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• need assistance with my.cnf - 1500% CPU usage

  - by Alan Long

  I'm running into a few issues with our new database server. It is a HP G8 with 2 INTEL XEON E5-2650 processors and 32GB of ram. This server is dedicated as a MySQL server (5.1.69) for our intranet portal. I have been having issues with this server staying alive - I notice high CPU usage during certain times of day (8% ~ 1500%+) and see very low memory usage (7 ~ 15%) based on using the 'top' command. When the CPU usage passes 1000%, that is when the app usually dies. I'm trying to see what I'm doing wrong with the config file, hopefully one of the experts can chime in and let me know what they think. See below for my.cnf file: [mysqld] default-storage-engine=InnoDB datadir=/var/lib/mysql socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock #user=mysql large-pages # Disabling symbolic-links is recommended to prevent assorted security risks symbolic-links=0 max_connections=275 tmp_table_size=1G key_buffer_size=384M key_buffer=384M thread_cache_size=1024 long_query_time=5 low_priority_updates=1 max_heap_table_size=1G myisam_sort_buffer_size=8M concurrent_insert=2 table_cache=1024 sort_buffer_size=8M read_buffer_size=5M read_rnd_buffer_size=6M join_buffer_size=16M table_definition_cache=6k open_files_limit=8k slow_query_log #skip-name-resolve # Innodb Settings innodb_buffer_pool_size=18G innodb_thread_concurrency=0 innodb_log_file_size=1G innodb_log_buffer_size=16M innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit=2 innodb_lock_wait_timeout=50 innodb_file_per_table #innodb_buffer_pool_instances=4 #eliminating double buffering innodb_flush_method = O_DIRECT flush_time=86400 innodb_additional_mem_pool_size=40M #innodb_io_capacity = 5000 #innodb_read_io_threads = 64 #innodb_write_io_threads = 64 # increase until threads_created doesnt grow anymore thread_cache=1024 query_cache_type=1 query_cache_limit=4M query_cache_size=256M # Try number of CPU's*2 for thread_concurrency thread_concurrency = 0 wait_timeout = 1800 connect_timeout = 10 interactive_timeout = 60 [mysqldump] max_allowed_packet=32M [mysqld_safe] log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid log-slow-queries=/var/log/mysql/slow-queries.log long_query_time = 1 log-queries-not-using-indexes we connect to one database with 75 tables, the largest table has 1,150,000 entries and the second largest has 128,036 entries. I have also verified that our PHP queries are optimized as best as possible. Reference - MySQLtuner: >> MySQLTuner 1.2.0 - Major Hayden <[email protected]> >> Bug reports, feature requests, and downloads at http://mysqltuner.com/ >> Run with '--help' for additional options and output filtering -------- General Statistics -------------------------------------------------- [--] Skipped version check for MySQLTuner script [OK] Currently running supported MySQL version 5.1.69-log [OK] Operating on 64-bit architecture -------- Storage Engine Statistics ------------------------------------------- [--] Status: -Archive -BDB -Federated +InnoDB -ISAM -NDBCluster [--] Data in InnoDB tables: 420M (Tables: 75) [!!] Total fragmented tables: 75 -------- Security Recommendations ------------------------------------------- [!!] User '[email protected]' has no password set. -------- Performance Metrics ------------------------------------------------- [--] Up for: 1h 14m 50s (8M q [1K qps], 705 conn, TX: 6B, RX: 892M) [--] Reads / Writes: 68% / 32% [--] Total buffers: 19.7G global + 35.2M per thread (275 max threads) [!!] Maximum possible memory usage: 29.1G (93% of installed RAM) [OK] Slow queries: 0% (472/8M) [OK] Highest usage of available connections: 66% (183/275) [OK] Key buffer size / total MyISAM indexes: 384.0M/91.0K [OK] Key buffer hit rate: 100.0% (173 cached / 0 reads) [OK] Query cache efficiency: 96.2% (7M cached / 7M selects) [!!] Query cache prunes per day: 553614 [OK] Sorts requiring temporary tables: 0% (3 temp sorts / 1K sorts) [!!] Temporary tables created on disk: 49% (3K on disk / 7K total) [OK] Thread cache hit rate: 74% (183 created / 705 connections) [OK] Table cache hit rate: 97% (231 open / 238 opened) [OK] Open file limit used: 0% (17/8K) [OK] Table locks acquired immediately: 100% (432K immediate / 432K locks) [OK] InnoDB data size / buffer pool: 420.9M/18.0G -------- Recommendations ----------------------------------------------------- General recommendations: Run OPTIMIZE TABLE to defragment tables for better performance MySQL started within last 24 hours - recommendations may be inaccurate Reduce your overall MySQL memory footprint for system stability Increasing the query_cache size over 128M may reduce performance Temporary table size is already large - reduce result set size Reduce your SELECT DISTINCT queries without LIMIT clauses Variables to adjust: *** MySQL's maximum memory usage is dangerously high *** *** Add RAM before increasing MySQL buffer variables *** query_cache_size (> 256M) [see warning above] Thanks in advanced for your help!

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• mySQL Optimization Suggestions

  - by Brian Schroeter

  I'm trying to optimize our mySQL configuration for our large Magento website. The reason I believe that mySQL needs to be configured further is because New Relic has shown that our SELECT queries are taking a long time (20,000+ ms) in some categories. I ran MySQLTuner 1.3.0 and got the following results... (Disclaimer: I restarted mySQL earlier after tweaking some settings, and so the results here may not be 100% accurate): >> MySQLTuner 1.3.0 - Major Hayden <[email protected]> >> Bug reports, feature requests, and downloads at http://mysqltuner.com/ >> Run with '--help' for additional options and output filtering [OK] Currently running supported MySQL version 5.5.37-35.0 [OK] Operating on 64-bit architecture -------- Storage Engine Statistics ------------------------------------------- [--] Status: +ARCHIVE +BLACKHOLE +CSV -FEDERATED +InnoDB +MRG_MYISAM [--] Data in MyISAM tables: 7G (Tables: 332) [--] Data in InnoDB tables: 213G (Tables: 8714) [--] Data in PERFORMANCE_SCHEMA tables: 0B (Tables: 17) [--] Data in MEMORY tables: 0B (Tables: 353) [!!] Total fragmented tables: 5492 -------- Security Recommendations ------------------------------------------- [!!] User '@host5.server1.autopartsnetwork.com' has no password set. [!!] User '@localhost' has no password set. [!!] User 'root@%' has no password set. -------- Performance Metrics ------------------------------------------------- [--] Up for: 5h 3m 4s (5M q [317.443 qps], 42K conn, TX: 18B, RX: 2B) [--] Reads / Writes: 95% / 5% [--] Total buffers: 35.5G global + 184.5M per thread (1024 max threads) [!!] Maximum possible memory usage: 220.0G (174% of installed RAM) [OK] Slow queries: 0% (6K/5M) [OK] Highest usage of available connections: 5% (61/1024) [OK] Key buffer size / total MyISAM indexes: 512.0M/3.1G [OK] Key buffer hit rate: 100.0% (102M cached / 45K reads) [OK] Query cache efficiency: 66.9% (3M cached / 5M selects) [!!] Query cache prunes per day: 3486361 [OK] Sorts requiring temporary tables: 0% (0 temp sorts / 812K sorts) [!!] Joins performed without indexes: 1328 [OK] Temporary tables created on disk: 11% (126K on disk / 1M total) [OK] Thread cache hit rate: 99% (61 created / 42K connections) [!!] Table cache hit rate: 19% (9K open / 49K opened) [OK] Open file limit used: 2% (712/25K) [OK] Table locks acquired immediately: 100% (5M immediate / 5M locks) [!!] InnoDB buffer pool / data size: 32.0G/213.4G [OK] InnoDB log waits: 0 -------- Recommendations ----------------------------------------------------- General recommendations: Run OPTIMIZE TABLE to defragment tables for better performance MySQL started within last 24 hours - recommendations may be inaccurate Reduce your overall MySQL memory footprint for system stability Enable the slow query log to troubleshoot bad queries Increasing the query_cache size over 128M may reduce performance Adjust your join queries to always utilize indexes Increase table_cache gradually to avoid file descriptor limits Read this before increasing table_cache over 64: http://bit.ly/1mi7c4C Variables to adjust: *** MySQL's maximum memory usage is dangerously high *** *** Add RAM before increasing MySQL buffer variables *** query_cache_size (> 512M) [see warning above] join_buffer_size (> 128.0M, or always use indexes with joins) table_cache (> 12288) innodb_buffer_pool_size (>= 213G) My my.cnf configuration is as follows... [client] port = 3306 [mysqld_safe] nice = 0 [mysqld] tmpdir = /var/lib/mysql/tmp user = mysql port = 3306 skip-external-locking character-set-server = utf8 collation-server = utf8_general_ci event_scheduler = 0 key_buffer = 512M max_allowed_packet = 64M thread_stack = 512K thread_cache_size = 512 sort_buffer_size = 24M read_buffer_size = 8M read_rnd_buffer_size = 24M join_buffer_size = 128M # for some nightly processes client sessions set the join buffer to 8 GB auto-increment-increment = 1 auto-increment-offset = 1 myisam-recover = BACKUP max_connections = 1024 # max connect errors artificially high to support behaviors of NetScaler monitors max_connect_errors = 999999 concurrent_insert = 2 connect_timeout = 5 wait_timeout = 180 net_read_timeout = 120 net_write_timeout = 120 back_log = 128 # this table_open_cache might be too low because of MySQL bugs #16244691 and #65384) table_open_cache = 12288 tmp_table_size = 512M max_heap_table_size = 512M bulk_insert_buffer_size = 512M open-files-limit = 8192 open-files = 1024 query_cache_type = 1 # large query limit supports SOAP and REST API integrations query_cache_limit = 4M # larger than 512 MB query cache size is problematic; this is typically ~60% full query_cache_size = 512M # set to true on read slaves read_only = false slow_query_log_file = /var/log/mysql/slow.log slow_query_log = 0 long_query_time = 0.2 expire_logs_days = 10 max_binlog_size = 1024M binlog_cache_size = 32K sync_binlog = 0 # SSD RAID10 technically has a write capacity of 10000 IOPS innodb_io_capacity = 400 innodb_file_per_table innodb_table_locks = true innodb_lock_wait_timeout = 30 # These servers have 80 CPU threads; match 1:1 innodb_thread_concurrency = 48 innodb_commit_concurrency = 2 innodb_support_xa = true innodb_buffer_pool_size = 32G innodb_file_per_table innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 1 innodb_log_buffer_size = 2G skip-federated [mysqldump] quick quote-names single-transaction max_allowed_packet = 64M I have a monster of a server here to power our site because our catalog is very large (300,000 simple SKUs), and I'm just wondering if I'm missing anything that I can configure further. :-) Thanks!

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• Flow-Design Cheat Sheet &ndash; Part I, Notation

  - by Ralf Westphal

  You want to avoid the pitfalls of object oriented design? Then this is the right place to start. Use Flow-Oriented Analysis (FOA) and –Design (FOD or just FD for Flow-Design) to understand a problem domain and design a software solution. Flow-Orientation as described here is related to Flow-Based Programming, Event-Based Programming, Business Process Modelling, and even Event-Driven Architectures. But even though “thinking in flows” is not new, I found it helpful to deviate from those precursors for several reasons. Some aim at too big systems for the average programmer, some are concerned with only asynchronous processing, some are even not very much concerned with programming at all. What I was looking for was a design method to help in software projects of any size, be they large or tiny, involing synchronous or asynchronous processing, being local or distributed, running on the web or on the desktop or on a smartphone. That´s why I took ideas from all of the above sources and some additional and came up with Event-Based Components which later got repositioned and renamed to Flow-Design. In the meantime this has generated some discussion (in the German developer community) and several teams have started to work with Flow-Design. Also I´ve conducted quite some trainings using Flow-Orientation for design. The results are very promising. Developers find it much easier to design software using Flow-Orientation than OOAD-based object orientation. Since Flow-Orientation is moving fast and is not covered completely by a single source like a book, demand has increased for at least an overview of the current state of its notation. This page is trying to answer this demand by briefly introducing/describing every notational element as well as their translation into C# source code. Take this as a cheat sheet to put next to your whiteboard when designing software. However, please do not expect any explanation as to the reasons behind Flow-Design elements. Details on why Flow-Design at all and why in this specific way you´ll find in the literature covering the topic. Here´s a resource page on Flow-Design/Event-Based Components, if you´re able to read German. Notation Connected Functional Units The basic element of any FOD are functional units (FU): Think of FUs as some kind of software code block processing data. For the moment forget about classes, methods, “components”, assemblies or whatever. See a FU as an abstract piece of code. Software then consists of just collaborating FUs. I´m using circles/ellipses to draw FUs. But if you like, use rectangles. Whatever suites your whiteboard needs best.   The purpose of FUs is to process input and produce output. FUs are transformational. However, FUs are not called and do not call other FUs. There is no dependency between FUs. Data just flows into a FU (input) and out of it (output). From where and where to is of no concern to a FU.   This way FUs can be concatenated in arbitrary ways:   Each FU can accept input from many sources and produce output for many sinks:   Flows Connected FUs form a flow with a start and an end. Data is entering a flow at a source, and it´s leaving it through a sink. Think of sources and sinks as special FUs which conntect wires to the environment of a network of FUs.   Wiring Details Data is flowing into/out of FUs through wires. This is to allude to electrical engineering which since long has been working with composable parts. Wires are attached to FUs usings pins. They are the entry/exit points for the data flowing along the wires. Input-/output pins currently need not be drawn explicitly. This is to keep designing on a whiteboard simple and quick.   Data flowing is of some type, so wires have a type attached to them. And pins have names. If there is only one input pin and output pin on a FU, though, you don´t need to mention them. The default is Process for a single input pin, and Result for a single output pin. But you´re free to give even single pins different names.   There is a shortcut in use to address a certain pin on a destination FU:   The type of the wire is put in parantheses for two reasons. 1. This way a “no-type” wire can be easily denoted, 2. this is a natural way to describe tuples of data.   To describe how much data is flowing, a star can be put next to the wire type:   Nesting – Boards and Parts If more than 5 to 10 FUs need to be put in a flow a FD starts to become hard to understand. To keep diagrams clutter free they can be nested. You can turn any FU into a flow: This leads to Flow-Designs with different levels of abstraction. A in the above illustration is a high level functional unit, A.1 and A.2 are lower level functional units. One of the purposes of Flow-Design is to be able to describe systems on different levels of abstraction and thus make it easier to understand them. Humans use abstraction/decomposition to get a grip on complexity. Flow-Design strives to support this and make levels of abstraction first class citizens for programming. You can read the above illustration like this: Functional units A.1 and A.2 detail what A is supposed to do. The whole of A´s responsibility is decomposed into smaller responsibilities A.1 and A.2. FU A thus does not do anything itself anymore! All A is responsible for is actually accomplished by the collaboration between A.1 and A.2. Since A now is not doing anything anymore except containing A.1 and A.2 functional units are devided into two categories: boards and parts. Boards are just containing other functional units; their sole responsibility is to wire them up. A is a board. Boards thus depend on the functional units nested within them. This dependency is not of a functional nature, though. Boards are not dependent on services provided by nested functional units. They are just concerned with their interface to be able to plug them together. Parts are the workhorses of flows. They contain the real domain logic. They actually transform input into output. However, they do not depend on other functional units. Please note the usage of source and sink in boards. They correspond to input-pins and output-pins of the board.   Implicit Dependencies Nesting functional units leads to a dependency tree. Boards depend on nested functional units, they are the inner nodes of the tree. Parts are independent, they are the leafs: Even though dependencies are the bane of software development, Flow-Design does not usually draw these dependencies. They are implicitly created by visually nesting functional units. And they are harmless. Boards are so simple in their functionality, they are little affected by changes in functional units they are depending on. But functional units are implicitly dependent on more than nested functional units. They are also dependent on the data types of the wires attached to them: This is also natural and thus does not need to be made explicit. And it pertains mainly to parts being dependent. Since boards don´t do anything with regard to a problem domain, they don´t care much about data types. Their infrastructural purpose just needs types of input/output-pins to match.   Explicit Dependencies You could say, Flow-Orientation is about tackling complexity at its root cause: that´s dependencies. “Natural” dependencies are depicted naturally, i.e. implicitly. And whereever possible dependencies are not even created. Functional units don´t know their collaborators within a flow. This is core to Flow-Orientation. That makes for high composability of functional units. A part is as independent of other functional units as a motor is from the rest of the car. And a board is as dependend on nested functional units as a motor is on a spark plug or a crank shaft. With Flow-Design software development moves closer to how hardware is constructed. Implicit dependencies are not enough, though. Sometimes explicit dependencies make designs easier – as counterintuitive this might sound. So FD notation needs a ways to denote explicit dependencies: Data flows along wires. But data does not flow along dependency relations. Instead dependency relations represent service calls. Functional unit C is depending on/calling services on functional unit S. If you want to be more specific, name the services next to the dependency relation: Although you should try to stay clear of explicit dependencies, they are fundamentally ok. See them as a way to add another dimension to a flow. Usually the functionality of the independent FU (“Customer repository” above) is orthogonal to the domain of the flow it is referenced by. If you like emphasize this by using different shapes for dependent and independent FUs like above. Such dependencies can be used to link in resources like databases or shared in-memory state. FUs can not only produce output but also can have side effects. A common pattern for using such explizit dependencies is to hook a GUI into a flow as the source and/or the sink of data: Which can be shortened to: Treat FUs others depend on as boards (with a special non-FD API the dependent part is connected to), but do not embed them in a flow in the diagram they are depended upon.   Attributes of Functional Units Creation and usage of functional units can be modified with attributes. So far the following have shown to be helpful: Singleton: FUs are by default multitons. FUs in the same of different flows with the same name refer to the same functionality, but to different instances. Think of functional units as objects that get instanciated anew whereever they appear in a design. Sometimes though it´s helpful to reuse the same instance of a functional unit; this is always due to valuable state it holds. Signify this by annotating the FU with a “(S)”. Multiton: FUs on which others depend are singletons by default. This is, because they usually are introduced where shared state comes into play. If you want to change them to be a singletons mark them with a “(M)”. Configurable: Some parts need to be configured before the can do they work in a flow. Annotate them with a “(C)” to have them initialized before any data items to be processed by them arrive. Do not assume any order in which FUs are configured. How such configuration is happening is an implementation detail. Entry point: In each design there needs to be a single part where “it all starts”. That´s the entry point for all processing. It´s like Program.Main() in C# programs. Mark the entry point part with an “(E)”. Quite often this will be the GUI part. How the entry point is started is an implementation detail. Just consider it the first FU to start do its job.   Patterns / Standard Parts If more than a single wire is attached to an output-pin that´s called a split (or fork). The same data is flowing on all of the wires. Remember: Flow-Designs are synchronous by default. So a split does not mean data is processed in parallel afterwards. Processing still happens synchronously and thus one branch after another. Do not assume any specific order of the processing on the different branches after the split.   It is common to do a split and let only parts of the original data flow on through the branches. This effectively means a map is needed after a split. This map can be implicit or explicit.   Although FUs can have multiple input-pins it is preferrable in most cases to combine input data from different branches using an explicit join: The default output of a join is a tuple of its input values. The default behavior of a join is to output a value whenever a new input is received. However, to produce its first output a join needs an input for all its input-pins. Other join behaviors can be: reset all inputs after an output only produce output if data arrives on certain input-pins

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• Install Oracle Configuration Manager's Standalone Collector

  - by Get Proactive Customer Adoption Team

  Untitled Document The Why and the How If you have heard of Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM), but haven’t installed it, I’m guessing this is for one of two reasons. Either you don’t know how it helps you or you don’t know how to install it. I’ll address both of those reasons today. First, let’s take a quick look at how My Oracle Support and the Oracle Configuration Manager work together to gain a good understanding of what their differences and roles are before we tackle the install.   Oracle Configuration Manger is the tool that actually performs the data collection task. You deploy this lightweight piece of software into your system to collect configuration information about the system and OCM uploads that data to Oracle’s customer configuration repository. Oracle Support Engineers then have the configuration data available when you file a service request. You can also view the data through My Oracle Support. The real value is that the data Oracle Configuration Manager collects can help you avoid problems and get your Service Requests solved more quickly. When you view the information in My Oracle Support’s user interface to OCM, it may help you avoid situations that create problems. The proactive tools included in Oracle Configuration Manager help you avoid issues before they occur. You also save time because you didn’t need to open a service request. For example, you can use this capability when you need to compare your system configuration at two points in time, or monitor the system health. If you make the configuration data available to Oracle Support Engineers, when you need to open a Service Request the data helps them diagnose and resolve your critical system issues more quickly, which means you get answers more quickly too. Quick Installation Process Overview Before we dive into the step-by-step details, let me provide a quick overview. For some of you, this will be all you need. Log in to My Oracle Support and download the data collector from Collector tab. If you don’t see the Collector tab, click the More tab gain access. On the Collector tab, you will find a drop-down list showing which platforms are available. You can also see more ways to the Collector can help you if you click through the carousel of benefits. After you download the software for your platform, use FTP to move that file (.zip) from your PC to the server that hosts the Oracle software. Once you have that file on the server, locate the $ORACLE_HOME directory, and unzip the file within that directory. You can then use the command line tool to start the installation process. The installation process requires the My Oracle Support credential (Support Identifier, username, and password) Proxy specification (Host IP Address, Port number, username and password) Installation Step-by-Step Download the collector zip file from My Oracle Support and place it into your $Oracle_Home Unzip the zip file you downloaded from My Oracle Support – this will create a directory named CCR with several subdirectories Using the command line go to “$ORACLE_HOME/CCR/bin” and run the following command “setupCCR” Provide your My Oracle Support credential: login, password, and Support Identifier The installer will start deploying the collector application You have installed the Collector Post Installation Now that you have installed successfully, the scheduler is ready to collect configuration information for the software available in your Oracle Home. By default, the first collection will take place the day after the installation. If you want to run an instrumentation script to start the configuration collection of your Oracle Database server, E-Business Suite, or Enterprise Manager, you will find more details on that in the Installation and Administration Guide for My Oracle Support Configuration Manager. Related documents available on My Oracle Support Oracle Configuration Manager Installation and Administration Guide [ID 728989.5] Oracle Configuration Manager Prerequisites [ID 728473.5] Oracle Configuration Manager Network Connectivity Test [ID 728970.5] Oracle Configuration Manager Collection Overview [ID 728985.5] Oracle Configuration Manager Security Overview [ID 728982.5] Oracle Software Configuration Manager: Disconnected Mode Collection [ID 453412.1]

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• 10 Best Programming Podcast 2010 Edition

  - by mbcrump

  This list is in no particular order. Just the 10 best programming podcast that I have found so far. Stack Overflow Podcast -  Jeff Atwood (of codinghorror.com) and Joel Spolsky (of joelonsoftware.com) discuss the development of their new programming community, StackOverflow.com. [This Podcast hasn’t been updated in a while, but its always great to hear more from Jeff Atwood] Hanselminutes - Hanselminutes is a weekly audio talk show with noted web developer and technologist Scott Hanselman and hosted by Carl Franklin. Scott discusses utilities and tools, gives practical how-to advice, and discusses ASP.NET or Windows issues and workarounds. [This Podcast has recently started talking about random topics like diabetes, plane travel and geek relationship tips.  I am not sure if Scott is trying to move to a more mainstream audience or not] Herding Code - A weekly discussion featuring K. Scott Allen (odetocode.com), Kevin Dente, Scott Koon (lazycoder.com), and Jon Galloway. [Great all all-around podcast that I would recommend to all] Deep Fried Bytes - Deep Fried Bytes is an audio talk show with a Southern flavor hosted by technologists and developers Keith Elder and Chris Woodruff. The show discusses a wide range of topics including application development, operating systems and technology in general. Anything is fair game if it plugs into the wall or takes a battery. [This is one that just keeps getting better] Dot Net Rocks - .NET Rocks! is an Internet Audio Talk Show for Microsoft .NET Developers. [One of the first and usually very high quality content] Connected Show - Connected Show Podcast! A podcast covering new Microsoft technology for the developer community. The show is hosted by Dmitry Lyalin and Peter Laudati. [This and Polymorphic are one of my favorite podcast – Dmitry is a great host and would recommend this to all] Polymorphic Podcast - Object oriented development, architecture and best practices in .NET [Craig is a ASP.NET MVP and a great presenter. His podcast is great and it could only be better if he recorded it more often] ASP.NET Podcast - Wallace B. (Wally) McClure presents interviews and short technical talks on .NET Technologies. [Has great information on ASP.NET of course as well as iPhone Dev] Ruby on Rails Podcast - News and interviews about the Ruby language and the Rails website framework. [Even though I am not a Ruby programmer, I’ve found this podcast very interesting] Software Engineering Radio - Software Engineering Radio is a podcast targeted at the professional software developer. The goal is to be a lasting educational resource, not a newscast. Every ten days, a new episode is published that covers all topics software engineering. Episodes are either tutorials on a specific topic, or an interview with a well-known character from the software engineering world. All SE Radio episodes are original content ? we do not record conferences or talks given in other venues. Each episode comprises two speakers to ensure a lively listening experience. SE Radio is an independent and non-commercial organization. [Another excellent podcast – I would recommend any programmer add this to his/her drive home] If I have missed something, please feel free to email me and it might make the 2011 list. =)

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• Agile Manifesto, Revisited

  - by GeekAgilistMercenary

  Again, conversations give me a zillion things to write about.  The recent conversation that has cropped up again is my various viewpoints of the Agile Manifesto.  Not all the processes that came after the manifesto was written, but just the core manifesto itself.  Just for context, here is the manifesto in all the glory. We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more. Several of the key signatories at the time went on to write some of the core books that really gave Agile Software Development traction.  If you check out the Agile Manifesto Site and do a search for any of those people, you will find a treasure trove of software development information. My 2 Cents First off, I agree with a few people out there.  Agile is not Scrum for instance.  Do NOT get these things confused when checking out Agile, or pushing forward with Scrum.  As David Starr points out in his blog entry, "About 35 minutes into this discussion, I realized I hadn?t heard a question or comment that wasn?t related to Scrum. I asked the room, ?How many people are on an agile team that is NOT using Scrum?? 5 hands. Seriously, out of about 150 people of so. 5 hands." So know, as this is one of my biggest pet peves these days, that Scrum is not Agile.  Another quote David writes, "I assure you, dear reader, 2 week time boxes does not an agile team make." This is the exact problem.  Take a look at the actual manifesto above.  First ideal, "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools".  There are a couple of meanings in this ideal, just as there are in the other written ideals.  But this one has a lot of contention with a set practice such as Scrum.  There are other formulas, namely XP (eXtreme) and Kanban are two that come to mind often.  But none of these are Agile, but instead a process based on the ideals of Agile. Some of you may be thinking, "that?s the same thing".  Well, no, it is not.  This type of differentiation is vitally important.  Agile is a set of ideals.  Processes are nice, but they can change, they may work for some and not others.  The Agile Manifesto covers the ideals behind what is intended, that intention being to learn and find new ways to build better software. Ideals, not processes.  Definition versus implementation.  Class versus object.  The ideals are of utmost importance, the processes are secondary, the first ideal is what really lays this out for me "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools".  Yes, we need tools but we need the individuals and their interactions more. For those coming into a development team, I hope you take this to mind.  It is of utmost importance that this differentiation is known and fought for.  The second the process becomes more important than the individuals and interactions, the team will effectively lose the advantages of Agile Ideals. This is just one of my first thoughts on the topic of Agile.  I will be writing more in the near future about each of the ideals.  I will make a point to outline more of my thoughts, my opinions, and experience with the ideals of Agile and the various processes that are out there.  Maybe, I may stumble upon something new with the help of my readers?  It would be a grand overture to the ideals I hold. For the original entry, check out my personal blog with other juicy tech tidbits, rants, raves, and the like. Agilist Mercenary

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• Surface V2.0

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  It’s been quiet around here. And the reason for that is that it’s been quiet around Surface for a while. Now, a lot of people assume that when a product team isn’t making too much noise that must mean they stopped working on their product. Remember the PDC keynote in 2010? Just because they didn’t mention WPF there a lot of people had the idea that WPF was dead and abandoned for Silverlight. Of course, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. The same applies to Surface. While we didn’t hear much from the team in Redmond they were busy putting together the next version of the platform. And at the CES in January the world saw what they have been up to all along: Surface V2.0 as it’s commonly known. Of course, the product is still in development. It’s not here yet, we can’t buy one yet. However, more and more information comes available and I think this is a good time to share with you what it’s all about! The biggest change from an organizational point of view is that Microsoft decided to stop producing the hardware themselves. Instead, they have formed a partnership with Samsung who will manufacture the devices. This means that you as a buyer get the benefits of a large, worldwide supplier with all the services they can offer. Not that Microsoft didn’t do that before but since Surface wasn’t a ‘big’ product it was sometimes hard to get to the right people. The new device is officially called the “Samsung SUR 40 for Microsoft Surface” which is quite a mouthful. The software that runs the device is of course still coming from Microsoft. Let’s dive into the technical specs (note: all of this is preliminary, it’s still in the Alpha phase!): Audio out HDMI / StereoRCA / SPDIF / 2 times 3.5mm audio out jack Brightness 300 CD/m2 Communications 1GB Ethernet/802.11/Bluetooth Contrast Ratio 1:1000 CPU AMD Athlon X2 245e 2.9Ghz Dual Core Display Resolution Full HD 1080p 1920x1080 / 16:9 aspect ratio GPU AMD Radeon HD 6750 1GB GDDRS HDD 320 GB / 7200 RPM HDMI In / HDMI out Yes I/O Ports 4 USB, SD Card reader Operation System Embedded Windows 7 Professional 64 bits Panel Size 40” diagonal Protection Glass Gorilla Glass RAM 4 GB DD3 Weight / with standard legs 70.0 Kg / 154 lbs Weight / standalone 39.5 Kg / 87 lbs Height (without legs) 4 inch Contact points recognized > 50 Cool Factor Extremely   Ok, the last point is not official, but I do think it needs to be there. Let’s talk software. As noted, it runs Windows 7 Professional 64 bit, which means you can run Visual Studio 2010 on it. The software is going to be developed in WPF4.0 with the additional Surface SDK 2.0. It will contain all the things you’ve seen before plus some extra’s. They have taken some steps to align it more with the Surface Toolkit which you can download today, so if you do things right your software should be portable between a WPF4.0 Windows 7 Multi-touch app and the Surface v2 environment. It still uses infrared to detect contacts, so in that respect nothing much has changed conceptually. We still can differentiate between a finger, a tag or a blob. Of course, since the new platform has a much higher resolution (compared to the 1024x768 of the first version) you might need to look at your code again. I’ve seen a lot of applications on Surface that assume the old resolution and moving that to V2 is going to be some work. To be honest: as I am under NDA I cannot disclose much about the new software besides what I have told you here, but trust me: it’s going to blow people away. Now, the biggest question for me is: when can I get one? Until we can, have a look here: Tags van Technorati: surface,samsung,WPF

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• Create and Track Your Own License Keys with PowerShell

  - by BuckWoody

  SQL Server used to have  cool little tool that would let you track your licenses. Microsoft didn’t use it to limit your system or anything, it was just a place on the server where you could put that this system used this license key. I miss those days – we don’t track that any more, and I want to make sure I’m up to date on my licensing, so I made my own. Now, there are a LOT of ways you could do this. You could add an extended property in SQL Server, add a table to a tracking database, use a text file, track it somewhere else, whatever. This is just the route I chose; if you want to use some other method, feel free. Just sharing here. Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall the operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk. And this is REALLY important. I include a disclaimer at the end of my scripts, but in this case you’re modifying your registry, and that could be EXTREMELY dangerous – only do this on a test server – and I’m just showing you how I did mine. It isn’t an endorsement or anything like that, and this is a “Buck Woody” thing, NOT a Microsoft thing. See this link first, and then you can read on. OK, here’s my script: # Track your own licenses # Write a New Key to be the License Location mkdir HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Buck   # Write the variables - one sets the type, the other sets the number, and the last one holds the key New-ItemProperty HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Buck -name "SQLServerLicenseType" -value "Processor" # Notice the Dword value here - this one is a number so it needs that. Keep this on one line! New-ItemProperty HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Buck -name "SQLServerLicenseNumber" -propertytype DWord -value 4 New-ItemProperty HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Buck -name "SQLServerLicenseKey" -value "ABCD1234"   # Read them all $LicenseKey = Get-Item HKCU:\Software\Buck $Licenses = Get-ItemProperty $LicenseKey.PSPath foreach ($License in $LicenseKey.Property) { $License + "=" + $Licenses.$License }   Script Disclaimer, for people who need to be told this sort of thing: Never trust any script, including those that you find here, until you understand exactly what it does and how it will act on your systems. Always check the script on a test system or Virtual Machine, not a production system. Yes, there are always multiple ways to do things, and this script may not work in every situation, for everything. It’s just a script, people. All scripts on this site are performed by a professional stunt driver on a closed course. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Offer good for a limited time only. Keep out of reach of small children. Do not operate heavy machinery while using this script. If you experience blurry vision, indigestion or diarrhea during the operation of this script, see a physician immediately. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• AppKata - Enter the next level of programming exercises

  - by Ralf Westphal

  Doing CodeKatas is all the rage lately. That´s great since widely accepted exercises are important to further the art. They provide a means of communication across platforms and allow to compare results which is part of any deliberate practice. But CodeKatas suffer from their size. They are intentionally small, so they can be done again and again. Repetition helps to build habit and to dig deeper. Over time ever new nuances of the problem or one´s approach become visible. On the other hand, though, their small size limits the methods, techniques, technologies that can be applied. To improve your TDD skills doing CodeKatas might be enough. But what about other skills? Developing on a software in a team, designing larger pieces of software, iteratively releasing software… all this and more is kinda hard to train using the tiny CodeKata problems. That´s why I´d like to present here another kind of kata I call Application Kata (or just AppKata). AppKatas are larger programming problems. They require the development of “whole” applications, i.e. not just one class or method, but bunches of classes accessible through a user interface. Also AppKata problems always are split into iterations. To get the most out of them, just look at the requirements of one iteration at a time. This way you´re closer to reality where requirements evolve in unexpected ways. So if you´re looking for more of a challenge for your software development skills, check out these AppKatas – or invent your own. AppKatas are platform independent like CodeKatas. Use whatever programming language and IDE you like. Also use whatever approach to software development you like. Just be sensitive to how easy it is to evolve your code across iterations. Reflect on what went well and what not. Compare your solutions with others. Or – for even more challenge – go for the “Coding Carousel” (see below). CSV Viewer An application to view CSV files. Sounds easy, but watch out! Requirements sometimes drastically change if the customer is happy with what you delivered. Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4 Iteration 5 (to come) Questionnaire If you like GUI programming, this AppKata might be for you. It´s about an app to let people fill out questionnaires. Also this problem might be interestin for you, if you´re into DDD. Iteration 1 Iteration 2 (to come) Iteration 3 (to come) Iteration 4 (to come) Tic Tac Toe For developers who like game programming. Although Tic Tac Toe is a trivial game, this AppKata poses some interesting infrastructure challenges. The GUI, however, stays simple; leave any 3D ambitions at home ;-) Iteration 1 Iteration 2 (to come) Iteration 3 (to come) Iteration 4 (to come) Iteration 5 (to come) Coding Carousel There are many ways you can do AppKatas. Work on them alone or in a team, pitch several devs against each other in an AppKata contest – or go around in a Coding Carousel. For the Coding Carousel you need at least 3 dev teams (regardless of size). All teams work on the same iteration at the same time. But here´s the trick: After each iteration the teams swap their code. Whatever they did for iteration n will be the basis for changes another team has to apply in iteration n+1. The code is going around the teams like in a carousel. I promise you, that´s gonna be fun! :-)

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• OTN ArchBeat Top 10 for September 2012

  - by Bob Rhubart

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

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• Lease Accounting Closed for Comment

  - by Theresa Hickman

  December 15, 2010 marked the last day to send public comments to FASB and IASB on lease accounting. June 2011 is the deadline for the final consideration of the Leases Exposure Draft that will be given to standard setters in order to create a new lease accounting standard. Landlords, lessees, retailers, airlines industry, etc. are all worried right now about the changes to lease accounting. They feel the changes will be too costly and complex without adding significant improvement to the quality and relevance of financial statements. In a nutshell, IASB and FASB want to abolish operating leases where the lessee records the periodic payments as an expense over time. The proposed changes will mean that the accounting for leases will move from the P&L and hit both the lessee's and lessor's balance sheets. For companies that occupy a lot of property, this could significantly increase their liabilities not to mention front-load much of the costs that they were able to spread out over time before. Why are IASB and FASB doing this? Their goal is to have consistent accounting for both the lessees and lessors with higher quality financial statements. Leasing is one of four major projects being undertaken by the IASB and FASB in order to complete convergence between US GAAP and IFRS. I spoke to our resident accounting expert Seamus Moran about this to better understand how this might impact accounting software. He reminded me that the proposed changes to both US GAAP and IFRS in respect to leases are "proposed." It is still inappropriate to account for leases the way they are being proposed and we still need to account for them in accordance to the current regulations, which is what current accounting software programs, such as E-Business Suite Release 12.1 and prior and PeopleSoft Enterprise support. The FASB (US GAAP) and IASB (IFRS) exposure drafts (EDs) that outline the proposal were published. The FASB edition was published on August 17th, with comments due by December 15th. The IASB edition was published on the same date, and comments were due in London on the same date. Exposure drafts are the method both the FASB and the IASB use to solicit General Acceptance, the "GA" in GAAP. Both Boards will consider the input they have received, and perhaps revise the proposal. The proposal has come in for some criticism, both from the finance houses and the uses of the leased assets. There is, given the opposition to it, an excellent chance that the Leasing proposal will be modified or rewritten. We will know this in about six months, the usual time it takes for the FASB and IASB to digest the comments they receive. If they feel the proposal has General Acceptance, they will issue the final Standard at that time; if not, they will issue a revised proposal with another year of comment of drafting. Oracle participates in the standard setting process and is fully aware of the leasing proposal. We have designs that would reflect the proposal in hand. These designs will be finalized when the proposal is finalized. It is likely that customers will develop new financial arrangements if the proposal is finalized, and we are working with customers and partners to stay in touch with people's business responses to the proposal. The IASB and FASB are aware that ERP companies will have to revise their software, and that the companies filing results under IFRS or under US GAAP will have to implement such software. The form and timing of the release of the updated software will depend on the schedule of the take up of the new standard, the complexity of the standard, and the releases supported at the time the standard becomes effective.

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• Feynman's inbox

  - by user12607414

  Here is Richard Feynman writing on the ease of criticizing theories, and the difficulty of forming them: The problem is not just to say something might be wrong, but to replace it by something — and that is not so easy. As soon as any really definite idea is substituted it becomes almost immediately apparent that it does not work. The second difficulty is that there is an infinite number of possibilities of these simple types. It is something like this. You are sitting working very hard, you have worked for a long time trying to open a safe. Then some Joe comes along who knows nothing about what you are doing, except that you are trying to open the safe. He says ‘Why don’t you try the combination 10:20:30?’ Because you are busy, you have tried a lot of things, maybe you have already tried 10:20:30. Maybe you know already that the middle number is 32 not 20. Maybe you know as a matter of fact that it is a five digit combination… So please do not send me any letters trying to tell me how the thing is going to work. I read them — I always read them to make sure that I have not already thought of what is suggested — but it takes too long to answer them, because they are usually in the class ‘try 10:20:30’. (“Seeking New Laws”, page 161 in The Character of Physical Law.) As a sometime designer (and longtime critic) of widely used computer systems, I have seen similar difficulties appear when anyone undertakes to publicly design a piece of software that may be used by many thousands of customers. (I have been on both sides of the fence, of course.) The design possibilities are endless, but the deep design problems are usually hidden beneath a mass of superfluous detail. The sheer numbers can be daunting. Even if only one customer out of a thousand feels a need to express a passionately held idea, it can take a long time to read all the mail. And it is a fact of life that many of those strong suggestions are only weakly supported by reason or evidence. Opinions are plentiful, but substantive research is time-consuming, and hence rare. A related phenomenon commonly seen with software is bike-shedding, where interlocutors focus on surface details like naming and syntax… or (come to think of it) like lock combinations. On the other hand, software is easier than quantum physics, and the population of people able to make substantial suggestions about software systems is several orders of magnitude bigger than Feynman’s circle of colleagues. My own work would be poorer without contributions — sometimes unsolicited, sometimes passionately urged on me — from the open source community. If a Nobel prize winner thought it was worthwhile to read his mail on the faint chance of learning a good idea, I am certainly not going to throw mine away. (In case anyone is still reading this, and is wondering what provoked a meditation on the quality of one’s inbox contents, I’ll simply point out that the volume has been very high, for many months, on the Lambda-Dev mailing list, where the next version of the Java language is being discussed. Bravo to those of my colleagues who are surfing that wave.) I started this note thinking there was an odd parallel between the life of the physicist and that of a software designer. On second thought, I’ll bet that is the story for anybody who works in public on something requiring special training. (And that would be pretty much anything worth doing.) In any case, Feynman saw it clearly and said it well.

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• HERMES Medical Solutions Helps Save Lives with MySQL

  - by Bertrand Matthelié

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-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-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} HERMES Medical Solutions was established in 1976 in Stockholm, Sweden, and is a leading innovator in medical imaging hardware/software products for health care facilities worldwide. HERMES delivers a plethora of different medical imaging solutions to optimize hospital workflow. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-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-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} HERMES advanced algorithms make it possible to detect the smallest changes under therapies important and necessary to optimize different therapeutic methods and doses. Challenges Fighting illness & disease requires state-of-the-art imaging modalities and software in order to diagnose accurately, stage disease appropriately and select the best treatment available. Selecting and implementing a new database platform that would deliver the needed performance, reliability, security and flexibility required by the high-end medical solutions offered by HERMES. Solution Decision to migrate from in-house database to an embedded SQL database powering the HERMES products, delivered either as software, integrated hardware and software solutions, or via the cloud in a software-as-a-service configuration. Evaluation of several databases and selection of MySQL based on its high performance, ease of use and integration, and low Total Cost of Ownership. On average, between 4 and 12 Terabytes of data are stored in MySQL databases underpinning the HERMES solutions. The data generated by each medical study is indeed stored during 10 years or more after the treatment was performed. MySQL-based HERMES systems also allow doctors worldwide to conduct new drug research projects leveraging the large amount of medical data collected. Hospitals and other HERMES customers worldwide highly value the “zero administration” capabilities and reliability of MySQL, enabling them to perform medical analysis without any downtime. Relying on MySQL as their embedded database, the HERMES team has been able to increase their focus on further developing their clinical applications. HERMES Medical Solutions could leverage the Oracle Financing payment plan to spread its investment over time and make the MySQL choice even more valuable. “MySQL has proven to be an excellent database choice for us. We offer high-end medical solutions, and MySQL delivers the reliability, security and performance such solutions require.” Jan Bertling, CEO.

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• PCI Encryption Key Management

  - by Unicorn Bob

  (Full disclosure: I'm already an active participant here and at StackOverflow, but for reasons that should hopefully be obvious, I'm choosing to ask this particular question anonymously). I currently work for a small software shop that produces software that's sold commercially to manage small- to mid-size business in a couple of fairly specialized industries. Because these industries are customer-facing, a large portion of the software is related to storing and managing customer information. In particular, the storage (and securing) of customer credit card information. With that, of course, comes PCI compliance. To make a long story short, I'm left with a couple of questions about why certain things were done the way they were, and I'm unfortunately without much of a resource at the moment. This is a very small shop (I report directly to the owner, as does the only other full-time employee), and the owner doesn't have an answer to these questions, and the previous developer is...err...unavailable. Issue 1: Periodic Re-encryption As of now, the software prompts the user to do a wholesale re-encryption of all of the sensitive information in the database (basically credit card numbers and user passwords) if either of these conditions is true: There are any NON-encrypted pieces of sensitive information in the database (added through a manual database statement instead of through the business object, for example). This should not happen during the ordinary use of the software. The current key has been in use for more than a particular period of time. I believe it's 12 months, but I'm not certain of that. The point here is that the key "expires". This is my first foray into commercial solution development that deals with PCI, so I am unfortunately uneducated on the practices involved. Is there some aspect of PCI compliance that mandates (or even just strongly recommends) periodic key updating? This isn't a huge issue for me other than I don't currently have a good explanation to give to end users if they ask why they are being prompted to run it. Question 1: Is the concept of key expiration standard, and, if so, is that simply industry-standard or an element of PCI? Issue 2: Key Storage Here's my real issue...the encryption key is stored in the database, just obfuscated. The key is padded on the left and right with a few garbage bytes and some bits are twiddled, but fundamentally there's nothing stopping an enterprising person from examining our (dotfuscated) code, determining the pattern used to turn the stored key into the real key, then using that key to run amok. This seems like a horrible practice to me, but I want to make sure that this isn't just one of those "grin and bear it" practices that people in this industry have taken to. I have developed an alternative approach that would prevent such an attack, but I'm just looking for a sanity check here. Question 2: Is this method of key storage--namely storing the key in the database using an obfuscation method that exists in client code--normal or crazy? Believe me, I know that free advice is worth every penny that I've paid for it, nobody here is an attorney (or at least isn't offering legal advice), caveat emptor, etc. etc., but I'm looking for any input that you all can provide. Thank you in advance!

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• Does *every* project benefit from written specifications?

  - by nikie

  I know this is holy war territory, so please read the question to the end before answering. There are many cases where written specifications make a lot of sense. For example, if you're a contractor and you want to get paid, you need written specs. If you're working in a team with 20 persons, you need written specs. If you're writing a programming language compiler or interpreter (and it's not perl), you'll usually write a formal specification. I don't doubt that there are many more cases where written specifications are a really good idea. I just think that there are cases where there's so little benefit in written specs, that it doesn't outweigh the costs of writing and maintaining them. EDIT: The close votes say that "it is difficult to say what is asked here", so let me clarify: The usefulness of written, detailed specifications is often claimed like a dogma. (If you want examples, look at the comments.) But I don't see the use of them for the kind of development I'm doing. So what is asked here is: How would written specifications help me? Background information: I work for a small company that's developing vertical market software. If our product is easier to use and has better performance than the competition, it sells. If it's harder to use, even if it behaves 100% as the specification says, it doesn't sell. So there are no "external forces" for having written specs. The advantage would have to be somewhere in the development process. Now, I can see how frozen specifications would make a developer's life easier. But we'll never have frozen specs. If we see in the middle of development that feature X is not intuitive to use the way it's specified, then we can only choose between changing the specification or developing a product that won't sell. You'll probably ask by now: How do you know when you're done? Well, we're continually improving our product. The competition does the same. So (hopefully) we're never done. We keep improving the software, and when we reach a point when the benefits of the improvements we've added since the last release outweigh the costs of an update, we create a new release that is then tested, localized, documented and deployed. This also means that there's rarely any schedule pressure. Nobody has to do overtime to make a deadline. If the feature isn't done by the time we want to release the next version, it'll simply go into the next version. The next question might be: How do your developers know what they're supposed to implement? The answer is: They have a lot of domain knowledge. They know the customers business well enough, so a high-level description of the feature (or even just the problem that the customer needs solved) is enough to implement it. If it's not clear, the developer creates a few fake screens to get feedback from marketing/management or customers, but this is nowhere near the level of detail of actual specifications. This might be inefficient for larger teams, but for a small team with low turnover it works quite well. It has the additional benefit that the developer in question often comes up with a better solution than the person writing the specs might have. This question is already getting very long, but let me address one last point: Testing. Like I said in the beginning, if our software behaves 100% like the spec says, it still can be crap. In fact, if it's so unintuitive that you need a spec to know how to test it, it probably is crap. It makes sense to have fixed, written tests for some core functionality and for regression bugs, but again, this is nowhere near a full written spec of how the software should behave when. The main test is: hand the software to a user who doesn't know it yet and tell him to use the new feature X. If she can figure out how to use it and it works, it works.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 02, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 02, 2010New ProjectsAcceptance Test Excel Addin: Acceptance Test Excel Addin is a tool to author, execute and analyze acceptance tests in Excel. The tester write tests using Given-When-Then (Gherk...Adrastus: Related to manage Issue/Item of any type. To be defined later TBDAn opportunity of upgrading Linux operating system: Want to add a new software in Linux operating system? Here is an opportunity. UFS (User Friendly Scheduler) has been designed to make the operating...AspNetPager: AspNetPager is a free custom paging control for ASP.NET web form application. It's one of the most popular ASP.NET third party controls used by chi...AzureRunMe: Run Java, Ruby, Python, [insert language of your choice] applications in Windows Azure. You provide a self contained ZIP file with a runme.bat f...DiffPlex - a .NET Diff Generator: DiffPlex is a combination of a .NET Diffing Library with both a Silverlight and HTML diff viewer.GPA WebClient: GPA project web client.Maintenance Service: A lot of projects need to have a windows service that execute different tasks. If am tired of creating the same service for all this project, so He...Marager Component Framework: Marager Component Framework (mcf)Pod Thrower: An application that gives a simple way to create podcast rss feeds from local computer folders.Rapidshare Episode Downloader: Rapidshare Episode Downloader is a software that enables you (yes, you!) to organize your many episodes of different TV shows in a nice list, prese...Resxus - Total .net string resource management tool: RESXUS is a resource file management tool which is being created under my job-experience of managing multilingual resx files. The first goal of th...SLFX: SLFXTheWhiteAmbit: Hybrid Scanline-Raytracing Engine. VisitorPattern based Scenegraph written in C++. DirectX9 or DirectX10 rendering is used for PrimaryRays and CUDA...TSqlMigrations: Yet another migrations platform right? This is purely sql based (tsql as it is only for Sql Server at this time). This tool is meant to help mana...WAFFLE: Windows Authentication Functional Framework (LE): WAFFLE - Windows Authentication Functional Framework (Light Edition) is a .NET library with a COM interface and a Java bridge that provides a worki...web lib api: This project aim, to pull together the major, web api/webservices for each relervant categorie.WSDLGenerator: A tool to generate a WSDL file from a c# dll which contains one more Microsoft WebServices. The project is build using VS2010RC and uses .net Fram...XNA Re-usable UI Components: The aim of this project is to create a re-usable set of UI game components helping reduce production time for your game. More information can be...YUI Compressor Custom Tool for Visual Studio: This EXTREMELY simple custom tool is used to automatically generate a *.min.css file from your existing code on save. It is merely a packaged versi...New ReleasesAcceptance Test Excel Addin: 1.0.0.0: How to Use Extract AcceptanceTestExcelAddIn-1.0.0.0.zip Run setup.exe Extract PasswordSample.zip Open Excel, your will see a new tab, "QA To...An opportunity of upgrading Linux operating system: UFS: The software provided by me is just a basic one that will run in the terminal through gcc compiler. The developers are therefore requested to make ...AspNetPager: Demo project: AspNetPager version 7.3.2 demo web site projectBusiness Framework: Formula Samples: A sample demonstrating textual language - Formula. It can be used is many business scenarios allowing end-user to configure or interact with the sy...Deblector: Deblector 1.1: This build fixes compatibility with .NET Reflector 6.Desktop Dimmer: March 2010: First release, March 2010EasyDump: EasyDump 1.0.1: Easy Dump 1.0.1 fix duplicate output when execute twiceExtensia: Extensia: Extensia is a very large list of extension methods and a few helper types. Many methods have practical utility (e.g. console parsing) whilst some ...Fluent Assertions: Fluent Assertions release 1.0: The first release of the Fluent Assertions. It contains assertions for the most common types and has several extension points.FolderSize: FolderSize.Win32.1.0.6.0: FolderSize.Win32.1.0.6.0 A simple utility intended to be used to scan harddrives for the folders that take most place and display this to the user...GamerShots.com Screenshot Capture: GamerShots.com Screenshot Capture: Windows Form application written in C# ASP.Net. 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LINQ to XSD contributes to the LINQ project (.NET Langu...Maintenance Service: Alpha Release: Alpha Release of the SoftwareMDownloader: MDownloader-0.15.5.56206: Fixed many gathered bugs;MDownloader: MDownloader-0.15.6.56217: Fixed retrieving hotfile data using registered accounts.MRDS Services for HiTechnic: HiTechnic Controllers: The HiTechnic Controllers package contains services for MRDS that work with the LEGO NXT and TETRIX Servo and Motor Controllers. Initial ReleaseCo...Open NFe: DANFE 1.9.2: Correções do DANFE que serão incluídas na versão 1.9.2PROGRAMMABLE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT: PROGRAMMABLE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT-2.4: While testing a standard software parts kit library for strict portability, The following error condition occurred when using the Windows version ...Rapidshare Episode Downloader: RED 0.8: This is an almost fully working version of the software. What DOESN'T work: Showing the list of rapidshare search results (but query is being made...Reusable Library: V1.0.4: A collection of reusable abstractions for enterprise application developer.SharePoint LogViewer: SharePointLogViewer 1.5.1: Follwoing bugs are fixed Bookmarks deleted on refresh/reload Bookmarks not properly navigated on filtered list. Disabled toolbar buttons did n...SharePoint Taxonomy Extensions: SharePoint Taxonomy Extensions 1.1-1: - Some bugfixes - Possibility to switch between alphanummeric und manual sortingSilverSynth - Digital Audio Synthesis for Silverlight: SilverSynth 1.1: SilverSynth 1.1 is a zip file of the source code and includes an updated version of the demo application including presets.SQL Server Reporting Services MSBuild Tasks: Release 1.1.14669: New Features New Task added for Integrated and Native mode: DeleteReportUser Task ReportUserExists TaskTellago DevLabs: BizTalk Data Services v0.2: This release is the first version of the BizTalk Data Services API, a RESTful API for BizTalk Server based on the Open Data (OData) Protocol. The ...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30301.0: Automatic drop of latest buildWAFFLE: Windows Authentication Functional Framework (LE): 1.2: Build 1.2.4217.0, initial open-source release. - Account lookup locally and in Active Directory. - Enumerating Active Directory domains. - Returns...Watermarker: 0.87: 01.03.2010: • FIXED: some stability fixes • ADDED: ability to choose any number of pictures and folder to save them after the operation completesWSDLGenerator: WSDLGenerator 0.0.0.1: Initial versionXNA Re-usable UI Components: Re-usable Game Components V1.0: First public release of the source codeYUI Compressor Custom Tool for Visual Studio: YUI Compressor Custom Tool with Installer v0.1a: Initial release with alpha installer - documentation to follow.Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)Microsoft SQL Server Community & SamplesASP.NETImage Resizer Powertoy Clone for WindowsMost Active ProjectsRawrBlogEngine.NETMapWindow GISpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesSharpMap - Geospatial Application Framework for the CLRRapid Entity Framework (ORM). 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• in x64 Windows is there a way to run a Runtime.exec() process avoiding 'Registry redirection'

  - by raticulin

  Our app runs in jvm 32 bit, even when in windows x64. Now, at some point, I need to access some registry values, for example HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/mycomp. I do this by executing cmd /C reg query HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\mycop from Runtime.exec() and parsing the output. This works fine when running on windows 32b, the problem is when on x64, I cannot find the key, as the shell I run is a 32 bit process, and due to Registry Redirection I would get the key if it was on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/wow6432Node/mycop Any idea?

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• What are ProductCode & UpgradeCode & GUID? How to detect if certain application/library is already i

  - by claws

  I've already gone through: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/211192/check-if-the-application-is-already-installed http://stackoverflow.com/questions/488717/detecting-if-a-program-is-already-installed-with-nsis http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Add_uninstall_information_to_Add/Remove_Programs My questions are little more in depth and little more general. So, as you understood my problem is that I want to check if "Certain Applications" are already installed on the user's machine? I'm generating the installer using Advanced Installer. First few questions: What is Upgrade Code? Advanced installer has option, Product Version (identify by Upgrade Code) What is Product Code? Advanced installer Product Version (identify by Product Code) Component is installed : GUID. What is GUID? All the above three has values like this: {49EB7A6A-1CEF-4A1E-9E89-B9A4993963E3} I don't know what these values are but it seems that computer is recognizing software using this kind of strange ID. My required applications are MySQL DBMS MySQL .NET Connector One fact that I discovered is Upgrade Code & Product Code can be extracted from its "msi installer". MySQL Server Installer = mysql-5.1.43-win32.msi Upgrade Code = {49EB7A6A-1CEF-4A1E-9E89-B9A4993963E3} Product Code = {0ECED7D8-FF53-4DC9-958E-C2177F528DE4} GUID (for component Installed) = ???? Uninstall Path = HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{0ECED7D8-FF53-4DC9-958E-C2177F528DE4} Installer = mysql-5.1.46-win32.msi Upgrade Code = {49EB7A6A-1CEF-4A1E-9E89-B9A4993963E3} Product Code = {EA8FDE5A-2B33-4EDD-B7E7-8D179DF731A5} GUID (for component Installed) = ???? Uninstall Path = HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{EA8FDE5A-2B33-4EDD-B7E7-8D179DF731A5} Installer = mysql-essential-5.1.46-win32.msi Upgrade Code = {49EB7A6A-1CEF-4A1E-9E89-B9A4993963E3} Product Code = {AD33AF2C-6485-4106-B012-1D9CDC88A454} GUID (for component Installed) = ???? Uninstall Path = HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AD33AF2C-6485-4106-B012-1D9CDC88A454} Installer = mysql-essential-5.1.46-win32.msi Upgrade Code = {49EB7A6A-1CEF-4A1E-9E89-B9A4993963E3} Product Code = {9A4DA7EF-A7B9-4282-90AD-10976AA24E69} GUID (for component Installed) = ???? Uninstall Path = HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{9A4DA7EF-A7B9-4282-90AD-10976AA24E69} Observation from above data: UpgradeCode of a software is constant & is irrespective of its version. ProductCode is version specific & it is used by the MSI internally which is actually reasonable because. MSI allows applications of different versions to be installed side by side. I don't know how to find GUID. MySQL ADO .NET Driver Installer = mysql.data.5.2.5.msi Upgrade Code = --- Product Code = {5FD88490-011C-4DF1-B886-F298D955171B} GUID (for component Installed) = ???? Installer = mysql.data.6.2.2.msi Upgrade Code = --- Product Code = {5FD88490-011C-4DF1-B886-F298D955171B} GUID (for component Installed) = ???? UninstallPath =HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{5FD88490-011C-4DF1-B886-F298D955171B} Installer = mysql.data.6.2.3.msi Upgrade Code = --- Product Code = {5FD88490-011C-4DF1-B886-F298D955171B} GUID (for component Installed) = ???? Observations from above data: - surprisingly, it couldn't find UpgradeCode from installer of mysql.data.*.msi. I wonder why? This contradicts with my above observation. - ProductCode for all different versions is same here. This again contradicts my above observations. -I still don't know how to find GUID. Now, What exactly are these ProductCode & UpgradeCode & GUID. Which denotes what? Why are above observations contradicting? I don't care about versions. I don't want to depend on Application Name then how do I check if MySQL driver & MySQL ADO .NET. Does detection become simple if they are .NET assemblies? How to do then? I don't want to ship the assemblies with my deployed files.

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• How do I make C++/wxWidgets code accessible to a wxPython app?

  - by Jon Cage

  I have a code library which is written in C++ and makes extensive use of the wxWidgets library. I'm now trying to wrap my library (currently using SWIG) so that it's callable from wxPython, but I've hit a wall: ------ Build started: Project: MyLibLib, Configuration: Release_SWIG_OutputForBin Win32 ------ Performing Custom Build Step In order to function correctly, please ensure the following environment variables are correctly set: PYTHON_INCLUDE: C:\Python26\include PYTHON_LIB: C:\Python26\libs\python26.lib d:\MyProject\Software\MyLib\trunk\MyLib>C:\swigwin-2.0.0\swig.exe -python d:\MyProject\Software\MyLib\trunk\MyLibLib\MyLib.i d:\MyProject\Software\MyLib\trunk\MyLib>if errorlevel 1 goto VCReportError d:\MyProject\Software\MyLib\trunk\MyLib>goto VCEnd Compiling... MyLib_wrap.c C:\wxWidgets-2.8.10\include\wx/wxchar.h(886) : warning C4273: '_snprintf' : inconsistent dll linkage c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\include\stdio.h(358) : see previous definition of '_snprintf' C:\wxWidgets-2.8.10\include\wx/buffer.h(127) : error C2061: syntax error : identifier 'wxCharBuffer' C:\wxWidgets-2.8.10\include\wx/buffer.h(127) : error C2059: syntax error : ';' C:\wxWidgets-2.8.10\include\wx/buffer.h(127) : error C2449: found '{' at file scope (missing function header?) C:\wxWidgets-2.8.10\include\wx/buffer.h(127) : error C2059: syntax error : '}' C:\wxWidgets-2.8.10\include\wx/buffer.h(127) : error C2059: syntax error : ')' C:\wxWidgets-2.8.10\include\wx/buffer.h(129) : error C2061: syntax error : identifier 'wxWritableCharBuffer' C:\wxWidgets-2.8.10\include\wx/buffer.h(129) : error C2059: syntax error : ';' C:\wxWidgets-2.8.10\include\wx/buffer.h(129) : error C2059: syntax error : ':' C:\wxWidgets-2.8.10\include\wx/buffer.h(134) : error C2061: syntax error : identifier 'wxWCharBuffer' C:\wxWidgets-2.8.10\include\wx/buffer.h(134) : error C2059: syntax error : ';' C:\wxWidgets-2.8.10\include\wx/buffer.h(134) : error C2449: found '{' at file scope (missing function header?) C:\wxWidgets-2.8.10\include\wx/buffer.h(134) : error C2059: syntax error : '}' C:\wxWidgets-2.8.10\include\wx/buffer.h(134) : fatal error C1004: unexpected end-of-file found Build log was saved at "file://d:\MyProject\Software\MyLib\trunk\MyLib\Release_SWIG_OutputForBin\BuildLog.htm" MyLibLib - 13 error(s), 1 warning(s) ========== Build: 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 up-to-date, 0 skipped ========== Is there a particular way I should be going about this? I spent some time googling for similar errors, but got none which suggests I'm probably barking up the wrong tree here...? [Edit] Is a dll and ctypes the answer?

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• Converting stream of jpg files to FLV stream

  - by Mark

  I work with a Panasonic hcm280a camera that can be controlled by my software, It generates a stream of jpeg files that are huge and I want to convert this stream to a FLV stream preferably with a good compressional ration Does FFMpeg do that? I am basically looking for an off the shelve open source software (or commercial software) that can generate that streaming media for me. Again my input is a stream of jpg files that come from the camera server. Any insight or comment would be greatly appreciated Thanks

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• E-commerce platform for custom application integration

  - by Zach Smith

  We are building an online subscription-based website and I'm looking for recommendations on which e-commerce platform to use for the checkout process. Requirements include: Only four products. The sign-up process of the site is heavily customized, and after checkout the user should automatically get logged into the subscriber area. Subscriptions will last one year and can be renewed manually. Support for coupons/discount codes at a later point. Since the entire application is custom, we've weighed building a custom checkout but are strongly leaning towards using existing software to avoid having to build lots of admin reporting as well as a coupon engine down the road. The two questions we're pondering are: Is it better to a) build our application custom and use whatever e-commerce software we select just for the payment piece, or b) use the e-commerce software as the basis and build our application around it/as a module/etc? Which e-commerce platform should we use? I've looked into a variety of off the shelf e-commerce software, but it's not clear to me which would be easiest to integrate with. I've researched on the Web and looked at many of the threads on SO to compiled a list of potential candidates: www.magentocommerce.com/ (seems difficult to integrate with) www.prestashop.com/ www.nopcommerce.com/ www.opencart.com/ www.cubecart.com/ www.spreecommerce.com/ www.interspire.com/ www.tradingeye.com/ We're most concerned with the level of effort required with ramping up on the software and then doing the integration with our custom functionality. We're most proficient with PHP, ASP.NET and some ROR and are only considering those technologies. We prefer open source, but would be open to commercial if there's a significant upside. Any experiences with similar projects and advice is greatly appreciated.

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• Why does x86 WiX installer on Vista x64 not write keys to WOW6432Node in the registry

  - by Ryan Conrad

  I have an installer that writes to HKLM\Software\DroidExplorer\InstallPath. On any x86 machine it writes just fine to the expected location, on Windows XP x64 and Windows 7 x64 it also writes to the expected location, which is actually HKLM\Software\WOW6432Node\DroidExplorer\InstallPath. Later on during the install, my bootstrapper, which is also x86, attempts to read the value. On all x86 Windows machines it is successful, and on Windows XP x64 and Windows 7 x64, but Windows Vista x64 is unable to locate the key. If I look in the registry, it doesn't actually write it to WOW6432Node on Vista, it writes it to Software\DroidExplorer\InstallPath If I do not forcefully tell the installer to write to WOW6432Node, it writes the value to Software\DroidExplorer\InstallPath, but the bootstrapper still trys to look in WOW6432Node because of the Registry Reflection. This is on all x64 systems. Why is Vista x64 the only one I have this issue with? Is there a way around this?

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• Clean Code Developer & Certification in IT - MSCC 21.09.2013

  It was a very busy weekend this time, and quite some hectic to organise the second meetup on a Saturday for the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community (MSCC) but it was absolutely fun. Following, I'm writing a brief summary about the topics we spoke about and the new impulses I got. "What a meetup... I was positively impressed. At the beginning I thought that noone would actually show up but then by the time the room got filled. Lots of conversation, great dialogues and fantastic networking between fresh students, experienced students, experienced employees, and self-employed attendees. That's what community is all about!" Above quote was my first reaction shortly after the gathering. And despite being busy during the weekend and yesterday, I took my time to reflect a little bit on things happened and statements made before writing it here on my blog. Additionally, I was also very curious about possible reactions and blogs from other attendees. Reactions from other craftsmen Let me quickly give you some links and quotes from others first... "Like Jochen posted on facebook, that was indeed a 5+ hours marathon (maybe 4 hours for me but still) … Wohoo! We’re indeed a bunch of crazy geeks who did not realise how time flew as we dived into the myriad discussions that sprouted. Yet in the end everyone was happy (:" -- Ish on MSCC meetup - The marathon (: "And the 4hours spent @ Talking drums bore its fruit..I was doing something I never did before....reading the borrowed book while walking....and though I was not that familiar with things mentionned in the book...I was skimming,scanning & flipping...reading titles...short paragraphs...and I skipped pages till I reached home." -- Yannick on Mauritius Software Craftsmanship 1st Meet-up "Hi Developers, Just wanted to share with you the meetups i attended last Saturday - [...] - The second meetup is the one hosted by Jochen Kirstätter, the MSCC, where the attendees were Craftsman, no woman, this time - all sharing the same passion of being a developer - even though it is on different platforms(Windows - Windows Phone - Linux - Adobe(yes a designer) - .Net) - but we manage to sit at the same table - sharing developer views and experience in the corporate world - also talking about good practice when coding( where Jochen initiated a discussion on Clean Coding ) i could not stay till the end - but from what i have heard - the longer you stay the more fun you have till 1600. Developers in the Facebook grouping i invite you to stay tuned about the various developer communities popping up - where you can come to share and learn good practices, develop the entrepreneurial spirit, and learn and share your passion about technologies" -- Arnaud on Facebook More feedback has been posted on the event directly. So, should I really write more? Wouldn't that spoil the impressions? Starting the day with a surprise Indeed, I was very pleased to stumble over the existence of Mobile Monday Mauritius on LinkedIn, an association about any kind of mobile app development, mobile gadgets and latest smartphones on the market. Despite the Monday in their name they had scheduled their recent meeting on Saturday between 10:00 and 12:00hrs. Wow, what a coincidence! Let's grap the bull by its horns and pay them an introductory visit. As they chose the Ebene Accelerator at the Orange Tower in Ebene it was a no-brainer to leave home a bit earlier and stop by. It was quite an experience and fun to talk to the geeks over there. Really looking forward to organise something together.... Arriving at the venue As the children got a bit uneasy at the MoMo gathering and I didn't want to disturb them too much, we arrived early at Bagatelle. Well, no problems as we went for a decent breakfast at Food Lover's Market. Shortly afterwards we went to our venue location, Talking Drums, and prepared the room for the meeting. We only had to take off a repro-painting of the wall in order to have a decent area for the projector. All went very smooth and my two little ones were of great help. Just in time, our first craftsman Avinash arrived on the spot. And then the waiting started... Luckily, not too long. Bit by bit more and more IT people came to join our meeting. Meanwhile, I used the time to give a brief introduction about the MSCC in general, what we are (hm, maybe I am) trying to achieve and that the recent phase is completely focused on creating more awareness that a community like the MSCC is active here in Mauritius. As soon as we reached some 'critical mass' of about ten people I asked everyone for a short introduction and bio, just in case... Conversation between participants started to kick in and we were actually more networking than having a focus on our topics of the day. Quick updates on latest news and development around the MSCC Finally, Clean Code Developer No matter how the position is actually called, whether it is Software Engineer, Software Developer, Programmer, Architect, or Craftsman, anyone working in IT is facing almost the same obstacles. As for the process of writing software applications there are re-occurring patterns and principles combined with some common exercise and best practices on how to resolve them. Initiated by the must-read book 'Clean Code' by Robert C. Martin (aka Uncle Bob) the concept of the Clean Code Developer (CCD) was born already some years ago. CCD is much likely to traditional martial arts where you create awareness of certain principles and learn how to apply practices to improve your style. The CCD initiative recommends to indicate your level of knowledge and experience with coloured wrist bands - equivalent to the belt colours - for various reasons. Frankly speaking, I think that the biggest advantage here is provided by the obvious recognition of conceptual understanding. For example, take the situation of a team meeting... A member with a higher grade in CCD, say Green grade, sees that there are mainly Red grades to talk to, and adjusts her way of communication to their level of understanding. The choice of words might change as certain elements of CCD are not yet familiar to all team members. So instead of talking in an abstract way which only Green grades could follow the whole scenario comes down to Red grade level. Different story, better results... Similar to learning martial arts, we only covered two grades during this occasion - black and red. Most interestingly, there was quite some positive feedback and lots of questions about the principles and practices of the red grade. And we gathered real-world examples from various craftsman and discussed them. Following the Clean Code Developer Red Grade and some annotations from our meetup: CCD Red Grade - Principles Don't Repeat Yourself - DRY Keep It Simple, Stupid (and Short) - KISS Beware of Optimisations! Favour Composition over Inheritance - FCoI Interestingly most of the attendees already heard about those key words but couldn't really classify or categorize them. It's very similar to a situation in which you do not the particular for a thing and have to describe it to others... until someone tells you the actual name and suddenly all is very simple. CCD Red Grade - Practices Follow the Boy Scouts Rule Root Cause Analysis - RCA Use a Version Control System Apply Simple Refactoring Pattern Reflect Daily Introduction to the principles and practices of Clean Code Developer - here: Red Grade As for the various ToDo's we commonly agreed that the Boy Scout Rule clearly is not limited to software development or IT administration but applies to daily life in general. Same for the root cause analysis, btw. We really had good stories with surprisingly endings and conclusions. A quick check about who is using a version control system brought more drive into the conversation. Not only that we had people that aren't using any VCS at all, we also had the 'classic' approach of backup folders and naming conventions as well as the VCS 'junkie' that has to use multiple systems at a time. Just for the records: Git and GitHub seem to be in favour of some of the attendees. Regarding the daily reflection at the end of the day we came up with an easy solution: Wrap it up as a blog entry! Certifications in IT This is kind of a controversy in IT in general. Is it interesting to go for certifications or are they completely obsolete? What are the possibilities to get certified? What are the options we have in Mauritius? How would certificates stand compared to other educational tracks like Computer Science or Web Design. The ratio between craftsmen with certifications like MCP, MSTS, CCNA or LPI versus the ones without wasn't in favour for the first group but there was a high interest in the topic itself and some were really surprised to hear that exam preparations are completely free available online including temporarily voucher codes for either discounts or completely free exams. Furthermore, we discussed possible options on forming so-called study groups on a specific certificates and organising more frequent meetups in order to learn together. Taking into consideration that we have sponsored access to the video course material of Pluralsight (and now PeepCode as well as TrainSignal), we might give it a try by the end of the year. Current favourites are LPIC Level 1 and one of the Microsoft exams 40-78x. Feedback and ideas for the MSCC The closing conversations and discussions about how the MSCC is recently doing, what are the possibilities and what's (hopefully) going to happen in the future were really fertile and I made a couple of mental bullet points which I'm looking forward to tackle down together with orher craftsmen. Eventually, it might be a good option to elaborate on some issues during our weekly Code & Coffee sessions one Wednesday morning. Active discussion on various IT topics like certifications (LPI, MCP, CCNA, etc) and sharing experience Finally, we made it till the end of the planned time. Well, actually the talk was still on and we continued even after 16:00hrs. Unfortunately, we (the children and I) had to leave for evening activities. My resume of the day... It was great to have 15 craftsmen in one room. There are hundreds of IT geeks out there in Mauritius, and as Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community we still have a lot of work to do to pass on the message to some more key players and companies. Currently, it seems that we are able to attract a good number of students in Computer Science... but we have a lot more to offer, even or especially for IT people on the job. I'm already looking forward to our next Saturday meetup in the near future. PS: Meetup pictures are courtesy of Nirvan Pagooah. Thanks for sharing...

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• java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.FilterDispatcher

  - by user714698

  log when start the tomcat Apr 28, 2011 10:52:57 AM org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener init INFO: The APR based Apache Tomcat Native library which allows optimal performance in production environments was not found on the java.library.path: D:\software\jdk1.5.0_06\bin;.;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;D:/software/jdk1.5.0_06/bin/../jre/bin/client;D:/software/jdk1.5.0_06/bin/../jre/bin;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin.;D:\software\jdk1.5.0_06\bin;D:\software\Ant 1.7\bin;D:\software\Axis2-1.5.4\axis2-1.5.4-bin\axis2-1.5.4\bin;C:\Program Files\IDM Computer Solutions\UltraEdit\ Apr 28, 2011 10:52:58 AM org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.SetPropertiesRule begin WARNING: [SetPropertiesRule]{Server/Service/Engine/Host/Context} Setting property 'source' to 'org.eclipse.jst.jee.server:StrutsHelloWorld' did not find a matching property. Apr 28, 2011 10:52:58 AM org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.SetPropertiesRule begin WARNING: [SetPropertiesRule]{Server/Service/Engine/Host/Context} Setting property 'source' to 'org.eclipse.jst.jee.server:StrutsHelloWorld1' did not find a matching property. Apr 28, 2011 10:53:00 AM org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol init INFO: Initializing Coyote HTTP/1.1 on http-8080 Apr 28, 2011 10:53:00 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina load INFO: Initialization processed in 3657 ms Apr 28, 2011 10:53:00 AM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService start INFO: Starting service Catalina Apr 28, 2011 10:53:00 AM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine start INFO: Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/6.0.32 Apr 28, 2011 10:53:01 AM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext filterStart SEVERE: Exception starting filter struts2 java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.FilterDispatcher at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1680) at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1526) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterConfig.getFilter(ApplicationFilterConfig.java:269) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterConfig.setFilterDef(ApplicationFilterConfig.java:422) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterConfig.<init>(ApplicationFilterConfig.java:115) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.filterStart(StandardContext.java:4071) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:4725) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1053) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.start(StandardHost.java:840) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1053) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine.start(StandardEngine.java:463) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.start(StandardService.java:525) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.start(StandardServer.java:754) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:595) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:289) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:414) Apr 28, 2011 10:53:01 AM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext start SEVERE: Error filterStart Apr 28, 2011 10:53:01 AM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext start SEVERE: Context [/StrutsHelloWorld1] startup failed due to previous errors log4j:WARN No appenders could be found for logger (com.opensymphony.xwork2.config.providers.XmlConfigurationProvider). log4j:WARN Please initialize the log4j system properly. Apr 28, 2011 10:53:05 AM org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol start INFO: Starting Coyote HTTP/1.1 on http-8080 Apr 28, 2011 10:53:05 AM org.apache.jk.common.ChannelSocket init INFO: JK: ajp13 listening on /0.0.0.0:8009 Apr 28, 2011 10:53:05 AM org.apache.jk.server.JkMain start INFO: Jk running ID=0 time=0/46 config=null Apr 28, 2011 10:53:05 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start INFO: Server startup in 4951 ms

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• Questions about "interrupt"

  - by smwikipedia

  Could someone help me clarify the following conecpts, and the relationship among them? Maskable interrupt Unmaskable interrupt Hardware interrupt Software interrupt CPU INTR pin the IF bit of EFlags register Some specific questions: What's the relationship between Maskable/Unmaskable interrupt and Hardware/Software interrupt? What's the relationship between maskability and being software/hardware? Is there any unmaskable/software interrupt and maskable/hardware interrupt? What kind of interrupts does INTR pin detect? What kind of interrupts are enabled/disabled by IF bit of EFlags register? What kind of interrupts need the presence of an interrupt controller? Many thanks.

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