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• Best WordPress Shopping Cart & Ecommerce Plugins

  - by Edward

  A versatile WordPress Shopping Cart plugin can help you create a feature-rich online store on your WordPress-powered website or blog. Some are so advanced that you can get your store up and running in minutes. Some plugins allow you to take ecommerce to a next level with their high end customization tools. Here is a list of best WP shopping cart plugins available: Cart66 One of the best WordPress plugin with lots of features, great quality and ease of use. It accepts few more payment getways such as PayPal Website Payments Standard, PayPal Website Payments Professional, PayPal Express Checkout, eProcessing Network etc. It has flexible design options, recurring payments for subscriptions, memberships, and payment plans, Easy PCI Compliance – Safe and Secure. It is fast and efficient, one can sell digital and physical products and support is good. Price: Standard $49 & Professional $99 Details Download StorePress StorePress is a WordPress theme, which is fully coded. It comes with scripts that can change a WordPress blog into a veritable e-commerce virtual store. With this great premium WordPress theme, one can start affiliate stores, or promote affiliate products. Price: Single $59.99 & Developer License $119.99 Details Download WordPress eStore Plugin This shopping cart plugin comes with easy checkout, ease of design and use, automatic instant digital product delivery, Next Gen gallery integration, autoresponder integration etc. It is a lightweight shopping cart and allows multi site license. This plugin offers an amazingly comprehensive toolkit that will ensure your online shop is almost just plug-and-play. Price: $49.99 Details Download Shoppers Press Shoppers press is a premium cart for Word Press that comes with 20+ to choose from and 20+ built in payment gateways. It features one-click setups, personalized user accounts, easy management tools, detailed sales tracking, promotional options, a variety of product import tools, and many more features Price:$79 Details Download WordPress Shopping Cart plugin The WordPress Shopping Cart plugin by Tribulant quickly and seamlessly integrates an online shop with a fully functional shopping cart interface into any WordPress website. It has easy to use interface, which enables set up of multiple products and categorize and organizing them into multiple product categories. It also has many more attractive features. Price: $49.99 Details Download WP e-commerce WP e-commerce is a free full-featured shopping cart plugin for WordPress. It is a full featured shopping cart and boasts of easy checkout. It offers a wide range of features including SSL compatibility, customization and merchandising, integrated payment processing solutions including manual payment, Google Checkout and PayPal Payments, and email marketing. It is wordpress and social networking integrated. It is customizable by use of PHP template tag, wordpress shortcode and widgets. Details Download YAK for WordPress YAK is an open source shopping cart plugin for WordPress. It associates products with weblog entries (in other words, posts), so the post ID also becomes the product code. It supports both pages and posts as products, handles different types of product through categories. YAK supports downloadable products, so any e-books, plugins, or zip files you’re marketing can be easily purchased and dowloaded. Details Download Market Press It is another shopping cart full of many features. It offers following features such as assign categories and tags to products to make them easy to find, stock tracking with alerts, order management/alerts, fully customizable email messages, full support for most major currencies, fully customizable store urls/slugs, customers can checkout without being a site user etc. Expensive, but good option for those who can afford it. Price: $17.42/month Details Download Shopp It is an excellent shopping cart plugin for Word Press. This plugin is extremely easy to install and use. It has a cleaner interface. The customer support is good. Use can easily customize the look of the cart by using its amazing features. Price: $55 Details Download Related posts:8 PHP Shopping Cart Software for Reliable Ecommerce Solution Shopping Cart SEO 8 Free Open Source Shopping Carts

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• Markus Zirn, "Big Data with CEP and SOA" @ SOA, Cloud &amp; Service Technology Symposium 2012

  - by JuergenKress

  ORACLE PROMOTIONAL DISCOUNT FOR EXCLUSIVE ORACLE DISCOUNT, ENTER PROMO CODE: DJMXZ370 Early-Bird Registration is Now Open with Special Pricing! Register before July 1, 2012 to qualify for discounts. Visit the Registration page for details. The International SOA, Cloud + Service Technology Symposium is a yearly event that features the top experts and authors from around the world, providing a series of keynotes, talks, demonstrations, and panels, as well as training and certification workshops - all dedicated to empowering IT professionals to realize modern service technologies and practices in the real world. Click here for a two-page printable conference overview (PDF). Big Data with CEP and SOA - September 25, 2012 - 14:15 Speaker: Markus Zirn, Oracle and Baz Kuthi, Avocent The "Big Data" trend is driving new kinds of IT projects that process machine-generated data. Such projects store and mine using Hadoop/ Map Reduce, but they also analyze streaming data via event-driven patterns, which can be called "Fast Data" complementary to "Big Data". This session highlights how "Big Data" and "Fast Data" design patterns can be combined with SOA design principles into modern, event-driven architectures. We will describe specific architectures that combines CEP, Distributed Caching, Event-driven Network, SOA Composites, Application Development Framework, as well as Hadoop. Architecture patterns include pre-processing and filtering event streams as close as possible to the event source, in memory master data for event pattern matching, event-driven user interfaces as well as distributed event processing. Focus is on how "Fast Data" requirements are elegantly integrated into a traditional SOA architecture. Markus Zirn is Vice President of Product Management covering Oracle SOA Suite, SOA Governance, Application Integration Architecture, BPM, BPM Solutions, Complex Event Processing and UPK, an end user learning solution. He is the author of “The BPEL Cookbook” (rated best book on Services Oriented Architecture in 2007) as well as “Fusion Middleware Patterns”. Previously, he was a management consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton’s High Tech practice in Duesseldorf as well as San Francisco and Vice President of Product Marketing at QUIQ. Mr. Zirn holds a Masters of Electrical Engineering from the University of Karlsruhe and is an alumnus of the Tripartite program, a joint European degree from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, the University of Southampton, UK, and ESIEE, France. KEYNOTES & SPEAKERS More than 80 international subject matter experts will be speaking at the Symposium. Below are confirmed keynotes and speakers so far. Over 50% of the agenda has not yet been finalized. Many more speakers to come. View the partial program calendars on the Conference Agenda page. CONFERENCE THEMES & TRACKS Cloud Computing Architecture & Patterns New SOA & Service-Orientation Practices & Models Emerging Service Technology Innovation Service Modeling & Analysis Techniques Service Infrastructure & Virtualization Cloud-based Enterprise Architecture Business Planning for Cloud Computing Projects Real World Case Studies Semantic Web Technologies (with & without the Cloud) Governance Frameworks for SOA and/or Cloud Computing Projects Service Engineering & Service Programming Techniques Interactive Services & the Human Factor New REST & Web Services Tools & Techniques Oracle Specialized SOA & BPM Partners Oracle Specialized partners have proven their skills by certifications and customer references. To find a local Specialized partner please visit http://solutions.oracle.com SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit  www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: Markus Zirn,SOA Symposium,Thomas Erl,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,BPM Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Change Desktop Resolution With a Keyboard Shortcut

  - by Matthew Guay

  Do you find yourself changing your monitor resolution several times a day?  If so, you might like this handy way to set a keyboard shortcut for your most-used resolutions. Most users rarely have to change their screen resolution often, as LCD monitors usually only look best at their native resolution.  But netbooks present a unique situation, as their native resolution is usually only 1024×600.  Some newer netbooks offer higher resolutions which may not looks as crisp as the native resolution but can be handy for using a program that expects a higher resolution.  This is the perfect situation for a keyboard shortcut to help you change the resolution without having to hassle with dialogs and menus each time, and HRC – HotKey Resolution Changer makes it easy to do. Create Keyboard Shortcuts Download the HRC – HotKey Resolution Changer (link below), unzip, and then run HRC.exe in the folder. This will start a tray icon, and will not automatically open the HRC window.  You don’t have to install HRC.  Double-click the tray icon to open it.  Note: Windows 7 automatically hides new tray icons, so if you can’t see it, click the arrow to see the hidden tray icons. By default, HRC will show two entries with your default resolutions, color depth, and refresh rate. Add a keyboard shortcut by clicking the Change button over the resolution.  Press the keyboard shortcut you want to press to switch to that resolution; we entered Ctrl+Alt+1 for our default resolution.  Make sure not to use a keyboard shortcut you use in another application, as this will override it.  Click Set when you’ve entered the hotkey(s) you want. Now, on the second entry, select the resolution you want for your alternate resolution.  The drop-down list will only show your monitor’s supported resolutions, so you don’t have to worry about choosing an incorrect resolution.  You can also set a different color depth or refresh rate for this resolution.  Now add a keyboard shortcut for this resolution as well. You can set keyboard shortcuts for up to 9 different resolutions with HRC.  Click the Select number of HotKeys button on the left, and choose the number of resolutions you want to set.  Here we have unique keyboard shortcuts for our three most-used resolutions on our netbook. HRC must be kept running to use the keyboard shortcuts, so click the Minimize to tray icon which is the second icon to the right.  This will keep it running in the tray. If you want to be able to change your resolution anytime, you’ll want HRC to automatically start with Windows.  Create a shortcut to HRC, and paste it into your Windows startup folder.  You can easily open this folder by entering the following in the Run command or in the address bar in Explorer: %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup   Conclusion HRC- HotKey Resolution Changer gives you a great way to quickly change your screen resolution with a keyboard shortcut.  Whether or not you love keyboard shortcuts, this is still a much easier way to switch between your most commonly used resolutions. Download HRC – HotKey Resolution Changer Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Create a Keyboard Shortcut to Access Hidden Desktop Icons and FilesGet Mac’s Hide Others (cmd+opt+H) Keyboard Shortcut for WindowsHide Desktop Icon Text on Windows 7 or VistaShow Keyboard Shortcut Access Keys in Windows VistaKeyboard Ninja: 21 Keyboard Shortcut Articles TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Use Flixtime To Create Video Slideshows Creating a Password Reset Disk in Windows Bypass Waiting Time On Customer Service Calls With Lucyphone MELTUP – "The Beginning Of US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation" Enable or Disable the Task Manager Using TaskMgrED Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative

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• HTML Presence Controls for Communications Server 14 CodePlex Project

  Showing Presence on the Web If youre running Office Communicator Server 2007 R2, you know that your only out-of-the-box option for showing presence on the web is to use the NameControl ActiveX control that ships as part of Office.  Being an ActiveX control, this obviously means that youre limited to Internet Explorer.  Also, nobody likes ActiveX controls What if you want to show the presence of users in a pure ASP.NET or HTML application and cant assume that the user has Communicator installed you need anASP.NET or HTML presence control.  HTML Presence Controls for Microsoft Communications Server 14 We recently worked with the UC team at Microsoft on a keynote demo for TechEd 2010 in New Orleans.  The demo was for a fictitious airline Fabrikam Airlines that wanted to show the presence of customer service and reservations agents on its website.  Customers could also start an instant message conversation with the agents using a Silverlight web chat window that used WCF to communicate with the backend UCMA application. We built HTML Presence Controls that use AJAX to poll a REST-based WCF service running in IIS and hosting a UCMA 3.0 presence subscription application.   Microsoft has graciously allowed us to publish these on CodePlex so that the development community can benefit from them:  http://htmlpresencecontrols.codeplex.com/ We will be maintaining the CodePlex project as new builds of UCMA 3.0 become available.  Check out the project home page on CodePlex for some more in-depth details on how the controls are implemented. ASP.NET Server Control Implementation Were providing an ASP.NET Server Control implementation that you can use stand-alone or in a GridView or Repeater (or other layout control).  The control has properties that allow you to control its appearance, e.g. you can choose whether or not to show the contacts name or availability text. You can also use the server control in a layout control such as a GridView by putting it in a TemplateColumn and binding to the Sip Uri in the data source. Disclaimer Once we started working on these, we realized why Microsoft hasnt shipped such controls as part of the product.  There are some tradeoffs you have to be aware of when using these controls, heres the high level. Privacy The backend UCMA 3.0 application that subscribes to presence of contacts runs as a trusted application and can thus retrieve the presence of any user in the organization.  Theres currently no good way in UCMA to apply any privacy rules to ensure that the consumer of the presence controls has permission to see the presence of the contacts that the controls are bound to.  Just to be absolutely crystal clear These controls provide a way to query the presence of any user in the organization, regardless of the privacy relationship between the person consuming the controls and the contacts whose presence is being displayed. Were exploring options for a design pattern that would allow you to inject some privacy controls.  Keep in mind though that you would most likely be responsible for implementing this logic, as there is currently no functionality in UCMA that allows you to do that. Polling the WCF REST Service The controls poll the backend WCF service to retrieve the presence of contacts - you can control the refresh interval so that they poll less often. We implemented a caching layer so that the WCF service is always communicating with a presence cache it never communicates directly with Communications Server.  For example, if your web page is showing the presence of sip:[email protected] and 500 people have the page open, the presence cache only contains one instance of the subscription Communications Server is not being polled 500 times for the presence of that contact. Once the presence of a contact changes, it is updated in the cache.  There are some server-based push mechanisms that would work nicely here, such as the one that Outlook Web Access 2010 uses.  Unfortunately we didnt have time to explore these options. Community Contribution Take a look at the project Issue Tracker, there are a couple of things we can use some help with.  Shoot me a note if youre interested in contributing to the project. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Oracle BI and XS Energy Drinks – Don’t Miss the Amway Presentation!

  - by Michelle Kimihira

  By Maria Forney Amway is a global leader in the direct sales industry with $10.9B in annual sales in more than 100 countries and territories. The company has implemented a global BI framework that provides accurate, consistent, and timely insights to support global, regional and local analytical research, business planning, performance measurement and assessment. Oracle BI EE is used by 1500 employees across Amway sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain business units as well as Amway affiliates in Europe, Russia, South Africa, Japan, Australia, Latin America, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Last week, I spoke with Lead Data Analyst with Amway Global Sales, Dan Arganbright, and IT Manager with Amway BI Competency Center, Mike Olson, about their upcoming presentation at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Scheduled during a prime speaking slot on Monday, October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007, Dan and Mike will discuss their experience building Amway’s Distributor Consulting solution, powered by Oracle BI EE. You can find more information here. As background, Amway offers people an opportunity to own their own businesses and consumers exclusive products in health and wellness, beauty and home care.  The Amway internal Sales organization is charged with consulting leadership-level Distributors to help them with data insights and ultimately grow their business. Until recently, this was a resource-intense process of gathering and formatting data. In some markets, it took over 40 hours to collect the data and produce the analysis needed for one consultation session. Amway began its global BI journey in 2006 and since then the company has migrated from having multiple technology providers and integration points to an integrated strategic vendor approach. Today, the company has standardized on Oracle technology for BI.  Amway has achieved cost savings through the retirement of redundant technology platforms. In addition, Mike’s organization has led the charge to align disparate BI organizations into a BI Competency Center.  The following diagram highlights the simplicity of the standardized architecture of Amway today. Dubbed Distributor Consulting, Amway has developed a BI solution using the Oracle technology stack to help Distributor leaders grow their businesses. The Distributor Consulting solution provides over 40 metrics for Sales staff to provide data-driven insights on the Distributors and organizations they support.  Using Oracle BI EE, Exadata, and Oracle Data Integrator, Amway provides customized and personalized business intelligence, and the Oracle BI EE dashboards were developed by the Amway Sales organization, which demonstrates business empowerment of the technology. Amway is also leveraging the power of BI to drive business growth in all of its markets.  A new set of Distributor Segmentation metrics are enabling a better understanding of distributor behaviors. A Global Scorecard that Amway developed provides key metrics at a market and global level for executive-level discussions. Product Analysis teams can now highlight repeat purchase rates, product penetration and the success of CRM campaigns. In the words of Dan and Mike, the addition of Exadata 11 months ago has been “a game changer.”  Amway has been able to dramatically reduce complexity, improve performance and increase business productivity and cost savings. For example, the number of indexes on the global data warehouse was reduced from more than 1,000 to less than 20.  Pulling data for the highest level distributors or the largest markets in the company now can be done in minutes instead of hours.  As a result, IT has shifted from performance tuning and keeping the system operational to higher-value business-focused activities. •       “The distributors that have been introduced to the BI reports have found them extremely helpful. Because they have never had this kind of information before, when they were presented with the reports, they wanted to take action immediately!”  -     Sales Development Manager in Latin America Without giving away more, the Amway case study presentation will be one of the unique customer sessions at OpenWorld this year. Speakers Dan Arganbright and Mike Olson have planned an interactive and entertaining session on Monday October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007. I’ll see you there!

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• Oracle BI and XS Energy Drinks – Don’t Miss the Amway Presentation!

  - by Maria Forney

  Amway is a global leader in the direct sales industry with $10.9B in annual sales in more than 100 countries and territories. The company has implemented a global BI framework that provides accurate, consistent, and timely insights to support global, regional and local analytical research, business planning, performance measurement and assessment. Oracle BI EE is used by 1500 employees across Amway sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain business units as well as Amway affiliates in Europe, Russia, South Africa, Japan, Australia, Latin America, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Last week, I spoke with Lead Data Analyst with Amway Global Sales, Dan Arganbright, and IT Manager with Amway BI Competency Center, Mike Olson, about their upcoming presentation at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Scheduled during a prime speaking slot on Monday, October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007, Dan and Mike will discuss their experience building Amway’s Distributor Consulting solution, powered by Oracle BI EE. You can find more information here. As background, Amway offers people an opportunity to own their own businesses and consumers exclusive products in health and wellness, beauty and home care.  The Amway internal Sales organization is charged with consulting leadership-level Distributors to help them with data insights and ultimately grow their business. Until recently, this was a resource-intense process of gathering and formatting data. In some markets, it took over 40 hours to collect the data and produce the analysis needed for one consultation session. Amway began its global BI journey in 2006 and since then the company has migrated from having multiple technology providers and integration points to an integrated strategic vendor approach. Today, the company has standardized on Oracle technology for BI.  Amway has achieved cost savings through the retirement of redundant technology platforms. In addition, Mike’s organization has led the charge to align disparate BI organizations into a BI Competency Center.  The following diagram highlights the simplicity of the standardized architecture of Amway today. Dubbed Distributor Consulting, Amway has developed a BI solution using the Oracle technology stack to help Distributor leaders grow their businesses. The Distributor Consulting solution provides over 40 metrics for Sales staff to provide data-driven insights on the Distributors and organizations they support.  Using Oracle BI EE, Exadata, and Oracle Data Integrator, Amway provides customized and personalized business intelligence, and the Oracle BI EE dashboards were developed by the Amway Sales organization, which demonstrates business empowerment of the technology. Amway is also leveraging the power of BI to drive business growth in all of its markets.  A new set of Distributor Segmentation metrics are enabling a better understanding of distributor behaviors. A Global Scorecard that Amway developed provides key metrics at a market and global level for executive-level discussions. Product Analysis teams can now highlight repeat purchase rates, product penetration and the success of CRM campaigns. In the words of Dan and Mike, the addition of Exadata 11 months ago has been “a game changer.”  Amway has been able to dramatically reduce complexity, improve performance and increase business productivity and cost savings. For example, the number of indexes on the global data warehouse was reduced from more than 1,000 to less than 20.  Pulling data for the highest level distributors or the largest markets in the company now can be done in minutes instead of hours.  As a result, IT has shifted from performance tuning and keeping the system operational to higher-value business-focused activities. •       “The distributors that have been introduced to the BI reports have found them extremely helpful. Because they have never had this kind of information before, when they were presented with the reports, they wanted to take action immediately!”  -     Sales Development Manager in Latin America Without giving away more, the Amway case study presentation will be one of the unique customer sessions at OpenWorld this year. Speakers Dan Arganbright and Mike Olson have planned an interactive and entertaining session on Monday October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007. I’ll see you there!

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• Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g is Here!

  - by chung.wu

  We hope that you enjoyed the launch event. If you missed it, you may still watch it via our on demand webcast, which is being produced and will be posted very shortly. 11gR1 is a major release of Oracle Enterprise Manager, and as one would expect from a big release, there are many new capabilities that appeal to a broad set of audience. Before going into the laundry list of new features, let's talk about the key themes for this release to put things in perspective. First, this release is about Business Driven Application Management. The traditional paradigm of component centric systems management simply cannot satisfy the management needs of modern distributed applications, as they do not provide adequate visibility of whether these applications are truly meeting the service level expectations of the business users. Business Driven Application Management helps IT manage applications according to the needs of the business users so that valuable IT resources can be better focused to help deliver better business results. To support Business Driven Application Management, 11gR1 builds on the work that we started in 10g to provide better support for user experience management. This capability helps IT better understand how users use applications and the experience that the applications provide so that IT can take actions to help end users get their work done more effectively. In addition, this release also delivers improved business transaction management capabilities to make it faster and easier to understand and troubleshoot transaction problems that impact end user experience. Second, this release includes strengthened Integrated Application-to-Disk Management. Every component of an application environment, from the application logic to the application server, to database, host machines and storage devices, etc... can affect end user experience. After user experience improvement needs are identified, IT needs tools that can be used do deep dive diagnostics for each of the application environment component, analyze configurations and deploy changes. Enterprise Manager 11gR1 extends coverage of key application environment components to include full support for Oracle Database 11gR2, Exadata V2, and Fusion Middleware 11g. For composite and Java application management, two key pieces of technologies, JVM Diagnostic and Composite Application Monitoring and Modeler, are now fully integrated into Enterprise Manager so there is no need to install and maintain separate tools. In addition, we have delivered the first set of integration between Enterprise Manager Grid Control and Enterprise Manager Ops Center so that hardware level events can be centrally monitored via Grid Control. Finally, this release delivers Integrated Systems Management and Support for customers of Oracle technologies. Traditionally, systems management tools and tech support were separate silos. When problems occur, administrators used internally deployed tools to try to solve the problems themselves. If they couldn't fix the problems, then they would use some sort of support website to get help from the vendor's support staff. Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g integrates problem diagnostic and remediation workflow. Administrators can use Oracle Enterprise Manager's various diagnostic tools to begin the troubleshooting process. They can also use the integrated access to My Oracle Support to look up solutions and download software patches. If further help is needed, administrators can open service requests from right within Oracle Enterprise Manager and track status update. Oracle's support staff, using Enterprise Manager's configuration management capabilities, can collect important configuration information about customer environments in order to expedite problem resolution. This tight integration between Oracle Enterprise Manager and My Oracle Support helps Oracle customers achieve a Superior Ownership Experience for their Oracle products. So there you have it. This is a brief 50,000 feet overview of Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g. We know you are hungry for the details. We are going to write about it in the coming days and weeks. For those of you that absolutely can't wait to find out more, you may download our software to try it out today. In fact, for the first time ever, the initial release of Oracle Enterprise Manager is available for both 32 and 64 bit Linux. Additional O/S ports will arrive in the coming weeks. Please stay tuned on the Oracle Enterprise Manager blog for additional updates.

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• OBIEE 11.1.1 - User Interface (UI) Performance Is Slow With Internet Explorer 8

  - by Ahmed A

  The OBIEE 11g UI is performance is slow in IE 8 and faster in Firefox.  For VPN or WAN users, it takes long time to display links on Dashboards via IE 8. Cause is IE 8 generates many HTTP 304 return calls and this caused the 11g UI slower when compared to the Mozilla FireFox browser. To resolve this issue, you can implement HTTP compression and caching. This is a best practice.Why use Web Server Compression / Caching for OBIEE? Bandwidth Savings: Enabling HTTP compression can have a dramatic improvement on the latency of responses. By compressing static files and dynamic application responses, it will significantly reduce the remote (high latency) user response time. Improves request/response latency: Caching makes it possible to suppress the payload of the HTTP reply using the 304 status code.  Minimizing round trips over the Web to re-validate cached items can make a huge difference in browser page load times. This screen shot depicts the flow and where the compression and decompression occurs: Solution: a. How to Enable HTTP Caching / Compression in Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) 11.1.1.x 1. To implement HTTP compression / caching, install and configure Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) 11.1.1.x for the bi_serverN Managed Servers (refer to "OBIEE Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence" document for details). 2. On the OHS machine, open the file HTTP Server configuration file (httpd.conf) for editing. This file is located in the OHS installation directory.For example: ORACLE_HOME/Oracle_WT1/instances/instance1/config/OHS/ohs13. In httpd.conf file, verify that the following directives are included and not commented out: LoadModule expires_module "${ORACLE_HOME}/ohs/modules/mod_expires.soLoadModule deflate_module "${ORACLE_HOME}/ohs/modules/mod_deflate.so 4. Add the following lines in httpd.conf file below the directive LoadModule section and restart the OHS: Note: For the Windows platform, you will need to enclose any paths in double quotes ("), for example:Alias "/analytics ORACLE_HOME/bifoundation/web/app"<Directory "ORACLE_HOME/bifoundation/web/app"> Alias /analytics ORACLE_HOME/bifoundation/web/app#Pls replace the ORACLE_HOME with your actual BI ORACLE_HOME path<Directory ORACLE_HOME/bifoundation/web/app>#We don't generate proper cross server ETags so disable themFileETag noneSetOutputFilter DEFLATE# Don't compress imagesSetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:gif|jpe?g|png)$ no-gzip dont-vary<FilesMatch "\.(gif|jpeg|png|js|x-javascript|javascript|css)$">#Enable future expiry of static filesExpiresActive onExpiresDefault "access plus 1 week"     #1 week, this will stops the HTTP304 calls i.e. generated by IE 8Header set Cache-Control "max-age=604800"</FilesMatch>DirectoryIndex default.jsp</Directory>#Restrict access to WEB-INF<Location /analytics/WEB-INF>Order Allow,DenyDeny from all</Location> Note: Make sure you replace above placeholder "ORACLE_HOME" to your correct path for BI ORACLE_HOME.For example: my BI Oracle Home path is /Oracle/BIEE11g/Oracle_BI1/bifoundation/web/app Important Notes: Above caching rules restricted to static files found inside the /analytics directory(/web/app). This approach is safer instead of setting static file caching globally. In some customer environments you may not get 100% performance gains in IE 8.0 browser. So in that case you need to extend caching rules to other directories with static files content. If OHS is installed on separate dedicated machine, make sure static files in your BI ORACLE_HOME (../Oracle_BI1/bifoundation/web/app) is accessible to the OHS instance. The following screen shot summarizes the before and after results and improvements after enabling compression and caching:

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• Oracle Database 12 c Training and Certification: What’s in it for Me?

  - by KJones

  Oracle Database 12c has officially launched! Through Oracle University, our expert instructors can introduce you to the features and functions of this new Oracle Database 12c product. Through training courses and certification exam prep seminars, you can build up your database knowledge and apply this knowledge to advance your career. Already an Oracle Database Expert? Why Oracle Database 12c Training is still a Good Idea Oracle is the industry leader for database technology and takes the release of new products very seriously. We continue to listen to customer needs and add features and functionality to address those needs. Oracle Database 12c is no exception. The following areas have been greatly enhanced and should be considered for your additional training or certification: • Database for Cloud Computing • Compression and Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) • Improved Performance & Scalability • Extreme Availability • Security Defense in Depth • Manageability Oracle Certified Database Administrators Reap Career Rewards Becoming an expert user of database technology through Oracle University's certification program widens your skill set to demonstrate your expertise implementing the most advanced database technology available. By doing so, you'll make yourself a more marketable employee and candidate in the job market.  Reasons to Become an Oracle Certified Database Administrator of Oracle Database 12c: • The new Oracle Database 12c certifications emphasize more advanced skills that align with industry standards, resulting in an even more valuable credential for customers and partners. • The Oracle Certified Associate (OCA) for Oracle Database 12c centers upon certification objectives that measure IT professionals' day-to-day skills, along with your ability to manage challenges. • Building upon all of the competencies incorporated into Oracle's Database 12c OCA certification, the Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) for Oracle Database 12c certification includes advanced knowledge and skills required of top-performing database administrators. • The Oracle Certified Master (OCM) for Oracle Database 12c - a very challenging and elite top-level certification - certifies the most highly skilled and experienced database experts. • Oracle offers 12c upgrade paths for existing Oracle Certified Professionals (OCP) and Oracle Certified Masters (OCM). Database 12c Training and Certification: Built with Your Input When creating Oracle Database 12c training courses and certifications, we wanted to know which tasks are most important in a DBA's day-to-day work. Instead of assuming what those tasks might be, we decided to develop a job task analysis survey for DBAs. The response rate from DBAs from around the world was overwhelming! The survey focused on the following key database areas: • DBA Core Essentials • Database Storage • High Availability • Scalability • Networking • Security • Very Large Database Administration • Distributed Databases After conducting this survey, we took this specific feedback and used it to help mold the new Oracle Database 12c training and certification curriculum. The benefit to you? You now have access to Oracle Database 12c courses and certification exams that were created with your specific on-the-job tasks in mind. Explore Oracle Database 12c Training & Certification Today Investing in Oracle Database 12c training courses and certifications will help you develop a great deal of knowledge, experience and expertise. Explore our portfolio of offerings to determine which skills you need as a DBA to get up-to-speed on Oracle Database 12c technology. Questions or comments about the new Oracle Database 12c offerings? Let us know in the comments below. - Diana Gray, Principle Curriculum Product Manager and Raza Siddiqui, Senior Principle Curriculum Product Manager

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• TS-7800 Hangs on bootup

  - by Reid

  I have a TS-7800, and it typically boots from the SD card inserted in it. When I tried to boot it up today, it hung on the syslog line. I am now having "Read only file system" problems. What has gone wrong? Bootup console: >> Copyright (c) 2008, Technologic Systems >> Booting from SD card... . . . . >> Booting to SD Card... INIT: version 2.86 booting Starting the hotplug events dispatcher: udevd. Synthesizing the initial hotplug events...done. Waiting for /dev to be fully populated...done. mount: can't find / in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab Cleaning up ifupdown...rm: cannot remove `/etc/network/run/ifstate': Read-only file system Loading kernel modules...done. Checking all file systems... fsck 1.37 (21-Mar-2005) ... done. none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620) /etc/init.d/rcS: line 39: /tmp/.clean: Read-only file system Setting up networking...done. Setting up IP spoofing protection: rp_filter. Enabling packet forwarding...done. Configuring network interfaces...ifup: failed to open statefile /etc/network/run/ifstate: Read-only file system done. Starting portmap daemon: portmap. /etc/init.d/rcS: line 39: /tmp/.clean: Read-only file system /etc/init.d/rcS: line 24: /var/run/utmp: Read-only file system rm: cannot remove `/var/lib/urandom/random-seed': Read-only file system urandom start: failed. Recovering nvi editor sessions... done. INIT: Entering runlevel: 3 Starting system log daemon: syslogd . Starting kernel log daemon: klogd. Starting MTA: open: Read-only file system touch: cannot touch `/var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.tmp': Read-only file system chown: cannot access `/var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.tmp': No such file or directory chmod: cannot access `/var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.tmp': No such file or directory chmod: changing permissions of `/var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated': Read-only file system /usr/sbin/update-exim4.conf: line 260: cannot create temp file for here document: Read-only file system /usr/sbin/update-exim4.conf: line 387: /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.tmp: Read-only file system 2002-01-01 01:31:36 Cannot open main log file "/var/log/exim4/mainlog": Read-only file system: euid=0 egid=0 2002-01-01 01:31:36 non-existent configuration file(s): /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.tmp 2002-01-01 01:31:36 Cannot open main log file "/var/log/exim4/mainlog": Read-only file system: euid=0 egid=0 exim: could not open panic log - aborting: see message(s) above Invalid new configfile /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.tmp not installing /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.tmp to /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated Starting internet superserver: inetd. Starting OpenBSD Secure Shell server: sshd. Starting NFS common utilities: statdStarting periodic command scheduler: cron/usr/sbin/cron: can't open or create /var/run/crond.pid: Read-only file system . Starting web server (apache2)...(30)Read-only file system: apache2: could not open error log file /var/log/apache2/error.log. Unable to open logs failed! Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 ts7800 ttyS0 ts7800 login:

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• RequestValidation Changes in ASP.NET 4.0

  - by Rick Strahl

  There’s been a change in the way the ValidateRequest attribute on WebForms works in ASP.NET 4.0. I noticed this today while updating a post on my WebLog all of which contain raw HTML and so all pretty much trigger request validation. I recently upgraded this app from ASP.NET 2.0 to 4.0 and it’s now failing to update posts. At first this was difficult to track down because of custom error handling in my app – the custom error handler traps the exception and logs it with only basic error information so the full detail of the error was initially hidden. After some more experimentation in development mode the error that occurs is the typical ASP.NET validate request error (‘A potentially dangerous Request.Form value was detetected…’) which looks like this in ASP.NET 4.0: At first when I got this I was real perplexed as I didn’t read the entire error message and because my page does have: <%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="NewEntry.aspx.cs" Inherits="Westwind.WebLog.NewEntry" MasterPageFile="~/App_Templates/Standard/AdminMaster.master" ValidateRequest="false" EnableEventValidation="false" EnableViewState="false" %> WTF? ValidateRequest would seem like it should be enough, but alas in ASP.NET 4.0 apparently that setting alone is no longer enough. Reading the fine print in the error explains that you need to explicitly set the requestValidationMode for the application back to V2.0 in web.config: <httpRuntime executionTimeout="300" requestValidationMode="2.0" /> Kudos for the ASP.NET team for putting up a nice error message that tells me how to fix this problem, but excuse me why the heck would you change this behavior to require an explicit override to an optional and by default disabled page level switch? You’ve just made a relatively simple fix to a solution a nasty morass of hard to discover configuration settings??? The original way this worked was perfectly discoverable via attributes in the page. Now you can set this setting in the page and get completely unexpected behavior and you are required to set what effectively amounts to a backwards compatibility flag in the configuration file. It turns out the real reason for the .config flag is that the request validation behavior has moved from WebForms pipeline down into the entire ASP.NET/IIS request pipeline and is now applied against all requests. Here’s what the breaking changes page from Microsoft says about it: The request validation feature in ASP.NET provides a certain level of default protection against cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. In previous versions of ASP.NET, request validation was enabled by default. However, it applied only to ASP.NET pages (.aspx files and their class files) and only when those pages were executing. In ASP.NET 4, by default, request validation is enabled for all requests, because it is enabled before the BeginRequest phase of an HTTP request. As a result, request validation applies to requests for all ASP.NET resources, not just .aspx page requests. This includes requests such as Web service calls and custom HTTP handlers. Request validation is also active when custom HTTP modules are reading the contents of an HTTP request. As a result, request validation errors might now occur for requests that previously did not trigger errors. To revert to the behavior of the ASP.NET 2.0 request validation feature, add the following setting in the Web.config file: <httpRuntime requestValidationMode="2.0" /> However, we recommend that you analyze any request validation errors to determine whether existing handlers, modules, or other custom code accesses potentially unsafe HTTP inputs that could be XSS attack vectors. Ok, so ValidateRequest of the form still works as it always has but it’s actually the ASP.NET Event Pipeline, not WebForms that’s throwing the above exception as request validation is applied to every request that hits the pipeline. Creating the runtime override removes the HttpRuntime checking and restores the WebForms only behavior. That fixes my immediate problem but still leaves me wondering especially given the vague wording of the above explanation. One thing that’s missing in the description is above is one important detail: The request validation is applied only to application/x-www-form-urlencoded POST content not to all inbound POST data. When I first read this this freaked me out because it sounds like literally ANY request hitting the pipeline is affected. To make sure this is not really so I created a quick handler: public class Handler1 : IHttpHandler { public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) { context.Response.ContentType = "text/plain"; context.Response.Write("Hello World <hr>" + context.Request.Form.ToString()); } public bool IsReusable { get { return false; } } } and called it with Fiddler by posting some XML to the handler using a default form-urlencoded POST content type: and sure enough – hitting the handler also causes the request validation error and 500 server response. Changing the content type to text/xml effectively fixes the problem however, bypassing the request validation filter so Web Services/AJAX handlers and custom modules/handlers that implement custom protocols aren’t affected as long as they work with special input content types. It also looks that multipart encoding does not trigger event validation of the runtime either so this request also works fine: POST http://rasnote/weblog/handler1.ashx HTTP/1.1 Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=------7cf2a327f01ae User-Agent: West Wind Internet Protocols 5.53 Host: rasnote Content-Length: 40 Pragma: no-cache <xml>asdasd</xml>--------7cf2a327f01ae *That* probably should trigger event validation – since it is a potential HTML form submission, but it doesn’t. New Runtime Feature, Global Scope Only? Ok, so request validation is now a runtime feature but sadly it’s a feature that’s scoped to the ASP.NET Runtime – effective scope to the entire running application/app domain. You can still manually force validation using Request.ValidateInput() which gives you the option to do this in code, but that realistically will only work with the requestValidationMode set to V2.0 as well since the 4.0 mode auto-fires before code ever gets a chance to intercept the call. Given all that, the new setting in ASP.NET 4.0 seems to limit options and makes things more difficult and less flexible. Of course Microsoft gets to say ASP.NET is more secure by default because of it but what good is that if you have to turn off this flag the very first time you need to allow one single request that bypasses request validation??? This is really shortsighted design… <sigh>© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET  

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• Beginner Geek: Scan a Document or Picture in Windows 7

  - by Mysticgeek

  There may come a time when you want to digitize your priceless old pictures, or need to scan a receipts and documents for your company. Today we look at how to scan a picture or document in Windows 7. Scanning Your Document In this example we’re using an HP PSC 1500 All-In-One printer connected to a Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit system. Different scanners will vary, however the process is essentially the same. The scanning process has changed a bit since the XP days. To scan a document in Windows 7, place the document or picture in the scanner, click on Start, and go to Devices and Printers.   When the Devices and Printers window opens, find your scanning device and double-click on it to get the manufacturers Printer Actions menu. For our HP PSC 1500 we have a few different options like printing, device setup, and scanner actions. Here we’ll click on the Scan a document or photo hyperlink. The New Scan window opens and from here you can adjust the quality of the scanned image and choose the output file type. Then click the Preview button to get an idea of what the image will look like.   If you’re not happy with the preview, then you can go back and make any adjustments to the quality of the document or photo. Once everything looks good, click on the Scan button. The scanning process will start. The amount of time it takes will depend on your scanner type, and the quality of the settings you choose. The higher the quality…the more time it will take. You will have the option to tag the picture if you want to… Now you can view your scanned document or photo inside Windows Photo Viewer. If you’re happy with the look of the document, you can send it off in an email, put it on an network drive, FTP it… whatever you need to do with it. Another method is to place the document of photo you wish to scan in the scanner, open up Devices and Printers, then right-click on the scanning device and select Start Scan from the context menu. This should bypass the manufacturer screen and go directly into the New Scan window, where you can start the scan process. From the Context Menu you can also choose Scan Properties. This will allow you to test the scanner if you’re having problems with it and change some of its settings. Or you can choose Scan Profiles which allows you to use pre-selected settings, create your own, or set one as the default. Although scanning documents and photos isn’t a common occurrence as it was a few years ago, Windows 7 still includes the feature. When you need to scan a document or photo in Windows 7, this should get you started. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Easily Rotate Pictures In Word 2007Beginner Geek: Delete User Accounts in Windows 7Customize Your Welcome Picture Choices in Windows VistaSecure Computing: Detect and Eliminate Malware Using Windows DefenderMark Your Document As Final in Word 2007 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Creating a Password Reset Disk in Windows Bypass Waiting Time On Customer Service Calls With Lucyphone MELTUP – "The Beginning Of US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation" Enable or Disable the Task Manager Using TaskMgrED Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes

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• Welcome to the SOA &amp; E2.0 Partner Community Forum

  - by Jürgen Kress

  With more than 200 registrations the SOA & E2.0 Partner Community Forum is a huge success!   Conference program Is available online: http://tinyurl.com/soaforumagenda Agenda Tuesday March 15th 2011 12:15 Welcome & Introduction – Hans Blaas & Jürgen Kress, Oracle 12:30 Oracle Middleware Strategy and Information on Application Grid and Exalogic - Andrew Sutherland, Oracle 13:15 Managing Online Customer, Partner and Employee Engagement Oracle E2.0 Solutions - Andrew Gilboy, Oracle 14:00 Coffee Break 14:30 Partner SOA/ BPM Reference Case – Leon Smiers, Capgemini 15:15 Partner WebCenter/ UCM Reference Case – Vikram Setia, Infomentum 16.00 Break 16.30 SOA and BPM 11gR1 PS3 Update – David Shaffer 17:00 Why specialization is important for Partners – Nick Kritikos, Hans Blaas & Jürgen Kress 17:45 Social Event   Wednesday March 16th 2011 09.00 Welcome & Introduction Day II 09.15 Breakout sessions Round 1 SOA Suite 11g PS3 & OSB Importance of ADF & Jdeveloper SOA Security IDM WebCenter PS3, Whats New E2.0 Sales Plays 10.30 Break 10.45 Breakout sessions Round 2 WebCenter PS3, Whats New Applications Management Enterprise Manager and Amberpoint ADF/WebCenter 11g integration with BPM Suite 11g Importance of ADF & Jdeveloper JCAPS & OC4J migration opportunities for service business 12.00 Lunch 13.00 Breakout sessions Round 3 BPM 11g, Whats New Universal Content Management! 11g SOA Security IDM E2.0 Surrounding Products: ATG, Documaker, Primavera Middleware Industry Value Propositions & Sales Plays 14.30 Break 14.45 Fusion Applications, Rajan Krishnan, Oracle 15.30 SOA & E2.0 Summary & Closing, Hans Blaas & Jürgen Kress, Oracle 15.45 Finish & Departure 16:00 Bus departure   Capgemini Nederland BV Papendorpseweg 100 3500 GN Utrecht The Netherlands Tel: +31 30 689 00 00 For a detailed routedescription by car or public transport please visit: http://www.nl.capgemini.com/pdf/Papendorp_UK.pdf Hotel In case you have not booked your hotel yet, please make your own hotel reservation. You can book your hotel room at the 'Hotel Vianen' at a special rate, by using the Oracle booking code: DDG VIA-GF41422. One night package € 110,- for a single room, including breakfast. Kindly secure your hotel room as soon as possible. The number of rooms is limited! Hotel Vianen Prins Bernhardstraat 75 4132 XE Vianen [email protected] The Netherlands [email protected] Arrival on 14th of March and staying at Hotel Vianen. On 15th of March we have arranged a transfer from Hotel Vianen to the Capgemini Offices. The bus is parked in front of the hotel and will leave at 10.15AM (UTC/GMT+1). Logistics Pass with barcode At your arrival you will receive a pass with a barcode. This pass will give you access to the conference building and the different floors within the building. Please make sure to hand in your pass at the registration desk at the end of the day. Arrival by plane Transfer from Schiphol Airport to Capgemini on 15th of March will be arranged by Oracle. A hostess will be welcoming you at the Meeting Point at Schiphol Airport (this is a red and white large cubicle situated next to Delifrance) The buses will depart from Schiphol Airport at 09.00AM, 09.45AM and 10.30AM (UTC/GMT+1).     For future SOA Partner Community Forums  become a member for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Website Technorati Tags: SOA Partner Community Forum,Community,SOA Partner Community,Utrecht 03.2011,OPN,Oracle,Jürgen Kress

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• SQL SERVER – MSQL_XP – Wait Type – Day 20 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  In this blog post, I am going to discuss something from my field experience. While consultation, I have seen various wait typed, but one of my customers who has been using SQL Server for all his operations had an interesting issue with a particular wait type. Our customer had more than 100+ SQL Server instances running and the whole server had MSSQL_XP wait type as the most number of wait types. While running sp_who2 and other diagnosis queries, I could not immediately figure out what the issue was because the query with that kind of wait type was nowhere to be found. After a day of research, I was relieved that the solution was very easy to figure out. Let us continue discussing this wait type. From Book On-Line: ?MSQL_XP occurs when a task is waiting for an extended stored procedure to end. SQL Server uses this wait state to detect potential MARS application deadlocks. The wait stops when the extended stored procedure call ends. MSQL_XP Explanation: This wait type is created because of the extended stored procedure. Extended Stored Procedures are executed within SQL Server; however, SQL Server has no control over them. Unless you know what the code for the extended stored procedure is and what it is doing, it is impossible to understand why this wait type is coming up. Reducing MSQL_XP wait: As discussed, it is hard to understand the Extended Stored Procedure if the code for it is not available. In the scenario described at the beginning of this post, our client was using third-party backup tool. The third-party backup tool was using Extended Stored Procedure. After we learned that this wait type was coming from the extended stored procedure of the backup tool they were using, we contacted the tech team of its vendor. The vendor admitted that the code was not optimal at some places, and within that day they had provided the patch. Once the updated version was installed, the issue on this wait type disappeared. As viewed in the wait statistics of all the 100+ SQL Server, there was no more MSSQL_XP wait type found. In simpler terms, you must first identify which Extended Stored Procedure is creating the wait type of MSSQL_XP and see if you can get in touch with the creator of the SP so you can help them optimize the code. If you have encountered this MSSQL_XP wait type, I encourage all of you to write how you managed it. Please do not mention the name of the vendor in your comment as I will not approve it. The focus of this blog post is to understand the wait types; not talk about others. Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Note: The information presented here is from my experience and there is no way that I claim it to be accurate. I suggest reading Book OnLine for further clarification. All the discussion of Wait Stats in this blog is generic and varies from system to system. It is recommended that you test this on a development server before implementing it to a production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• Why Haven’t NFC Payments Taken Off?

  - by David Dorf

  With the EMV 2015 milestone approaching rapidly, there’s been renewed interest in smartcards, those credit cards with an embedded computer chip.  Back in 1996 I was working for a vendor helping Visa introduce a stored-value smartcard to the US.  Visa Cash was debuted at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and I firmly believed it was the beginning of a cashless society.  (I later worked on MasterCard’s system called Mondex, from the UK, which debuted the following year in Manhattan). But since you don’t have a Visa Cash card in your wallet, it’s obvious the project never took off.  It was convenient for consumers, faster for merchants, and more cost-effective for banks, so why did it fail?  All emerging payment systems suffer from the chicken-and-egg dilemma.  Consumers won’t carry the cards if few merchants accept them, and merchants won’t install the terminals if few consumers have cards. Today’s emerging payment providers are in a similar pickle.  There has to be enough value for all three constituents – consumers, merchants, banks – to change the status quo.  And it’s not enough to exceed the value, it’s got to be a leap in value, because people generally resist change.  ATMs and transit cards are great examples of this, and airline kiosks and self-checkout systems are to a lesser extent. Although Google Wallet and ISIS, the two leading NFC payment platforms in the US, have shown strong commitment, there’s been very little traction.  Yes, I can load my credit card number into my phone then tap to pay, but what was the incremental value over swiping my old card?  For it to be a leap in value, it has to offer more than just payment, which I can do very easily today.  The other two ingredients are thought to be loyalty programs and digital coupons, but neither Google nor ISIS really did them well. Of course a large portion of the mobile phone market doesn’t even support NFC thanks to Apple, and since it’s not in their best interest that situation is unlikely to change.  Another issue is getting access to the “secure element,” the chip inside the phone where accounts numbers can be held securely.  Telco providers and handset manufacturers own that area, and they’re not willing to share with banks.  (Host Card Emulation, which has been endorsed by MasterCard and Visa, might be a solution.) Square recently gave up on its wallet, and MCX (the group of retailers trying to create a mobile payment platform) is very slow out of the gate.  That leaves PayPal and a slew of smaller companies trying to introduce easier ways to pay. But is it really so cumbersome to carry and swipe (soon to insert) a credit card?  Aren’t there more important problems to solve in the retail customer experience?  Maybe Apple will come up with some novel way to use iBeacons and fingerprint identification to make payments, but for now I think we need to focus on upgrading to Chip-and-PIN and tightening security.  In the meantime, NFC payments will continue to struggle.

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• Oracle anuncia la disponibilidad de Oracle Knowledge 8.5

  - by Noelia Gomez

  Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} El lanzamiento más completo de la gestión del conocimiento de Oracle ayuda a las organizaciones a ofrecer las respuestas correctas en el momento adecuado a los Agentes y Clientes Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 -"/ /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} Continuando con su compromiso de ayudar a las organizaciones a ofrecer la mejor experiencia del cliente con la exploración de los datos empresariales, Oracle anunció Oracle Knowledge 8.5, el software líder en la industria del conocimiento que soporta la gestión web de autoservicio, servicio asistido por agente y comunidades de clientes. Oracle Knowledge 8.5 es la versión más completa desde la adquisición de InQuira en octubre de 2011. Se introduce importantes mejoras de productos, análisis de mejora y los avances en el rendimiento y la escalabilidad. Actualmente, las organizaciones entienden la necesidad imperiosa de ofrecer un servicio al cliente consistente y de alta calidad, a través de diferentes canales. Además, las organizaciones reconocen la necesidad de información que sirva para este proceso. Oracle Knowledge 8,5 proactivamente brinda conocimientos relevantes y contextuales en el punto de interacción con los agentes, con los trabajadores del conocimiento y con los clientes - ayudando a aumentar la lealtad del cliente y reducir costes. Al permitir búsquedas a través de una amplia variedad de fuentes, Oracle Knowledge 8,5 amplifica el acceso al conocimiento, una vez oculto en los sistemas múltiples, aplicaciones y bases de datos utilizadas para almacenar contenido empresarial. Nuevas capacidades: AnswerFlow : Oracle Knowledge 8.5 introduce AnswerFlow, una nueva aplicación para la resolución de problemas guiada, diseñado para mejorar la eficiencia, reducir los costes de servicio y proporcionar experiencias de servicio al cliente personalizado. Mejora la analítica del conocimiento: estandarizado en Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, el líder en la industria de las soluciones de Business Intelligence, Oracle Knowledge 8.5 proporciona una funcionalidad analítica robusta que se puede adaptar para satisfacer las necesidades únicas de cada negocio. Soporte de idiomas mejorada: Con las capacidades mejoradas en varios idiomas disponibles en Oracle Knowledge 8.5, incluyendo soporte Natural Language Search con 16 Idiomas y búsqueda por palabra clave mejorado para la mayoría de las otras lenguas , las empresas pueden llegar rápidamente a nuevos clientes y, al mismo tiempo, reducir los costes de hacerlo. Mejora la funcionalidad iConnect:Oracle Knowledge 8.5 ofrece iConnect mejorada para una mayor facilidad de uso y rendimiento. Esta aplicación especializada en conocimiento ofrece de forma proactiva un conocimiento contextualizado directamente en las aplicaciones de CRM, permitiendo a los empleados reducir el esfuerzo para servir a los clientes. Estandarización de Plataforma y Tecnología: Oracle Knowledge 8.5 ha sido certificado en tecnologías Oracle, incluyendo Oracle WebLogic Server, Oracle Business Intelligence, Oracle Exadata Database Machine y Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, reduciendo el coste y la complejidad para los clientes a administrar los activos de todas las plataformas."Hemos realizado importantes inversiones de desarrollo desde nuestra adquisición de InQuira, y ahora estamos muy orgullosos de anunciar la disponibilidad de estos esfuerzos con el lanzamiento de Oracle Knowledge 8.5, por lo que es más fácil para las organizaciones obtener una ventaja diferencial a un coste total de propiedad significativamente menor ". dijo David Vap,Vicepresident productos de Oracle. Puedes encontrar más información aquí: Oracle Knowledge 8.5 Oracle Customer Experience Oracle WebLogic Server Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition

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• Challenges and Opportunities to Drive Change in the Healthcare System Explored at America’s Health Insurance Plans Exchange Conference and Institute 2013

  - by elaine blog

  The program theme at the June America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) Exchange Conference and AHIP’s Institute 2013 was Transforming Our Health Care System: Navigating and Succeeding in the New Marketplace.  Topics included care delivery transformation, innovation for a new healthcare eco system, Health Insurance Exchanges, the nexus of consumerism, retail and healthcare, driving value through improved operations and leveraging technology, data and innovation to transform care. Oracle participated as a sponsor of both conferences, signaling the significant investment and activity Oracle continues to make in helping health plans, providers and government agencies become more efficient and more relevant in the healthcare market place. AHIP is a national trade association representing the health insurance industry. AHIP’s members provide health and supplemental benefits to more than 200 million Americans through employer-sponsored coverage, the individual insurance market and public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.   AHIP advocates for public policies that expand access to affordable health care. Health plans are focusing on the Health Insurance Exchanges and the opportunities they offer to provide better access and higher quality healthcare.  With the opportunities come operational challenges to implementation and innovative technology solutions to consider.   At the Exchange Conference, Oracle hosted a breakfast symposium on “Strategies for Success:  Driving Business Transformation in the Growing Health Insurance Exchange Market”. With Health Insurance Exchanges as catalysts for change, attendees learned about how to achieve integration within an Exchange and deploy new business strategies to support health reform initiatives. Discussion covered steps and processes to successfully establish and implement enrollment systems, quote to card activities, program pricing, claims billing, automated claims processing and new customer service tools. Piyush Pushkar, COO of Benefitalign, an Oracle partner that provides solutions to adopt innovative business models for retail, HIX, consumer-centric health plan and benefits administration, spoke on the state of the Exchanges in the U.S. and the activities health plans are engaged in to support individuals entering the healthcare system, including sales automation, member enrollment automation/portals and integration strategies with the Exchanges. The Oracle and Benefitalign partnership allows seamless integration between a health plan enrollment solution with the HIX individual market and allows for the health plan to customize and characterize the offerings available to the HIX that may or may not be available through other channels.  This approach can benefit the health plan through separation of interests, but also because some state-run HIXs require such separation. Janice W. Young, Program Director, Payer IT Strategies, IDC Health Insights, reviewed a survey of health plans on their investment priorities for this last year as well as this year.  She also identified the 2013-2015 strategies of go/get to market with front end and compliance investments; leveraging existing business processes and internal technologies; and establishing best practices.  Of key interest to the audience was a reform era payer solutions platform overview mapping technologies to support the business operations. David Bonham of the Oracle Health Insurance organization moderated the panel and spoke on Oracle’s presence in healthcare and products for payers to help them drive efficiencies and gain a competitive advantage in an ever changing market. Oracle serves healthcare stakeholders with applications such as billing, rating and underwriting, analytics, CRM, enrollment, and products for processing of health insurance claims including pricing and benefits administration, as well as payment of providers through alternative, non-fee for service reimbursement methods. Oracle in Healthcare….Did you know? More than 80 healthcare payers run Oracle applications. More than 300 leading healthcare providers run Oracle applications. 10 out of the top 12 fortune Global 500 healthcare organizations run Oracle applications. For more information on Oracle solutions for healthcare payers, please visit oracle.com/insurance or these individual solution pages: Oracle Health Insurance Components Oracle Insurance Insbridge Rating and Underwriting Oracle Insurance Revenue Management and Billing Oracle Documaker Oracle Healthcare Oracle CRM Related Resources Webcast On Demand: Strategies for Success: Driving Business Transformation in the Growing Health Insurance Exchange Market Strategy Brief: Executing on the Individual Mandate: Opportunities and Challenges for Healthcare Payers White Paper: White paper: Navigating Alternative Provider Reimbursement Models of the Future Strategy Brief: Enterprise Rating Agility Improves Payer Response to Healthcare Reform Podcast: Technology Implications of Healthcare Reform Don’t forget to keep up with us year-round: Facebook: www.facebook.com/oracleinsurance Twitter: www.twitter.com/oracleinsurance YouTube: www.youtube.com/oracleinsurance

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• ASP.NET MVC, Web API, Razor and Open Source

  - by ScottGu

  Microsoft has made the source code of ASP.NET MVC available under an open source license since the first V1 release. We’ve also integrated a number of great open source technologies into the product, and now ship jQuery, jQuery UI, jQuery Mobile, jQuery Validation, Modernizr.js, NuGet, Knockout.js and JSON.NET as part of it. I’m very excited to announce today that we will also release the source code for ASP.NET Web API and ASP.NET Web Pages (aka Razor) under an open source license (Apache 2.0), and that we will increase the development transparency of all three projects by hosting their code repositories on CodePlex (using the new Git support announced last week). Doing so will enable a more open development model where everyone in the community will be able to engage and provide feedback on code checkins, bug-fixes, new feature development, and build and test the products on a daily basis using the most up-to-date version of the source code and tests. We will also for the first time allow developers outside of Microsoft to submit patches and code contributions that the Microsoft development team will review for potential inclusion in the products. We announced a similar open development approach with the Windows Azure SDK last December, and have found it to be a great way to build an even tighter feedback loop with developers – and ultimately deliver even better products as a result. Very importantly - ASP.NET MVC, Web API and Razor will continue to be fully supported Microsoft products that ship both standalone as well as part of Visual Studio (the same as they do today). They will also continue to be staffed by the same Microsoft developers that build them today (in fact, we have more Microsoft developers working on the ASP.NET team now than ever before). Our goal with today’s announcement is to increase the feedback loop on the products even more, and allow us to deliver even better products.  We are really excited about the improvements this will bring. Learn More You can now browse, sync and build the source tree of ASP.NET MVC, Web API, and Razor on the http://aspnetwebstack.codeplex.com web-site.  The Git repository on the site is the live RC milestone development tree that the team has been working on the last several weeks, and the tree contains both the runtime sources + tests, and is buildable and testable by anyone.  Because the binaries produced are bin-deployable, this allows you to compile your own builds and try product updates out as soon as they are checked-in. You can also now contribute directly to the development of the products by reviewing and sending feedback on code checkins, submitting bugs and helping us verify fixes as they are checked in, suggesting and giving feedback on new features as they are implemented, as well as by submitting code fixes or code contributions of your own. Note that all code submissions will be rigorously reviewed and tested by the ASP.NET MVC Team, and only those that meet an extremely high bar for both quality and design/roadmap appropriateness will be merged into the source. Summary All of us on the team are really excited about today’s announcement – it has been something we’ve been working toward for many years.  The tighter feedback loop is going to enable us to build even better products, and take ASP.NET to the next level in terms of innovation and customer focus. Thanks, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I use Twitter to-do quick posts and share links. My Twitter handle is: @scottgu

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• The New Social Developer Community: a Q&A

  - by Mike Stiles

  In our last blog, we introduced the opportunities that lie ahead for social developers as social applications reach across every aspect and function of the enterprise. Leading the upcoming JavaOne Social Developer Program October 2 at the San Francisco Hilton is Roland Smart, VP of Social Marketing at Oracle. I got to ask Roland a few of the questions an existing or budding social developer might want to know as social extends beyond interacting with friends and marketing and into the enterprise. Why is it smart for developers to specialize as social developers? What opportunities lie in the immediate future that’s making this a critical, in-demand position? Social has changed the way we interact with brands and with each other across the web. As we acclimate to a new social paradigm we also look to extend its benefits into new areas of our lives. The workplace is a logical next step, and we're starting to see social interactions more and more in this context. But unlocking the value of social interactions requires technical expertise and knowledge of developing social apps that tap into the social graph. Developers focused on integrating social experiences into enterprise applications must be familiar with popular social APIs and must understand how to build enterprise social graphs of their own. These developers are part of an emerging community of social developers and are key to socially enabling the enterprise. Facebook rebranded their Preferred Developer Consultant Group (PDC) and the Preferred Marketing Developers (PMD) to underscore the fact developers are required inside marketing organizations to unlock the full potential of their platform. While this trend is starting on the marketing side with marketing developers, this is just an extension of the social developer concept that will ultimately drive social across the enterprise. What are some of the various ways social will be making its way into every area of enterprise organizations? How will it be utilized and what kinds of applications are going to be needed to facilitate and maximize these changes? Check out Oracle’s vision for the social-enabled enterprise. It’s a high-level overview of how social will impact across the enterprise. For example: HR can leverage social in recruiting and retentionSales can leverage social as a prospecting toolMarketing can use social to gain market insightCustomer support can use social to leverage community support to improve customer satisfaction while reducing service costOperations can leverage social improve systems That’s only the beginning. Once sleeves get rolled up and social developers and innovators get to work, still more social functions will no doubt emerge. What makes Java one of, if not the most viable platform on which to build these new enterprise social applications? Java is certainly one of the best platforms on which to build social experiences because there’s such a large existing community of Java developers. This means you can affordably recruit talent, and it's possible to effectively solicit advice from the community through various means, including our new Social Developer Community. Beyond that, there are already some great proof points Java is the best platform for creating social experiences at scale. Consider LinkedIn and Twitter. Tell us more about the benefits of collaboration and more about what the Oracle Social Developer Community is. What opportunities does that offer up and what are some of the ways developers can actively participate in and benefit from that community? Much has been written about the overall benefits of collaborating with other developers. Those include an opportunity to introduce yourself to the community of social developers, foster a reputation, establish an expertise, contribute to the advancement of the space, get feedback, experiment with the latest concepts, and gain inspiration. In short, collaboration is a tool that must be applied properly within a framework to get the most value out of it. The OSDC is a place where social developers can congregate to discuss the opportunities/challenges of building social integrations into their applications. What “needs” will this community have? We don't know yet. But we wanted to create a forum where we can engage and understand what social developers are thinking about, excited about, struggling with, etc. The OSDL can then step in if we can help remove barriers and add value in a serious and committed way so Oracle can help drive practice development.

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• disk-to-disk backup without costly backup redundancy?

  - by AaronLS

  A good backup strategy involves a combination of 1) disconnected backups/snapshots that will not be affected by bugs, viruses, and/or security breaches 2) geographically distributed backups to protect against local disasters 3) testing backups to ensure that they can be restored as needed Generally I take an onsite backup daily, and an offsite backup weekly, and do test restores periodically. In the rare circumstance that I need to restore files, I do some from the local backup. Should a catastrophic event destroy the servers and local backups, then the offsite weekly tape backup would be used to restore the files. I don't need multiple offsite backups with redundancy. I ALREADY HAVE REDUNDANCY THROUGH THE USE OF BOTH LOCAL AND REMOTE BACKUPS. I have recovery blocks and par files with the backups, so I already have protection against a small percentage of corrupt bits. I perform test restores to ensure the backups function properly. Should the remote backups experience a dataloss, I can replace them with one of the local backups. There are historical offsite backups as well, so if a dataloss was not noticed for a few weeks(such as a bug/security breach/virus), the data could be restored from an older backup. By doing this, the only scenario that poses a risk to complete data loss would be one where both the local, remote, and servers all experienced a data loss in the same time period. I'm willing to risk that happening since the odds of that trifecta negligibly small, and the data isn't THAT valuable to me. So I hope I have emphasized that I don't need redundancy in my offsite backups because I have covered all the bases. I know this exact technique is employed by numerous businesses. Of course there are some that take multiple offsite backups, because the data is so incredibly valuable that they don't even want to risk that trifecta disaster, but in the majority of cases the trifecta disaster is an accepted risk. I HAD TO COVER ALL THIS BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE DON'T READ!!! I think I have justified my backup strategy and the majority of businesses who use offsite tape backups do not have any additional redundancy beyond what is mentioned above(recovery blocks, par files, historical snapshots). Now I would like to eliminate the use of tapes for offsite backups, and instead use a backup service. Most however are extremely costly for $/gb/month storage. I don't mind paying for transfer bandwidth, but the cost of storage is way to high. All of them advertise that they maintain backups of the data, and I imagine they use RAID as well. Obviously if you were using them to host servers this would all be necessary, but for my scenario, I am simply replacing my offsite backups with such a service. So there is no need for RAID, and absolutely no value in another layer of backups of backups. My one and only question: "Are there online data-storage/backup services that do not use redundancy or offer backups(backups of my backups) as part of their packages, and thus are more reasonably priced?" NOT my question: "Is this a flawed strategy?" I don't care if you think this is a good strategy or not. I know it pretty standard. Very few people make an extra copy of their offsite backups. They already have local backups that they can use to replace the remote backups if something catastrophic happens at the remote site. Please limit your responses to the question posed. Sorry if I seem a little abrasive, but I had some trolls in my last post who didn't read my requirements nor my question, and were trying to go off answering a totally different question. I made it pretty clear, but didn't try to justify my strategy, because I didn't ask about whether my strategy was justifyable. So I apologize if this was lengthy, as it really didn't need to be, but since there are so many trolls here who try to sidetrack questions by responding without addressing the question at hand.

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• Bancassurers Seek IT Solutions to Support Distribution Model

  - by [email protected]

  Oracle Insurance's director of marketing for EMEA, John Sinclair, attended the third annual Bancassurance Forum in Vienna last month. He reports that the outlook for bancassurance in EMEA remains positive, despite changing market conditions that have led a number of bancassurers to re-examine their business models. Vienna is at the crossroads between mature Western European markets, where bancassurance is now an established best practice, and more recently tapped Eastern European markets that offer the greatest growth potential. Attendance at the Bancassurance Forum was good, with 87 bancassurance attendees, most in very senior positions in the industry. The conference provided the chance for a lively discussion among bancassurers looking to keep abreast of the latest trends in one of Europe's most successful distribution models for insurance. Even under normal business conditions, there is a great demand for best practice sharing within the industry as there is no standard formula for success.  Each company has to chart its own course and choose the strategies for sales, products development and the structure of ownership that make sense for their business, and as soon as they get it right bancassurers need to adapt the mix to keep up with ever changing regulations, completion and economic conditions.  To optimize the overall relationship between banking and insurance for mutual benefit, a balance needs to be struck between potentially conflicting interests. The banking side of the house is looking for greater wallet share from its customers and the ability to increase profitability by bundling insurance products with higher margins - especially in light of the recent economic crisis, where margins for traditional banking products are low and completion high. The insurance side of the house seeks access to new customers through a complementary distribution channel that is efficient and cost effective. To make the relationship work, it is important that both sides of the same house forge strategic and long term relationships - irrespective of whether the underlying business model is supported by a distribution agreement, cross-ownership or other forms of capital structure. However, this third annual conference was not held under normal business conditions. The conference took place in challenging, yet interesting times. ING's forced spinoff of its insurance operations under pressure by the EU Commission and the troubling losses suffered by Allianz as a result of the Dresdner bank sale were fresh in everyone's mind. One year after markets crashed, there is now enough hindsight to better understand the implications for bancassurance and best practices that are emerging to deal with them. The loan-driven business that has been crucial to bancassurance up till now evaporated during the crisis, leaving bancassurers grappling with how to change their overall strategy from a loan-driven to a more diversified model.  Attendees came to the conference to learn what strategies were working - not only to cope with the market shift, but to take advantage of it as markets pick up. Over the course of 14 customer case studies and numerous analyst presentations, topical issues ranging from getting the business model right to the impact on capital structuring of Solvency II were debated openly. Many speakers alluded to the need to specifically design insurance products with the banking distribution channel in mind, which brings with it specific requirements such as a high degree of standardization to achieve efficiency and reduce training costs. Moreover, products must be engineered to suit end consumers who consider banks a one-stop shop. The importance of IT to the successful implementation of bancassurance strategies was a theme that surfaced regularly throughout the conference.  The cross-selling opportunity - that will ultimately determine the success or failure of any bancassurance model - can only be fully realized through a flexible IT architecture that enables banking and insurance processes to be integrated and presented to front-line staff through a common interface. However, the reality is that most bancassurers have legacy IT systems, which constrain the businesses' ability to implement new strategies to maintaining competitiveness in turbulent times. My colleague Glenn Lottering, who chaired the conference, believes that the primary opportunities for bancassurers to extract value from their IT infrastructure investments lie in distribution management, risk management with the advent of Solvency II, and achieving operational excellence. "Oracle is ideally suited to meet the needs of bancassurance," Glenn noted, "supplying market-leading software for both banking and insurance. Oracle provides adaptive systems that let customers easily integrate hybrid business processes from both worlds while leveraging existing IT infrastructure." Overall, the consensus at the conference was that the outlook for bancassurance in EMEA remains positive, despite changing market conditions that have led a number of bancassurers to re-examine their business models. John Sinclair is marketing director for Oracle Insurance in EMEA. He has more than 20 years of experience in insurance and financial services.    

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• What Banks Can Learn From An English Teacher’s Advice

  - by Gaurav H

  The earliest definitions I learnt at school pertained to nouns and verbs. Nouns, my teacher said, indicated names of people, things and places. Verbs, the stern lady said, are “action words”. They indicated motion.  The idea for this blog filtered in when I applied these definitions to the entity I most often deal with for my personal financial needs, and think about or relate to from a professional standpoint: ‘a bank’. Noun? It certainly is. At least that’s how I’d had it figured in my head. It used to be a place I visited to get my financial business done. It is the name of an entity I have a business relationship with. But, taking a closer look at how ‘the bank’ has evolved recently makes me wonder. Is it not after all acquiring some shades of a verb? For one, it’s in motion if I consider my mobile device with its financial apps. For another, it’s in ‘quasi-action’ if I consider a highly interactive virtual bank. The point I’m driving at is not semantic. But the words we use and the way we use them are revealing, and can offer tremendous insights into our existing mindsets. I think the same applies to businesses. Banks that first began examining and deconstructing their cherished ‘definitions’ or business models (nouns) were the earliest to adapt, change, and reinvent (verbs). They were able to waltz past disintermediation threats. Though rooted in a ‘brick and mortar’ heritage, their thinking and infrastructure were flexible enough for the digital era. While their physical premises imposed restrictions—opening hours, transaction hours, appointments, waiting time, overcrowding, processing time, clearing time, etc,—their thinking did not. They innovated. Across traditional and new-era channels, they easily slipped in customer services of a differentiated kind: spot loans, deposits with idle account balances, convenient mortgages with multiple liens or collateral, and instant payment options.I believe the most successful banks are those that fit into the rhythm of their customers’ lives rather than forcing their customers to fit into theirs. It was true for banks that existed before the Internet era; it’s true for banks now. I look no further than UBANK, JIBUN and HBOS Germany to make my point. They are resounding successes because they are not trapped in their own definitions of ‘a bank’. They walk with their customers, rather than waiting for their clients to walk-in for services.Back to my English teacher. She once advised me to use more verbs in my composition. Readers relate better to “action” she said. Banks too can profit from her advice. To succeed, they need to interact more. And remain flexible enough to interact with their customers. Sonny Singh is Senior Vice President  and General Manager of the Oracle Financial Services Global Business Unit. He can be reached at sonny.singh AT oracle.com or on twitter @sonnyhsingh

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• September Independent Oracle User Group (IOUG) Regional Events:

  - by Mandy Ho

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} September 5, 2012 – Denver, CO Oracle 11g Database Upgrade Seminar Join Roy Swonger, Senior Director of software development at Oracle to learn about upgrading to Oracle Database 11g. Topics include: All the required preparatory steps Database upgrade strategies Post-upgrade performance analysis Helpful tips and common pitfalls to watch out for http://www.oracle.com/webapps/events/ns/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=152242&src=7598177&src=7598177&Act=4 September 6, 2012 – Salt Lake City, UT Fall Symposium 2012 Plan to join us for our annual fall event on Sept 6. They day will be filled with learning and networking with tracks focused on Applications, APEX, BI, Development and DBA Topics. This event is free for UTOUG members to attend, but please register. http://www.utoug.org/apex/f?p=972:2:6686308836668467::::P2_EVENT_ID:121 September 6, 2012 – Portland, OR Oracle’s Hands on Workshop Series focused on providing Defense-in-Depth Solutions to secure data at the source, reduce risk and simplify compliance The Oracle Database Security Workshop is a one-day hands-on session for IT Managers, IT Security Architects and Oracle DBAs who are looking for solutions to address their information protection, privacy, and accountability challenges within their Oracle database environment. Most security programs offered today fail toadequately address database security. Customers continue to be challenged tosecure information against loss and protect the integrity of sensitiveinformation like critical financial data, personally identifiable information(PII) and credit card data for PCI compliance. http://nwoug.org/content.aspx?page_id=87&club_id=165905&item_id=241082 September 11, 2012 – Montreal, QC APEXposed! For APEX aficionados – join ODTUG in Montreal, September 11-12 for APEXposed! Topics will include Dynamic Actions, Plug-ins, Tuning, and Building Mobile Apps. The cost is $399 US and early registration ends August 15th. For more information: http://www.odtugapextraining.com  September 11, 2012 – Philadelphia, PA Big Data & What are we still doing wrong with Tom Kyte Tom Kyte is a Senior Technical Architect in Oracle's Server Technology Division. Tom is the Tom behind the AskTom column in Oracle Magazine and is also the author of Expert Oracle Database Architecture (Apress, 2005/2009) among other books Abstract: Big Data The term "big data" draws a lot of attention, but behind the hype there's a simple story. For decades, companies have been making business decisions based on transactional data stored in relational databases. However, beyond that critical data is a potential treasure trove of less structured data: weblogs, social media, email, sensors, and photographs that can be mined for useful information. This presentation will take a look at what Big Data is and means - and Oracle's strategy for handling it Abstract: What are we still doing wrong? I've given many best practices presentations in the last 10 years. I've given many worst practices presentations in the last 10 years. I've seen some things change over the last ten years and many other things stay exactly the same. In this talk - we'll be taking a look at the good and the bad - what we do right and what we continue to do wrong over and over again. We'll look at why "Why" is probably the right initial answer to most any question. We'll look at how we get to "Know what we Know", and why that can be both a help and a hindrance. We'll peek at "Best Practices" and tie them into what I term "Worst Practices". In short, a talk on the good and the bad. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} http://ioug.itconvergence.com/pls/apex/f?p=207:27:3669516430980563::NO September 12, 2012- New York, NY NYOUG Fall General Meeting “Trends in Database Administration and Why the Future of Database Administration is the Vdba” http://www.nyoug.org/upcoming_events.htm#General_Meeting1 September 21, 2012 – Cleveland, OH Oracle Database 11g for Developers: What You need to know or Oracle Database 11g New Features for Developers Attendees are introduced to the new and improved features of Oracle 11g (both Oracle 11g R1 and Oracle 11g R2) that directly impact application development. Special emphasis is placed on features that reduce development time, make development simpler, improve performance, or speed deployment. Specific topics include: New SQL functions, virtual columns, result caching, XML improvements, pivot statements, JDBC improvements, and PL/SQL enhancements such as compound triggers. http://www.neooug.org/ September 24, 2012 – Ottawa, ON Introduction to Oracle Spatial The free Oracle Locator functionality, and the Oracle Spatial option which dramatically extends Locator, are very useful, but poorly understood capabilities of the database. In the afternoon we will extend into additional areas selected from: storage and performance; answering business problems with spatial queries; using Oracle Maps in OBIEE; an overview and capabilities of Oracle Topology; under the covers with GeoCoding. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} http://www.oug-ottawa.org/pls/htmldb/f?p=327:27:4209274028390246::NO

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• Windows 8.1 Will Start Encrypting Hard Drives By Default: Everything You Need to Know

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Windows 8.1 will automatically encrypt the storage on modern Windows PCs. This will help protect your files in case someone steals your laptop and tries to get at them, but it has important ramifications for data recovery. Previously, “BitLocker” was available on Professional and Enterprise editions of Windows, while “Device Encryption” was available on Windows RT and Windows Phone. Device encryption is included with all editions of Windows 8.1 — and it’s on by default. When Your Hard Drive Will Be Encrypted Windows 8.1 includes “Pervasive Device Encryption.” This works a bit differently from the standard BitLocker feature that has been included in Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows for the past few versions. Before Windows 8.1 automatically enables Device Encryption, the following must be true: The Windows device “must support connected standby and meet the Windows Hardware Certification Kit (HCK) requirements for TPM and SecureBoot on ConnectedStandby systems.”  (Source) Older Windows PCs won’t support this feature, while new Windows 8.1 devices you pick up will have this feature enabled by default. When Windows 8.1 installs cleanly and the computer is prepared, device encryption is “initialized” on the system drive and other internal drives. Windows uses a clear key at this point, which is removed later when the recovery key is successfully backed up. The PC’s user must log in with a Microsoft account with administrator privileges or join the PC to a domain. If a Microsoft account is used, a recovery key will be backed up to Microsoft’s servers and encryption will be enabled. If a domain account is used, a recovery key will be backed up to Active Directory Domain Services and encryption will be enabled. If you have an older Windows computer that you’ve upgraded to Windows 8.1, it may not support Device Encryption. If you log in with a local user account, Device Encryption won’t be enabled. If you upgrade your Windows 8 device to Windows 8.1, you’ll need to enable device encryption, as it’s off by default when upgrading. Recovering An Encrypted Hard Drive Device encryption means that a thief can’t just pick up your laptop, insert a Linux live CD or Windows installer disc, and boot the alternate operating system to view your files without knowing your Windows password. It means that no one can just pull the hard drive from your device, connect the hard drive to another computer, and view the files. We’ve previously explained that your Windows password doesn’t actually secure your files. With Windows 8.1, average Windows users will finally be protected with encryption by default. However, there’s a problem — if you forget your password and are unable to log in, you’d also be unable to recover your files. This is likely why encryption is only enabled when a user logs in with a Microsoft account (or connects to a domain). Microsoft holds a recovery key, so you can gain access to your files by going through a recovery process. As long as you’re able to authenticate using your Microsoft account credentials — for example, by receiving an SMS message on the cell phone number connected to your Microsoft account — you’ll be able to recover your encrypted data. With Windows 8.1, it’s more important than ever to configure your Microsoft account’s security settings and recovery methods so you’ll be able to recover your files if you ever get locked out of your Microsoft account. Microsoft does hold the recovery key and would be capable of providing it to law enforcement if it was requested, which is certainly a legitimate concern in the age of PRISM. However, this encryption still provides protection from thieves picking up your hard drive and digging through your personal or business files. If you’re worried about a government or a determined thief who’s capable of gaining access to your Microsoft account, you’ll want to encrypt your hard drive with software that doesn’t upload a copy of your recovery key to the Internet, such as TrueCrypt. How to Disable Device Encryption There should be no real reason to disable device encryption. If nothing else, it’s a useful feature that will hopefully protect sensitive data in the real world where people — and even businesses — don’t enable encryption on their own. As encryption is only enabled on devices with the appropriate hardware and will be enabled by default, Microsoft has hopefully ensured that users won’t see noticeable slow-downs in performance. Encryption adds some overhead, but the overhead can hopefully be handled by dedicated hardware. If you’d like to enable a different encryption solution or just disable encryption entirely, you can control this yourself. To do so, open the PC settings app — swipe in from the right edge of the screen or press Windows Key + C, click the Settings icon, and select Change PC settings. Navigate to PC and devices -> PC info. At the bottom of the PC info pane, you’ll see a Device Encryption section. Select Turn Off if you want to disable device encryption, or select Turn On if you want to enable it — users upgrading from Windows 8 will have to enable it manually in this way. Note that Device Encryption can’t be disabled on Windows RT devices, such as Microsoft’s Surface RT and Surface 2. If you don’t see the Device Encryption section in this window, you’re likely using an older device that doesn’t meet the requirements and thus doesn’t support Device Encryption. For example, our Windows 8.1 virtual machine doesn’t offer Device Encryption configuration options. This is the new normal for Windows PCs, tablets, and devices in general. Where files on typical PCs were once ripe for easy access by thieves, Windows PCs are now encrypted by default and recovery keys are sent to Microsoft’s servers for safe keeping. This last part may be a bit creepy, but it’s easy to imagine average users forgetting their passwords — they’d be very upset if they lost all their files because they had to reset their passwords. It’s also an improvement over Windows PCs being completely unprotected by default.     

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• JDBC Triggers

  - by Tim Dexter

  Received a question from a customer last week, they were using the new rollup patch on top of 10.1.3.4.1. What are these boxes for? Don't you know? Surely? Well, they are for ... that new functionality, you know it's in the user docs, that thingmabobby doodah. OK, I dont know either, I can have a guess but let me check first. Serveral IM sessions, emails and a dig through the readme for the new patch and I had my answer. Its not in the official documentation, yet. Leslie is on the case. The two fields were designed to allow an Admin to set a users context attributes before a connection is made to a database and for un-setting the attributes after the connection is broken by the extraction engine. We got a sample from the Enterprise Manager team on how they will be using it with their VPD connections. FUNCTION bip_to_em_user (user_name_in IN VARCHAR2) RETURN BOOLEAN IS BEGIN SETEMUSERCONTEXT(user_name_in, MGMT_USER.OP_SET_IDENTIFIER); return TRUE; END bip_to_em_user; And used in the jdbc data source definition like this (pre-process function): sysman.mgmt_bip.bip_to_em_user(:xdo_user_name) You, of course can call any function that is going to return a boolean value, another example might be. FUNCTION set_per_process_username (username_in IN VARCHAR2) RETURN BOOLEAN IS BEGIN SETUSERCONTEXT(username_in); return TRUE; END set_per_process_username Just use your own function/package to set some user context. Very grateful for the mail from Leslie on the EM team's usage but I had to try it out. Rather than set up a VPD, I opted for a simpler test. Can I log the comings and goings of users and their queries using the same pre-process text box. Reaching back into the depths of my developer brain to remember some pl/sql, it was not that deep and I came up with: CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION BIPTEST (user_name_in IN VARCHAR2, smode IN VARCHAR2) RETURN BOOLEAN AS BEGIN INSERT INTO LOGTAB VALUES(user_name_in, sysdate,smode); RETURN true; END BIPTEST; To call it in the pre-fetch trigger. BIPTEST(:xdo_user_name) Not going to set the pl/sql world alight I know, but you get the idea. As a new connection is made to the database its logged in the LOGTAB table. The SMODE value just sets if its an entry or an exit. I used the pre- and post- boxes. NAME UPDATE_DATE S_FLAG oracle 14-MAY-10 09.51.34.000000000 AM Start oracle 14-MAY-10 10.23.57.000000000 AM Finish administrator 14-MAY-10 09.51.38.000000000 AM Start administrator 14-MAY-10 09.51.38.000000000 AM Finish oracle 14-MAY-10 09.51.42.000000000 AM Start oracle 14-MAY-10 09.51.42.000000000 AM Finish It works very well, I had some fun trying to find a nasty query for the extraction engine so that the timestamps from in to out actually had a difference. That engine is fast! The only derived value you can pass from BIP is :xdo_user_name. None of the other server values are available. Connection pools are not currently supported but planned for a future release. Now you know what those fields are for and look for some official documentation, rather than my ramblings, coming soon!

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