL/IDER session. [ 9895.791758] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: eth0: (PCI Express:2.5GB/s:Width x1) 00:0a:e4:3e:ce:74 [ 9895.791766] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: eth0: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection [ 9895.791850] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: eth0: MAC: 3, PHY: 2, PBA No: 005302-003 [ 9895.892464] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: irq 44 for MSI/MSI-X [ 9895.948175] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: irq 44 for MSI/MSI-X [ 9895.949111] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready [ 9895.954694] e1000e: eth0 NIC Link is Up 10 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: RX/TX [ 9895.954703] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: eth0: 10/100 speed: disabling TSO [ 9895.955157] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready [ 9906.832056] eth0: no IPv6 routers present With 1.2.20 I get: [ 9711.525465] e1000e: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - 1.2.20-NAPI [ 9711.525472] e1000e: Copyright(c) 1999 - 2010 Intel Corporation. [ 9711.525521] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: Disabling ASPM L1 [ 9711.525554] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16 [ 9711.525586] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: setting latency timer to 64 [ 9711.526460] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: irq 45 for MSI/MSI-X [ 9711.526487] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: Disabling ASPM L0s [ 9711.526523] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: (unregistered net_device): PHY reset is blocked due to SOL/IDER session. [ 9711.639763] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: eth0: (PCI Express:2.5GB/s:Width x1) 00:0a:e4:3e:ce:74 [ 9711.639771] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: eth0: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection [ 9711.639854] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: eth0: MAC: 3, PHY: 2, PBA No: 005302-003 [ 9712.060770] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: irq 45 for MSI/MSI-X [ 9712.116195] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: irq 45 for MSI/MSI-X [ 9712.117098] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready [ 9712.122684] e1000e: eth0 NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: RX/TX [ 9712.122693] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: eth0: 10/100 speed: disabling TSO [ 9712.123142] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready [ 9722.920014] eth0: no IPv6 routers present But, I'm still getting these [ 9982.992851] PCI Status <10> [ 9984.993602] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: eth0: Detected Hardware Unit Hang: [ 9984.993606] TDH <5d> [ 9984.993608] TDT <6b> [ 9984.993611] next_to_use <6b> [ 9984.993613] next_to_clean <5b> [ 9984.993615] buffer_info[next_to_clean]: [ 9984.993617] time_stamp <24da80> [ 9984.993619] next_to_watch <5d> [ 9984.993621] jiffies <24f200> [ 9984.993624] next_to_watch.status <0> [ 9984.993626] MAC Status <80080703> [ 9984.993628] PHY Status <796d> [ 9984.993630] PHY 1000BASE-T Status <4000> [ 9984.993632] PHY Extended Status <3000> [ 9984.993635] PCI Status <10> [ 9986.001047] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: eth0: Reset adapter [ 9986.176202] e1000e: eth0 NIC Link is Up 10 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: RX/TX [ 9986.176211] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: eth0: 10/100 speed: disabling TSO I'm not sure where to start troubleshooting this. Any ideas? Here is the result of ethtool -d eth0 MAC Registers ------------- 0x00000: CTRL (Device control register) 0x18100248 Endian mode (buffers): little Link reset: reset Set link up: 1 Invert Loss-Of-Signal: no Receive flow control: enabled Transmit flow control: enabled VLAN mode: disabled Auto speed detect: disabled Speed select: 1000Mb/s Force speed: no Force duplex: no 0x00008: STATUS (Device status register) 0x80080703 Duplex: full Link up: link config TBI mode: disabled Link speed: 10Mb/s Bus type: PCI Express Port number: 0 0x00100: RCTL (Receive control register) 0x04048002 Receiver: enabled Store bad packets: disabled Unicast promiscuous: disabled Multicast promiscuous: disabled Long packet: disabled Descriptor minimum threshold size: 1/2 Broadcast accept mode: accept VLAN filter: enabled Canonical form indicator: disabled Discard pause frames: filtered Pass MAC control frames: don't pass Receive buffer size: 2048 0x02808: RDLEN (Receive desc length) 0x00001000 0x02810: RDH (Receive desc head) 0x00000001 0x02818: RDT (Receive desc tail) 0x000000F0 0x02820: RDTR (Receive delay timer) 0x00000000 0x00400: TCTL (Transmit ctrl register) 0x3103F0FA Transmitter: enabled Pad short packets: enabled Software XOFF Transmission: disabled Re-transmit on late collision: enabled 0x03808: TDLEN (Transmit desc length) 0x00001000 0x03810: TDH (Transmit desc head) 0x00000000 0x03818: TDT (Transmit desc tail) 0x00000000 0x03820: TIDV (Transmit delay timer) 0x00000008 PHY type: IGP2 and ethtool -c eth0 Coalesce parameters for eth0: Adaptive RX: off TX: off stats-block-usecs: 0 sample-interval: 0 pkt-rate-low: 0 pkt-rate-high: 0 rx-usecs: 3 rx-frames: 0 rx-usecs-irq: 0 rx-frames-irq: 0 tx-usecs: 0 tx-frames: 0 tx-usecs-irq: 0 tx-frames-irq: 0 rx-usecs-low: 0 rx-frame-low: 0 tx-usecs-low: 0 tx-frame-low: 0 rx-usecs-high: 0 rx-frame-high: 0 tx-usecs-high: 0 tx-frame-high: 0 Here is also the lspci -vvv for this controller 02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller Subsystem: Lenovo ThinkPad X60s Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx+ Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 45 Region 0: Memory at ee000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128K] Region 2: I/O ports at 2000 [size=32] Capabilities: [c8] Power Management version 2 Flags: PMEClk- DSI+ D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0+,D1-,D2-,D3hot+,D3cold+) Status: D0 NoSoftRst- PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=1 PME- Capabilities: [d0] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+ Address: 00000000fee0300c Data: 415a Capabilities: [e0] Express (v1) Endpoint, MSI 00 DevCap: MaxPayload 256 bytes, PhantFunc 0, Latency L0s <512ns, L1 <64us ExtTag- AttnBtn- AttnInd- PwrInd- RBE- FLReset- DevCtl: Report errors: Correctable+ Non-Fatal+ Fatal+ Unsupported+ RlxdOrd+ ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr- NoSnoop+ MaxPayload 128 bytes, MaxReadReq 512 bytes DevSta: CorrErr- UncorrErr- FatalErr- UnsuppReq- AuxPwr+ TransPend- LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s L1, Latency L0 <128ns, L1 <64us ClockPM+ Surprise- LLActRep- BwNot- LnkCtl: ASPM Disabled; RCB 64 bytes Disabled- Retrain- CommClk+ ExtSynch- ClockPM+ AutWidDis- BWInt- AutBWInt- LnkSta: Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x1, TrErr- Train- SlotClk+ DLActive- BWMgmt- ABWMgmt- Capabilities: [100 v1] Advanced Error Reporting UESta: DLP- SDES- TLP- FCP- CmpltTO- CmpltAbrt- UnxCmplt- RxOF- MalfTLP- ECRC- UnsupReq+ ACSViol- UEMsk: DLP- SDES- TLP- FCP- CmpltTO- CmpltAbrt- UnxCmplt- RxOF- MalfTLP- ECRC- UnsupReq- ACSViol- UESvrt: DLP+ SDES- TLP- FCP+ CmpltTO- CmpltAbrt- UnxCmplt- RxOF+ MalfTLP+ ECRC- UnsupReq- ACSViol- CESta: RxErr- BadTLP- BadDLLP- Rollover- Timeout- NonFatalErr- CEMsk: RxErr- BadTLP- BadDLLP- Rollover- Timeout- NonFatalErr- AERCap: First Error Pointer: 14, GenCap- CGenEn- ChkCap- ChkEn- Capabilities: [140 v1] Device Serial Number 00-0a-e4-ff-ff-3e-ce-74 Kernel driver in use: e1000e Kernel modules: e1000e I filed a bug on this upstream, still no idea how to get more useful information. Here is a the result of the running that script EEPROM FIX UPDATE $ sudo bash fixeep-82573-dspd.sh eth0 eth0: is a "82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller" This fixup is applicable to your hardware Your eeprom is up to date, no changes were made Do I still need to do anything? Also here is my EEPROM dump $ sudo ethtool -e eth0 Offset Values ------ ------ 0x0000 00 0a e4 3e ce 74 30 0b b2 ff 51 00 ff ff ff ff 0x0010 53 00 03 02 6b 02 7e 20 aa 17 9a 10 86 80 df 80 0x0020 00 00 00 20 54 7e 00 00 14 00 da 00 04 00 00 27 0x0030 c9 6c 50 31 3e 07 0b 04 8b 29 00 00 00 f0 02 0f 0x0040 08 10 00 00 04 0f ff 7f 01 4d ff ff ff ff ff ff 0x0050 14 00 1d 00 14 00 1d 00 af aa 1e 00 00 00 1d 00 0x0060 00 01 00 40 1f 12 07 40 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 0x0070 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 4a e0 I'd also like to note that I used eth0 every day for years and until recently never had an issue.

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• virus behaviour but couldn't find any virus on windows7

  - by coder247

  Hi Friends, I found strange virus like behaviour on my pc running windows 7. I'm not able to type properly with my keyboard. Some times it won't respond, and some other times it adds characters indefinitely to the typing area. When i click on desktop it creates new folders. When press ctrl+N on a browser windows it opens unlimited number of windows. I tried with Kaspersky and Eset antivirus trial versions but couldn't find any virus. I don't get this behaviour always.. but 50% of times... Thanks....

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