erx vb next coder - Page 219

ffmpeg encoding on QuadCore

- by Gotys

I am trying to push my server's CPU cores to the max, but no success. Encoding 2-pass style, set my "-threads" to 128 . When running 2nd pass , the CPU seems to be at 98% usage, but first pass run totally ignores "-threads" option. Using libx264 . Here is my preset: flags=+loop+mv4 cmp=256 partitions=+parti4x4+parti8x8+partp4x4+partp8x8+partb8x8 me_method=hex subq=7 trellis=1 refs=5 bf=3 flags2=+bpyramid+wpred+mixed_refs+dct8x8 coder=1 me_range=16 g=250 keyint_min=25 sc_threshold=40 i_qfactor=0.71 qmin=10 qmax=51 qdiff=4 Is there any reason why the 1st pass is not utilizing my CPUs ? Thank you in advance! This community has always been very kind to me.

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ffmpeg encoding on QuadCore

- by Gotys

I am trying to push my server's CPU cores to the max, but no success. Encoding 2-pass style, set my "-threads" to 128 . When running 2nd pass , the CPU seems to be at 98% usage, but first pass run totally ignores "-threads" option. Using libx264 . Here is my preset: flags=+loop+mv4 cmp=256 partitions=+parti4x4+parti8x8+partp4x4+partp8x8+partb8x8 me_method=hex subq=7 trellis=1 refs=5 bf=3 flags2=+bpyramid+wpred+mixed_refs+dct8x8 coder=1 me_range=16 g=250 keyint_min=25 sc_threshold=40 i_qfactor=0.71 qmin=10 qmax=51 qdiff=4 Is there any reason why the 1st pass is not utilizing my CPUs ? Thank you in advance! This community has always been very kind to me.

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Video encoding is very slow on Amazon EC2 instance

- by Timka

We are using Amazon EC2 m1.xlarge instance for video re-encoding and it looks like the actual encoding process takes a very long time. For an average 250mb video file it takes about an hour to encode. Intance: m1.xlarge (Xeon E5645 x 15gb ram) Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit AviSynth version 2.5 (32bit) + ffms2 plugin (FFmpegSource 1.21) FFmpeg SVN-r13712 libavutil 3213056 libavcodec 3356930 libavformat 3411456 libavdevice 3407872 Number of parallel jobs is 3 Average CPU utilization ~96% Update#1 Source video: mp4/h.264 Parameters for ffmpeg: --enable-memalign-hack --enable-avisynth --enable-libxvid --enable-libx264 + --enable-libgsm --enable-libfaac --enable-libfaad --enable-liba52 + --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libvorbis --enable-libtheora --enable-pthreads + --enable-swscale --enable-gpl Video files encoded to mp4/h.264 with the following extra command line options: -threads 0 -coder 0 -bf 0 -refs 1 -level 30 -maxrate 10000000 -bufsize 10000000

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ffmpeg error while segmenting

- by Tommy Ng

I'm using ffmpeg and segmenter on Ubuntu 10.04 to create the transport stream from flv/h264 video files and then segment the ts segments for ipad streaming. Some ts files show an error with segmenter - Output #0, mpegts, to '29': Stream #0.0: Video: 0x0000, yuv420p, 480x360, q=2-31, 90k tbn, 25 tbc Stream #0.1: Audio: 0x0000, 0 channels, s16 [mpegts @ 0x11f4ac0]sample rate not set Could not write mpegts header to first output file my ffmpeg command for creating the ts file - ffmpeg -i 1.flv -f mpegts -acodec libfaac -ar 48000 -ab 64k -s 480x360 -vcodec libx264 -b 192k -flags +loop -cmp +chroma -partitions +parti4x4+partp8x8+partb8x8 -subq 5 -trellis 1 -refs 1 -coder 0 -me_range 16 -keyint_min 25 -sc_threshold 40 -i_qfactor 0.71 -bt 200k -maxrate 192k -bufsize 192k -rc_eq 'blurCplx^(1-qComp)' -qcomp 0.6 -qmin 10 -qmax 51 -qdiff 4 -level 30 -aspect 480:360 -g 30 -async 2 -y 1.ts my segmenter command - segmenter 1.ts 10 1 1.m3u8 path/to/streams/

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How Export Result of MySQL Query on PHPMyAdmin 3.4.3?

- by grape

1) I've got a 30K row table. 2) When I run a long, 50-line query on that table, a GROUP function reduces the number of rows to 7K. 3) I want to export the grouped 7K rows as a new table, or save them as a CSV. When I attempt to export, instead of getting the grouped 7K rows, I get the old, pre-query 30K rows. What am I doing wrong, and what should I be doing? NOTE: I'm not a coder, so I'd really appreciate a solution that just used the PHPMyAdmin GUI. Thanks!

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How to reduce iOS AVPlayer start delay

- by Bernt Habermeier

Note, for the below question: All assets are local on the device -- no network streaming is taking place. The videos contain audio tracks. I'm working on an iOS application that requires playing video files with minimum delay to start the video clip in question. Unfortunately we do not know what specific video clip is next until we actually need to start it up. Specifically: When one video clip is playing, we will know what the next set of (roughly) 10 video clips are, but we don't know which one exactly, until it comes time to 'immediately' play the next clip. What I've done to look at actual start delays is to call addBoundaryTimeObserverForTimes on the video player, with a time period of one millisecond to see when the video actually started to play, and I take the difference of that time stamp with the first place in the code that indicates which asset to start playing. From what I've seen thus-far, I have found that using the combination of AVAsset loading, and then creating an AVPlayerItem from that once it's ready, and then waiting for AVPlayerStatusReadyToPlay before I call play, tends to take between 1 and 3 seconds to start the clip. I've since switched to what I think is roughly equivalent: calling [AVPlayerItem playerItemWithURL:] and waiting for AVPlayerItemStatusReadyToPlay to play. Roughly same performance. One thing I'm observing is that the first AVPlayer item load is slower than the rest. Seems one idea is to pre-flight the AVPlayer with a short / empty asset before trying to play the first video might be of good general practice. [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/900461/slow-start-for-avaudioplayer-the-first-time-a-sound-is-played] I'd love to get the video start times down as much as possible, and have some ideas of things to experiment with, but would like some guidance from anyone that might be able to help. Update: idea 7, below, as-implemented yields switching times of around 500 ms. This is an improvement, but it it'd be nice to get this even faster. Idea 1: Use N AVPlayers (won't work) Using ~ 10 AVPPlayer objects and start-and-pause all ~ 10 clips, and once we know which one we really need, switch to, and un-pause the correct AVPlayer, and start all over again for the next cycle. I don't think this works, because I've read there is roughly a limit of 4 active AVPlayer's in iOS. There was someone asking about this on StackOverflow here, and found out about the 4 AVPlayer limit: fast-switching-between-videos-using-avfoundation Idea 2: Use AVQueuePlayer (won't work) I don't believe that shoving 10 AVPlayerItems into an AVQueuePlayer would pre-load them all for seamless start. AVQueuePlayer is a queue, and I think it really only makes the next video in the queue ready for immediate playback. I don't know which one out of ~10 videos we do want to play back, until it's time to start that one. ios-avplayer-video-preloading Idea 3: Load, Play, and retain AVPlayerItems in background (not 100% sure yet -- but not looking good) I'm looking at if there is any benefit to load and play the first second of each video clip in the background (suppress video and audio output), and keep a reference to each AVPlayerItem, and when we know which item needs to be played for real, swap that one in, and swap the background AVPlayer with the active one. Rinse and Repeat. The theory would be that recently played AVPlayer/AVPlayerItem's may still hold some prepared resources which would make subsequent playback faster. So far, I have not seen benefits from this, but I might not have the AVPlayerLayer setup correctly for the background. I doubt this will really improve things from what I've seen. Idea 4: Use a different file format -- maybe one that is faster to load? I'm currently using .m4v's (video-MPEG4) H.264 format. I have not played around with other formats, but it may well be that some formats are faster to decode / get ready than others. Possible still using video-MPEG4 but with a different codec, or maybe quicktime? Maybe a lossless video format where decoding / setup is faster? Idea 5: Combination of lossless video format + AVQueuePlayer If there is a video format that is fast to load, but maybe where the file size is insane, one idea might be to pre-prepare the first 10 seconds of each video clip with a version that is boated but faster to load, but back that up with an asset that is encoded in H.264. Use an AVQueuePlayer, and add the first 10 seconds in the uncompressed file format, and follow that up with one that is in H.264 which gets up to 10 seconds of prepare/preload time. So I'd get 'the best' of both worlds: fast start times, but also benefits from a more compact format. Idea 6: Use a non-standard AVPlayer / write my own / use someone else's Given my needs, maybe I can't use AVPlayer, but have to resort to AVAssetReader, and decode the first few seconds (possibly write raw file to disk), and when it comes to playback, make use of the raw format to play it back fast. Seems like a huge project to me, and if I go about it in a naive way, it's unclear / unlikely to even work better. Each decoded and uncompressed video frame is 2.25 MB. Naively speaking -- if we go with ~ 30 fps for the video, I'd end up with ~60 MB/s read-from-disk requirement, which is probably impossible / pushing it. Obviously we'd have to do some level of image compression (perhaps native openGL/es compression formats via PVRTC)... but that's kind crazy. Maybe there is a library out there that I can use? Idea 7: Combine everything into a single movie asset, and seekToTime One idea that might be easier than some of the above, is to combine everything into a single movie, and use seekToTime. The thing is that we'd be jumping all around the place. Essentially random access into the movie. I think this may actually work out okay: avplayer-movie-playing-lag-in-ios5 Which approach do you think would be best? So far, I've not made that much progress in terms of reducing the lag.

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Creating an ASP.NET report using Visual Studio 2010 - Part 1

- by rajbk

This tutorial walks you through creating an report based on the Northwind sample database. You will add a client report definition file (RDLC), create a dataset for the RDLC, define queries using LINQ to Entities, design the report and add a ReportViewer web control to render the report in a ASP.NET web page. The report will have a chart control. Different results will be generated by changing filter criteria. At the end of the walkthrough, you should have a UI like the following. From the UI below, a user is able to view the product list and can see a chart with the sum of Unit price for a given category. They can filter by Category and Supplier. The drop downs will auto post back when the selection is changed. This demo uses Visual Studio 2010 RTM. This post is split into three parts. The last part has the sample code attached. Creating an ASP.NET report using Visual Studio 2010 - Part 2 Creating an ASP.NET report using Visual Studio 2010 - Part 3 Lets start by creating a new ASP.NET empty web application called “NorthwindReports” Creating the Data Access Layer (DAL) Add a web form called index.aspx to the root directory. You do this by right clicking on the NorthwindReports web project and selecting “Add item..” . Create a folder called “DAL”. We will store all our data access methods and any data transfer objects in here. Right click on the DAL folder and add a ADO.NET Entity data model called Northwind. Select “Generate from database” and click Next. Create a connection to your database containing the Northwind sample database and click Next. From the table list, select Categories, Products and Suppliers and click next. Our Entity data model gets created and looks like this: Adding data transfer objects Right click on the DAL folder and add a ProductViewModel. Add the following code. This class contains properties we need to render our report. public class ProductViewModel { public int? ProductID { get; set; } public string ProductName { get; set; } public System.Nullable<decimal> UnitPrice { get; set; } public string CategoryName { get; set; } public int? CategoryID { get; set; } public int? SupplierID { get; set; } public bool Discontinued { get; set; } } Add a SupplierViewModel class. This will be used to render the supplier DropDownlist. public class SupplierViewModel { public string CompanyName { get; set; } public int SupplierID { get; set; } } Add a CategoryViewModel class. public class CategoryViewModel { public string CategoryName { get; set; } public int CategoryID { get; set; } } Create an IProductRepository interface. This will contain the signatures of all the methods we need when accessing the entity model. This step is not needed but follows the repository pattern. interface IProductRepository { IQueryable<Product> GetProducts(); IQueryable<ProductViewModel> GetProductsProjected(int? supplierID, int? categoryID); IQueryable<SupplierViewModel> GetSuppliers(); IQueryable<CategoryViewModel> GetCategories(); } Create a ProductRepository class that implements the IProductReposity above. The methods available in this class are as follows: GetProducts – returns an IQueryable of all products. GetProductsProjected – returns an IQueryable of ProductViewModel. The method filters all the products based on SupplierId and CategoryId if any. It then projects the result into the ProductViewModel. GetSuppliers() – returns an IQueryable of all suppliers projected into a SupplierViewModel GetCategories() – returns an IQueryable of all categories projected into a CategoryViewModel public class ProductRepository : IProductRepository { /// <summary> /// IQueryable of all Products /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public IQueryable<Product> GetProducts() { var dataContext = new NorthwindEntities(); var products = from p in dataContext.Products select p; return products; } /// <summary> /// IQueryable of Projects projected /// into the ProductViewModel class /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public IQueryable<ProductViewModel> GetProductsProjected(int? supplierID, int? categoryID) { var projectedProducts = from p in GetProducts() select new ProductViewModel { ProductID = p.ProductID, ProductName = p.ProductName, UnitPrice = p.UnitPrice, CategoryName = p.Category.CategoryName, CategoryID = p.CategoryID, SupplierID = p.SupplierID, Discontinued = p.Discontinued }; // Filter on SupplierID if (supplierID.HasValue) { projectedProducts = projectedProducts.Where(a => a.SupplierID == supplierID); } // Filter on CategoryID if (categoryID.HasValue) { projectedProducts = projectedProducts.Where(a => a.CategoryID == categoryID); } return projectedProducts; } public IQueryable<SupplierViewModel> GetSuppliers() { var dataContext = new NorthwindEntities(); var suppliers = from s in dataContext.Suppliers select new SupplierViewModel { SupplierID = s.SupplierID, CompanyName = s.CompanyName }; return suppliers; } public IQueryable<CategoryViewModel> GetCategories() { var dataContext = new NorthwindEntities(); var categories = from c in dataContext.Categories select new CategoryViewModel { CategoryID = c.CategoryID, CategoryName = c.CategoryName }; return categories; } } Your solution explorer should look like the following. Build your project and make sure you don’t get any errors. In the next part, we will see how to create the client report definition file using the Report Wizard. Creating an ASP.NET report using Visual Studio 2010 - Part 2

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Pre-filtering and shaping OData feeds using WCF Data Services and the Entity Framework - Part 1

- by rajbk

The Open Data Protocol, referred to as OData, is a new data-sharing standard that breaks down silos and fosters an interoperative ecosystem for data consumers (clients) and producers (services) that is far more powerful than currently possible. It enables more applications to make sense of a broader set of data, and helps every data service and client add value to the whole ecosystem. WCF Data Services (previously known as ADO.NET Data Services), then, was the first Microsoft technology to support the Open Data Protocol in Visual Studio 2008 SP1. It provides developers with client libraries for .NET, Silverlight, AJAX, PHP and Java. Microsoft now also supports OData in SQL Server 2008 R2, Windows Azure Storage, Excel 2010 (through PowerPivot), and SharePoint 2010. Many other other applications in the works. * This post walks you through how to create an OData feed, define a shape for the data and pre-filter the data using Visual Studio 2010, WCF Data Services and the Entity Framework. A sample project is attached at the bottom of Part 2 of this post. Pre-filtering and shaping OData feeds using WCF Data Services and the Entity Framework - Part 2 Create the Web Application File –› New –› Project, Select “ASP.NET Empty Web Application” Add the Entity Data Model Right click on the Web Application in the Solution Explorer and select “Add New Item..” Select “ADO.NET Entity Data Model” under "Data”. Name the Model “Northwind” and click “Add”. In the “Choose Model Contents”, select “Generate Model From Database” and click “Next” Define a connection to your database containing the Northwind database in the next screen. We are going to expose the Products table through our OData feed. Select “Products” in the “Choose your Database Object” screen. Click “Finish”. We are done creating our Entity Data Model. Save the Northwind.edmx file created. Add the WCF Data Service Right click on the Web Application in the Solution Explorer and select “Add New Item..” Select “WCF Data Service” from the list and call the service “DataService” (creative, huh?). Click “Add”. Enable Access to the Data Service Open the DataService.svc.cs class. The class is well commented and instructs us on the next steps. public class DataService : DataService< /* TODO: put your data source class name here */ > { // This method is called only once to initialize service-wide policies. public static void InitializeService(DataServiceConfiguration config) { // TODO: set rules to indicate which entity sets and service operations are visible, updatable, etc. // Examples: // config.SetEntitySetAccessRule("MyEntityset", EntitySetRights.AllRead); // config.SetServiceOperationAccessRule("MyServiceOperation", ServiceOperationRights.All); config.DataServiceBehavior.MaxProtocolVersion = DataServiceProtocolVersion.V2; } } Replace the comment that starts with “/* TODO:” with “NorthwindEntities” (the entity container name of the Model we created earlier). WCF Data Services is initially locked down by default, FTW! No data is exposed without you explicitly setting it. You have explicitly specify which Entity sets you wish to expose and what rights are allowed by using the SetEntitySetAccessRule. The SetServiceOperationAccessRule on the other hand sets rules for a specified operation. Let us define an access rule to expose the Products Entity we created earlier. We use the EnititySetRights.AllRead since we want to give read only access. Our modified code is shown below. public class DataService : DataService<NorthwindEntities> { public static void InitializeService(DataServiceConfiguration config) { config.SetEntitySetAccessRule("Products", EntitySetRights.AllRead); config.DataServiceBehavior.MaxProtocolVersion = DataServiceProtocolVersion.V2; } } We are done setting up our ODataFeed! Compile your project. Right click on DataService.svc and select “View in Browser” to see the OData feed. To view the feed in IE, you must make sure that "Feed Reading View" is turned off. You set this under Tools -› Internet Options -› Content tab. If you navigate to “Products”, you should see the Products feed. Note also that URIs are case sensitive. ie. Products work but products doesn’t. Filtering our data OData has a set of system query operations you can use to perform common operations against data exposed by the model. For example, to see only Products in CategoryID 2, we can use the following request: /DataService.svc/Products?$filter=CategoryID eq 2 At the time of this writing, supported operations are $orderby, $top, $skip, $filter, $expand, $format†, $select, $inlinecount. Pre-filtering our data using Query Interceptors The Product feed currently returns all Products. We want to change that so that it contains only Products that have not been discontinued. WCF introduces the concept of interceptors which allows us to inject custom validation/policy logic into the request/response pipeline of a WCF data service. We will use a QueryInterceptor to pre-filter the data so that it returns only Products that are not discontinued. To create a QueryInterceptor, write a method that returns an Expression<Func<T, bool>> and mark it with the QueryInterceptor attribute as shown below. [QueryInterceptor("Products")] public Expression<Func<Product, bool>> OnReadProducts() { return o => o.Discontinued == false; } Viewing the feed after compilation will only show products that have not been discontinued. We also confirm this by looking at the WHERE clause in the SQL generated by the entity framework. SELECT [Extent1].[ProductID] AS [ProductID], ... ... [Extent1].[Discontinued] AS [Discontinued] FROM [dbo].[Products] AS [Extent1] WHERE 0 = [Extent1].[Discontinued] Other examples of Query/Change interceptors can be seen here including an example to filter data based on the identity of the authenticated user. We are done pre-filtering our data. In the next part of this post, we will see how to shape our data. Pre-filtering and shaping OData feeds using WCF Data Services and the Entity Framework - Part 2 Foot Notes * http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/aa937697.aspx † $format did not work for me. The way to get a Json response is to include the following in the request header “Accept: application/json, text/javascript, */*” when making the request. This is easily done with most JavaScript libraries.

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Unable to Create New Incidents in Dynamics CRM with Java and Axis2

- by Lutz

So I've been working on trying to figure this out, oddly when I ran it one machine I got a generic Axis Fault with no description, but now on another machine I'm getting a different error message, but I'm still stuck. Basically I'm just trying to do what I thought would be a fairly trivial task of creating a new incident in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 via a web services call. I started by downloading the XML from http://hostname/MSCrmServices/2007/CrmService.asmx and generating code from it using Axis2. Anyway, here's my program, any help would be greatly appreciated, as I've been stuck on this for way longer than I thought I'd be and I'm really out of ideas here. public class TestCRM { private static String endpointURL = "http://theHost/MSCrmServices/2007/CrmService.asmx"; private static String userName = "myUserNameHere"; private static String password = "myPasswordHere"; private static String host = "theHostname"; private static int port = 80; private static String domain = "theDomain"; private static String orgName = "theOrganization"; public static void main(String[] args) { CrmServiceStub stub; try { stub = new CrmServiceStub(endpointURL); setOptions(stub._getServiceClient().getOptions()); RetrieveMultipleDocument rmd = RetrieveMultipleDocument.Factory.newInstance(); com.microsoft.schemas.crm._2007.webservices.RetrieveMultipleDocument.RetrieveMultiple rm = com.microsoft.schemas.crm._2007.webservices.RetrieveMultipleDocument.RetrieveMultiple.Factory.newInstance(); QueryExpression query = QueryExpression.Factory.newInstance(); query.setColumnSet(AllColumns.Factory.newInstance()); query.setEntityName(EntityName.INCIDENT.toString()); rm.setQuery(query); rmd.setRetrieveMultiple(rm); TargetCreateIncident tinc = TargetCreateIncident.Factory.newInstance(); Incident inc = tinc.addNewIncident(); inc.setDescription("This is a test of ticket creation through a web services call."); CreateDocument cd = CreateDocument.Factory.newInstance(); Create create = Create.Factory.newInstance(); create.setEntity(inc); cd.setCreate(create); Incident test = (Incident)cd.getCreate().getEntity(); CrmAuthenticationTokenDocument catd = CrmAuthenticationTokenDocument.Factory.newInstance(); CrmAuthenticationToken token = CrmAuthenticationToken.Factory.newInstance(); token.setAuthenticationType(0); token.setOrganizationName(orgName); catd.setCrmAuthenticationToken(token); //The two printlns below spit back XML that looks okay to me? System.out.println(cd); System.out.println(catd); /* stuff that doesn't work */ CreateResponseDocument crd = stub.create(cd, catd, null, null); //this line throws the error CreateResponse cr = crd.getCreateResponse(); System.out.println("create result: " + cr.getCreateResult()); /* End stuff that doesn't work */ System.out.println(); System.out.println(); System.out.println(); boolean fetchNext = true; while(fetchNext){ RetrieveMultipleResponseDocument rmrd = stub.retrieveMultiple(rmd, catd, null, null); //This retrieve using the CRMAuthenticationToken catd works just fine RetrieveMultipleResponse rmr = rmrd.getRetrieveMultipleResponse(); BusinessEntityCollection bec = rmr.getRetrieveMultipleResult(); String pagingCookie = bec.getPagingCookie(); fetchNext = bec.getMoreRecords(); ArrayOfBusinessEntity aobe = bec.getBusinessEntities(); BusinessEntity[] myEntitiesAtLast = aobe.getBusinessEntityArray(); for(int i=0; i<myEntitiesAtLast.length; i++){ //cast to whatever you asked for... Incident myEntity = (Incident) myEntitiesAtLast[i]; System.out.println("["+(i+1)+"]: " + myEntity); } } } catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } private static void setOptions(Options options){ HttpTransportProperties.Authenticator auth = new HttpTransportProperties.Authenticator(); List authSchemes = new ArrayList(); authSchemes.add(HttpTransportProperties.Authenticator.NTLM); auth.setAuthSchemes(authSchemes); auth.setUsername(userName); auth.setPassword(password); auth.setHost(host); auth.setPort(port); auth.setDomain(domain); auth.setPreemptiveAuthentication(false); options.setProperty(HTTPConstants.AUTHENTICATE, auth); options.setProperty(HTTPConstants.REUSE_HTTP_CLIENT, "true"); } } Also, here's the error message I receive: org.apache.axis2.AxisFault: com.ctc.wstx.exc.WstxUnexpectedCharException: Unexpected character 'S' (code 83) in prolog; expected '<' at [row,col {unknown-source}]: [1,1] at org.apache.axis2.AxisFault.makeFault(AxisFault.java:430) at org.apache.axis2.transport.TransportUtils.createSOAPMessage(TransportUtils.java:123) at org.apache.axis2.transport.TransportUtils.createSOAPMessage(TransportUtils.java:67) at org.apache.axis2.description.OutInAxisOperationClient.handleResponse(OutInAxisOperation.java:354) at org.apache.axis2.description.OutInAxisOperationClient.send(OutInAxisOperation.java:417) at org.apache.axis2.description.OutInAxisOperationClient.executeImpl(OutInAxisOperation.java:229) at org.apache.axis2.client.OperationClient.execute(OperationClient.java:165) at com.spanlink.crm.dynamics4.webservice.CrmServiceStub.create(CrmServiceStub.java:618) at com.spanlink.crm.dynamics4.runtime.TestCRM.main(TestCRM.java:82) Caused by: org.apache.axiom.om.OMException: com.ctc.wstx.exc.WstxUnexpectedCharException: Unexpected character 'S' (code 83) in prolog; expected '<' at [row,col {unknown-source}]: [1,1] at org.apache.axiom.om.impl.builder.StAXOMBuilder.next(StAXOMBuilder.java:260) at org.apache.axiom.soap.impl.builder.StAXSOAPModelBuilder.getSOAPEnvelope(StAXSOAPModelBuilder.java:161) at org.apache.axiom.soap.impl.builder.StAXSOAPModelBuilder.<init>(StAXSOAPModelBuilder.java:110) at org.apache.axis2.builder.BuilderUtil.getSOAPBuilder(BuilderUtil.java:682) at org.apache.axis2.transport.TransportUtils.createDocumentElement(TransportUtils.java:215) at org.apache.axis2.transport.TransportUtils.createSOAPMessage(TransportUtils.java:145) at org.apache.axis2.transport.TransportUtils.createSOAPMessage(TransportUtils.java:108) ... 7 more Caused by: com.ctc.wstx.exc.WstxUnexpectedCharException: Unexpected character 'S' (code 83) in prolog; expected '<' at [row,col {unknown-source}]: [1,1] at com.ctc.wstx.sr.StreamScanner.throwUnexpectedChar(StreamScanner.java:623) at com.ctc.wstx.sr.BasicStreamReader.nextFromProlog(BasicStreamReader.java:2047) at com.ctc.wstx.sr.BasicStreamReader.next(BasicStreamReader.java:1069) at javax.xml.stream.util.StreamReaderDelegate.next(StreamReaderDelegate.java:60) at org.apache.axiom.om.impl.builder.SafeXMLStreamReader.next(SafeXMLStreamReader.java:183) at org.apache.axiom.om.impl.builder.StAXOMBuilder.parserNext(StAXOMBuilder.java:597) at org.apache.axiom.om.impl.builder.StAXOMBuilder.next(StAXOMBuilder.java:172) ... 13 more

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SQL SERVER – How to Recover SQL Database Data Deleted by Accident

- by Pinal Dave

In Repair a SQL Server database using a transaction log explorer, I showed how to use ApexSQL Log, a SQL Server transaction log viewer, to recover a SQL Server database after a disaster. In this blog, I’ll show you how to use another SQL Server disaster recovery tool from ApexSQL in a situation when data is accidentally deleted. You can download ApexSQL Recover here, install, and play along. With a good SQL Server disaster recovery strategy, data recovery is not a problem. You have a reliable full database backup with valid data, a full database backup and subsequent differential database backups, or a full database backup and a chain of transaction log backups. But not all situations are ideal. Here we’ll address some sub-optimal scenarios, where you can still successfully recover data. If you have only a full database backup This is the least optimal SQL Server disaster recovery strategy, as it doesn’t ensure minimal data loss. For example, data was deleted on Wednesday. Your last full database backup was created on Sunday, three days before the records were deleted. By using the full database backup created on Sunday, you will be able to recover SQL database records that existed in the table on Sunday. If there were any records inserted into the table on Monday or Tuesday, they will be lost forever. The same goes for records modified in this period. This method will not bring back modified records, only the old records that existed on Sunday. If you restore this full database backup, all your changes (intentional and accidental) will be lost and the database will be reverted to the state it had on Sunday. What you have to do is compare the records that were in the table on Sunday to the records on Wednesday, create a synchronization script, and execute it against the Wednesday database. If you have a full database backup followed by differential database backups Let’s say the situation is the same as in the example above, only you create a differential database backup every night. Use the full database backup created on Sunday, and the last differential database backup (created on Tuesday). In this scenario, you will lose only the data inserted and updated after the differential backup created on Tuesday. If you have a full database backup and a chain of transaction log backups This is the SQL Server disaster recovery strategy that provides minimal data loss. With a full chain of transaction logs, you can recover the SQL database to an exact point in time. To provide optimal results, you have to know exactly when the records were deleted, because restoring to a later point will not bring back the records. This method requires restoring the full database backup first. If you have any differential log backup created after the last full database backup, restore the most recent one. Then, restore transaction log backups, one by one, it the order they were created starting with the first created after the restored differential database backup. Now, the table will be in the state before the records were deleted. You have to identify the deleted records, script them and run the script against the original database. Although this method is reliable, it is time-consuming and requires a lot of space on disk. How to easily recover deleted records? The following solution enables you to recover SQL database records even if you have no full or differential database backups and no transaction log backups. To understand how ApexSQL Recover works, I’ll explain what happens when table data is deleted. Table data is stored in data pages. When you delete table records, they are not immediately deleted from the data pages, but marked to be overwritten by new records. Such records are not shown as existing anymore, but ApexSQL Recover can read them and create undo script for them. How long will deleted records stay in the MDF file? It depends on many factors, as time passes it’s less likely that the records will not be overwritten. The more transactions occur after the deletion, the more chances the records will be overwritten and permanently lost. Therefore, it’s recommended to create a copy of the database MDF and LDF files immediately (if you cannot take your database offline until the issue is solved) and run ApexSQL Recover on them. Note that a full database backup will not help here, as the records marked for overwriting are not included in the backup. First, I’ll delete some records from the Person.EmailAddress table in the AdventureWorks database. I can delete these records in SQL Server Management Studio, or execute a script such as DELETE FROM Person.EmailAddress WHERE BusinessEntityID BETWEEN 70 AND 80 Then, I’ll start ApexSQL Recover and select From DELETE operation in the Recovery tab. In the Select the database to recover step, first select the SQL Server instance. If it’s not shown in the drop-down list, click the Server icon right to the Server drop-down list and browse for the SQL Server instance, or type the instance name manually. Specify the authentication type and select the database in the Database drop-down list. In the next step, you’re prompted to add additional data sources. As this can be a tricky step, especially for new users, ApexSQL Recover offers help via the Help me decide option. The Help me decide option guides you through a series of questions about the database transaction log and advises what files to add. If you know that you have no transaction log backups or detached transaction logs, or the online transaction log file has been truncated after the data was deleted, select No additional transaction logs are available. If you know that you have transaction log backups that contain the delete transactions you want to recover, click Add transaction logs. The online transaction log is listed and selected automatically. Click Add if to add transaction log backups. It would be best if you have a full transaction log chain, as explained above. The next step for this option is to specify the time range. Selecting a small time range for the time of deletion will create the recovery script just for the accidentally deleted records. A wide time range might script the records deleted on purpose, and you don’t want that. If needed, you can check the script generated and manually remove such records. After that, for all data sources options, the next step is to select the tables. Be careful here, if you deleted some data from other tables on purpose, and don’t want to recover them, don’t select all tables, as ApexSQL Recover will create the INSERT script for them too. The next step offers two options: to create a recovery script that will insert the deleted records back into the Person.EmailAddress table, or to create a new database, create the Person.EmailAddress table in it, and insert the deleted records. I’ll select the first one. The recovery process is completed and 11 records are found and scripted, as expected. To see the script, click View script. ApexSQL Recover has its own script editor, where you can review, modify, and execute the recovery script. The insert into statements look like: INSERT INTO Person.EmailAddress( BusinessEntityID, EmailAddressID, EmailAddress, rowguid, ModifiedDate) VALUES( 70, 70, N'[email protected]' COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS, 'd62c5b4e-c91f-403f-b630-7b7e0fda70ce', '20030109 00:00:00.000' ); To execute the script, click Execute in the menu. If you want to check whether the records are really back, execute SELECT * FROM Person.EmailAddress WHERE BusinessEntityID BETWEEN 70 AND 80 As shown, ApexSQL Recover recovers SQL database data after accidental deletes even without the database backup that contains the deleted data and relevant transaction log backups. ApexSQL Recover reads the deleted data from the database data file, so this method can be used even for databases in the Simple recovery model. Besides recovering SQL database records from a DELETE statement, ApexSQL Recover can help when the records are lost due to a DROP TABLE, or TRUNCATE statement, as well as repair a corrupted MDF file that cannot be attached to as SQL Server instance. You can find more information about how to recover SQL database lost data and repair a SQL Server database on ApexSQL Solution center. There are solutions for various situations when data needs to be recovered. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Backup and Restore, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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How to subscribe to the free Oracle Linux errata yum repositories

- by Lenz Grimmer

Now that updates and errata for Oracle Linux are available for free (both as in beer and freedom), here's a quick HOWTO on how to subscribe your Oracle Linux system to the newly added yum repositories on our public yum server, assuming that you just installed Oracle Linux from scratch, e.g. by using the installation media (ISO images) available from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud You need to download the appropriate yum repository configuration file from the public yum server and install it in the yum repository directory. For Oracle Linux 6, the process would look as follows: as the root user, run the following command: [root@oraclelinux62 ~]# wget http://public-yum.oracle.com/public-yum-ol6.repo \ -P /etc/yum.repos.d/ --2012-03-23 00:18:25-- http://public-yum.oracle.com/public-yum-ol6.repo Resolving public-yum.oracle.com... 141.146.44.34 Connecting to public-yum.oracle.com|141.146.44.34|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 1461 (1.4K) [text/plain] Saving to: “/etc/yum.repos.d/public-yum-ol6.repo” 100%[=================================================>] 1,461 --.-K/s in 0s 2012-03-23 00:18:26 (37.1 MB/s) - “/etc/yum.repos.d/public-yum-ol6.repo” saved [1461/1461] For Oracle Linux 5, the file name would be public-yum-ol5.repo in the URL above instead. The "_latest" repositories that contain the errata packages are already enabled by default — you can simply pull in all available updates by running "yum update" next: [root@oraclelinux62 ~]# yum update Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit, security ol6_latest | 1.1 kB 00:00 ol6_latest/primary | 15 MB 00:42 ol6_latest 14643/14643 Setting up Update Process Resolving Dependencies --> Running transaction check ---> Package at.x86_64 0:3.1.10-43.el6 will be updated ---> Package at.x86_64 0:3.1.10-43.el6_2.1 will be an update ---> Package autofs.x86_64 1:5.0.5-39.el6 will be updated ---> Package autofs.x86_64 1:5.0.5-39.el6_2.1 will be an update ---> Package bind-libs.x86_64 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6 will be updated ---> Package bind-libs.x86_64 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2 will be an update ---> Package bind-utils.x86_64 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6 will be updated ---> Package bind-utils.x86_64 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2 will be an update ---> Package cvs.x86_64 0:1.11.23-11.el6_0.1 will be updated ---> Package cvs.x86_64 0:1.11.23-11.el6_2.1 will be an update [...] ---> Package yum.noarch 0:3.2.29-22.0.1.el6 will be updated ---> Package yum.noarch 0:3.2.29-22.0.2.el6_2.2 will be an update ---> Package yum-plugin-security.noarch 0:1.1.30-10.el6 will be updated ---> Package yum-plugin-security.noarch 0:1.1.30-10.0.1.el6 will be an update ---> Package yum-utils.noarch 0:1.1.30-10.el6 will be updated ---> Package yum-utils.noarch 0:1.1.30-10.0.1.el6 will be an update --> Finished Dependency Resolution Dependencies Resolved ===================================================================================== Package Arch Version Repository Size ===================================================================================== Installing: kernel x86_64 2.6.32-220.7.1.el6 ol6_latest 24 M kernel-uek x86_64 2.6.32-300.11.1.el6uek ol6_latest 21 M kernel-uek-devel x86_64 2.6.32-300.11.1.el6uek ol6_latest 6.3 M Updating: at x86_64 3.1.10-43.el6_2.1 ol6_latest 60 k autofs x86_64 1:5.0.5-39.el6_2.1 ol6_latest 470 k bind-libs x86_64 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2 ol6_latest 839 k bind-utils x86_64 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2 ol6_latest 178 k cvs x86_64 1.11.23-11.el6_2.1 ol6_latest 711 k [...] xulrunner x86_64 10.0.3-1.0.1.el6_2 ol6_latest 12 M yelp x86_64 2.28.1-13.el6_2 ol6_latest 778 k yum noarch 3.2.29-22.0.2.el6_2.2 ol6_latest 987 k yum-plugin-security noarch 1.1.30-10.0.1.el6 ol6_latest 36 k yum-utils noarch 1.1.30-10.0.1.el6 ol6_latest 94 k Transaction Summary ===================================================================================== Install 3 Package(s) Upgrade 96 Package(s) Total download size: 173 M Is this ok [y/N]: y Downloading Packages: (1/99): at-3.1.10-43.el6_2.1.x86_64.rpm | 60 kB 00:00 (2/99): autofs-5.0.5-39.el6_2.1.x86_64.rpm | 470 kB 00:01 (3/99): bind-libs-9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2.x86_64.rpm | 839 kB 00:02 (4/99): bind-utils-9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2.x86_64.rpm | 178 kB 00:00 [...] (96/99): yelp-2.28.1-13.el6_2.x86_64.rpm | 778 kB 00:02 (97/99): yum-3.2.29-22.0.2.el6_2.2.noarch.rpm | 987 kB 00:03 (98/99): yum-plugin-security-1.1.30-10.0.1.el6.noarch.rpm | 36 kB 00:00 (99/99): yum-utils-1.1.30-10.0.1.el6.noarch.rpm | 94 kB 00:00 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total 306 kB/s | 173 MB 09:38 warning: rpmts_HdrFromFdno: Header V3 RSA/SHA256 Signature, key ID ec551f03: NOKEY Retrieving key from http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 Importing GPG key 0xEC551F03: Userid: "Oracle OSS group (Open Source Software group) " From : http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 Is this ok [y/N]: y Running rpm_check_debug Running Transaction Test Transaction Test Succeeded Running Transaction Updating : yum-3.2.29-22.0.2.el6_2.2.noarch 1/195 Updating : xorg-x11-server-common-1.10.4-6.el6_2.3.x86_64 2/195 Updating : kernel-uek-headers-2.6.32-300.11.1.el6uek.x86_64 3/195 Updating : 12:dhcp-common-4.1.1-25.P1.el6_2.1.x86_64 4/195 Updating : tzdata-java-2011n-2.el6.noarch 5/195 Updating : tzdata-2011n-2.el6.noarch 6/195 Updating : glibc-common-2.12-1.47.el6_2.9.x86_64 7/195 Updating : glibc-2.12-1.47.el6_2.9.x86_64 8/195 [...] Cleanup : kernel-firmware-2.6.32-220.el6.noarch 191/195 Cleanup : kernel-uek-firmware-2.6.32-300.3.1.el6uek.noarch 192/195 Cleanup : glibc-common-2.12-1.47.el6.x86_64 193/195 Cleanup : glibc-2.12-1.47.el6.x86_64 194/195 Cleanup : tzdata-2011l-4.el6.noarch 195/195 Installed: kernel.x86_64 0:2.6.32-220.7.1.el6 kernel-uek.x86_64 0:2.6.32-300.11.1.el6uek kernel-uek-devel.x86_64 0:2.6.32-300.11.1.el6uek Updated: at.x86_64 0:3.1.10-43.el6_2.1 autofs.x86_64 1:5.0.5-39.el6_2.1 bind-libs.x86_64 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2 bind-utils.x86_64 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2 cvs.x86_64 0:1.11.23-11.el6_2.1 dhclient.x86_64 12:4.1.1-25.P1.el6_2.1 [...] xorg-x11-server-common.x86_64 0:1.10.4-6.el6_2.3 xulrunner.x86_64 0:10.0.3-1.0.1.el6_2 yelp.x86_64 0:2.28.1-13.el6_2 yum.noarch 0:3.2.29-22.0.2.el6_2.2 yum-plugin-security.noarch 0:1.1.30-10.0.1.el6 yum-utils.noarch 0:1.1.30-10.0.1.el6 Complete! At this point, your system is fully up to date. As the kernel was updated as well, a reboot is the recommended next action. If you want to install the latest release of the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 2 as well, you need to edit the .repo file and enable the respective yum repository (e.g. "ol6_UEK_latest" for Oracle Linux 6 and "ol5_UEK_latest" for Oracle Linux 5) manually, by setting enabled to "1". The next yum update run will download and install the second release of the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, which will be enabled after the next reboot. -Lenz

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Best Practices vs Reality

- by RonHill

On a scale depicting how closely best practices are followed, with "always" on one end and "never" on the other, my current company falls uncomfortably close to the latter. Just a couple trivial examples: We have no code review process There is very little documentation despite a very large code base (and some of it is blatantly incorrect/misleading) Untested/buggy/uncompilable code is frequently checked in to source control It is comically complicated to create a debuggable build for some of our components because of its underlying architecture. Unhandled exceptions are not uncommon in our releases Empty Catch{ } blocks are everywhere. Now, with the understanding that it's neither practical nor realistic to follow ALL best practices ALL the time, my question is this: How closely have commonly accepted best practices been followed at the companies you've worked for? I'm kind of a noob--this is only the second company I've worked for--so I'm not sure if I'm just more of an anal retentive coder or if I've just ended up at mediocre companies. My guess (hope?) is the latter, but a coworker with way more experience than me says every company he's ever worked for is like this. Given the obvious benefits of following most best practices most of the time, I find it hard to believe it's like this everywhere. Am I wrong?

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Using the HTML5 <input type="file" multiple="multiple"> Tag in ASP.NET

- by Rick Strahl

Per HTML5 spec the <input type="file" /> tag allows for multiple files to be picked from a single File upload button. This is actually a very subtle change that's very useful as it makes it much easier to send multiple files to the server without using complex uploader controls. Please understand though, that even though you can send multiple files using the <input type="file" /> tag, the process of how those files are sent hasn't really changed - there's still no progress information or other hooks that allow you to automatically make for a nicer upload experience without additional libraries or code. For that you will still need some sort of library (I'll post an example in my next blog post using plUpload). All the new features allow for is to make it easier to select multiple images from disk in one operation. Where you might have required many file upload controls before to upload several files, one File control can potentially do the job. How it works To create a file input box that allows with multiple file support you can simply do:<form method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data"> <label>Upload Images:</label> <input type="file" multiple="multiple" name="File1" id="File1" accept="image/*" /> <hr /> <input type="submit" id="btnUpload" value="Upload Images" /> </form> Now when the file open dialog pops up - depending on the browser and whether the browser supports it - you can pick multiple files. Here I'm using Firefox using the thumbnail preview I can easily pick images to upload on a form: Note that I can select multiple images in the dialog all of which get stored in the file textbox. The UI for this can be different in some browsers. For example Chrome displays 3 files selected as text next to the Browse… button when I choose three rather than showing any files in the textbox. Most other browsers display the standard file input box and display the multiple filenames as a comma delimited list in the textbox. Note that you can also specify the accept attribute in the <input> tag, which specifies a mime-type to specify what type of content to allow.Here I'm only allowing images (image/*) and the browser complies by just showing me image files to display. Likewise I could use text/* for all text formats registered on the machine or text/xml to only show XML files (which would include xml,xst,xsd etc.). Capturing Files on the Server with ASP.NET When you upload files to an ASP.NET server there are a couple of things to be aware of. When multiple files are uploaded from a single file control, they are assigned the same name. In other words if I select 3 files to upload on the File1 control shown above I get three file form variables named File1. This means I can't easily retrieve files by their name:HttpPostedFileBase file = Request.Files["File1"]; because there will be multiple files for a given name. The above only selects the first file. Instead you can only reliably retrieve files by their index. Below is an example I use in app to capture a number of images uploaded and store them into a database using a business object and EF 4.2.for (int i = 0; i < Request.Files.Count; i++) { HttpPostedFileBase file = Request.Files[i]; if (file.ContentLength == 0) continue; if (file.ContentLength > App.Configuration.MaxImageUploadSize) { ErrorDisplay.ShowError("File " + file.FileName + " is too large. Max upload size is: " + App.Configuration.MaxImageUploadSize); return View("UploadClassic",model); } var image = new ClassifiedsBusiness.Image(); var ms = new MemoryStream(16498); file.InputStream.CopyTo(ms); image.Entered = DateTime.Now; image.EntryId = model.Entry.Id; image.ContentType = "image/jpeg"; image.ImageData = ms.ToArray(); ms.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin); // resize image if necessary and turn into jpeg Bitmap bmp = Imaging.ResizeImage(ms.ToArray(), App.Configuration.MaxImageWidth, App.Configuration.MaxImageHeight); ms.Close(); ms = new MemoryStream(); bmp.Save(ms,ImageFormat.Jpeg); image.ImageData = ms.ToArray(); bmp.Dispose(); ms.Close(); model.Entry.Images.Add(image); } This works great and also allows you to capture input from multiple input controls if you are dealing with browsers that don't support multiple file selections in the file upload control. The important thing here is that I iterate over the files by index, rather than using a foreach loop over the Request.Files collection. The files collection returns key name strings, rather than the actual files (who thought that was good idea at Microsoft?), and so that isn't going to work since you end up getting multiple keys with the same name. Instead a plain for loop has to be used to loop over all files. Another Option in ASP.NET MVC If you're using ASP.NET MVC you can use the code above as well, but you have yet another option to capture multiple uploaded files by using a parameter for your post action method.public ActionResult Save(HttpPostedFileBase[] file1) { foreach (var file in file1) { if (file.ContentLength < 0) continue; // do something with the file }} Note that in order for this to work you have to specify each posted file variable individually in the parameter list. This works great if you have a single file upload to deal with. You can also pass this in addition to your main model to separate out a ViewModel and a set of uploaded files:public ActionResult Edit(EntryViewModel model,HttpPostedFileBase[] uploadedFile) You can also make the uploaded files part of the ViewModel itself - just make sure you use the appropriate naming for the variable name in the HTML document (since there's Html.FileFor() extension). Browser Support You knew this was coming, right? The feature is really nice, but unfortunately not supported universally yet. Once again Internet Explorer is the problem: No shipping version of Internet Explorer supports multiple file uploads. IE10 supposedly will, but even IE9 does not. All other major browsers - Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera - support multi-file uploads in their latest versions. So how can you handle this? If you need to provide multiple file uploads you can simply add multiple file selection boxes and let people either select multiple files with a single upload file box or use multiples. Alternately you can do some browser detection and if IE is used simply show the extra file upload boxes. It's not ideal, but either one of these approaches makes life easier for folks that use a decent browser and leaves you with a functional interface for those that don't. Here's a UI I recently built as an alternate uploader with multiple file upload buttons: I say this is my 'alternate' uploader - for my primary uploader I continue to use an add-in solution. Specifically I use plUpload and I'll discuss how that's implemented in my next post. Although I think that plUpload (and many of the other packaged JavaScript upload solutions) are a better choice especially for large uploads, for simple one file uploads input boxes work well enough. The advantage of this solution is that it's very easy to handle on the server side. Any of the JavaScript controls require special handling for uploads which I'll also discuss in my next post.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in HTML5 ASP.NET MVC Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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SQL – Migrate Database from SQL Server to NuoDB – A Quick Tutorial

- by Pinal Dave

Data is growing exponentially and every organization with growing data is thinking of next big innovation in the world of Big Data. Big data is a indeed a future for every organization at one point of the time. Just like every other next big thing, big data has its own challenges and issues. The biggest challenge associated with the big data is to find the ideal platform which supports the scalability and growth of the data. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you must be familiar with NuoDB. I have been working with NuoDB for a while and their recent release is the best thus far. NuoDB is an elastically scalable SQL database that can run on local host, datacenter and cloud-based resources. A key feature of the product is that it does not require sharding (read more here). Last week, I was able to install NuoDB in less than 90 seconds and have explored their Explorer and Admin sections. You can read about my experiences in these posts: SQL – Step by Step Guide to Download and Install NuoDB – Getting Started with NuoDB SQL – Quick Start with Admin Sections of NuoDB – Manage NuoDB Database SQL – Quick Start with Explorer Sections of NuoDB – Query NuoDB Database Many SQL Authority readers have been following me in my journey to evaluate NuoDB. One of the frequently asked questions I’ve received from you is if there is any way to migrate data from SQL Server to NuoDB. The fact is that there is indeed a way to do so and NuoDB provides a fantastic tool which can help users to do it. NuoDB Migrator is a command line utility that supports the migration of Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL schemas and data to NuoDB. The migration to NuoDB is a three-step process: NuoDB Migrator generates a schema for a target NuoDB database It loads data into the target NuoDB database It dumps data from the source database Let’s see how we can migrate our data from SQL Server to NuoDB using a simple three-step approach. But before we do that we will create a sample database in MSSQL and later we will migrate the same database to NuoDB: Setup Step 1: Build a sample data CREATE DATABASE [Test]; CREATE TABLE [Department]( [DepartmentID] [smallint] NOT NULL, [Name] VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL, [GroupName] VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL, [ModifiedDate] [datetime] NOT NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_Department_DepartmentID] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ( [DepartmentID] ASC ) ) ON [PRIMARY]; INSERT INTO Department SELECT * FROM AdventureWorks2012.HumanResources.Department; Note that I am using the SQL Server AdventureWorks database to build this sample table but you can build this sample table any way you prefer. Setup Step 2: Install Java 64 bit Before you can begin the migration process to NuoDB, make sure you have 64-bit Java installed on your computer. This is due to the fact that the NuoDB Migrator tool is built in Java. You can download 64-bit Java for Windows, Mac OSX, or Linux from the following link: http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp. One more thing to remember is that you make sure that the path in your environment settings is set to your JAVA_HOME directory or else the tool will not work. Here is how you can do it: Go to My Computer >> Right Click >> Select Properties >> Click on Advanced System Settings >> Click on Environment Variables >> Click on New and enter the following values. Variable Name: JAVA_HOME Variable Value: C:\Program Files\Java\jre7 Make sure you enter your Java installation directory in the Variable Value field. Setup Step 3: Install JDBC driver for SQL Server. There are two JDBC drivers available for SQL Server. Select the one you prefer to use by following one of the two links below: Microsoft JDBC Driver jTDS JDBC Driver In this example we will be using jTDS JDBC driver. Once you download the driver, move the driver to your NuoDB installation folder. In my case, I have moved the JAR file of the driver into the C:\Program Files\NuoDB\tools\migrator\jar folder as this is my NuoDB installation directory. Now we are all set to start the three-step migration process from SQL Server to NuoDB: Migration Step 1: NuoDB Schema Generation Here is the command I use to generate a schema of my SQL Server Database in NuoDB. First I go to the folder C:\Program Files\NuoDB\tools\migrator\bin and execute the nuodb-migrator.bat file. Note that my database name is ‘test’. Additionally my username and password is also ‘test’. You can see that my SQL Server database is running on my localhost on port 1433. Additionally, the schema of the table is ‘dbo’. nuodb-migrator schema –source.driver=net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver –source.url=jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://localhost:1433/ –source.username=test –source.password=test –source.catalog=test –source.schema=dbo –output.path=/tmp/schema.sql The above script will generate a schema of all my SQL Server tables and will put it in the folder C:\tmp\schema.sql . You can open the schema.sql file and execute this file directly in your NuoDB instance. You can follow the link here to see how you can execute the SQL script in NuoDB. Please note that if you have not yet created the schema in the NuoDB database, you should create it before executing this step. Step 2: Generate the Dump File of the Data Once you have recreated your schema in NuoDB from SQL Server, the next step is very easy. Here we create a CSV format dump file, which will contain all the data from all the tables from the SQL Server database. The command to do so is very similar to the above command. Be aware that this step may take a bit of time based on your database size. nuodb-migrator dump –source.driver=net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver –source.url=jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://localhost:1433/ –source.username=test –source.password=test –source.catalog=test –source.schema=dbo –output.type=csv –output.path=/tmp/dump.cat Once the above command is successfully executed you can find your CSV file in the C:\tmp\ folder. However, you do not have to do anything manually. The third and final step will take care of completing the migration process. Migration Step 3: Load the Data into NuoDB After building schema and taking a dump of the data, the very next step is essential and crucial. It will take the CSV file and load it into the NuoDB database. nuodb-migrator load –target.url=jdbc:com.nuodb://localhost:48004/mytest –target.schema=dbo –target.username=test –target.password=test –input.path=/tmp/dump.cat Please note that in the above script we are now targeting the NuoDB database, which we have already created with the name of “MyTest”. If the database does not exist, create it manually before executing the above script. I have kept the username and password as “test”, but please make sure that you create a more secure password for your database for security reasons. Voila! You’re Done That’s it. You are done. It took 3 setup and 3 migration steps to migrate your SQL Server database to NuoDB. You can now start exploring the database and build excellent, scale-out applications. In this blog post, I have done my best to come up with simple and easy process, which you can follow to migrate your app from SQL Server to NuoDB. Download NuoDB I strongly encourage you to download NuoDB and go through my 3-step migration tutorial from SQL Server to NuoDB. Additionally here are two very important blog post from NuoDB CTO Seth Proctor. He has written excellent blog posts on the concept of the Administrative Domains. NuoDB has this concept of an Administrative Domain, which is a collection of hosts that can run one or multiple databases. Each database has its own TEs and SMs, but all are managed within the Admin Console for that particular domain. http://www.nuodb.com/techblog/2013/03/11/getting-started-provisioning-a-domain/ http://www.nuodb.com/techblog/2013/03/14/getting-started-running-a-database/ Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: NuoDB

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NuGet, ASP.Net MVC and WebMatrix - DB Coders Cafe - March 1st, 2011 With Sam Abraham

- by Sam Abraham

I am scheduled to share on NuGet (http://nuget.codeplex.com/) at the Deerfield Beach Coder’s Café on March 1st, 2011. My goal for this talk is to present demos and content covering how to leverage this new neat utility to easily “package” .Net-based binaries or tools and share them with others, who in-turn, can just as easy reference and readily use that same package in their Visual Studio 2010 .Net projects. Scott Hanselman has recently blogged in great detail on creating NuGet packages. For hosting a local NuGet package repository, Jon Galloway has a nice article update with a complete PowerShell script to simplify downloading the default feed packages which can be accessed here. Information on my upcoming talk can be found at: http://www.fladotnet.com/Reg.aspx?EventID=514 The following is a brief abstract of the talk: NuGet (formerly known as NuPack) is a free, open source developer focused package management system for the .NET platform intent on simplifying the process of incorporating third party libraries into a .NET application during development. NuGet is a member of the ASP.NET Gallery in the Outercurve Foundation. In this session we will: Discuss the concept, vision and goal behind NuGet See NuGet in action within an ASP.Net MVC project Look at the NuGet integration in Microsoft WebMatrix Create a NuGet package for our demo library Explore the NuGet Project site Configure a NuGet package feed for a local network Solicit attendees input and feedback on the tool Look forward to meeting you all there. --Sam

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What is your definition of a programmer?

- by Amir Rezaei

The definition of a programmer is not obvious. It has happened that I have asked questions in this forum where people believe it don’t belong here because it’s not programmer related. I thought this question may clarify the definition. What characteristics, roles and activities do you think defines a programmer? Is there a typical programmer? The technology changes so fast that it may be hard to be typical programmer. From wikipedia: A programmer, computer programmer or coder is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to programming may also be known as a programmer analyst. A programmer's primary computer language (C, C++, Java, Lisp, Delphi etc.) is often prefixed to the above titles, and those who work in a web environment often prefix their titles with web. The term programmer can be used to refer to a software developer, software engineer, computer scientist, or software analyst. However, members of these professions typically possess other software engineering skills, beyond programming; for this reason, the term programmer is sometimes considered an insulting or derogatory oversimplification of these other professions. This has sparked much debate amongst developers, analysts, computer scientists, programmers, and outsiders who continue to be puzzled at the subtle differences in these occupations

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Why Does .Hide()ing and .Show()ing Panels in wxPython Result in the Sizer Changing the Layout?

- by MetaHyperBolic

As referenced in my previous question, I am trying to make something slightly wizard-like in function. I have settled on a single frame with a sizer added to it. I build panels for each of the screens I would like users to see, add them to the frame's sizer, then switch between panels by .Hide()ing one panel, then calling a custom .ShowYourself() on the next panel. Obviously, I would like the buttons to remain in the same place as the user progresses through the process. I have linked together two panels in an infinite loop by their "Back" and "Next" buttons so you can see what is going on. The first panel looks great; tom10's code worked on that level, as it eschewed my initial, over-fancy attempt with borders flying every which way. And then the second panel seems to have shrunk down to the bare minimum. As we return to the first panel, the shrinkage has occurred here as well. Why does it look fine on the first panel, but not after I return there? Why is calling .Fit() necessary if I do not want a 10 pixel by 10 pixel wad of grey? And if it is necessary, why does .Fit() give inconsistent results? This infinite loop seems to characterize my experience with this: I fix the layout on a panel, only to find that switching ruins the layout for other panels. I fix that problem, by using sizer_h.Add(self.panel1, 0) instead of sizer_h.Add(self.panel1, 1, wx.EXPAND), and now my layouts are off again. So far, my "solution" is to add a mastersizer.SetMinSize((475, 592)) to each panel's master sizer (commented out in the code below). This is a cruddy solution because 1) I have had to find the numbers that work by trial and error (-5 pixels for the width, -28 pixels for the height). 2) I don't understand why the underlying issue still happens. What's the correct, non-ugly solution? Instead of adding all of the panels to the frame's sizer at once, should switching panels involve .Detach()ing that panel from the frame's sizer and then .Add()ing the next panel to the frame's sizer? Is there a .JustMakeThisFillThePanel() method hiding somewhere I have missed in both the wxWidgets and the wxPython documents online? I'm obviously missing something in my mental model of layout. Here's a TinyURL link, if I can't manage to embed the . Minimalist code pasted below. import wx import sys class My_App(wx.App): def OnInit(self): self.frame = My_Frame(None) self.frame.Show() self.SetTopWindow(self.frame) return True def OnExit(self): print 'Dying ...' class My_Frame(wx.Frame): def __init__(self, image, parent=None,id=-1, title='Generic Title', pos=wx.DefaultPosition, style=wx.CAPTION | wx.STAY_ON_TOP): size = (480, 620) wx.Frame.__init__(self, parent, id, 'Program Title', pos, size, style) sizer_h = wx.BoxSizer(wx.HORIZONTAL) self.panel0 = User_Interaction0(self) sizer_h.Add(self.panel0, 1, wx.EXPAND) self.panel1 = User_Interaction1(self) sizer_h.Add(self.panel1, 1, wx.EXPAND) self.SetSizer(sizer_h) self.panel0.ShowYourself() def ShutDown(self): self.Destroy() class User_Interaction0(wx.Panel): def __init__(self, parent, id=-1): wx.Panel.__init__(self, parent, id) # master sizer for the whole panel mastersizer = wx.BoxSizer(wx.VERTICAL) #mastersizer.SetMinSize((475, 592)) mastersizer.AddSpacer(15) # build the top row txtHeader = wx.StaticText(self, -1, 'Welcome to This Boring\nProgram', (0, 0)) font = wx.Font(16, wx.DEFAULT, wx.NORMAL, wx.BOLD) txtHeader.SetFont(font) txtOutOf = wx.StaticText(self, -1, '1 out of 7', (0, 0)) rowtopsizer = wx.BoxSizer(wx.HORIZONTAL) rowtopsizer.Add(txtHeader, 3, wx.ALIGN_LEFT) rowtopsizer.Add((0,0), 1) rowtopsizer.Add(txtOutOf, 0, wx.ALIGN_RIGHT) mastersizer.Add(rowtopsizer, 0, flag=wx.EXPAND | wx.LEFT | wx.RIGHT, border=15) # build the middle row text = 'PANEL 0\n\n' text = text + 'This could be a giant blob of explanatory text.\n' txtBasic = wx.StaticText(self, -1, text) font = wx.Font(11, wx.DEFAULT, wx.NORMAL, wx.NORMAL) txtBasic.SetFont(font) mastersizer.Add(txtBasic, 1, flag=wx.EXPAND | wx.LEFT | wx.RIGHT, border=15) # build the bottom row btnBack = wx.Button(self, -1, 'Back') self.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.OnBack, id=btnBack.GetId()) btnNext = wx.Button(self, -1, 'Next') self.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.OnNext, id=btnNext.GetId()) btnCancelExit = wx.Button(self, -1, 'Cancel and Exit') self.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.OnCancelAndExit, id=btnCancelExit.GetId()) rowbottomsizer = wx.BoxSizer(wx.HORIZONTAL) rowbottomsizer.Add(btnBack, 0, wx.ALIGN_LEFT) rowbottomsizer.AddSpacer(5) rowbottomsizer.Add(btnNext, 0) rowbottomsizer.AddSpacer(5) rowbottomsizer.AddStretchSpacer(1) rowbottomsizer.Add(btnCancelExit, 0, wx.ALIGN_RIGHT) mastersizer.Add(rowbottomsizer, flag=wx.EXPAND | wx.LEFT | wx.RIGHT, border=15) # finish master sizer mastersizer.AddSpacer(15) self.SetSizer(mastersizer) self.Raise() self.SetPosition((0,0)) self.Fit() self.Hide() def ShowYourself(self): self.Raise() self.SetPosition((0,0)) self.Fit() self.Show() def OnBack(self, event): self.Hide() self.GetParent().panel1.ShowYourself() def OnNext(self, event): self.Hide() self.GetParent().panel1.ShowYourself() def OnCancelAndExit(self, event): self.GetParent().ShutDown() class User_Interaction1(wx.Panel): def __init__(self, parent, id=-1): wx.Panel.__init__(self, parent, id) # master sizer for the whole panel mastersizer = wx.BoxSizer(wx.VERTICAL) #mastersizer.SetMinSize((475, 592)) mastersizer.AddSpacer(15) # build the top row txtHeader = wx.StaticText(self, -1, 'Read about This Boring\nProgram', (0, 0)) font = wx.Font(16, wx.DEFAULT, wx.NORMAL, wx.BOLD) txtHeader.SetFont(font) txtOutOf = wx.StaticText(self, -1, '2 out of 7', (0, 0)) rowtopsizer = wx.BoxSizer(wx.HORIZONTAL) rowtopsizer.Add(txtHeader, 3, wx.ALIGN_LEFT) rowtopsizer.Add((0,0), 1) rowtopsizer.Add(txtOutOf, 0, wx.ALIGN_RIGHT) mastersizer.Add(rowtopsizer, 0, flag=wx.EXPAND | wx.LEFT | wx.RIGHT, border=15) # build the middle row text = 'PANEL 1\n\n' text = text + 'This could be a giant blob of boring text.\n' txtBasic = wx.StaticText(self, -1, text) font = wx.Font(11, wx.DEFAULT, wx.NORMAL, wx.NORMAL) txtBasic.SetFont(font) mastersizer.Add(txtBasic, 1, flag=wx.EXPAND | wx.LEFT | wx.RIGHT, border=15) # build the bottom row btnBack = wx.Button(self, -1, 'Back') self.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.OnBack, id=btnBack.GetId()) btnNext = wx.Button(self, -1, 'Next') self.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.OnNext, id=btnNext.GetId()) btnCancelExit = wx.Button(self, -1, 'Cancel and Exit') self.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.OnCancelAndExit, id=btnCancelExit.GetId()) rowbottomsizer = wx.BoxSizer(wx.HORIZONTAL) rowbottomsizer.Add(btnBack, 0, wx.ALIGN_LEFT) rowbottomsizer.AddSpacer(5) rowbottomsizer.Add(btnNext, 0) rowbottomsizer.AddSpacer(5) rowbottomsizer.AddStretchSpacer(1) rowbottomsizer.Add(btnCancelExit, 0, wx.ALIGN_RIGHT) mastersizer.Add(rowbottomsizer, flag=wx.EXPAND | wx.LEFT | wx.RIGHT, border=15) # finish master sizer mastersizer.AddSpacer(15) self.SetSizer(mastersizer) self.Raise() self.SetPosition((0,0)) self.Fit() self.Hide() def ShowYourself(self): self.Raise() self.SetPosition((0,0)) self.Fit() self.Show() def OnBack(self, event): self.Hide() self.GetParent().panel0.ShowYourself() def OnNext(self, event): self.Hide() self.GetParent().panel0.ShowYourself() def OnCancelAndExit(self, event): self.GetParent().ShutDown() def main(): app = My_App(redirect = False) app.MainLoop() if __name__ == '__main__': main()

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Custom styled select box

- by Ivan

Hi to all am trying to use javascript for custom styled select boxes from www.gerrendesign.com/entry_images/selectboxdemo.zip and as I have plenty entries inside one of select box I need to make but am stuck in creation of scrolling function. As this select boxes are compatible with almost all older and new browsers. I need only suggestion or solution how to add scroll in this linked/attached files above - if select box is populated with plenty of entries (example cities, states, or exchange rates...) Am stuck here... Thanks for your cooperation Ivan THIS IS CODE: $(document).ready(function(){ // first locate all of the select tags on the page and hide them $("select.changeMe").css('display','none'); //now, for each select box, run this function $("select.changeMe").each(function(){ var curSel = $(this); // get the CSS width from the original select box var gddWidth = $(curSel).css('width'); var gddWidthL = gddWidth.slice(0,-2); var gddWidth2 = gddWidthL - 28; var gddWidth3 = gddWidthL - 16; // build the new div structure var gddTop = '<div style="width:' + gddWidthL + 'px" class="selectME" tabindex="0"><div class="cornerstop"><div><div></div></div></div><div class="middle"><div><div><div>'; //get the default selected option var whatSelected = $(curSel).children('option:selected').text(); //write the default var gddFirst = '<div class="first"><span class="selectME gselected" style="width:'+ gddWidth2 + 'px;">'+ whatSelected +'</span><span id="arrowImg"></span><div class="clears"></div></div><ul class="selectME">'; // create a new array of div options from the original's options var addItems = new Array(); $(curSel).children('option').each( function() { var text = $(this).text(); var selVal = $(this).attr('value'); var before = '<li style="width:' + gddWidthL + 'px;"><a href="#" rel="' + selVal + '" tabindex="0" style="width:' + gddWidth3 + 'px;">'; var after = '</a></li>'; addItems.push(before + text + after); }); //hide the default from the list of options var removeFirst = addItems.shift(); // create the end of the div selectbox and close everything off var gddBottom ='</ul></div></div></div></div><div class="cornersbottom"><div><div></div></div></div></div>' //write everything after each selectbox var GDD = gddTop + gddFirst + addItems.join('') + gddBottom; $(curSel).after(GDD); //this var selects the div select box directly after each of the origials var nGDD = $(curSel).next('div.selectME'); $(nGDD).find('li:first').addClass("first"); $(nGDD).find('li:last').addClass('last'); //handle the on click functions - push results back to old text box $(nGDD).click( function(e) { var myTarA = $(e.target).attr('rel'); var myTarT = $(e.target).text(); var myTar = $(e.target); //if closed, then open if( $(nGDD).find('li').css('display') == 'none') { //this next line closes any other selectboxes that might be open $('div.selectME').find('li').css('display','none'); $(nGDD).find('li').css('display','block'); //if user clicks off of the div select box, then shut the whole thing down $(document.window || 'body').click( function(f) { var myTar2 = $(f.target); if (myTar2 !== nGDD) {$(nGDD).find('li').css('display','none');} }); return false; } else { if (myTarA == null){ $(nGDD).find('li').css('display','none'); return false; } else { //set the value of the old select box $(curSel).val(myTarA); //set the text of the new one $(nGDD).find('span.gselected').text(myTarT); $(nGDD).find('li').css('display','none'); return false; } } //handle the tab index functions }).focus( function(e) { $(nGDD).find('li:first').addClass('currentDD'); $(nGDD).find('li:last').addClass('lastDD'); function checkKey(e){ //on keypress handle functions function moveDown() { var current = $(nGDD).find('.currentDD:first'); var next = $(nGDD).find('.currentDD').next(); if ($(current).is('.lastDD')){ return false; } else { $(next).addClass('currentDD'); $(current).removeClass('currentDD'); } } function moveUp() { var current = $(nGDD).find('.currentDD:first'); var prev = $(nGDD).find('.currentDD').prev(); if ($(current).is('.first')){ return false; } else { $(prev).addClass('currentDD'); $(current).removeClass('currentDD'); } } var curText = $(nGDD).find('.currentDD:first').text(); var curVal = $(nGDD).find('.currentDD:first a').attr('rel'); switch (e.keyCode) { case 40: $(curSel).val(curVal); $(nGDD).find('span.gselected').text(curText); moveDown(); return false; break; case 38: $(curSel).val(curVal); $(nGDD).find('span.gselected').text(curText); moveUp(); return false; break; case 13: $(nGDD).find('li').css('display','none'); } } $(document).keydown(checkKey); }).blur( function() { $(document).unbind('keydown'); }); }); });

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Feedback Filtration–Processing Negative Comments for Positive Gains

- by D'Arcy Lussier

After doing 7 conferences, 5 code camps, and countless user group events, I feel that this is a post I need to write. I actually toyed with other names for this post, however those names would just lend itself to the type of behaviour I want people to avoid – the reactionary, emotional response that speaks to some deeper issue beyond immediate facts and context. Humans are incredibly complex creatures. We’re also emotional, which serves us well in certain situations but can hinder us in others. Those of us in leadership build up a thick skin because we tend to encounter those reactionary, emotional responses more often, and we’re held to a higher standard because of our positions. While we could react with emotion ourselves, as the saying goes – fighting fire with fire just makes a bigger fire. So in this post I’ll share my thought process for dealing with negative feedback/comments and how you can still get value from them. The Thought Process Let’s take a real-world example. This week I held the Prairie IT Pro & Dev Con event. We’ve gotten a lot of session feedback already, most of it overwhelmingly positive. But some not so much – and some to an extreme I rarely see but isn’t entirely surprising to me. So here’s the example from a person we’ll refer to as Mr. Horrible: How was the speaker? Horrible! Worst speaker ever! Did the session meet your expectations? Hard to tell, speaker ruined it. Other Comments: DO NOT bring this speaker back! He was at this conference last year and I hoped enough negative feedback would have taught you to not bring him back...obviously not...I will not return to this conference next year if this speaker is brought back. Now those are very strong words. “Worst speaker ever!” “Speaker ruined it” “I will not return to this conference next year if the speaker is brought back”. The speakers I invite to speak at my conference are not just presenters but friends and colleagues. When I see this, my initial reaction is of course very emotional: I get defensive, I get angry, I get offended. So that’s where the process kicks in. Step 1 – Take a Deep Breath Take a deep breath, calm down, and walk away from the keyboard. I didn’t do that recently during an email convo between some colleagues and it ended up in my reacting emotionally on Twitter – did I mention those colleagues follow my Twitter feed? Yes, I ate some crow. Ok, now that we’re calm, let’s move on to step 2. Step 2 – Strip off the Emotion We need to take off the emotion that people wrap their words in and identify the root issues. For instance, if I see: “I hated this session, the presenter was horrible! He spoke so fast I couldn’t make out what he was saying!” then I drop off the personal emoting (“I hated…”) and the personal attack (“the presenter was horrible”) and focus on the real issue this person had – that the speaker was talking too fast. Now we have a root cause of the displeasure. However, we’re also dealing with humans who are all very different. Before I call up the speaker to talk about his speaking pace, I need to do some other things first. Back to our Mr. Horrible example, I don’t really have much to go on. There’s no details of how the speaker “ruined” the session or why he’s the “worst speaker ever”. In this case, the next step is crucial. Step 3 – Validate the Feedback When I tell people that we really like getting feedback for the sessions, I really really mean it. Not just because we want to hear what individuals have to say but also because we want to know what the group thought. When a piece of negative feedback comes in, I validate it against the group. So with the speaker Mr. Horrible commented on, I go to the feedback and look at other people’s responses: 2 x Excellent 1 x Alright 1 x Not Great 1 x Horrible (our feedback guy) That’s interesting, it’s a bit all over the board. If we look at the comments more we find that the people who rated the speaker excellent liked the presentation style and found the content valuable. The one guy who said “Not Great” even commented that there wasn’t anything really wrong with the presentation, he just wasn’t excited about it. In that light, I can try to make a few assumptions: - Mr. Horrible didn’t like the speakers presentation style - Mr. Horrible was expecting something else that wasn’t communicated properly in the session description - Mr. Horrible, for whatever reason, just didn’t like this presenter Now if the feedback was overwhelmingly negative, there’s a different pattern – one that validates the negative feedback. Regardless, I never take something at face value. Even if I see really good feedback, I never get too happy until I see that there’s a group trend towards the positive. Step 4 – Action Plan Once I’ve validated the feedback, then I need to come up with an action plan around it. Let’s go back to the other example I gave – the one with the speaker going too fast. I went and looked at the feedback and sure enough, other people commented that the speaker had spoken too quickly. Now I can go back to the speaker and let him know so he can get better. But what if nobody else complained about it? I’d still mention it to the speaker, but obviously one person’s opinion needs to be weighed as such. When we did PrDC Winnipeg in 2011, I surveyed the attendees about the food. Everyone raved about it…except one person. Am I going to change the menu next time for that one person while everyone else loved it? Of course not. There’s a saying – A sure way to fail is to try to please everyone. Let’s look at the Mr. Horrible example. What can I communicate to the speaker with such limited information provided in the feedback from Mr. Horrible? Well looking at the groups feedback, I can make a few suggestions: - Ensure that people understand in the session description the style of the talk - Ensure that people understand the level of detail/complexity of the talk and what prerequisite knowledge they should have I’m looking at it as possibly Mr. Horrible assumed a much more advanced talk and was disappointed, while the positive feedback by people who – from their comments – suggested this was all new to them, were thrilled with the session level. Step 5 – Follow Up For some feedback, I follow up personally. Especially with negative or constructive feedback, its important to let the person know you heard them and are making changes because of their comments. Even if their comments were emotionally charged and overtly negative, it’s still important to reach out personally and professionally. When you remove the emotion, negative comments can be the best feedback you get. Also, people have bad days. We’ve all had one of “those days” where we talked more sternly than normal to someone, or got angry at something we’d normally shrug off. We have various stresses in our lives and sometimes they seep out in odd ways. I always try to give some benefit of the doubt, and re-evaluate my view of the person after they’ve responded to my communication. But, there is such a thing as garbage feedback. What Mr. Horrible wrote is garbage. It’s mean spirited. It’s hateful. It provides nothing constructive at all. And a tell-tale sign that feedback is garbage – the person didn’t leave their name even though there was a field for it. Step 6 – Delete It Feedback must be processed in its raw form, and the end products should drive improvements. But once you’ve figured out what those things are, you shouldn’t leave raw feedback lying around. They are snapshots in time that taken alone can be damaging. Also, you should never rest on past praise. In a future blog post, I’m going to talk about how we can provide great feedback that, even when its critical, can still be constructive.

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Of C# Iterators and Performance

- by James Michael Hare

Some of you reading this will be wondering, "what is an iterator" and think I'm locked in the world of C++. Nope, I'm talking C# iterators. No, not enumerators, iterators. So, for those of you who do not know what iterators are in C#, I will explain it in summary, and for those of you who know what iterators are but are curious of the performance impacts, I will explore that as well. Iterators have been around for a bit now, and there are still a bunch of people who don't know what they are or what they do. I don't know how many times at work I've had a code review on my code and have someone ask me, "what's that yield word do?" Basically, this post came to me as I was writing some extension methods to extend IEnumerable<T> -- I'll post some of the fun ones in a later post. Since I was filtering the resulting list down, I was using the standard C# iterator concept; but that got me wondering: what are the performance implications of using an iterator versus returning a new enumeration? So, to begin, let's look at a couple of methods. This is a new (albeit contrived) method called Every(...). The goal of this method is to access and enumeration and return every nth item in the enumeration (including the first). So Every(2) would return items 0, 2, 4, 6, etc. Now, if you wanted to write this in the traditional way, you may come up with something like this: public static IEnumerable<T> Every<T>(this IEnumerable<T> list, int interval) { List<T> newList = new List<T>(); int count = 0; foreach (var i in list) { if ((count++ % interval) == 0) { newList.Add(i); } } return newList; } So basically this method takes any IEnumerable<T> and returns a new IEnumerable<T> that contains every nth item. Pretty straight forward. The problem? Well, Every<T>(...) will construct a list containing every nth item whether or not you care. What happens if you were searching this result for a certain item and find that item after five tries? You would have generated the rest of the list for nothing. Enter iterators. This C# construct uses the yield keyword to effectively defer evaluation of the next item until it is asked for. This can be very handy if the evaluation itself is expensive or if there's a fair chance you'll never want to fully evaluate a list. We see this all the time in Linq, where many expressions are chained together to do complex processing on a list. This would be very expensive if each of these expressions evaluated their entire possible result set on call. Let's look at the same example function, this time using an iterator: public static IEnumerable<T> Every<T>(this IEnumerable<T> list, int interval) { int count = 0; foreach (var i in list) { if ((count++ % interval) == 0) { yield return i; } } } Notice it does not create a new return value explicitly, the only evidence of a return is the "yield return" statement. What this means is that when an item is requested from the enumeration, it will enter this method and evaluate until it either hits a yield return (in which case that item is returned) or until it exits the method or hits a yield break (in which case the iteration ends. Behind the scenes, this is all done with a class that the CLR creates behind the scenes that keeps track of the state of the iteration, so that every time the next item is asked for, it finds that item and then updates the current position so it knows where to start at next time. It doesn't seem like a big deal, does it? But keep in mind the key point here: it only returns items as they are requested. Thus if there's a good chance you will only process a portion of the return list and/or if the evaluation of each item is expensive, an iterator may be of benefit. This is especially true if you intend your methods to be chainable similar to the way Linq methods can be chained. For example, perhaps you have a List<int> and you want to take every tenth one until you find one greater than 10. We could write that as: List<int> someList = new List<int>(); // fill list here someList.Every(10).TakeWhile(i => i <= 10); Now is the difference more apparent? If we use the first form of Every that makes a copy of the list. It's going to copy the entire list whether we will need those items or not, that can be costly! With the iterator version, however, it will only take items from the list until it finds one that is > 10, at which point no further items in the list are evaluated. So, sounds neat eh? But what's the cost is what you're probably wondering. So I ran some tests using the two forms of Every above on lists varying from 5 to 500,000 integers and tried various things. Now, iteration isn't free. If you are more likely than not to iterate the entire collection every time, iterator has some very slight overhead: Copy vs Iterator on 100% of Collection (10,000 iterations) Collection Size Num Iterated Type Total ms 5 5 Copy 5 5 5 Iterator 5 50 50 Copy 28 50 50 Iterator 27 500 500 Copy 227 500 500 Iterator 247 5000 5000 Copy 2266 5000 5000 Iterator 2444 50,000 50,000 Copy 24,443 50,000 50,000 Iterator 24,719 500,000 500,000 Copy 250,024 500,000 500,000 Iterator 251,521 Notice that when iterating over the entire produced list, the times for the iterator are a little better for smaller lists, then getting just a slight bit worse for larger lists. In reality, given the number of items and iterations, the result is near negligible, but just to show that iterators come at a price. However, it should also be noted that the form of Every that returns a copy will have a left-over collection to garbage collect. However, if we only partially evaluate less and less through the list, the savings start to show and make it well worth the overhead. Let's look at what happens if you stop looking after 80% of the list: Copy vs Iterator on 80% of Collection (10,000 iterations) Collection Size Num Iterated Type Total ms 5 4 Copy 5 5 4 Iterator 5 50 40 Copy 27 50 40 Iterator 23 500 400 Copy 215 500 400 Iterator 200 5000 4000 Copy 2099 5000 4000 Iterator 1962 50,000 40,000 Copy 22,385 50,000 40,000 Iterator 19,599 500,000 400,000 Copy 236,427 500,000 400,000 Iterator 196,010 Notice that the iterator form is now operating quite a bit faster. But the savings really add up if you stop on average at 50% (which most searches would typically do): Copy vs Iterator on 50% of Collection (10,000 iterations) Collection Size Num Iterated Type Total ms 5 2 Copy 5 5 2 Iterator 4 50 25 Copy 25 50 25 Iterator 16 500 250 Copy 188 500 250 Iterator 126 5000 2500 Copy 1854 5000 2500 Iterator 1226 50,000 25,000 Copy 19,839 50,000 25,000 Iterator 12,233 500,000 250,000 Copy 208,667 500,000 250,000 Iterator 122,336 Now we see that if we only expect to go on average 50% into the results, we tend to shave off around 40% of the time. And this is only for one level deep. If we are using this in a chain of query expressions it only adds to the savings. So my recommendation? If you have a resonable expectation that someone may only want to partially consume your enumerable result, I would always tend to favor an iterator. The cost if they iterate the whole thing does not add much at all -- and if they consume only partially, you reap some really good performance gains. Next time I'll discuss some of my favorite extensions I've created to make development life a little easier and maintainability a little better.

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Efficiently checking input and firing events

- by Jim

I'm writing an InputHandler class in XNA, and there are several different keys considered valid input (all of type Microsoft.XNA.Framework.Input.Keys). For each key, I have three events: internal event InputEvent XYZPressed; internal event InputEvent XYZHeld; internal event InputEvent XYZReleased; where XYZ is the name of the Keys object representing that key. To fire these events, I have the following for each key: if (Keyboard.GetState().IsKeyDown(XYZ)) { if (PreviousKeyState.IsKeyDown(XYZ)) { if (XYZHeld != null) XYZHeld(); } else { if (XYZPressed != null) XYZPressed(); } } else if (PreviousKeyState.IsKeyDown(XYZ)) { if (XYZReleased != null) XYZReleased(); } However, this is a lot of repeated code (the above needs to be repeated for each input key). Aside from being a hassle to write, if any keys are added to/removed from the keys (if functionality is added/removed), a new section needs to be added (or an existing one removed). Is there a cleaner way to do this? Perhaps something along the lines of foreach key check which state it's in fire this key's event for that state where the code does the foreach (automatically checking exactly those keys that "exist") rather than the coder?

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Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness and Capacity Assessment for SQL Server

- by SQLOS Team

Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness and Capacity Assessment for Windows Server Machine Running SQL Server With the release of MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta, we have added a new scenario to assess your Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness. The MAP 8.0 Beta performs a comprehensive assessment of Windows Servers running SQL Server to determine you level of readiness to migrate an on-premise physical or virtual machine to Windows Azure Virtual Machines. The MAP Toolkit then offers suggested changes to prepare the machines for migration, such as upgrading the operating system or SQL Server. MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta is available for download here Your participation and feedback is very important to make the MAP Toolkit work better for you. We encourage you to participate in the beta program and provide your feedback at [email protected] or through one of our surveys. Now, let’s walk through the MAP Toolkit task for completing the Windows Azure Virtual Machine assessment and capacity planning. The tasks include the following: Perform an inventory View the Windows Azure VM Readiness results and report Collect performance data for determine VM sizing View the Windows Azure Capacity results and report Perform an inventory: 1. To perform an inventory against a single machine or across a complete environment, choose Perform an Inventory to launch the Inventory and Assessment Wizard as shown below: 2. After the Inventory and Assessment Wizard launches, select either the Windows computers or SQL Server scenario to inventory Windows machines. HINT: If you don’t care about completely inventorying a machine, just select the SQL Server scenario. Click Next to Continue. 3. On the Discovery Methods page, select how you want to discover computers and then click Next to continue. Description of Discovery Methods: Use Active Directory Domain Services -- This method allows you to query a domain controller via the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and select computers in all or specific domains, containers, or OUs. Use this method if all computers and devices are in AD DS. Windows networking protocols -- This method uses the WIN32 LAN Manager application programming interfaces to query the Computer Browser service for computers in workgroups and Windows NT 4.0–based domains. If the computers on the network are not joined to an Active Directory domain, use only the Windows networking protocols option to find computers. System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) -- This method enables you to inventory computers managed by System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). You need to provide credentials to the System Center Configuration Manager server in order to inventory the managed computers. When you select this option, the MAP Toolkit will query SCCM for a list of computers and then MAP will connect to these computers. Scan an IP address range -- This method allows you to specify the starting address and ending address of an IP address range. The wizard will then scan all IP addresses in the range and inventory only those computers. Note: This option can perform poorly, if many IP addresses aren’t being used within the range. Manually enter computer names and credentials -- Use this method if you want to inventory a small number of specific computers. Import computer names from a files -- Using this method, you can create a text file with a list of computer names that will be inventoried. 4. On the All Computers Credentials page, enter the accounts that have administrator rights to connect to the discovered machines. This does not need to a domain account, but needs to be a local administrator. I have entered my domain account that is an administrator on my local machine. Click Next after one or more accounts have been added. NOTE: The MAP Toolkit primarily uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to collect hardware, device, and software information from the remote computers. In order for the MAP Toolkit to successfully connect and inventory computers in your environment, you have to configure your machines to inventory through WMI and also allow your firewall to enable remote access through WMI. The MAP Toolkit also requires remote registry access for certain assessments. In addition to enabling WMI, you need accounts with administrative privileges to access desktops and servers in your environment. 5. On the Credentials Order page, select the order in which want the MAP Toolkit to connect to the machine and SQL Server. Generally just accept the defaults and click Next. 6. On the Enter Computers Manually page, click Create to pull up at dialog to enter one or more computer names. 7. On the Summary page confirm your settings and then click Finish. After clicking Finish the inventory process will start, as shown below: Windows Azure Readiness results and report After the inventory progress has completed, you can review the results under the Database scenario. On the tile, you will see the number of Windows Server machine with SQL Server that were analyzed, the number of machines that are ready to move without changes and the number of machines that require further changes. If you click this Azure VM Readiness tile, you will see additional details and can generate the Windows Azure VM Readiness Report. After the report is generated, select View | Saved Reports and Proposals to view the location of the report. Open up WindowsAzureVMReadiness* report in Excel. On the Windows tab, you can see the results of the assessment. This report has a column for the Operating System and SQL Server assessment and provides a recommendation on how to resolve, if there a component is not supported. Collect Performance Data Launch the Performance Wizard to collect performance information for the Windows Server machines that you would like the MAP Toolkit to suggest a Windows Azure VM size for. Windows Azure Capacity results and report After the performance metrics are collected, the Azure VM Capacity title will display the number of Virtual Machine sizes that are suggested for the Windows Server and Linux machines that were analyzed. You can then click on the Azure VM Capacity tile to see the capacity details and generate the Windows Azure VM Capacity Report. Within this report, you can view the performance data that was collected and the Virtual Machine sizes. MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta is available for download here Your participation and feedback is very important to make the MAP Toolkit work better for you. We encourage you to participate in the beta program and provide your feedback at [email protected] or through one of our surveys. Useful References: Windows Azure Homepage How to guides for Windows Azure Virtual Machines Provisioning a SQL Server Virtual Machine on Windows Azure Windows Azure Pricing Peter Saddow Senior Program Manager – MAP Toolkit Team

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How to Export Multiple Contacts in Outlook 2013 to Multiple vCards or a Single vCard

- by Lori Kaufman

We’ve shown you how to export a contact to and import a contact from a vCard (.vcf) file. However, what if you want to export multiple contacts at the same time to multiple vCard files or even a single vCard file? Outlook doesn’t allow you to directly export all your contacts as vCard files or as a single vCard file, but there is a way to accomplish both tasks. Export Multiple Contacts to Multiple vCard Files Outlook allows you to forward contact information as a vCard. You can also select multiple contacts and forward them all at once. This feature allows you to indirectly export multiple contacts at once to multiple vCard files. Click the People tab to access your contacts. Select all the contacts you want to export using the Shift and Ctrl keys as needed. Select Contacts the same way you would select files in Windows Explorer. Click Forward Contact in the Share section on the Home tab and select As a Business Card from the drop-down menu. The selected contacts attached to a new email message as .vcf files. To select all the attached .vcf files, right-click in the Attached box and select Select All from the popup menu. Make sure the folder to which you want to export the contacts is open in Windows Explorer. Drag the selected attached .vcf files from the new email message to the open folder in Windows Explorer. A .vcf file is created for each contact you selected and dragged to the folder. You can close the Message window by clicking on the X in the upper, right corner of the window. NOTE: You can also close the Message window by clicking the File tab. Then, click the Close option on the left. Because you already have your .vcf files, you don’t need to save or send the message, so click No when asked if you want to save your changes. If it turns out that a draft of your message was saved, the following message displays. Click No to delete the draft. Export Multiple Contacts to a Single vCard (.vcf) File If you would rather export your contacts to a single vCard (.vcf) File, there is a way to do this using Gmail. We’ll export the contacts from Outlook as a .csv file and then use Gmail to convert the .csv file to a .vcf file. Select the contacts you want to export on the People page and click the File tab. On the Account Information screen, click Open & Export in the list on the left. On the Open screen, click Import/Export. The Import and Export Wizard displays. Select Export to a file from the Choose an action to perform list and click Next. In the Create a file of type box, select Comma Separated Values. Click Next. Contacts should be already selected in the Select folder to export from box. If not, select it. Click Next. Click Browse to the right of the Save exported file as box. Navigate to the folder to which you want to export the .csv file. Enter a name for the file in the File name edit box, keeping the .csv extension. The path you selected is entered into the Save exported file as edit box. Click Next. The final screen of the Export to a File dialog box displays listing the action to be performed. Click Finish to begin the export process. Once the export process is finished, you will see the .csv file in the folder in Windows Explorer. Now, we will import the .csv file into Gmail. Go to Gmail and sign in to your account. Click Gmal in the upper, left corner of the main page and select Contacts from the drop-down menu. On the Contacts page, click More above your list of contacts and select Import from the drop-down menu. Click Browse on the Import contacts dialog box that displays. Navigate to the folder in which you saved the .csv file and select the file. Click Open. Click Import on the Import contacts dialog box. A screen displays listing the contacts you imported, but not yet merged into your main Gmail contacts list. Select the contacts you imported. NOTE: The contacts you imported may be the only contacts in this list. If that’s the case, they all should be automatically selected. Click More and select Export from the drop-down menu. On the Export contacts dialog box, select Selected contacts to indicate which contacts you want to export. NOTE: We could have selected The group Imported 10/10/13 because that contains the same two contacts as the Selected contacts. Select vCard format for the export format. Click Export. Gmail creates a contacts.vcf file containing the selected contacts and asks you whether you want to open the file with Outlook or save the file. To save the file, select the Save File option and click OK. Navigate to the folder in which you want to save the contacts.vcf file, change the name of the file in the File name edit box, if desired, and click Save. The .vcf file is saved to the selected directory and contains all the contacts you exported from Outlook. This could be used as a way to backup your contacts in one file. You could also backup the .csv file. However, if you have a lot of contacts you will probably find that the .vcf file is smaller. We only exported two contacts, and our .csv file was 2 KB, while the .vcf file was 1 KB. We will be showing you how to import multiple contacts from a single .vcf file into Outlook soon.

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Workshops, online content show how Oracle infuses simplicity, mobility, extensibility into user experience

- by mvaughan

By Kathy Miedema & Misha Vaughan, Oracle Applications User Experience Oracle has made a huge investment into the user experience of its many different software product families, and recent releases showcase big changes and features that aim to promote end user engagement and efficiency by streamlining navigation and simplifying the user interface. But making Oracle’s enterprise software great-looking and usable doesn’t stop when Oracle products go out the door. The Applications User Experience (UX) team recognizes that our customers may need to customize software to fit their work processes. And that’s why we provide tools such as user experience design patterns to help you maintain the Oracle user experience as you tailor your application to fit your business needs. Often, however, customers may need some context around user experience. How has the Oracle user experience been designed and constructed? Why is a good user experience important for users? How does understanding what goes into the user experience benefit the people who purchase the software for users? There’s a short answer to these questions, and you can read about it on Usable Apps. But truly understanding Oracle’s investment and seeing how it applies across product families occasionally requires a deeper dive into the Oracle user experience, especially if you’re an influencer or decision-maker about Oracle products. To help frame these decisions, the Communications & Outreach team has developed several targeted workshops that explore what Oracle means when it talks about user experience, and provides a roadmap into where the Oracle user experience is going. These workshops require non-disclosure agreements, and have been delivered to Oracle sales folks, Oracle partners, Oracle ACE Directors and ACEs, and a few customers. Some of these audience members have been developers or have a technical background; just as many did not. Here’s a breakdown of the kind of training you can get around the Oracle user experience from the OAUX Communications & Outreach team.For Partners: George Papazzian, Principal, Naviscent with Joyce Ohgi, Oracle Oracle Fusion Applications HCM Pre-Sales Seminar: In concert with Worldwide Alliances and Channels under Applications Partner Enablement Director Jonathan Vinoskey’s guidance, the Applications User Experience team delivers a two-day workshop. Day one focuses on Oracle Fusion Applications HCM and pre-sales strategy, and Day two focuses on positioning and leveraging Oracle’s investment in the Oracle Fusion Applications user experience. The next workshops will occur on the following dates: December 4-5, 2013 @ Manchester, UK January 29-30, 2014 @ Reston, Virginia February 2014 @ Guadalajara, Mexico (email: Shannon Whiteman) March 11-12, 2014 @ Dubai, United Arab Emirates April 1-2, 2014 @ Chicago, Illinois Partner Advisory Board: A two-day board meeting in the U.S. and U.K. to discuss four main user experience areas for Oracle Fusion Applications: simplicity, visualization & analytics, mobility, & futures. This event is limited to Oracle Diamond Partners, UX bloggers, and key UX influencers and requires legal documentation. We will be talking about the Oracle applications UX strategy and roadmap. Partner Implementation Training on User Interface: How to Build Great-Looking, Usable Apps: In this two-day, hands-on workshop built around Oracle’s Application Development Framework, learn how to build desktop and mobile user interfaces and mobile user interfaces based on Oracle’s experience with Fusion Applications. This workshop is for partners with a technology background who are looking for ways to tailor Fusion Applications using ADF, or have built their own custom solutions using ADF. It includes an introduction to UX design patterns and provides tools to build usability-tested UX designs. Nov 5-6, 2013 @ Redwood Shores, CA, USA January 28-29th, 2014 @ Reston, Virginia, USA February 25-26, 2014 @ Guadalajara, Mexico March 9-10, 2014 @ Dubai, United Arab Emirates To register, contact [email protected] Simplified UI Customization & Extensibility: Pilot workshop: We will be reviewing the proposed content for communicating the user experience tool kit available with the next release of Oracle Fusion Applications. Our core focus will be on what toolkit components our system implementors and independent software vendors will need to respond to customer demand, whether they are extending Fusion Applications, or building custom applications, that will need to leverage the simplified UI. Dec 11th, 2013 @ Reading, UK For information: contact [email protected] Private lab tour and demos: Interested in seeing what’s going on in the Apps UX Labs? If you are headed to the San Francisco Bay Area, let us know. We can arrange a spin through our usability labs at headquarters. OAUX Expo: This open-house forum gives partners a look at what the UX team is working on, and showcases the next-generation user experiences in a demo environment where attendees can see and touch the applications. UX Direct: Use the same methods that Oracle uses to develop its own user experiences. We help you define your users and their needs, and then provide direction on how to tailor the best user experience you can for them. For CustomersAngela Johnston, Gozel Aamoth, Teena Singh, and Yen Chan, Oracle Lab tours: See demos of soon-to-be-released products, and take a spin on usability research equipment such as our eye-tracker. Watch this video to get an idea of what you’ll see. Get our newsletter: Learn about newly released products and see where you can meet us at user group conferences. Participate in a feedback session: Join a focus group or customer feedback session to get an early look at user experience designs for the next generation of software, and provide your thoughts on how well it will work. Join the OUAB: The Oracle Usability Advisory Board meets several times a year to discuss trends in the workforce and provide direction on user experience designs. UX Direct: Use the same methods that Oracle uses to develop its own user experiences. We help you define your users and their needs, and then provide direction on how to tailor the best user experience you can for them. For Developers (customers, partners, and consultants): Plinio Arbizu, SP Solutions, Richard Bingham, Oracle, Balaji Kamepalli, EiSTechnoogies, Praveen Pillalamarri, EiSTechnologies How to Build Great-Looking, Usable Apps: This workshop is for attendees with a strong technology background who are looking for ways to tailor customer software using ADF. It includes an introduction to UX design patterns and provides tools to build usability-tested UX designs. See above for dates and times. UX design patterns web site: Cut the length of your project down by months. Use these patterns to build out the task flow you need to develop for your users. The patterns have already been usability-tested and represent the best practices that the Oracle UX research team has found in its studies. UX Direct: Use the same methods that Oracle uses to develop its own user experiences. We help you define your users and their needs, and then provide direction on how to tailor the best user experience you can for them. For Oracle Sales Mike Klein, Jeremy Ashley, Brent White, Oracle Contact your local sales person for more information about the Oracle user experience and the training available from the Applications User Experience Communications & Outreach team. See customer-friendly user experience collateral ranging from the new simplified UI in Oracle Fusion Applications Release 7, to E-Business Suite user experience highlights, to Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards user experience highlights. Receive access to the same pre-sales and implementation training we provide to partners. For Oracle Sales only: Oracle-only training on the Oracle Fusion Applications UX Innovation Sales Kit.

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Adding dynamic business logic/business process checks to a system

- by Jordan Reiter

I'm wondering if there is a good extant pattern (language here is Python/Django but also interested on the more abstract level) for creating a business logic layer that can be created without coding. For example, suppose that a house rental should only be available during a specific time. A coder might create the following class: from bizlogic import rules, LogicRule from orders.models import Order class BeachHouseAvailable(LogicRule): def check(self, reservation): house = reservation.house_reserved if not (house.earliest_available < reservation.starts < house.latest_available ) raise RuleViolationWhen("Beach house is available only between %s and %s" % (house.earliest_available, house.latest_available)) return True rules.add(Order, BeachHouseAvailable, name="BeachHouse Available") This is fine, but I don't want to have to code something like this each time a new rule is needed. I'd like to create something dynamic, ideally something that can be stored in a database. The thing is, it would have to be flexible enough to encompass a wide variety of rules: avoiding duplicates/overlaps (to continue the example "You already have a reservation for this time/location") logic rules ("You can't rent a house to yourself", "This house is in a different place from your chosen destination") sanity tests ("You've set a rental price that's 10x the normal rate. Are you sure this is the right price?" Things like that. Before I recreate the wheel, I'm wondering if there are already methods out there for doing something like this.

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