Search Results

Search found 19925 results on 797 pages for 'retro software'.

facebook twitter digg google delicious technorati stumbleupon myspace wordpress linkedin gmail igoogle windows live tumblr viadeo yahoo buzz yahoo mail yahoo bookmarks favorites email print

Page 205/797 | < Previous Page | 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212  | Next Page >

  • Why do we need Audit Columns in Database Tables?

    - by Software Enthusiastic
    Hi I have seen many database designs having following audit columns on all the tables... Created By Create DateTime Updated By Upldated DateTime From one perspective I see tables from the following view... Entity Tables: Good candidate for Audit columns) Reference Tables: Audit columns may or may not required. In some case last update information is not at all required because record is never going to be modified.) Reference Data Tables Like Country Names, Entity State etc... Audit columns may not required because these information is created only during system installation time, and never going to be changed. I have seen many designers blindly put all audit columns to all tables, is this practice good, if yes what could be the reason... I just want to know because to me it seems illogical. It is difficult for me to figure out why do they design their db this way? I am not saying they are wrong or right, just want to know the WHY? You can also suggest me, if there is an alternative auditing patter or solution available... Thanks and Regards

    Read the article

  • How do I set prifix to django contrib tables names?

    - by Software Enthusiastic
    HI One of my requirement is to have prefix on all the tables of the django based project (Because db is hosted on shared server). I have used db_table Meta option to set the prefix for the tables which I have created. Now my query is how do I set the prefix for tables provided by django.contrib. Instead of auth_group django should create prefix_auth_group.... How do I do that? Thank you very much...

    Read the article

  • Building a SOA/BPM/BAM Cluster Part I &ndash; Preparing the Environment

    - by antony.reynolds
    An increasing number of customers are using SOA Suite in a cluster configuration, I might hazard to say that the majority of production deployments are now using SOA clusters.  So I thought it may be useful to detail the steps in building an 11g cluster and explain a little about why things are done the way they are. In this series of posts I will explain how to build a SOA/BPM cluster using the Enterprise Deployment Guide. This post will explain the setting required to prepare the cluster for installation and configuration. Software Required The following software is required for an 11.1.1.3 SOA/BPM install. Software Version Notes Oracle Database Certified databases are listed here SOA & BPM Suites require a working database installation. Repository Creation Utility (RCU) 11.1.1.3 If upgrading an 11.1.1.2 repository then a separate script is available. Web Tier Utilities 11.1.1.3 Provides Web Server, 11.1.1.3 is an upgrade to 11.1.1.2, so 11.1.1.2 must be installed first. Web Tier Utilities 11.1.1.3 Web Server, 11.1.1.3 Patch.  You can use the 11.1.1.2 version without problems. Oracle WebLogic Server 11gR1 10.3.3 This is the host platform for 11.1.1.3 SOA/BPM Suites. SOA Suite 11.1.1.2 SOA Suite 11.1.1.3 is an upgrade to 11.1.1.2, so 11.1.1.2 must be installed first. SOA Suite 11.1.1.3 SOA Suite 11.1.1.3 patch, requires 11.1.12 to have been installed. My installation was performed on Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.4 64-bit. Database I will not cover setting up the database in this series other than to identify the database requirements.  If setting up a SOA cluster then ideally we would also be using a RAC database.  I assume that this is running on separate machines to the SOA cluster.  Section 2.1, “Database”, of the EDG covers the database configuration in detail. Settings The database should have processes set to at least 400 if running SOA/BPM and BAM. alter system set processes=400 scope=spfile Run RCU The Repository Creation Utility creates the necessary database tables for the SOA Suite.  The RCU can be run from any machine that can access the target database.  In 11g the RCU creates a number of pre-defined users and schema with a user defiend prefix.  This allows you to have multiple 11g installations in the same database. After running the RCU you need to grant some additional privileges to the soainfra user.  The soainfra user should have privileges on the transaction tables. grant select on sys.dba_pending_transactions to prefix_soainfra Grant force any transaction to prefix_soainfra Machines The cluster will be built on the following machines. EDG Name is the name used for this machine in the EDG. Notes are a description of the purpose of the machine. EDG Name Notes LB External load balancer to distribute load across and failover between web servers. WEBHOST1 Hosts a web server. WEBHOST2 Hosts a web server. SOAHOST1 Hosts SOA components. SOAHOST2 Hosts SOA components. BAMHOST1 Hosts BAM components. BAMHOST2 Hosts BAM components. Note that it is possible to collapse the BAM servers so that they run on the same machines as the SOA servers. In this case BAMHOST1 and SOAHOST1 would be the same, as would BAMHOST2 and SOAHOST2. The cluster may include more than 2 servers and in this case we add SOAHOST3, SOAHOST4 etc as needed. My cluster has WEBHOST1, SOAHOST1 and BAMHOST1 all running on a single machine. Software Components The cluster will use the following software components. EDG Name is the name used for this machine in the EDG. Type is the type of component, generally a WebLogic component. Notes are a description of the purpose of the component. EDG Name Type Notes AdminServer Admin Server Domain Admin Server WLS_WSM1 Managed Server Web Services Manager Policy Manager Server WLS_WSM2 Managed Server Web Services Manager Policy Manager Server WLS_SOA1 Managed Server SOA/BPM Managed Server WLS_SOA2 Managed Server SOA/BPM Managed Server WLS_BAM1 Managed Server BAM Managed Server running Active Data Cache WLS_BAM2 Managed Server BAM Manager Server without Active Data Cache   Node Manager Will run on all hosts with WLS servers OHS1 Web Server Oracle HTTP Server OHS2 Web Server Oracle HTTP Server LB Load Balancer Load Balancer, not part of SOA Suite The above assumes a 2 node cluster. Network Configuration The SOA cluster requires an extensive amount of network configuration.  I would recommend assigning a private sub-net (internal IP addresses such as 10.x.x.x, 192.168.x.x or 172.168.x.x) to the cluster for use by addresses that only need to be accessible to the Load Balancer or other cluster members.  Section 2.2, "Network", of the EDG covers the network configuration in detail. EDG Name is the hostname used in the EDG. IP Name is the IP address name used in the EDG. Type is the type of IP address: Fixed is fixed to a single machine. Floating is assigned to one of several machines to allow for server migration. Virtual is assigned to a load balancer and used to distribute load across several machines. Host is the host where this IP address is active.  Note for floating IP addresses a range of hosts is given. Bound By identifies which software component will use this IP address. Scope shows where this IP address needs to be resolved. Cluster scope addresses only have to be resolvable by machines in the cluster, i.e. the machines listed in the previous section.  These addresses are only used for inter-cluster communication or for access by the load balancer. Internal scope addresses Notes are comments on why that type of IP is used. EDG Name IP Name Type Host Bound By Scope Notes ADMINVHN VIP1 Floating SOAHOST1-SOAHOSTn AdminServer Cluster Admin server, must be able to migrate between SOA server machines. SOAHOST1 IP1 Fixed SOAHOST1 NodeManager, WLS_WSM1 Cluster WSM Server 1 does not require server migration. SOAHOST2 IP2 Fixed SOAHOST1 NodeManager, WLS_WSM2 Cluster WSM Server 2 does not require server migration SOAHOST1VHN VIP2 Floating SOAHOST1-SOAHOSTn WLS_SOA1 Cluster SOA server 1, must be able to migrate between SOA server machines SOAHOST2VHN VIP3 Floating SOAHOST1-SOAHOSTn WLS_SOA2 Cluster SOA server 2, must be able to migrate between SOA server machines BAMHOST1 IP4 Fixed BAMHOST1 NodeManager Cluster   BAMHOST1VHN VIP4 Floating BAMHOST1-BAMHOSTn WLS_BAM1 Cluster BAM server 1, must be able to migrate between BAM server machines BAMHOST2 IP3 Fixed BAMHOST2 NodeManager, WLS_BAM2 Cluster BAM server 2 does not require server migration WEBHOST1 IP5 Fixed WEBHOST1 OHS1 Cluster   WEBHOST2 IP6 Fixed WEBHOST2 OHS2 Cluster   soa.mycompany.com VIP5 Virtual LB LB Public External access point to SOA cluster. admin.mycompany.com VIP6 Virtual LB LB Internal Internal access to WLS console and EM soainternal.mycompany.com VIP7 Virtual LB LB Internal Internal access point to SOA cluster Floating IP addresses are IP addresses that may be re-assigned between machines in the cluster.  For example in the event of failure of SOAHOST1 then WLS_SOA1 will need to be migrated to another server.  In this case VIP2 (SOAHOST1VHN) will need to be activated on the new target machine.  Once set up the node manager will manage registration and removal of the floating IP addresses with the exception of the AdminServer floating IP address. Note that if the BAMHOSTs and SOAHOSTs are the same machine then you can obviously share the hostname and fixed IP addresses, but you still need separate floating IP addresses for the different managed servers.  The hostnames don’t have to be the ones given in the EDG, but they must be distinct in the same way as the ETC names are distinct.  If the type is a fixed IP then if the addresses are the same you can use the same hostname, for example if you collapse the soahost1, bamhost1 and webhost1 onto a single machine then you could refer to them all as HOST1 and give them the same IP address, however SOAHOST1VHN can never be the same as BAMHOST1VHN because these are floating IP addresses. Notes on DNS IP addresses that are of scope “Cluster” just need to be in the hosts file (/etc/hosts on Linux, C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts on Windows) of all the machines in the cluster and the load balancer.  IP addresses that are of scope “Internal” need to be available on the internal DNS servers, whilst IP addresses of scope “Public” need to be available on external and internal DNS servers. Shared File System At a minimum the cluster needs shared storage for the domain configuration, XA transaction logs and JMS file stores.  It is also possible to place the software itself on a shared server.  I strongly recommend that all machines have the same file structure for their SOA installation otherwise you will experience pain!  Section 2.3, "Shared Storage and Recommended Directory Structure", of the EDG covers the shared storage recommendations in detail. The following shorthand is used for locations: ORACLE_BASE is the root of the file system used for software and configuration files. MW_HOME is the location used by the installed SOA/BPM Suite installation.  This is also used by the web server installation.  In my installation it is set to <ORACLE_BASE>/SOA11gPS2. ORACLE_HOME is the location of the Oracle SOA components or the Oracle Web components.  This directory is installed under the the MW_HOME but the name is decided by the user at installation, default values are Oracle_SOA1 and Oracle_Web1.  In my installation they are set to <MW_HOME>/Oracle_SOA and <MW_HOME>/Oracle _WEB. ORACLE_COMMON_HOME is the location of the common components and is located under the MW_HOME directory.  This is always <MW_HOME>/oracle_common. ORACLE_INSTANCE is used by the Oracle HTTP Server and/or Oracle Web Cache.  It is recommended to create it under <ORACLE_BASE>/admin.  In my installation they are set to <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/Web1, <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/Web2 and <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/WC1. WL_HOME is the WebLogic server home and is always found at <MW_HOME>/wlserver_10.3. Key file locations are shown below. Directory Notes <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/domain_name/aserver/domain_name Shared location for domain.  Used to allow admin server to manually fail over between machines.  When creating domain_name provide the aserver directory as the location for the domain. In my install this is <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/aserver/soa_domain as I only have one domain on the box. <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/domain_name/aserver/applications Shared location for deployed applications.  Needs to be provided when creating the domain. In my install this is <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/aserver/applications as I only have one domain on the box. <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/domain_name/mserver/domain_name Either unique location for each machine or can be shared between machines to simplify task of packing and unpacking domain.  This acts as the managed server configuration location.  Keeping it separate from Admin server helps to avoid problems with the managed servers messing up the Admin Server. In my install this is <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/mserver/soa_domain as I only have one domain on the box. <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/domain_name/mserver/applications Either unique location for each machine or can be shared between machines.  Holds deployed applications. In my install this is <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/mserver/applications as I only have one domain on the box. <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/domain_name/soa_cluster_name Shared directory to hold the following   dd – deployment descriptors   jms – shared JMS file stores   fadapter – shared file adapter co-ordination files   tlogs – shared transaction log files In my install this is <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/soa_cluster. <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/instance_name Local folder for web server (OHS) instance. In my install this is <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/web1 and <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/web2. I also have <ORACLE_BASE>/admin/wc1 for the Web Cache I use as a load balancer. <ORACLE_BASE>/product/fmw This can be a shared or local folder for the SOA/BPM Suite software.  I used a shared location so I only ran the installer once. In my install this is <ORACLE_BASE>/SOA11gPS2 All the shared files need to be put onto a shared storage media.  I am using NFS, but recommendation for production would be a SAN, with mirrored disks for resilience. Collapsing Environments To reduce the hardware requirements it is possible to collapse the BAMHOST, SOAHOST and WEBHOST machines onto a single physical machine.  This will require more memory but memory is a lot cheaper than additional machines.  For environments that require higher security then stay with a separate WEBHOST tier as per the EDG.  Similarly for high volume environments then keep a separate set of machines for BAM and/or Web tier as per the EDG. Notes on Dev Environments In a dev environment it is acceptable to use a a single node (non-RAC) database, but be aware that the config of the data sources is different (no need to use multi-data source in WLS).  Typically in a dev environment we will collapse the BAMHOST, SOAHOST and WEBHOST onto a single machine and use a software load balancer.  To test a cluster properly we will need at least 2 machines. For my test environment I used Oracle Web Cache as a load balancer.  I ran it on one of the SOA Suite machines and it load balanced across the Web Servers on both machines.  This was easy for me to set up and I could administer it from a web based console.

    Read the article

  • 10 Reasons Why Java is the Top Embedded Platform

    - by Roger Brinkley
    With the release of Oracle ME Embedded 3.2 and Oracle Java Embedded Suite, Java is now ready to fully move into the embedded developer space, what many have called the "Internet of Things". Here are 10 reasons why Java is the top embedded platform. 1. Decouples software development from hardware development cycle Development is typically split between both hardware and software in a traditional design flow . This leads to complicated co-design and requires prototype hardware to be built. This parallel and interdependent hardware / software design process typically leads to two or more re-development phases. With Embedded Java, all specific work is carried out in software, with the (processor) hardware implementation fully decoupled. This with eliminate or at least reduces the need for re-spins of software or hardware and the original development efforts can be carried forward directly into product development and validation. 2. Development and testing can be done (mostly) using standard desktop systems through emulation Because the software and hardware are decoupled it now becomes easier to test the software long before it reaches the hardware through hardware emulation. Emulation is the ability of a program in an electronic device to imitate another program or device. In the past Java tools like the Java ME SDK and the SunSPOTs Solarium provided developers with emulation for a complete set of mobile telelphones and SunSpots. This often included network interaction or in the case of SunSPOTs radio communication. What emulation does is speed up the development cycle by refining the software development process without the need of hardware. The software is fixed, redefined, and refactored without the timely expense of hardware testing. With tools like the Java ME 3.2 SDK, Embedded Java applications can be be quickly developed on Windows based platforms. In the end of course developers should do a full set of testing on the hardware as incompatibilities between emulators and hardware will exist, but the amount of time to do this should be significantly reduced. 3. Highly productive language, APIs, runtime, and tools mean quick time to market Charles Nutter probably said it best in twitter blog when he tweeted, "Every time I see a piece of C code I need to port, my heart dies a little. Then I port it to 1/4 as much Java, and feel better." The Java environment is a very complex combination of a Java Virtual Machine, the Java Language, and it's robust APIs. Combine that with the Java ME SDK for small devices or just Netbeans for the larger devices and you have a development environment where development time is reduced significantly meaning the product can be shipped sooner. Of course this is assuming that the engineers don't get slap happy adding new features given the extra time they'll have.  4. Create high-performance, portable, secure, robust, cross-platform applications easily The latest JIT compilers for the Oracle JVM approach the speed of C/C++ code, and in some memory allocation intensive circumstances, exceed it. And specifically for the embedded devices both ME Embedded and SE Embedded have been optimized for the smaller footprints.  In portability Java uses Bytecode to make the language platform independent. This creates a write once run anywhere environment that allows you to develop on one platform and execute on others and avoids a platform vendor lock in. For security, Java achieves protection by confining a Java program to a Java execution environment and not allowing it to access other parts of computer.  In variety of systems the program must execute reliably to be robust. Finally, Oracle Java ME Embedded is a cross-industry and cross-platform product optimized in release version 3.2 for chipsets based on the ARM architectures. Similarly Oracle Java SE Embedded works on a variety of ARM V5, V6, and V7, X86 and Power Architecture Linux. 5. Java isolates your apps from language and platform variations (e.g. C/C++, kernel, libc differences) This has been a key factor in Java from day one. Developers write to Java and don't have to worry about underlying differences in the platform variations. Those platform variations are being managed by the JVM. Gone are the C/C++ problems like memory corruptions, stack overflows, and other such bugs which are extremely difficult to isolate. Of course this doesn't imply that you won't be able to get away from native code completely. There could be some situations where you have to write native code in either assembler or C/C++. But those instances should be limited. 6. Most popular embedded processors supported allowing design flexibility Java SE Embedded is now available on ARM V5, V6, and V7 along with Linux on X86 and Power Architecture platforms. Java ME Embedded is available on system based on ARM architecture SOCs with low memory footprints and a device emulation environment for x86/Windows desktop computers, integrated with the Java ME SDK 3.2. A standard binary of Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 for ARM KEIL development boards based on ARM Cortex M-3/4 (KEIL MCBSTM32F200 using ST Micro SOC STM32F207IG) will soon be available for download from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN). 7. Support for key embedded features (low footprint, power mgmt., low latency, etc) All embedded devices by there very nature are constrained in some way. Economics may dictate a device with a less RAM and ROM. The CPU needs can dictate a less powerful device. Power consumption is another major resource in some embedded devices as connecting to consistent power source not always desirable or possible. For others they have to constantly on. Often many of these systems are headless (in the embedded space it's almost always Halloween).  For memory resources ,Java ME Embedded can run in environment as low as 130KB RAM/350KB ROM for a minimal, customized configuration up to 700KB RAM/1500KB ROM for the full, standard configuration. Java SE Embedded is designed for environments starting at 32MB RAM/39MB  ROM. Key functionality of embedded devices such as auto-start and recovery, flexible networking are fully supported. And while Java SE Embedded has been optimized for mid-range to high-end embedded systems, Java ME Embedded is a Java runtime stack optimized for small embedded systems. It provides a robust and flexible application platform with dedicated embedded functionality for always-on, headless (no graphics/UI), and connected devices. 8. Leverage huge Java developer ecosystem (expertise, existing code) There are over 9 million developers in world that work on Java, and while not all of them work on embedded systems, their wealth of expertise in developing applications is immense. In short, getting a java developer to work on a embedded system is pretty easy, you probably have a java developer living in your subdivsion.  Then of course there is the wealth of existing code. The Java Embedded Community on Java.net is central gathering place for embedded Java developers. Conferences like Embedded Java @ JavaOne and the a variety of hardware vendor conferences like Freescale Technlogy Forums offer an excellent opportunity for those interested in embedded systems. 9. Easily create end-to-end solutions integrated with Java back-end services In the "Internet of Things" things aren't on an island doing an single task. For instance and embedded drink dispenser doesn't just dispense a beverage, but could collect money from a credit card and also send information about current sales. Similarly, an embedded house power monitoring system doesn't just manage the power usage in a house, but can also send that data back to the power company. In both cases it isn't about the individual thing, but monitoring a collection of  things. How much power did your block, subdivsion, area of town, town, county, state, nation, world use? How many Dr Peppers were purchased from thing1, thing2, thingN? The point is that all this information can be collected and transferred securely  (and believe me that is key issue that Java fully supports) to back end services for further analysis. And what better back in service exists than a Java back in service. It's interesting to note that on larger embedded platforms that support the Java Embedded Suite some of the analysis might be done on the embedded device itself as JES has a glassfish server and Java Database as part of the installation. The result is an end to end Java solution. 10. Solutions from constrained devices to server-class systems Just take a look at some of the embedded Java systems that have already been developed and you'll see a vast range of solutions. Livescribe pen, Kindle, each and every Blu-Ray player, Cisco's Advanced VOIP phone, KronosInTouch smart time clock, EnergyICT smart metering, EDF's automated meter management, Ricoh Printers, and Stanford's automated car  are just a few of the list of embedded Java implementation that continues to grow. Conclusion Now if your a Java Developer you probably look at some of the 10 reasons and say "duh", but for the embedded developers this is should be an eye opening list. And with the release of ME Embedded 3.2 and the Java Embedded Suite the embedded developers life is now a whole lot easier. For the Java developer your employment opportunities are about to increase. For both it's a great time to start developing Java for the "Internet of Things".

    Read the article

  • Down Tools Week Cometh: Kissing Goodbye to CVs/Resumes and Cover Letters

    - by Bart Read
    I haven't blogged about what I'm doing in my (not so new) temporary role as Red Gate's technical recruiter, mostly because it's been routine, business as usual stuff, and because I've been trying to understand the role by doing it. I think now though the time has come to get a little more radical, so I'm going to tell you why I want to largely eliminate CVs/resumes and cover letters from the application process for some of our technical roles, and why I think that might be a good thing for candidates (and for us). I have a terrible confession to make, or at least it's a terrible confession for a recruiter: I don't really like CV sifting, or reading cover letters, and, unless I've misread the mood around here, neither does anybody else. It's dull, it's time-consuming, and it's somewhat soul destroying because, when all is said and done, you're being paid to be incredibly judgemental about people based on relatively little information. I feel like I've dirtied myself by saying that - I mean, after all, it's a core part of my job - but it sucks, it really does. (And, of course, the truth is I'm still a software engineer at heart, and I'm always looking for ways to do things better.) On the flip side, I've never met anyone who likes writing their CV. It takes hours and hours of faffing around and massaging it into shape, and the whole process is beset by a gnawing anxiety, frustration, and insecurity. All you really want is a chance to demonstrate your skills - not just talk about them - and how do you do that in a CV or cover letter? Often the best candidates will include samples of their work (a portfolio, screenshots, links to websites, product downloads, etc.), but sometimes this isn't possible, or may not be appropriate, or you just don't think you're allowed because of what your school/university careers service has told you (more commonly an issue with grads, obviously). And what are we actually trying to find out about people with all of this? I think the common criteria are actually pretty basic: Smart Gets things done (thanks for these two Joel) Not an a55hole* (sorry, have to get around Simple Talk's swear filter - and thanks to Professor Robert I. Sutton for this one) *Of course, everyone has off days, and I don't honestly think we're too worried about somebody being a bit grumpy every now and again. We can do a bit better than this in the context of the roles I'm talking about: we can be more specific about what "gets things done" means, at least in part. For software engineers and interns, the non-exhaustive meaning of "gets things done" is: Excellent coder For test engineers, the non-exhaustive meaning of "gets things done" is: Good at finding problems in software Competent coder Team player, etc., to me, are covered by "not an a55hole". I don't expect people to be the life and soul of the party, or a wild extrovert - that's not what team player means, and it's not what "not an a55hole" means. Some of our best technical staff are quiet, introverted types, but they're still pleasant to work with. My problem is that I don't think the initial sift really helps us find out whether people are smart and get things done with any great efficacy. It's better than nothing, for sure, but it's not as good as it could be. It's also contentious, and potentially unfair/inequitable - if you want to get an idea of what I mean by this, check out the background information section at the bottom. Before I go any further, let's look at the Red Gate recruitment process for technical staff* as it stands now: (LOTS of) People apply for jobs. All these applications go through a brutal process of manual sifting, which eliminates between 75 and 90% of them, depending upon the role, and the time of year**. Depending upon the role, those who pass the sift will be sent an assessment or telescreened. For the purposes of this blog post I'm only interested in those that are sent some sort of programming assessment, or bug hunt. This means software engineers, test engineers, and software interns, which are the roles for which I receive the most applications. The telescreen tends to be reserved for project or product managers. Those that pass the assessment are invited in for first interview. This interview is mostly about assessing their technical skills***, although we're obviously on the look out for cultural fit red flags as well. If the first interview goes well we'll invite candidates back for a second interview. This is where team/cultural fit is really scoped out. We also use this interview to dive more deeply into certain areas of their skillset, and explore any concerns that may have come out of the first interview (these obviously won't have been serious or obvious enough to cause a rejection at that point, but are things we do need to look into before we'd consider making an offer). We might subsequently invite them in for lunch before we make them an offer. This tends to happen when we're recruiting somebody for a specific team and we'd like them to meet all the people they'll be working with directly. It's not an interview per se, but can prove pivotal if they don't gel with the team. Anyone who's made it this far will receive an offer from us. *We have a slightly quirky definition of "technical staff" as it relates to the technical recruiter role here. It includes software engineers, test engineers, software interns, user experience specialists, technical authors, project managers, product managers, and development managers, but does not include product support or information systems roles. **For example, the quality of graduate applicants overall noticeably drops as the academic year wears on, which is not to say that by now there aren't still stars in there, just that they're fewer and further between. ***Some organisations prefer to assess for team fit first, but I think assessing technical skills is a more effective initial filter - if they're the nicest person in the world, but can't cut a line of code they're not going to work out. Now, as I suggested in the title, Red Gate's Down Tools Week is upon us once again - next week in fact - and I had proposed as a project that we refactor and automate the first stage of marking our programming assessments. Marking assessments, and in fact organising the marking of them, is a somewhat time-consuming process, and we receive many assessment solutions that just don't make the cut, for whatever reason. Whilst I don't think it's possible to fully automate marking, I do think it ought to be possible to run a suite of automated tests over each candidate's solution to see whether or not it behaves correctly and, if it does, move on to a manual stage where we examine the code for structure, decomposition, style, readability, maintainability, etc. Obviously it's possible to use tools to generate potentially helpful metrics for some of these indices as well. This would obviously reduce the marking workload, and would provide candidates with quicker feedback about whether they've been successful - though I do wonder if waiting a tactful interval before sending a (nicely written) rejection might be wise. I duly scrawled out a picture of my ideal process, which looked like this: The problem is, as soon as I'd roughed it out, I realised that fundamentally it wasn't an ideal process at all, which explained the gnawing feeling of cognitive dissonance I'd been wrestling with all week, whilst I'd been trying to find time to do this. Here's what I mean. Automated assessment marking, and the associated infrastructure around that, makes it much easier for us to deal with large numbers of assessments. This means we can be much more permissive about who we send assessments out to or, in other words, we can give more candidates the opportunity to really demonstrate their skills to us. And this leads to a question: why not give everyone the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, to show that they're smart and can get things done? (Two or three of us even discussed this in the down tools week hustings earlier this week.) And isn't this a lot simpler than the alternative we'd been considering? (FYI, this was automated CV/cover letter sifting by some form of textual analysis to ideally eliminate the worst 50% or so of applications based on an analysis of the 20,000 or so historical applications we've received since 2007 - definitely not the basic keyword analysis beloved of recruitment agencies, since this would eliminate hardly anyone who was awful, but definitely would eliminate stellar Oxbridge candidates - #fail - or some nightmarishly complex Google-like system where we profile all our currently employees, only to realise that we're never going to get representative results because we don't have a statistically significant sample size in any given role - also #fail.) No, I think the new way is better. We let people self-select. We make them the masters (or mistresses) of their own destiny. We give applicants the power - we put their fate in their hands - by giving them the chance to demonstrate their skills, which is what they really want anyway, instead of requiring that they spend hours and hours creating a CV and cover letter that I'm going to evaluate for suitability, and make a value judgement about, in approximately 1 minute (give or take). It doesn't matter what university you attended, it doesn't matter if you had a bad year when you took your A-levels - here's your chance to shine, so take it and run with it. (As a side benefit, we cut the number of applications we have to sift by something like two thirds.) WIN! OK, yeah, sounds good, but will it actually work? That's an excellent question. My gut feeling is yes, and I'll justify why below (and hopefully have gone some way towards doing that above as well), but what I'm proposing here is really that we run an experiment for a period of time - probably a couple of months or so - and measure the outcomes we see: How many people apply? (Wouldn't be surprised or alarmed to see this cut by a factor of ten.) How many of them submit a good assessment? (More/less than at present?) How much overhead is there for us in dealing with these assessments compared to now? What are the success and failure rates at each interview stage compared to now? How many people are we hiring at the end of it compared to now? I think it'll work because I hypothesize that, amongst other things: It self-selects for people who really want to work at Red Gate which, at the moment, is something I have to try and assess based on their CV and cover letter - but if you're not that bothered about working here, why would you complete the assessment? Candidates who would submit a shoddy application probably won't feel motivated to do the assessment. Candidates who would demonstrate good attention to detail in their CV/cover letter will demonstrate good attention to detail in the assessment. In general, only the better candidates will complete and submit the assessment. Marking assessments is much less work so we'll be able to deal with any increase that we see (hopefully we will see). There are obviously other questions as well: Is plagiarism going to be a problem? Is there any way we can detect/discourage potential plagiarism? How do we assess candidates' education and experience? What about their ability to communicate in writing? Do we still want them to submit a CV afterwards if they pass assessment? Do we want to offer them the opportunity to tell us a bit about why they'd like the job when they submit their assessment? How does this affect our relationship with recruitment agencies we might use to hire for these roles? So, what's the objective for next week's Down Tools Week? Pretty simple really - we want to implement this process for the Graduate Software Engineer and Software Engineer positions that you can find on our website. I will be joined by a crack team of our best developers (Kevin Boyle, and new Red-Gater, Sam Blackburn), and recruiting hostess with the mostest Laura McQuillen, and hopefully a couple of others as well - if I can successfully twist more arms before Monday.* Hopefully by next Friday our experiment will be up and running, and we may have changed the way Red Gate recruits software engineers for good! Stay tuned and we'll let you know how it goes! *I'm going to play dirty by offering them beer and chocolate during meetings. Some background information: how agonising over the initial CV/cover letter sift helped lead us to bin it off entirely The other day I was agonising about the new university/good degree grade versus poor A-level results issue, and decided to canvas for other opinions to see if there was something I could do that was fairer than my current approach, which is almost always to reject. This generated quite an involved discussion on our Yammer site: I'm sure you can glean a pretty good impression of my own educational prejudices from that discussion as well, although I'm very open to changing my opinion - hopefully you've already figured that out from reading the rest of this post. Hopefully you can also trace a logical path from agonising about sifting to, "Uh, hang on, why on earth are we doing this anyway?!?" Technorati Tags: recruitment,hr,developers,testers,red gate,cv,resume,cover letter,assessment,sea change

    Read the article

  • Python: how do I install SciPy on 64 bit Windows?

    - by Peter Mortensen
    How do I install SciPy on my system? Update 1: for the NumPy part (that SciPy depends on) there is actually an installer for 64 bit Windows: numpy-1.3.0.win-amd64-py2.6.msi (is direct download URL, 2310144 bytes). Running the SciPy superpack installer results in this message in a dialog box: "Cannot install. Python version 2.6 required, which was not found in the registry." I already have Python 2.6.2 installed (and a working Django installation in it), but I don't know about any Registry story. The registry entries seems to already exist: REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.6] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.6\Help] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.6\Help\Main Python Documentation] @="D:\\Python262\\Doc\\python262.chm" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.6\InstallPath] @="D:\\Python262\\" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.6\InstallPath\InstallGroup] @="Python 2.6" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.6\Modules] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.6\PythonPath] @="D:\\Python262\\Lib;D:\\Python262\\DLLs;D:\\Python262\\Lib\\lib-tk" What I have done so far: Step 1 Downloaded the NumPy superpack installer numpy-1.3.0rc2-win32-superpack-python2.6.exe (direct download URL, 4782592 bytes). Running this installer resulted in the same message, "Cannot install. Python version 2.6 required, which was not found in the registry.". Update: there is actually an installer for NumPy that works - see beginning of the question. Step 2 Tried to install NumPy in another way. Downloaded the zip package numpy-1.3.0rc2.zip (direct download URL, 2404011 bytes), extracted the zip file in a normal way to a temporary directory, D:\temp7\numpy-1.3.0rc2 (where setup.py and README.txt is). I then opened a command line window and: d: cd D:\temp7\numpy-1.3.0rc2 setup.py install This ran for a long time and also included use of cl.exe (part of Visual Studio). Here is a nearly 5000 lines long transcript (230 KB). This seemed to work. I can now do this in Python: import numpy as np np.random.random(10) with this result: array([ 0.35667511, 0.56099423, 0.38423629, 0.09733172, 0.81560421, 0.18813222, 0.10566666, 0.84968066, 0.79472597, 0.30997724]) Step 3 Downloaded the SciPy superpack installer, scipy-0.7.1rc3- win32-superpack-python2.6.exe (direct download URL, 45597175 bytes). Running this installer resulted in the message listed in the beginning Step 4 Tried to install SciPy in another way. Downloaded the zip package scipy-0.7.1rc3.zip (direct download URL, 5506562 bytes), extracted the zip file in a normal way to a temporary directory, D:\temp7\scipy-0.7.1 (where setup.py and README.txt is). I then opened a command line window and: d: cd D:\temp7\scipy-0.7.1 setup.py install This did not achieve much - here is a transcript (about 95 lines). And it fails: >>> import scipy as sp2 Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> ImportError: No module named scipy Platform: Python 2.6.2 installed in directory D:\Python262, Windows XP 64 bit SP2, 8 GB RAM, Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition installed. The startup screen of the installed Python is: Python 2.6.2 (r262:71605, Apr 14 2009, 22:46:50) [MSC v.1500 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> Value of PATH, result from SET in a command line window: Path=D:\Perl64\site\bin;D:\Perl64\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\PC Connectivity Solution\;D:\Perl\site\bin;D:\Perl\bin;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\Program Files (x86)\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\Core-Static;d:\Program Files (x86)\WinSCP\;D:\MassLynx\;D:\Program Files (x86)\Analyst\bin;d:\Python262;d:\Python262\Scripts;D:\Program Files (x86)\TortoiseSVN\bin;D:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin;C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0;D:\Program Files (x86)\IDM Computer Solutions\UltraEdit\

    Read the article

  • What is SharePoint Out of the Box?

    - by Bil Simser
    It’s always fun in the blog-o-sphere and SharePoint bloggers always keep the pot boiling. Bjorn Furuknap recently posted a blog entry titled Why Out-of-the-Box Makes No Sense in SharePoint, quickly followed up by a rebuttal by Marc Anderson on his blog. Okay, now that we have all the players and the stage what’s the big deal? Bjorn started his post saying that you don’t use “out-of-the-box” (OOTB) SharePoint because it makes no sense. I have to disagree with his premise because what he calls OOTB is basically installing SharePoint and admiring it, but not using it. In his post he lays claim that modifying say the OOTB contacts list by removing (or I suppose adding) a column, now puts you in a situation where you’re no longer using the OOTB functionality. Really? Side note. Dear Internet, please stop comparing building software to building houses. Or comparing software architecture to building architecture. Or comparing web sites to making dinner. Are you trying to dumb down something so the general masses understand it? Comparing a technical skill to a construction operation isn’t the way to do this. Last time I checked, most people don’t know how to build houses and last time I checked people reading technical SharePoint blogs are generally technical people that understand the terms you use. Putting metaphors around software development to make it easy to understand is detrimental to the goal. </rant> Okay, where were we? Right, adding columns to lists means you are no longer using the OOTB functionality. Yeah, I still don’t get it. Another statement Bjorn makes is that using the OOTB functionality kills the flexibility SharePoint has in creating exactly what you want. IMHO this really flies in the absolute face of *where* SharePoint *really* shines. For the past year or so I’ve been leaning more and more towards OOTB solutions over custom development for the simple reason that its expensive to maintain systems and code and assets. SharePoint has enabled me to do this simply by providing the tools where I can give users what they need without cracking open up Visual Studio. This might be the fact that my day job is with a regulated company and there’s more scrutiny with spending money on anything new, but frankly that should be the position of any responsible developer, architect, manager, or PM. Do you really want to throw money away because some developer tells you that you need a custom web part when perhaps with some creative thinking or expectation setting with customers you can meet the need with what you already have. The way I read Bjorn’s terminology of “out-of-the-box” is install the software and tell people to go to a website and admire the OOTB system, but don’t change it! For those that know things like WordPress, DotNetNuke, SubText, Drupal or any of those content management/blogging systems, its akin to installing the software and setting up the “Hello World” blog post or page, then staring at it like it’s useful. “Yes, we are using WordPress!”. Then not adding a new post, creating a new category, or adding an About page. Perhaps I’m wrong in my interpretation. This leads us to what is OOTB SharePoint? To many people I’ve talked to the last few hours on twitter, email, etc. it is *not* just installing software but actually using it as it was fit for purpose. What’s the purpose of SharePoint then? It has many purposes, but using the OOTB templates Microsoft has given you the ability to collaborate on projects, author/share/publish documents, create pages, track items/contacts/tasks/etc. in a multi-user web based interface, and so on. Microsoft has pretty clear definitions of these different levels of SharePoint we’re talking about and I think it’s important for everyone to know what they are and what they mean. Personalization and Administration To me, this is the OOTB experience. You install the product and then are able to do things like create new lists, sites, edit and personalize pages, create new views, etc. Basically use the platform services available to you with Windows SharePoint Services (or SharePoint Foundation in 2010) to your full advantage. No code, no special tools needed, and very little user training required. Could you take someone who has never done anything in a website or piece of software and unleash them onto a site? Probably not. However I would argue that anyone who’s configured the Outlook reading layout or applied styles to a Word document probably won’t have too much difficulty in using SharePoint OUT OF THE BOX. Customization Here’s where things might get a bit murky but to me this is where you start looking at HTML/ASPX page code through SharePoint Designer, using jQuery scripts and plugging them into Web Part Pages via a Content Editor Web Part, and generally enhancing the site. The JavaScript debate might kick in here claiming it’s no different than C#, and frankly you can totally screw a site up with jQuery on a CEWP just as easily as you can with a C# delegate control deployed to the server file system. However (again, my blog, my opinion) the customization label comes in when I need to access the server (for example creating a custom theme) or have some kind of net-new element I add to the system that wasn’t there OOTB. It’s not content (like a new list or site), it’s code and does something functional. Development Here’s were the propeller hats come on and we’re talking algorithms and unit tests and compilers oh my. Software is deployed to the server, people are writing solutions after some kind of training (perhaps), there might be some specialized tools they use to craft and deploy the solutions, there’s the possibility of exceptions being thrown, etc. There are a lot of definitions here and just like customization it might get murky (do you let non-developers build solutions using development, i.e. jQuery/C#?). In my experience, it’s much more cost effective keeping solutions under the first two umbrellas than leaping into the third one. Arguably you could say that you can’t build useful solutions without *some* kind of code (even just some simple jQuery). I think you can get a *lot* of value just from using the OOTB experience and I don’t think you’re constraining your users that much. I’m not saying Marc or Bjorn are wrong. Like Obi-Wan stated, they’re both correct “from a certain point of view”. To me, SharePoint Out of the Box makes total sense and should not be dismissed. I just don’t agree with the premise that Bjorn is basing his statements on but that’s just my opinion and his is different and never the twain shall meet.

    Read the article

  • Windows XP Ubuntu Installer (version 11.10) error dialog - Permission Denied

    - by MacGyver
    When installing Ubuntu 11.10 on Windows XP (2nd option in installer), the install failed with popup. How can I fix this? Here is the contents of file "C:\Documents and Settings\Keith\Local Settings\Temp\wubi-11.10-rev241.log". I only pasted the last few lines because of the question size limit. \Temp\pyl1.tmp\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp is a valid Kubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp is a valid Kubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp is a valid Xubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp is a valid Xubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp is a valid Mythbuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp is a valid Mythbuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether D:\ is a valid Ubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain D:\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether D:\ is a valid Ubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain D:\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether D:\ is a valid Kubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain D:\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether D:\ is a valid Kubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain D:\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether D:\ is a valid Xubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain D:\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether D:\ is a valid Xubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain D:\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether D:\ is a valid Mythbuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain D:\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether D:\ is a valid Mythbuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain D:\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether E:\ is a valid Ubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain E:\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether E:\ is a valid Ubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain E:\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether E:\ is a valid Kubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain E:\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether E:\ is a valid Kubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain E:\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether E:\ is a valid Xubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain E:\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether E:\ is a valid Xubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain E:\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether E:\ is a valid Mythbuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain E:\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether E:\ is a valid Mythbuntu CD 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: does not contain E:\casper\filesystem.squashfs 03-25 22:29 DEBUG Distro: checking whether Y:\ is a valid Ubuntu CD 03-25 22:29 INFO Distro: Found a valid CD for Ubuntu: Y:\ 03-25 22:29 INFO root: Running the installer... 03-25 22:29 INFO WinuiPage: appname=wubi, localedir=C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp\translations, languages=['en_US', 'en'] 03-25 22:29 INFO WinuiPage: appname=wubi, localedir=C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp\translations, languages=['en_US', 'en'] 03-25 22:29 DEBUG WinuiInstallationPage: target_drive=C:, installation_size=18000MB, distro_name=Ubuntu, language=en_US, locale=en_US.UTF-8, username=keith 03-25 22:29 INFO root: Received settings 03-25 22:29 INFO WinuiPage: appname=wubi, localedir=C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp\translations, languages=['en_US', 'en'] 03-25 22:29 DEBUG TaskList: # Running tasklist... 03-25 22:29 DEBUG TaskList: ## Running select_target_dir... 03-25 22:29 INFO WindowsBackend: Installing into C:\ubuntu 03-25 22:29 DEBUG TaskList: ## Finished select_target_dir 03-25 22:29 DEBUG TaskList: ## Running create_dir_structure... 03-25 22:29 DEBUG CommonBackend: Creating dir C:\ubuntu 03-25 22:29 DEBUG CommonBackend: Creating dir C:\ubuntu\disks 03-25 22:29 DEBUG CommonBackend: Creating dir C:\ubuntu\install 03-25 22:29 DEBUG CommonBackend: Creating dir C:\ubuntu\install\boot 03-25 22:29 DEBUG CommonBackend: Creating dir C:\ubuntu\disks\boot 03-25 22:29 DEBUG CommonBackend: Creating dir C:\ubuntu\disks\boot\grub 03-25 22:29 DEBUG CommonBackend: Creating dir C:\ubuntu\install\boot\grub 03-25 22:29 DEBUG TaskList: ## Finished create_dir_structure 03-25 22:29 DEBUG TaskList: ## Running uncompress_target_dir... 03-25 22:29 DEBUG TaskList: ## Finished uncompress_target_dir 03-25 22:29 DEBUG TaskList: ## Running create_uninstaller... 03-25 22:29 DEBUG WindowsBackend: Copying uninstaller Y:\wubi.exe -> C:\ubuntu\uninstall-wubi.exe 03-25 22:29 DEBUG registry: Setting registry key -2147483646 Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Wubi UninstallString C:\ubuntu\uninstall-wubi.exe 03-25 22:29 DEBUG registry: Setting registry key -2147483646 Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Wubi InstallationDir C:\ubuntu 03-25 22:29 DEBUG registry: Setting registry key -2147483646 Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Wubi DisplayName Ubuntu 03-25 22:29 DEBUG registry: Setting registry key -2147483646 Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Wubi DisplayIcon C:\ubuntu\Ubuntu.ico 03-25 22:29 DEBUG registry: Setting registry key -2147483646 Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Wubi DisplayVersion 11.10-rev241 03-25 22:29 DEBUG registry: Setting registry key -2147483646 Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Wubi Publisher Ubuntu 03-25 22:29 DEBUG registry: Setting registry key -2147483646 Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Wubi URLInfoAbout http://www.ubuntu.com 03-25 22:29 DEBUG registry: Setting registry key -2147483646 Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Wubi HelpLink http://www.ubuntu.com/support 03-25 22:29 DEBUG TaskList: ## Finished create_uninstaller 03-25 22:29 DEBUG TaskList: ## Running copy_installation_files... 03-25 22:29 DEBUG WindowsBackend: Copying C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp\data\custom-installation -> C:\ubuntu\install\custom-installation 03-25 22:29 DEBUG WindowsBackend: Copying C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp\winboot -> C:\ubuntu\winboot 03-25 22:29 DEBUG WindowsBackend: Copying C:\DOCUME~1\Keith\LOCALS~1\Temp\pyl1.tmp\data\images\Ubuntu.ico -> C:\ubuntu\Ubuntu.ico 03-25 22:29 DEBUG TaskList: ## Finished copy_installation_files 03-25 22:29 DEBUG TaskList: ## Running get_iso... 03-25 22:29 DEBUG TaskList: New task copy_file 03-25 22:29 DEBUG TaskList: ### Running copy_file... 03-25 22:32 ERROR TaskList: [Errno 13] Permission denied Traceback (most recent call last): File "\lib\wubi\backends\common\tasklist.py", line 197, in __call__ File "\lib\wubi\backends\common\utils.py", line 202, in copy_file IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied 03-25 22:32 DEBUG TaskList: # Cancelling tasklist 03-25 22:32 DEBUG TaskList: New task check_iso 03-25 22:32 ERROR root: [Errno 13] Permission denied Traceback (most recent call last): File "\lib\wubi\application.py", line 58, in run File "\lib\wubi\application.py", line 130, in select_task File "\lib\wubi\application.py", line 205, in run_cd_menu File "\lib\wubi\application.py", line 120, in select_task File "\lib\wubi\application.py", line 158, in run_installer File "\lib\wubi\backends\common\tasklist.py", line 197, in __call__ File "\lib\wubi\backends\common\utils.py", line 202, in copy_file IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied 03-25 22:32 ERROR TaskList: 'WindowsBackend' object has no attribute 'iso_path' Traceback (most recent call last): File "\lib\wubi\backends\common\tasklist.py", line 197, in __call__ File "\lib\wubi\backends\common\backend.py", line 579, in get_iso File "\lib\wubi\backends\common\backend.py", line 565, in use_iso AttributeError: 'WindowsBackend' object has no attribute 'iso_path' 03-25 22:32 DEBUG TaskList: # Cancelling tasklist 03-25 22:32 DEBUG TaskList: # Finished tasklist

    Read the article

  • Scripting Language Sessions at Oracle OpenWorld and MySQL Connect, 2012

    - by cj
    This posts highlights some great scripting language sessions coming up at the Oracle OpenWorld and MySQL Connect conferences. These events are happening in San Francisco from the end of September. You can search for other interesting conference sessions in the Content Catalog. Also check out what is happening at JavaOne in that event's Content Catalog (I haven't included sessions from it in this post.) To find the timeslots and locations of each session, click their respective link and check the "Session Schedule" box on the top right. GEN8431 - General Session: What’s New in Oracle Database Application Development This general session takes a look at what’s been new in the last year in Oracle Database application development tools using the latest generation of database technology. Topics range from Oracle SQL Developer and Oracle Application Express to Java and PHP. (Thomas Kyte - Architect, Oracle) BOF9858 - Meet the Developers of Database Access Services (OCI, ODBC, DRCP, PHP, Python) This session is your opportunity to meet in person the Oracle developers who have built Oracle Database access tools and products such as the Oracle Call Interface (OCI), Oracle C++ Call Interface (OCCI), and Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) drivers; Transparent Application Failover (TAF); Oracle Database Instant Client; Database Resident Connection Pool (DRCP); Oracle Net Services, and so on. The team also works with those who develop the PHP, Ruby, Python, and Perl adapters for Oracle Database. Come discuss with them the features you like, your pains, and new product enhancements in the latest database technology. CON8506 - Syndication and Consolidation: Oracle Database Driver for MySQL Applications This technical session presents a new Oracle Database driver that enables you to run MySQL applications (written in PHP, Perl, C, C++, and so on) against Oracle Database with almost no code change. Use cases for such a driver include application syndication such as interoperability across a relationship database management system, application migration, and database consolidation. In addition, the session covers enhancements in database technology that enable and simplify the migration of third-party databases and applications to and consolidation with Oracle Database. Attend this session to learn more and see a live demo. (Srinath Krishnaswamy - Director, Software Development, Oracle. Kuassi Mensah - Director Product Management, Oracle. Mohammad Lari - Principal Technical Staff, Oracle ) CON9167 - Current State of PHP and MySQL Together, PHP and MySQL power large parts of the Web. The developers of both technologies continue to enhance their software to ensure that developers can be satisfied despite all their changing and growing needs. This session presents an overview of changes in PHP 5.4, which was released earlier this year and shows you various new MySQL-related features available for PHP, from transparent client-side caching to direct support for scaling and high-availability needs. (Johannes Schlüter - SoftwareDeveloper, Oracle) CON8983 - Sharding with PHP and MySQL In deploying MySQL, scale-out techniques can be used to scale out reads, but for scaling out writes, other techniques have to be used. To distribute writes over a cluster, it is necessary to shard the database and store the shards on separate servers. This session provides a brief introduction to traditional MySQL scale-out techniques in preparation for a discussion on the different sharding techniques that can be used with MySQL server and how they can be implemented with PHP. You will learn about static and dynamic sharding schemes, their advantages and drawbacks, techniques for locating and moving shards, and techniques for resharding. (Mats Kindahl - Senior Principal Software Developer, Oracle) CON9268 - Developing Python Applications with MySQL Utilities and MySQL Connector/Python This session discusses MySQL Connector/Python and the MySQL Utilities component of MySQL Workbench and explains how to write MySQL applications in Python. It includes in-depth explanations of the features of MySQL Connector/Python and the MySQL Utilities library, along with example code to illustrate the concepts. Those interested in learning how to expand or build their own utilities and connector features will benefit from the tips and tricks from the experts. This session also provides an opportunity to meet directly with the engineers and provide feedback on your issues and priorities. You can learn what exists today and influence future developments. (Geert Vanderkelen - Software Developer, Oracle) BOF9141 - MySQL Utilities and MySQL Connector/Python: Python Developers, Unite! Come to this lively discussion of the MySQL Utilities component of MySQL Workbench and MySQL Connector/Python. It includes in-depth explanations of the features and dives into the code for those interested in learning how to expand or build their own utilities and connector features. This is an audience-driven session, so put on your best Python shirt and let’s talk about MySQL Utilities and MySQL Connector/Python. (Geert Vanderkelen - Software Developer, Oracle. Charles Bell - Senior Software Developer, Oracle) CON3290 - Integrating Oracle Database with a Social Network Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Google Maps. There are many social network sites, each with their own APIs for sharing data with them. Most developers do not realize that Oracle Database has base tools for communicating with these sites, enabling all manner of information, including multimedia, to be passed back and forth between the sites. This technical presentation goes through the methods in PL/SQL for connecting to, and then sending and retrieving, all types of data between these sites. (Marcelle Kratochvil - CTO, Piction) CON3291 - Storing and Tuning Unstructured Data and Multimedia in Oracle Database Database administrators need to learn new skills and techniques when the decision is made in their organization to let Oracle Database manage its unstructured data. They will face new scalability challenges. A single row in a table can become larger than a whole database. This presentation covers the techniques a DBA needs for managing the large volume of data in a standard Oracle Database instance. (Marcelle Kratochvil - CTO, Piction) CON3292 - Using PHP, Perl, Visual Basic, Ruby, and Python for Multimedia in Oracle Database These five programming languages are just some of the most popular ones in use at the moment in the marketplace. This presentation details how you can use them to access and retrieve multimedia from Oracle Database. It covers programming techniques and methods for achieving faster development against Oracle Database. (Marcelle Kratochvil - CTO, Piction) UGF5181 - Building Real-World Oracle DBA Tools in Perl Perl is not normally associated with building mission-critical application or DBA tools. Learn why Perl could be a good choice for building your next killer DBA app. This session draws on real-world experience of building DBA tools in Perl, showing the framework and architecture needed to deal with portability, efficiency, and maintainability. Topics include Perl frameworks; Which Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) modules are good to use; Perl and CPAN module licensing; Perl and Oracle connectivity; Compiling and deploying your app; An example of what is possible with Perl. (Arjen Visser - CEO & CTO, Dbvisit Software Limited) CON3153 - Perl: A DBA’s and Developer’s Best (Forgotten) Friend This session reintroduces Perl as a language of choice for many solutions for DBAs and developers. Discover what makes Perl so successful and why it is so versatile in our day-to-day lives. Perl can automate all those manual tasks and is truly platform-independent. Perl may not be in the limelight the way other languages are, but it is a remarkable language, it is still very current with ongoing development, and it has amazing online resources. Learn what makes Perl so great (including CPAN), get an introduction to Perl language syntax, find out what you can use Perl for, hear how Oracle uses Perl, discover the best way to learn Perl, and take away a small Perl project challenge. (Arjen Visser - CEO & CTO, Dbvisit Software Limited) CON10332 - Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service’s Connect PHP API: Intro, What’s New, and Roadmap Connect PHP is a public API that enables developers to build solutions with the Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service platform. This API is used primarily by developers working within the Oracle RightNow Customer Portal Cloud Service framework who are looking to gain access to data and services hosted by the Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service platform through a backward-compatible API. Connect for PHP leverages the same data model and services as the Connect Web Services for SOAP API. Come to this session to get an introduction and learn what’s new and what’s coming up. (Mark Rhoads - Senior Principal Applications Engineer, Oracle. Mark Ericson - Sr. Principle Product Manager, Oracle) CON10330 - Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service APIs and Frameworks Overview Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service APIs are available in the following areas: desktop UI, Web services, customer portal, PHP, and knowledge. These frameworks provide access to Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service’s Connect Common Object Model and custom objects. This session provides a broad overview of capabilities in all these areas. (Mark Ericson - Sr. Principle Product Manager, Oracle)

    Read the article

  • 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!

    Read the article

  • HTG Explains: Why Does Rebooting a Computer Fix So Many Problems?

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Ask a geek how to fix a problem you’ve having with your Windows computer and they’ll likely ask “Have you tried rebooting it?” This seems like a flippant response, but rebooting a computer can actually solve many problems. So what’s going on here? Why does resetting a device or restarting a program fix so many problems? And why don’t geeks try to identify and fix problems rather than use the blunt hammer of “reset it”? This Isn’t Just About Windows Bear in mind that this soltion isn’t just limited to Windows computers, but applies to all types of computing devices. You’ll find the advice “try resetting it” applied to wireless routers, iPads, Android phones, and more. This same advice even applies to software — is Firefox acting slow and consuming a lot of memory? Try closing it and reopening it! Some Problems Require a Restart To illustrate why rebooting can fix so many problems, let’s take a look at the ultimate software problem a Windows computer can face: Windows halts, showing a blue screen of death. The blue screen was caused by a low-level error, likely a problem with a hardware driver or a hardware malfunction. Windows reaches a state where it doesn’t know how to recover, so it halts, shows a blue-screen of death, gathers information about the problem, and automatically restarts the computer for you . This restart fixes the blue screen of death. Windows has gotten better at dealing with errors — for example, if your graphics driver crashes, Windows XP would have frozen. In Windows Vista and newer versions of Windows, the Windows desktop will lose its fancy graphical effects for a few moments before regaining them. Behind the scenes, Windows is restarting the malfunctioning graphics driver. But why doesn’t Windows simply fix the problem rather than restarting the driver or the computer itself?  Well, because it can’t — the code has encountered a problem and stopped working completely, so there’s no way for it to continue. By restarting, the code can start from square one and hopefully it won’t encounter the same problem again. Examples of Restarting Fixing Problems While certain problems require a complete restart because the operating system or a hardware driver has stopped working, not every problem does. Some problems may be fixable without a restart, though a restart may be the easiest option. Windows is Slow: Let’s say Windows is running very slowly. It’s possible that a misbehaving program is using 99% CPU and draining the computer’s resources. A geek could head to the task manager and look around, hoping to locate the misbehaving process an end it. If an average user encountered this same problem, they could simply reboot their computer to fix it rather than dig through their running processes. Firefox or Another Program is Using Too Much Memory: In the past, Firefox has been the poster child for memory leaks on average PCs. Over time, Firefox would often consume more and more memory, getting larger and larger and slowing down. Closing Firefox will cause it to relinquish all of its memory. When it starts again, it will start from a clean state without any leaked memory. This doesn’t just apply to Firefox, but applies to any software with memory leaks. Internet or Wi-Fi Network Problems: If you have a problem with your Wi-Fi or Internet connection, the software on your router or modem may have encountered a problem. Resetting the router — just by unplugging it from its power socket and then plugging it back in — is a common solution for connection problems. In all cases, a restart wipes away the current state of the software . Any code that’s stuck in a misbehaving state will be swept away, too. When you restart, the computer or device will bring the system up from scratch, restarting all the software from square one so it will work just as well as it was working before. “Soft Resets” vs. “Hard Resets” In the mobile device world, there are two types of “resets” you can perform. A “soft reset” is simply restarting a device normally — turning it off and then on again. A “hard reset” is resetting its software state back to its factory default state. When you think about it, both types of resets fix problems for a similar reason. For example, let’s say your Windows computer refuses to boot or becomes completely infected with malware. Simply restarting the computer won’t fix the problem, as the problem is with the files on the computer’s hard drive — it has corrupted files or malware that loads at startup on its hard drive. However, reinstalling Windows (performing a “Refresh or Reset your PC” operation in Windows 8 terms) will wipe away everything on the computer’s hard drive, restoring it to its formerly clean state. This is simpler than looking through the computer’s hard drive, trying to identify the exact reason for the problems or trying to ensure you’ve obliterated every last trace of malware. It’s much faster to simply start over from a known-good, clean state instead of trying to locate every possible problem and fix it. Ultimately, the answer is that “resetting a computer wipes away the current state of the software, including any problems that have developed, and allows it to start over from square one.” It’s easier and faster to start from a clean state than identify and fix any problems that may be occurring — in fact, in some cases, it may be impossible to fix problems without beginning from that clean state. Image Credit: Arria Belli on Flickr, DeclanTM on Flickr     

    Read the article

  • Announcing SonicAgile – An Agile Project Management Solution

    - by Stephen.Walther
    I’m happy to announce the public release of SonicAgile – an online tool for managing software projects. You can register for SonicAgile at www.SonicAgile.com and start using it with your team today. SonicAgile is an agile project management solution which is designed to help teams of developers coordinate their work on software projects. SonicAgile supports creating backlogs, scrumboards, and burndown charts. It includes support for acceptance criteria, story estimation, calculating team velocity, and email integration. In short, SonicAgile includes all of the tools that you need to coordinate work on a software project, get stuff done, and build great software. Let me discuss each of the features of SonicAgile in more detail. SonicAgile Backlog You use the backlog to create a prioritized list of user stories such as features, bugs, and change requests. Basically, all future work planned for a product should be captured in the backlog. We focused our attention on designing the user interface for the backlog. Because the main function of the backlog is to prioritize stories, we made it easy to prioritize a story by just drag and dropping the story from one location to another. We also wanted to make it easy to add stories from the product backlog to a sprint backlog. A sprint backlog contains the stories that you plan to complete during a particular sprint. To add a story to a sprint, you just drag the story from the product backlog to the sprint backlog. Finally, we made it easy to track team velocity — the average amount of work that your team completes in each sprint. Your team’s average velocity is displayed in the backlog. When you add too many stories to a sprint – in other words, you attempt to take on too much work – you are warned automatically: SonicAgile Scrumboard Every workday, your team meets to have their daily scrum. During the daily scrum, you can use the SonicAgile Scrumboard to see (at a glance) what everyone on the team is working on. For example, the following scrumboard shows that Stephen is working on the Fix Gravatar Bug story and Pete and Jane have finished working on the Product Details Page story: Every story can be broken into tasks. For example, to create the Product Details Page, you might need to create database objects, do page design, and create an MVC controller. You can use the Scrumboard to track the state of each task. A story can have acceptance criteria which clarify the requirements for the story to be done. For example, here is how you can specify the acceptance criteria for the Product Details Page story: You cannot close a story — and remove the story from the list of active stories on the scrumboard — until all tasks and acceptance criteria associated with the story are done. SonicAgile Burndown Charts You can use Burndown charts to track your team’s progress. SonicAgile supports Release Burndown, Sprint Burndown by Task Estimates, and Sprint Burndown by Story Points charts. For example, here’s a sample of a Sprint Burndown by Story Points chart: The downward slope shows the progress of the team when closing stories. The vertical axis represents story points and the horizontal axis represents time. Email Integration SonicAgile was designed to improve your team’s communication and collaboration. Most stories and tasks require discussion to nail down exactly what work needs to be done. The most natural way to discuss stories and tasks is through email. However, you don’t want these discussions to get lost. When you use SonicAgile, all email discussions concerning a story or a task (including all email attachments) are captured automatically. At any time in the future, you can view all of the email discussion concerning a story or a task by opening the Story Details dialog: Why We Built SonicAgile We built SonicAgile because we needed it for our team. Our consulting company, Superexpert, builds websites for financial services, startups, and large corporations. We have multiple teams working on multiple projects. Keeping on top of all of the work that needs to be done to complete a software project is challenging. You need a good sense of what needs to be done, who is doing it, and when the work will be done. We built SonicAgile because we wanted a lightweight project management tool which we could use to coordinate the work that our team performs on software projects. How We Built SonicAgile We wanted SonicAgile to be easy to use, highly scalable, and have a highly interactive client interface. SonicAgile is very close to being a pure Ajax application. We built SonicAgile using ASP.NET MVC 3, jQuery, and Knockout. We would not have been able to build such a complex Ajax application without these technologies. Almost all of our MVC controller actions return JSON results (While developing SonicAgile, I would have given my left arm to be able to use the new ASP.NET Web API). The controller actions are invoked from jQuery Ajax calls from the browser. We built SonicAgile on Windows Azure. We are taking advantage of SQL Azure, Table Storage, and Blob Storage. Windows Azure enables us to scale very quickly to handle whatever demand is thrown at us. Summary I hope that you will try SonicAgile. You can register at www.SonicAgile.com (there’s a free 30-day trial). The goal of SonicAgile is to make it easier for teams to get more stuff done, work better together, and build amazing software. Let us know what you think!

    Read the article

  • Computer Networks UNISA - Chap 12 &ndash; Networking Security

    - by MarkPearl
    After reading this section you should be able to Identify security risks in LANs and WANs and design security policies that minimize risks Explain how physical security contributes to network security Discuss hardware and design based security techniques Understand methods of encryption such as SSL and IPSec, that can secure data in storage and in transit Describe how popular authentication protocols such as RADIUS< TACACS,Kerberos, PAP, CHAP, and MS-CHAP function Use network operating system techniques to provide basic security Understand wireless security protocols such as WEP, WPA and 802.11i Security Audits Before spending time and money on network security, examine your networks security risks – rate and prioritize risks. Different organizations have different levels of network security requirements. Security Risks Not all security breaches result from a manipulation of network technology – there are human factors that can play a role as well. The following categories are areas of considerations… Risks associated with People Risks associated with Transmission and Hardware Risks associated with Protocols and Software Risks associated with Internet Access An effective security policy A security policy identifies your security goals, risks, levels of authority, designated security coordinator and team members, responsibilities for each team member, and responsibilities for each employee. In addition it specifies how to address security breaches. It should not state exactly which hardware, software, architecture, or protocols will be used to ensure security, nor how hardware or software will be installed and configured. A security policy must address an organizations specific risks. to understand your risks, you should conduct a security audit that identifies vulnerabilities and rates both the severity of each threat and its likelihood of occurring. Security Policy Content Security policy content should… Policies for each category of security Explain to users what they can and cannot do and how these measures protect the networks security Should define what confidential means to the organization Response Policy A security policy should provide for a planned response in the event of a security breach. The response policy should identify the members of a response team, all of whom should clearly understand the the security policy, risks, and measures in place. Some of the roles concerned could include… Dispatcher – the person on call who first notices the breach Manager – the person who coordinates the resources necessary to solve the problem Technical Support Specialist – the person who focuses on solving the problem Public relations specialist – the person who acts as the official spokesperson for the organization Physical Security An important element in network security is restricting physical access to its components. There are various techniques for this including locking doors, security people at access points etc. You should identify the following… Which rooms contain critical systems or data and must be secured Through what means might intruders gain access to these rooms How and to what extent are authorized personnel granted access to these rooms Are authentication methods such as ID cards easy to forge etc. Security in Network Design The optimal way to prevent external security breaches from affecting you LAN is not to connect your LAN to the outside world at all. The next best protection is to restrict access at every point where your LAN connects to the rest of the world. Router Access List – can be used to filter or decline access to a portion of a network for certain devices. Intrusion Detection and Prevention While denying someone access to a section of the network is good, it is better to be able to detect when an attempt has been made and notify security personnel. This can be done using IDS (intrusion detection system) software. One drawback of IDS software is it can detect false positives – i.e. an authorized person who has forgotten his password attempts to logon. Firewalls A firewall is a specialized device, or a computer installed with specialized software, that selectively filters or blocks traffic between networks. A firewall typically involves a combination of hardware and software and may reside between two interconnected private networks. The simplest form of a firewall is a packet filtering firewall, which is a router that examines the header of every packet of data it receives to determine whether that type of packet is authorized to continue to its destination or not. Firewalls can block traffic in and out of a LAN. NOS (Network Operating System) Security Regardless of the operating system, generally every network administrator can implement basic security by restricting what users are authorized to do on a network. Some of the restrictions include things related to Logons – place, time of day, total time logged in, etc Passwords – length, characters used, etc Encryption Encryption is the use of an algorithm to scramble data into a format that can be read only by reversing the algorithm. The purpose of encryption is to keep information private. Many forms of encryption exist and new ways of cracking encryption are continually being invented. The following are some categories of encryption… Key Encryption PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) SSH (Secure Shell) SCP (Secure CoPy) SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) IPSec (Internet Protocol Security) For a detailed explanation on each section refer to pages 596 to 604 of textbook Authentication Protocols Authentication protocols are the rules that computers follow to accomplish authentication. Several types exist and the following are some of the common authentication protocols… RADIUS and TACACS PAP (Password Authentication Protocol) CHAP and MS-CHAP EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol) 802.1x (EAPoL) Kerberos Wireless Network Security Wireless transmissions are particularly susceptible to eavesdropping. The following are two wireless network security protocols WEP WPA

    Read the article

  • In what programing language are the things i actualy care about writin? [closed]

    - by David
    To be more specific and less subjective: In what language are video games like Halo 3/COD 4/ mario cart written? Microsoft word for windows? for mac? The animation software used by big movie studios to make movies like toystory and monsters inc? The software that helps pilots control the F22 raptor? The software that watches the stock market? The software in the computer in my car? The software that makes the internet work? (this one is a bit vague, if more specificness is needed then google specifically) robots?

    Read the article

  • SQL Server devs–what source control system do you use, if any? (answer and maybe win free stuff)

    - by jamiet
    Recently I noticed a tweet from notable SQL Server author and community dude-at-large Steve Jones in which he asked how many SQL Server developers were putting their SQL Server source code (i.e. DDL) under source control (I’m paraphrasing because I can’t remember the exact tweet and Twitter’s search functionality is useless). The question surprised me slightly as I thought a more pertinent question would be “how many SQL Server developers are not using source control?” because I have been doing just that for many years now and I simply assumed that use of source control is a given in this day and age. Then I started thinking about it. “Perhaps I’m wrong” I pondered, “perhaps the SQL Server folks that do use source control in their day-to-day jobs are in the minority”. So, dear reader, I’m interested to know a little bit more about your use of source control. Are you putting your SQL Server code into a source control system? If so, what source control server software (e.g. TFS, Git, SVN, Mercurial, SourceSafe, Perforce) are you using? What source control client software are you using (e.g. TFS Team Explorer, Tortoise, Red Gate SQL Source Control, Red Gate SQL Connect, Git Bash, etc…)? Why did you make those particular software choices? Any interesting anecdotes to share in regard to your use of source control and SQL Server? To encourage you to contribute I have five pairs of licenses for Red Gate SQL Source Control and Red Gate SQL Connect to give away to what I consider to be the five best replies (“best” is totally subjective of course but this is my blog so my decision is final ), if you want to be considered don’t forget to leave contact details; email address, Twitter handle or similar will do. To start you off and to perhaps get the brain cells whirring, here are my answers to the questions above: Are you putting your SQL Server code into a source control system? As I think I’ve already said…yes. Always. If so, what source control server software (e.g. TFS, Git, SVN, Mercurial, SourceSafe, Perforce) are you using? I move around a lot between many clients so it changes on a fairly regular basis; my current client uses Team Foundation Server (aka TFS) and as part of a separate project is trialing the use of Team Foundation Service. I have used SVN extensively in the past which I am a fan of (I generally prefer it to TFS) and am trying to get my head around Git by using it for ObjectStorageHelper. What source control client software are you using (e.g. TFS Team Explorer, Tortoise, Red Gate SQL Source Control, Red Gate SQL Connect, Git Bash, etc…)? On my current project, Team Explorer. In the past I have used Tortoise to connect to SVN. Why did you make those particular software choices? I generally use whatever the client uses and given that I work with SQL Server I find that the majority of my clients use TFS, I guess simply because they are Microsoft development shops. Any interesting anecdotes to share in regard to your use of source control and SQL Server? Not an anecdote as such but I am going to share some frustrations about TFS. In many ways TFS is a great product because it integrates many separate functions (source control, work item tracking, build agents) into one whole and I’m firmly of the opinion that that is a good thing if for no reason other than being able to associate your check-ins with a work-item. However, like many people there are aspects to TFS source control that annoy me day-in, day-out. Chief among them has to be the fact that it uses a file’s read-only property to determine if a file should be checked-out or not and, if it determines that it should, it will happily do that check-out on your behalf without you even asking it to. I didn’t realise how ridiculous this was until I first used SVN about three years ago – with SVN you make any changes you wish and then use your source control client to determine which files have changed and thus be checked-in; the notion of “check-out” doesn’t even exist. That sounds like a small thing but you don’t realise how liberating it is until you actually start working that way. Hoping to hear some more anecdotes and opinions in the comments. Remember….free software is up for grabs! @jamiet 

    Read the article

  • Database-as-a-Service on Exadata Cloud

    - by Gagan Chawla
    Note – Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c DBaaS is platform agnostic and is designed to work on Exadata/non-Exadata, physical/virtual, Oracle/non Oracle platforms and it’s not a mandatory requirement to use Exadata as the base platform. Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) is an important trend these days and the top business drivers motivating customers towards private database cloud model include constant pressure to reduce IT Costs and Complexity, and also to be able to improve Agility and Quality of Service. The first step many enterprises take in their journey towards cloud computing is to move to a consolidated and standardized environment and Exadata being already a proven best-in-class popular consolidation platform, we are seeing now more and more customers starting to evolve from Exadata based platform into an agile self service driven private database cloud using Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c. Together Exadata Database Machine and Enterprise Manager 12c provides industry’s most comprehensive and integrated solution to transform from a typical silo’ed environment into enterprise class database cloud with self service, rapid elasticity and pay-per-use capabilities.   In today’s post, I’ll list down the important steps to enable DBaaS on Exadata using Enterprise Manager 12c. These steps are chalked down based on a recent DBaaS implementation from a real customer engagement - Project Planning - First step involves defining the scope of implementation, mapping functional requirements and objectives to use cases, defining high availability, network, security requirements, and delivering the project plan. In a Cloud project you plan around technology, business and processes all together so ensure you engage your actual end users and stakeholders early on in the project right from the scoping and planning stage. Setup your EM 12c Cloud Control Site – Once the project plan approval and sign off from stakeholders is achieved, refer to EM 12c Install guide and these are some important tips to follow during the site setup phase - Review the new EM 12c Sizing paper before you get started with install Cloud, Chargeback and Trending, Exadata plug ins should be selected to deploy during install Refer to EM 12c Administrator’s guide for High Availability, Security, Network/Firewall best practices and options Your management and managed infrastructure should not be combined i.e. EM 12c repository should not be hosted on same Exadata where target Database Cloud is to be setup Setup Roles and Users – Cloud Administrator (EM_CLOUD_ADMINISTRATOR), Self Service Administrator (EM_SSA_ADMINISTRATOR), Self Service User (EM_SSA_USER) are the important roles required for cloud lifecycle management. Roles and users are managed by Super Administrator via Setup menu –> Security option. For Self Service/SSA users custom role(s) based on EM_SSA_USER should be created and EM_USER, PUBLIC roles should be revoked during SSA user account creation. Configure Software Library – Cloud Administrator logs in and in this step configures software library via Enterprise menu –> provisioning and patching option and the storage location is OMS shared filesystem. Software Library is the centralized repository that stores all software entities and is often termed as ‘local store’. Setup Self Update – Self Update is one of the most innovative and cool new features in EM 12c framework. Self update can be accessed via Setup -> Extensibility option by Super Administrator and is the unified delivery mechanism to get all new and updated entities (Agent software, plug ins, connectors, gold images, provisioning bundles etc) in EM 12c. Deploy Agents on all Compute nodes, and discover Exadata targets – Refer to Exadata discovery cookbook for detailed walkthrough to ensure successful discovery of Exadata targets. Configure Privilege Delegation Settings – This step involves deployment of privilege setting template on all the nodes by Super Administrator via Setup menu -> Security option with the option to define whether to use sudo or powerbroker for all provisioning and patching operations. Provision Grid Infrastructure with RAC Database on Compute Nodes – Software is provisioned in this step via a provisioning profile using EM 12c database provisioning. In case of Exadata, Grid Infrastructure and RAC Database software is already deployed on compute nodes via OneCommand from Oracle, so SSA Administrator just needs to discover Oracle Homes and Listener as EM targets. Databases will be created as and when users request for databases from cloud. Customize Create Database Deployment Procedure – the actual database creation steps are "templatized" in this step by Self Service Administrator and the newly saved deployment procedure will be used during service template creation in next step. This is an important step and make sure you have locked all the required variables marked as locked as ‘Y’ in this table. Setup Self Service Portal – This step involves setting up of zones, user quotas, service templates, chargeback plan. The SSA portal is setup by Self Service Administrator via Setup menu -> Cloud -> Database option and following guided workflow. Refer to DBaaS cookbook for details. You also have an option to customize SSA login page via steps documented in EM 12c Cloud Administrator’s guide Final Checks – Define and document process guidelines for SSA users and administrators. Get your SSA users trained on Self Service Portal features and overall DBaaS model and SSA administrators should be familiar with Self Service Portal setup pieces, EM 12c database lifecycle management capabilities and overall EM 12c monitoring framework. GO LIVE – Announce rollout of Database-as-a-Service to your SSA users. Users can login to the Self Service Portal and request/monitor/view their databases in Exadata based database cloud. Congratulations! You just delivered a successful database cloud implementation project! In future posts, we will cover these additional useful topics around database cloud – DBaaS Implementation tips and tricks – right from setup to self service to managing the cloud lifecycle ‘How to’ enable real production databases copies in DBaaS with rapid provisioning in database cloud Case study of a customer who recently achieved success with their transformational journey from traditional silo’ed environment on to Exadata based database cloud using Enterprise Manager 12c. More Information – Podcast on Database as a Service using Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Installation and Administration guide, Cloud Administration guide DBaaS Cookbook Exadata Discovery Cookbook Screenwatch: Private Database Cloud: Set Up the Cloud Self-Service Portal Screenwatch: Private Database Cloud: Use the Cloud Self-Service Portal Stay Connected: Twitter |  Face book |  You Tube |  Linked in |  Newsletter

    Read the article

  • PHP convert latin1 to utf8 Persian txt

    - by root
    I now work on a web-base PHP app to work with a MySQL Server database . database is with Latin1 Character set and all Persian texts don't show properly . database is used with a windows software Show and Save Persian texts good . I don't want to change the charset because windows software work with that charset . Question: how can convert latin1 to utf8 to show and utf8 to latin1 for saving from my web-base PHP app , or using Persian/Arabic language on a latin1 charset database without problem ? note: one of my texts is ???? ?????? when save from my windows-based software save as ÇÍãÏ ÑÍãÇäí and still show with ???? ?????? in my old windows-based software image : image of database , charsets,collation and windows-based software

    Read the article

  • What's the environment variable for the path to the desktop?

    - by Scott Langham
    I'm writing a Windows batch file and want to copy something to the desktop. I think I can use this: %UserProfile%\Desktop\ However, I'm thinking, that's probably only going to work on an English OS. Is there a way I can do this in a batch file that will work on any internationalized version? UPDATE I tried the following batch file: REG QUERY "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v Desktop FOR /F "usebackq tokens=3 skip=4" %%i in (`REG QUERY "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v Desktop`) DO SET DESKTOPDIR=%%i FOR /F "usebackq delims=" %%i in (`ECHO %DESKTOPDIR%`) DO SET DESKTOPDIR=%%i ECHO %DESKTOPDIR% And got this output: S:\REG QUERY "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v Desktop HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders Desktop REG_EXPAND_SZ %USERPROFILE%\Desktop S:\FOR /F "usebackq tokens=3 skip=4" %i in (`REG QUERY "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folder s" /v Desktop`) DO SET DESKTOPDIR=%i S:\FOR /F "usebackq delims=" %i in (`ECHO ECHO is on.`) DO SET DESKTOPDIR=%i S:\SET DESKTOPDIR=ECHO is on. S:\ECHO ECHO is on. ECHO is on.

    Read the article

  • What's My Problem? What's Your Problem?

    - by Jacek Ziabicki
    Software installers are not made for building demo environments. I can say this much after 12 years (on and off) of supporting my fellow sales consultants with environments for software demonstrations. When we release software, we include installation programs and procedures that are designed for use by our clients – to build a production environment and a limited number of testing, training and development environments. Different Objectives Your priorities when building an environment for client use vs. building a demo environment are very different. In a production environment, security, stability, and performance concerns are paramount. These environments are built on a specific server and rarely, if ever, moved to a different server or different network address. There is typically just one application running on a particular server (physical or virtual). Once built, the environment will be used for months or years at a time. Because of security considerations, the installation program wants to make these environments very specific to the organization using the software and the use case, encoding a fully qualified name of the server, or even the IP address on the network, in the configuration. So you either go through the installation procedure for each environment, or learn how to clone and reconfigure the software as a separate instance to build all your non-production environments. This may not matter much if the installation is as simple as clicking on the Setup program. But for enterprise applications, you have a number of configuration settings that you need to get just right – so whether you are installing from scratch or reconfiguring an existing installation, this requires both time and expertise in the particular piece of software. If you need a setup of several applications that are integrated to talk to one another, it is a whole new level of complexity. Now you need the expertise in all of the applications involved (plus the supporting technology products), and in addition to making each application work, you also have to configure the integration endpoints. Each application needs the URLs and credentials to call the integration layer, and the integration must be able to call each application. Then you have to make sure that each app has the right data so a business process initiated in one application can continue in the next. And, you will need to check that each application has the correct version and patch level for the integration to work. When building demo environments, your #1 concern is agility. If you can get away with a small number of long-running environments, you are lucky. More likely, you may get a request for a dedicated environment for a demonstration that is two weeks away: how quickly can you make this available so we still have the time to build the client-specific data? We are running a hands-on workshop next month, and we’ll need 15 instances of application X environment so each student can have a separate server for the exercises. We cannot connect to our data center from the client site, the client’s security policy won’t allow our VPN to go through – so we need a portable environment that we can bring with us. Our consultants need to be able to work at the hotel, airport, and the airplane, so we really want an environment that can run on a laptop. The client will need two playpen environments running in the cloud, accessible from their network, for a series of workshops that start two weeks from now. We have seen all of these scenarios and more. Here you would be much better served by a generic installation that would be easy to clone. Welcome to the Wonder Machine The reason I started this blog is to share a particular design of a demo environment, a special way to install software, that can address the above requirements, even for integrated setups. This design was created by a team at Oracle Utilities Global Business Unit, and we are using this setup for most of our demo environments. In a bout of modesty we called it the Wonder Machine. Over the next few posts – think of it as a novel in parts – I will tell you about the big idea, how it was implemented and what you can do with it. After we have laid down the groundwork, I would like to share some tips and tricks for users of our Wonder Machine implementation, as well as things I am learning about building portable, cloneable environments. The Wonder Machine is by no means a closed specification, it is under active development! I am hoping this blog will be of interest to two groups of readers – the users of the Wonder Machine we have built at Oracle Utilities, who want to get the most out of their demo environments and be able to reconfigure it to their needs – and to people who need to build environments for demonstration, testing, training, development and would like to make them cloneable and portable to maximize the reuse of their effort. Surely we are not the only ones facing this problem? If you can think of a better way to solve it, or if you can help us improve on our concept, I will appreciate your comments!

    Read the article

  • Do you know Best Practise and Design Patterns for Adobe Air/Flex Applications?

    - by Julian
    I'm going to write an application with the Air/Flex-Framework. I'm looking for Best Practise and general Design Patterns for designing software especially in Air/Flex. I have experience with this framework but never had the pleasure to write a piece of software from scratch. For instance: I stumbled across lots of software written in Air/Flex with nearly infinity global vars :-) Most of the software I saw was not object-oriented How can I pack the asynchronous method calls nicely? I'm familiar with general design patterns by gamma. I'm looking more for advise in designing good quality software with Adobe Air/Flex.

    Read the article

  • Is there any Application Server Frameworks for other languages/platforms than JavaEE and .NET?

    - by Jonas
    I'm a CS student and has rare experience from the enterprise software industry. When I'm reading about enterprise software platforms, I mostly read about these two: Java Enterprise Edition, JavaEE .NET and Windows Communication Foundation By "enterprise software platforms" I mean frameworks and application servers with support for the same characteristics as J2EE and WCF has: [JavaEE] provide functionality to deploy fault-tolerant, distributed, multi-tier Java software, based largely on modular components running on an application server. WCF is designed in accordance with service oriented architecture principles to support distributed computing where services are consumed by consumers. Clients can consume multiple services and services can be consumed by multiple clients. Services are loosely coupled to each other. Is there any alternatives to these two "enterprise software platforms"? Isn't any other programming languages used in a bigger rate for this problem area? I.e Why isn't there any popular application servers for C++/Qt?

    Read the article

  • Synchronizing ODSEE and OUD

    - by Etienne Remillon
    When it comes to synchronizing between ODSEE and OUD, what should be the best options ? Couple  options are available - Use one of OUD internal capability called Replication Gateway - Use our synchronization tool called Directory Integration Platform part of Oracle Directory Services Plus - Manuel export and import Let's check pro and cons on each method. Replication Gateway is the natural, out of the box solution to perform the task. We created this as a feature of OUD because it works at our replication protocol level. The gateway perform the required adaptation between the ODSEE's replication protocol and OUD's one. The benefits of doing this is that it provide strong consistency between the to type of directories. This fully leverage conflict management implemented in the replication protocols to ensure that changes are applied in a coherent and ordered manner. It does not require specific modification on existing ODSEE production instances such as turning on "retro changelog". Changes are propagated at near speed of replication in both directions. Replication Gateway can also synchronize information that are stored internally in the directory server such as "xxxxx" account locking managed at ODSEE server level and not via the nsyyyy attribute. OUD replication gateway does no require any specific tools or installation specific procedure. It is manged like other OUD component with monitoring and configuration via the standard console. OUD Replication Gateway does not perform adaptation between ODSEE and OUD. Using Directory Integration Protocol as external component to OUD, brings flexibility in remapping and transformations between ODSEE and OUD. There is a price to pay in using DIP to perform the synchronization task. You will have to turn on the retro change log to get access to changes on the ODSEE side (this will impact disk and CPU usage and performances which could be a serious challenge for your existing ODSEE environment (if you have not provisioned additional hardware and instances). You will not benefits of conflict resolution management and this might have to be addressed at application level, which is not always possible to implement. Using export and import seams very simple, but this methodology cannot ensure an highly available deployment with up to date entries on booth sides. This solution can be used if full HA with up-to-date data is not needed (during synchronization time). It often used  if data-cleaning need to take place to avoid polluting a new environment with old un-necessary data.

    Read the article

facebook twitter digg google delicious technorati stumbleupon myspace wordpress linkedin gmail igoogle windows live tumblr viadeo yahoo buzz yahoo mail yahoo bookmarks favorites email print

< Previous Page | 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212  | Next Page >