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• Why does unpartitioned Hitachi HDS5C3020 drive start consuming 50% more power 15 minutes after boot?

  - by Pro Backup

  In a Debian 6.0.6 system there are 74 pieces of 2TB Toshiba DT01ABA200 drives. These drives are identified as Hitachi HDS5C3020BLE630 drives running firmware revision MZ4OAAB0. 64 Drives attached via HP SAS expander cards to an LSI 2008 SAS controller, another 5 drives are connected directly to the mainboard, 4 drives are connected to a Sil based PCI controller and last 1 drive is only powered and has no data cable connected. The controller LSI and Sil card's their onboard BIOS are both disabled and the mpt2sas and sata_sil modules are removed from the Linux debian 2.6.32-5-amd64 #1 SMP Sun Sep 23 10:07:46 UTC 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux kernel. The mpt2sas module is loaded after boot using a modprobe command in /etc/rc.local. These 74 drives are not partitioned, neither formatted and also not mounted. The system consumes: with 0 drives: 70.6 - 70.9 Watt (also 15 minutes after boot); with 74 drives: 330 - 360 Watt, just after boot (is equivalent to 3.5 - 3.9W per drive in idle state); with 74 drives: 420 - 466 Watt, each time in the 15th minute of uptime (is equivalent to 4.7 - 5.3W per drive in idle state). The drive specification lists 4.7W as read/write, and 3.3W as idle power consumption. The increased power consumption is most likely on the 5V line, because after roughly 1 minute an "over current protection" (OCP) of the power supply (PSU) shuts down the power. The used PSU is a single rail model with an OCP of 122A on the 12V line and 55A on the 5V line. Regression: It doesn't matter whether the drive its APM value is set to disabled or 1 (maximum power saving). The operating system records no read/write activity in /proc/diskstats. The values there are identical (28 read, 0 write operations) as immediately after the modprobe operation. Can't test what happens when booting into the mainboard it's BIOS - to exclude any OS intervention - because the Super Micro X8SI6-F mainboard running firmware 06/27/12 has a bug that incorrectly reads a +74.0 C CPU sensor temperature as "High" in BIOS mode, and shuts down the power after 1 minute. What might be causing the drive read/write activity on all drives in the 15th minute after boot and how to prevent it from happening?

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• Server 2008/Windows 7/Samba Unspecified error 80004005

  - by ancillary

  I have a Samba share on a LAN with 2008 PDC/DNS. Smb authenticates with AD and I have several Win7 Machines that can connect fine. I recently added a couple of new computers to the LAN which were imaged the same way (same software, etc.; different hardware so different drivers) as the other machines and they have the same policies set. I can not get the new machines to connect to the samba share no matter what. I am always met with either Unspecified Error 0x80004005 or Network Path not found. I've turned off the firewall; set LANMAN auth to respond to NTLM only/send LM & NTLM responses/use NTLM session security if negotiated in Local Sec Policy SEcurity Options; tried both ip and hostname to connect. SMB log shows that authentication succeeds; but then connection is immediately killed by the client. tcpdump shows nothing remarkable except that when trying to connect from the client via hostname there is an unknown packet type error: ack 201 win 255 NBT Session Packet: Unknown packet type 0xABData: (41 bytes) Here's a couple of lines from that error: 11:18:37.964991 IP 001-client.domain.local.49372 > smb.domain.local.netbios-ssn: P 1670:2146(476) ack 201 win 255 NBT Session Packet: Unknown packet type 0xABData: (41 bytes) [000] AA 46 96 FA D5 99 33 75 0C C4 20 CE 26 42 F3 61 \252F\226\372\325\2313u \014\304 \316&B\363a [010] F0 8C FB 65 18 17 40 A5 DB 42 BB 94 37 53 92 EC \360\214\373e\030\027@\245 \333B\273\2247S\222\354 [020] 55 98 7F C4 AE 3D 6B 10 C4 U\230\177\304\256=k\020 \304 11:18:37.964998 IP smb.domain.local.netbios-ssn > 001-client.domain.local.49372: . ack 2146 win 100 Here's smb.conf just in case (though don't see how if other machines are working fine): [global] workgroup = MYDOMAIN realm = MYDOMAIN.LOCAL server string = domain|smb share interfaces = eth1 security = ADS password server = 192.168.1.3 log level = 2 log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log smb ports = 139 strict locking = no load printers = No local master = No domain master = No wins server = 192.168.1.3 wins support = Yes idmap uid = 500-10000000 idmap gid = 500-10000000 winbind separator = + winbind enum users = Yes winbind enum groups = Yes winbind use default domain = Yes [samba-share1] comment = SMB Share path = /home/share/smb/ valid users = @"MYDOMAIN+Domain Users" admin users = @"MYDOMAIN+Domain Admins" guest ok = no read only = No create mask = 0765 force directory mode = 0777 Any ideas what else I could try or look for? Or what might be the problem? Thanks.

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• MegaCli newly created disk doesn't appear under /dev/sdX

  - by Henry-Nicolas Tourneur

  After having successfully added 2 new disks in a new RAID virtual drive (background initialization done), I would have exepected it to appear under /dev/sdh but it's not there (so, unusable). The system is running a CentOS 5.2 64 bits, HAL and udev daemons are running, not records of any sdh apparition under the messsage log file or in dmesg, only MegaCli do see that virtual drive. Any idea ? Some data: [root@server ~]# ./MegaCli -LDInfo -LALL -a0 Adapter 0 -- Virtual Drive Information: Virtual Disk: 0 (target id: 0) Name: RAID Level: Primary-1, Secondary-0, RAID Level Qualifier-0 Size:139392MB State: Optimal Stripe Size: 64kB Number Of Drives:2 Span Depth:1 Default Cache Policy: WriteBack, ReadAheadNone, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU Current Cache Policy: WriteBack, ReadAheadNone, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU Access Policy: Read/Write Disk Cache Policy: Disk's Default Virtual Disk: 1 (target id: 1) Name: RAID Level: Primary-1, Secondary-0, RAID Level Qualifier-0 Size:285568MB State: Optimal Stripe Size: 64kB Number Of Drives:2 Span Depth:1 Default Cache Policy: WriteBack, ReadAheadNone, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU Current Cache Policy: WriteBack, ReadAheadNone, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU Access Policy: Read/Write Disk Cache Policy: Disk's Default [root@server ~]# ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-360* lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Nov 17 2010 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36001ec90f82fe100108ca0a704098d09 -> ../../sda lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 17 2010 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36001ec90f82fe100108ca0a704098d09-part1 -> ../../sda1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 17 2010 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36001ec90f82fe100108ca0a704098d09-part2 -> ../../sda2 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Nov 17 2010 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36090a028e0fe07e78f94940c0000a0ee -> ../../sdf lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 17 2010 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36090a028e0fe07e78f94940c0000a0ee-part1 -> ../../sdf1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Nov 17 2010 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36090a028e0fe972a3f91240a0000005f -> ../../sdb lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 17 2010 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36090a028e0fe972a3f91240a0000005f-part1 -> ../../sdb1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Nov 17 2010 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36090a028e0fea7e18f94640c000020ec -> ../../sde lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 17 2010 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36090a028e0fea7e18f94640c000020ec-part1 -> ../../sde1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Nov 17 2010 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36090a028e0feb7da8f94340c0000203d -> ../../sdd lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 17 2010 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36090a028e0feb7da8f94340c0000203d-part1 -> ../../sdd1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Nov 17 2010 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36090a028e0fed7d78f94040c000080b7 -> ../../sdc lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 17 2010 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36090a028e0fed7d78f94040c000080b7-part1 -> ../../sdc1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Nov 17 2010 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36090a05830145e58e0b9c479000010a1 -> ../../sdg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 17 2010 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36090a05830145e58e0b9c479000010a1-part1 -> ../../sdg1

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• What are incentives (if any) to use WinRT instead of .Net?

  - by Ark-kun

  Let's compare WinRT with .Net .Net .Net is the 13+ years evolution of COM. Three main parts of .Net are execution environment, standard libraries and supported languages. CLR is the native-code execution environment based on COM .Net Framework has a big set of standard libraries (implemented using managed and native code) that can be used from all .Net languages. There are .Net classes that allow using OS APIs. WPF or Silverlight provide a XAML-based UI framework .Net can be used with C++, C#, Javascript, Python, Ruby, VB, LISP, Scheme and many other languages. C++/.Net is a variation of the C++ language that allows interaction with .Net objects. .Net supports inheritance, generics, operator and method overloading and many other features. .Net allows creating apps that run on Windows (XP, 7, 8 Pro (Desktop and Metro), RT, CE, etc), Mac OS, Linux (+ other *nix); iOS, Android, Windows Phone (7, 8); Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox; XBox 360, Playstation Suite; raw microprocessors. There is support for creating games (2D/3D) using any managed language or C++. Created by Developer Division WinRT WinRT is based on COM. Three main parts of WinRT are execution environment, standard libraries and supported languages. WinRT has a native-code execution environment based on COM WinRT has a set of standard libraries that more or less can be used from WinRT languages. There are WinRT classes that allow using OS APIs. Unnamed Silverlight clone provides a XAML-based UI framework WinRT can be used with C++, C#, Javascript, VB. C++/CX is a variation of the C++ language that allows interaction with WinRT objects. Custom WinRT components don't support inheritance (classes must be sealed), generics, operator overloading and many other features. WinRT allows creating apps that run on Windows 8 Pro and RT (Metro only); Windows Phone 8 (limited). There is support for creating games (2D/3D) using C++ only. Ordered by Windows Team I think that all the aspects except the last ones are very important for developers. On the other hand it seems that the most important aspect for Microsoft is the last one. So, given the above comparison of conceptually identical technologies, what are incentives (if any) to use WinRT instead of .Net?

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• Is there a switch that will connect directly to my modem and allow my router to serve only as a WiFi connection?

  - by Abner

  Details . . Devices . Internets -50Mbps Cable Internet Modem - Motorola Surfboard Extreme Router - Netgear WNDR3700v3 Switch - D-Link DGS-1008G Wired Ethernet Cable - Cat6_24Awg_ Device Configuration - Modem\Router\Switch . . Internet Usage . Wired Demand XBOX 360 1 Gaming PC 2 PC - HD video . WiFi Demand 3 android + 1 Laptop for browsing and group video chat simultaneously . . Specifics . I am experiencing problems with network speeds and reliability on both wired and wireless connections. On many occasions I experience WiFi Speeds that vary between the 15mbps to 0.50 mbs (or less) and ping ranging from 15ms to 500ms. These results are from when I notice problems with internet lag and run speedtest.net to get details of problems. I have a stretched out floor-plan and old building materials drastically affecting my cellphone signal strength as well). After Reading the "Known Issues" Section on the webpage below http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Netgear_WNDR3700#Known_Issues I bought the switch and Cat6 cable to increase speed and relieve stress on router in an attempt to fix the symptoms. I thought I'd use the router in a Modem\Switch\Router configuration. I thought I'd only have to use the router for mobile WiFi connections like android or Laptops when necessary (hopefully eliminating the problem caused by the router when subjected to all those demanding Ethernet connections) When I started unboxing the switch, I noticed the manual of this DGS-1008G shows it being connected in the Modem\Router\Switch order and not in the Modem\Switch\Router configuration I was aiming for. I have not been able to find a solid plan to remedy my specific problem without buying another expensive router. I would like to get the speeds I am paying for without buying another router. (My WiFi Adapters would also need to be updated if new router is required, meaning more $$$). I can always sell the switch and get a better one that will bypass the router because my most demanding internet connections are Wired. . . Questions Can I accomplish a Modem\Switch\Router configuration with current switch? Is there a different way to get the wired speed I need while providing WiFi only when necessary? . .

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• Educate me - should I buy these prebuilt NAS (which is better) or make my own?

  - by user29336

  I'm trying to learn as much as possible, and I think I've learned quite a bit so bear with me here under my confusion. I found a coupe NAS setups. I'm not sure if one is better than the other, other than the price being higher on some, and some coming with drives VS not. Let me list my setup so you can get an idea of what I want to provide: Macbook Pro Macbook Mini for Media streaming (so far) Windows 7 Gaming Computer Xbox 360 I'd like to provide a storage system for all these devices so they can access files very easily, I'd also like any of these devices to be able to stream media from this storage system. I'd like this storage system to be hassle free in terms of my confidence in the data integrity. If a drive fails, I want to know that I can replace the drive and all my files will still exist. I'd like to access this storage system OUTSIDE of my LAN. If I'm out on a job for work I'd like to go in, or be able to have people DL some files. This brings me to a question, is this what iSCSI is? I'd like this data system to be able to download torrents. I want to mount any drive on this storage system onto my OSX laptop as if it were a local drive attached. (Is this with iSCSI is?) I'd like this system to have a GOOD web based GUI. I don't want to install software to use it. I believe those are the most of my requirements. If I'm missing something that I have no knowledge about, can someone educate me? Here are the systems I found: $729ish on Newegg Lacie 5Big Network 2 (comes with 5TB of space. iSCSI / mac compatible, torrents, nice ui, + others?) Is this overpriced for what it provides? It almost seems like a great deal to me because of the 5TB of space it comes with vs the other NAS systems that don't come with storage but cost $600-700. Should I get a different NAS system? Netgear? Others? Do they have same features? Better? Is it better to buy your own disks? What about making my own? I'm tech savy all around. It seems cheaper to buy a premade one especially with the support/warranty it provides...

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• Can only bring up one of two interfaces

  - by mstaessen

  I'm having a bizarre issue with my HP Proliant DL 360 G4p server. It has two gigabit ethernet interfaces but I can bring up only one of them. This is starting to freak me out and that's why I turned here. I'm running the x64 ubuntu 11.10 server edition. lshw -c network shows that the second interface is disabled. I have no idea why ans how to enable it. $ sudo lshw -c network *-network:0 description: Ethernet interface product: NetXtreme BCM5704 Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Broadcom Corporation physical id: 2 bus info: pci@0000:02:02.0 logical name: eth0 version: 10 serial: 00:18:71:e3:6d:26 size: 100Mbit/s capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 64 bits clock: 66MHz capabilities: pcix pm vpd msi bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=tg3 driverversion=3.119 duplex=full firmware=5704-v3.27b, ASFIPMIc v2.36 ip=10.48.8.x latency=64 link=yes mingnt=64 multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100Mbit/s resources: irq:25 memory:fdf70000-fdf7ffff *-network:1 DISABLED description: Ethernet interface product: NetXtreme BCM5704 Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Broadcom Corporation physical id: 2.1 bus info: pci@0000:02:02.1 logical name: eth1 version: 10 serial: 00:18:71:e3:6d:25 capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 64 bits clock: 66MHz capabilities: pcix pm vpd msi bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=tg3 driverversion=3.119 firmware=5704-v3.27b latency=64 link=no mingnt=64 multicast=yes port=twisted pair resources: irq:26 memory:fdf60000-fdf6ffff If I try to ifup eth1, then I get $ sudo ifup eth1 Ignoring unknown interface eth1=eth1. I figured that's what happens when there is no eth1 listed in /etc/network/interfaces. But when I add the configuration for eth1, I still can't ifup. $ sudo ifup eth1 RTNETLINK answers: File exists Failed to bring up eth1. I've also tried ifconfig eth1 up but without any result. For clarity, I have added a masked version of /etc/network/interfaces. I don't think it is the cause of the problem though. $ cat /etc/network/interfaces # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5). # The loopback network interface auto lo iface lo inet loopback # The primary network interface auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 10.48.8.x netmask 255.255.255.y network 10.48.8.z broadcast 10.48.8.t gateway 10.48.8.u auto eth1 iface eth1 inet static address 193.190.253.x netmask 255.255.255.y network 193.190.253.z broadcast 193.190.253.t gateway 193.190.253.u I really need some help fixing this. It's driving me crazy. Thanks.

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• How can I minimize the amount my router slows down my Internet connection speed?

  - by Lord Torgamus

  Background I'm working with what I assume is a pretty common Internet setup: a cable modem, a wireless router and a few Internet-connected devices. Lately, I've started being more demanding on my Internet connection, and noticed that using my router slows down my download speeds considerably. I just kind of dealt with it until Zune Marketplace on the Xbox 360 told me that a movie was going to take well over ten hours to download, and I just didn't want to wait that long. Good little scientist that I am, I tried to reduce the problem down to one variable. The test As a control, I turned off all the devices in the house that use wireless Internet, and unplugged all the wired devices except for the Xbox. I also power-cycled both the modem and the router. I then tried to download the movie again, and was told that it would still take over ten hours. Next, I unplugged the router, and connected the Xbox directly to the modem. The movie downloaded in just over one hour. As far as I can tell, this means that my ISP, other cable users near me, the remote servers, anything wireless-related and my machines' disk speeds can't be at fault. A similar experiment that replaced the Xbox with a wired laptop produced similar results. To me, this says "the router is responsible for things taking around ten times longer to download." My question I'd still prefer to use the router for a few reasons: it's a pain to connect and disconnect everything every time there's a big file to download direct connection to the modem isn't good for security only one machine can be connected directly to the modem at a time What can I do to have fast connection speeds while still using the router? I don't mind turning other machines off, as long as I don't have to mess with power and ethernet cables. EDIT : After asking this followup question and then this one, I installed dd-wrt on my router, and I seem to be getting higher and more consistent speeds. Perhaps more importantly, my memory use is fairly constant. I know this isn't an answer — which is why I'm not posting it as an answer — but it is how I resolved the situation, and hopefully it'll be helpful for someone.

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• Subset sum problem

  - by MadBoy

  I'm having a problem with counting which is continuation of this question. I am not really a math person so it's really hard for me to figure out this subset sum problem which was suggested as resolution. I'm having 4 ArrayList in which I hold data: alId, alTransaction, alNumber, alPrice Type | Transaction | Number | Price 8 | Buy | 95.00000000 | 305.00000000 8 | Buy | 126.00000000 | 305.00000000 8 | Buy | 93.00000000 | 306.00000000 8 | Transfer out | 221.00000000 | 305.00000000 8 | Transfer in | 221.00000000 | 305.00000000 8 | Sell | 93.00000000 | 360.00000000 8 | Sell | 95.00000000 | 360.00000000 8 | Sell | 126.00000000 | 360.00000000 8 | Buy | 276.00000000 | 380.00000000 In the end I'm trying to get what's left for customer and what's left I put into 3 array lists: alNew (corresponds to alNumber), alNewPoIle (corresponds to alPrice), and alNewCo (corrseponds to alID) ArrayList alNew = new ArrayList(); ArrayList alNewPoIle = new ArrayList(); ArrayList alNewCo = new ArrayList(); for (int i = 0; i < alTransaction.Count; i++) { string tempAkcjeCzynnosc = (string) alTransaction[i]; string tempAkcjeInId = (string) alID[i]; decimal varAkcjeCena = (decimal) alPrice[i]; decimal varAkcjeIlosc = (decimal) alNumber[i]; int index; switch (tempAkcjeCzynnosc) { case "Transfer out": case "Sell": index = alNew.IndexOf(varAkcjeIlosc); if (index != -1) { alNew.RemoveAt(index); alNewPoIle.RemoveAt(index); alNewCo.RemoveAt(index); } else { ArrayList alTemp = new ArrayList(); decimal varAkcjeSuma = 0; for (int j = 0; j < alNew.Count; j ++) { string akcjeInId = (string) alNewCo[j]; decimal akcjeCena = (decimal) alNewPoIle[j]; decimal akcjeIlosc = (decimal) alNew[j]; if (tempAkcjeInId == akcjeInId && akcjeCena == varAkcjeCena) { alTemp.Add(j); varAkcjeSuma = varAkcjeSuma + akcjeIlosc; } } if (varAkcjeSuma == varAkcjeIlosc) { for (int j = alTemp.Count -1 ; j >=0 ; j --) { int tempIndex = (int) alTemp[j]; alNew.RemoveAt(tempIndex); alNewPoIle.RemoveAt(tempIndex); alNewCo.RemoveAt(tempIndex); } } } break; case "Transfer In": case "Buy": alNew.Add(varAkcjeIlosc); alNewPoIle.Add(varAkcjeCena); alNewCo.Add(tempAkcjeInId); break; } } Basically I'm adding and removing things from Array depending on Transaction Type, Transaction ID and Numbers. I'm adding numbers to ArrayList like 156, 340 (when it is TransferIn or Buy) etc and then i remove them doing it like 156, 340 (when it's TransferOut, Sell). My solution works for that without a problem. The problem I have is that for some old data employees were entering sum's like 1500 instead of 500+400+100+500. How would I change it so that when there's Sell/TransferOut or Buy/Transfer In and there's no match inside ArrayList it should try to add multiple items from thatArrayList and find elements that combine into aggregate. Inside my code I tried to resolve that problem with simple summing everything when there's no match (index == 1) if (index != -1) { alNew.RemoveAt(index); alNewPoIle.RemoveAt(index); alNewCo.RemoveAt(index); } else { ArrayList alTemp = new ArrayList(); decimal varAkcjeSuma = 0; for (int j = 0; j < alNew.Count; j ++) { string akcjeInId = (string) alNewCo[j]; decimal akcjeCena = (decimal) alNewPoIle[j]; decimal akcjeIlosc = (decimal) alNew[j]; if (tempAkcjeInId == akcjeInId && akcjeCena == varAkcjeCena) { alTemp.Add(j); varAkcjeSuma = varAkcjeSuma + akcjeIlosc; } } if (varAkcjeSuma == varAkcjeIlosc) { for (int j = alTemp.Count -1 ; j >=0 ; j --) { int tempIndex = (int) alTemp[j]; alNew.RemoveAt(tempIndex); alNewPoIle.RemoveAt(tempIndex); alNewCo.RemoveAt(tempIndex); } } But it only works if certain conditions are met, and fails for the rest.

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• SQL Saturday #44 Huntington Beach Recap

  What a great day. It was long and tiring, but rewarding in so many ways. On Sunday morning, I was driving home and I decided to take the Pacific Coast Highway from Huntington Beach.  It was a great chance to exhale and just enjoy the sun and smells of the beach (I really love SoCal sometimes). And for future reference for all you speakers, the beach and ocean are only 5 minutes from the SQL Saturday location.  I just could help noticing also the shocking number of high priced cars on the road (4 Bentleys, 3 Ferraris, 1 Aston Martins, 3 Maserati, 1 Rolls Royce, and 2 Lamborghinis).  It made me think about this: Price of all those cars: $ 150,000+.  Impacting the ability of people to learn: Priceless.  We have positively impacted the education, knowledge, capabilities of not only our attendees, but also all of their companies and people they might help as well.  That is just staggering and something to be immensely proud of. To all of my fellow community leaders, I salute you. So lets talk about the event Overall We had over 220 people register for the event and had 180+ people attend the event. I was shooting for the magical 200 number, but I guess it just gives us more motivation to make it even bigger and better next time. We had a few snags along the way, but what event doesnt, but I think everything turned out great. I did not hear any negative comments and heard lots of positive comments along with people asking when the next one is going to be (More on that later). Location- Golden West College We could not have asked for a better partner for the event. Herb Cohen from Golden West College was the wizard behind the curtains. From the beginning, he was our advocate to the GWC Board and was instrumental in getting our event approved. The day off, Herb was a HUGE help getting any and all logistics that we needed taken care of. In the craziness of the early morning registration crush it was a big help knowing that he and Bret Stateham (Blog | Twitter) were taking care of testing projectors in all the rooms. Anything we needed he was there and was even proactive in getting some things that I had not even thought of (i.e. a dumpster for all of our garbage). I cannot thank Herb enough along with other members of the GWC staff including Minnie Higgins of the Career and Technical Education Division office, Jack Taylor, public safety, and Ron Pryor, Tech Services Support. And last, but not least, the Wireless on campus was absolutely FANTASTIC! Some lessons learned Unless you are a glutton for punishment, as I no doubt am, you most certainly want to give yourself more than six weeks to plan the event. I am lucky that I have a very understanding wife and had a wonderful set of co-coordinators helping me out. A big thanks goes out to Phil, Marlon (Blog | Twitter), Nitin (Twitter), Thomas (Blog | Twitter), Bret (Blog | Twitter), Ben, and Laurie. Thankfully, the sponsor and speaker community was hugely supportive and we were able to fill out the entire event with speakers and sponsors. I have to say that there is not a lot that I would change after this years event. There are obviously going to be some things that we can do better or differently next time, but overall I think it was a great event and I was more than happy with the response we received from the community. Sponsors We obviously could not have put together our event without our sponsors. So certainly have to show them some love. Platinum Sponsors Quest Software http://www.quest.com My Space http://www.myspace.com/ Gold Strategy Companion http://www.strategycompanion.com Silver Fusion-IO http://www.fusionio.com Bronze WestClinTech http://westclintech.com Professional Association For SQL Server http://www.sqlpass.org Attunity http://www.attunity.com Sharepoint 360 http://www.sharepoint360.com Some additional Thanks Andy Warren (Blog | Twitter) Always there to answer my question and help out when I had some issues or questions with the website. The amount of work that he and everyone else put into SQL Saturday is very amazing. What a great gift to the community! Einstein Bros. Bagels They were our Breakfast Vendor and arrived perfectly on time with yummy bagels, sweets and most importantly coffee. Luccis Deli (http://www.luccisdeli.com) Luccis was out Lunch Vendor. They were great to work with and the food was excellent. They worked with us to give us a great price. Heard lots of great comments about the lunches. Definitely not your ordinary box lunch. Moving Forward Unfortunately, the work does not end after the event. We have a few things to clear up such as surveys, sponsor stuff, presentations uploaded to the website, expense reimbursement, stuff like that. Hopefully, all that should be cleared up within the next couple weeks. After that as a group we are going to get together and decide what our next steps are. We definitely want to keep some of the momentum that we are building as a SQL Community and channel that into future SQL Saturdays and other types of community events. In the meantime, for additional training be sure to check out your local User Group and PASS. San Diego SQL Server Users Group ( http://www.sdsqlug.org/home/index.cfm ) Orange County SQL Server Users Group ( http://www.sqloc.com/ ) L.A. SQL Server Users Group ( http://www.sql.la/ ) SQL PASS ( http://www.sqlpass.org/ ) 24 Hours of PASS ( http://www.sqlpass.org/24hours/2010/ ) So stay tuned, there will be more events to come in SoCal!!Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Upcoming EMEA, APAC & US Events with MySQL in 2014

  - by Lenka Kasparova

  As an update to the previous announcement from Mar 25, 2014 please find below the updated list of events where MySQL Community team is attending and/or supporting. This time you can find not only EMEA & APAC ones but also conferences & events we are covering in the US & Canada. You are invited to meet our engineers at the events below.   EMEA  NEW!! BGOUG, Sandanski, Bulgaria, June 13, 2014  Georgi Kodinov will attend and speak at this local Oracle User Group event. Feel free to come. PHP Tour Lyon, Lyon, France, June 23-24, 2014 MySQL team is going to be part of this show as well, we are not going to have a booth here but very active networking by our french MySQL team around the event. Come to meet us and talk to us! NEW!! Converge Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, August 15-16, 2014  MySQL Community Manager, David Stokes attends with MySQL talk. NEW!! CakeFest, Madrid, Spain, August 21-24, 2014  A talk on "Scaling Your MySQL instances AND keeping your Sanity" will be given by the MySQL Community Manager, David Stokes. Froscon 2014, St.Augustin, Germany, August 23-24, 2014 Please visit our booth as well as watch the Froscon website for the schedule updates. NEW!! SymfonyLive, UK, London, September 25-26, 2014 MySQL Community Magers, David Stokes & Morgan Tocker submitted MySQL talks for this show. Schedule will be announced later on. DrupalCon Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September 29-Oct 3, 2014 Meet us at our booth at DrupalCon Amsterdam. For the schedule please watch the DrupalCon website. All Your Base, Oxford UK, October 17, 2014  Come to visit our MySQL booth and talk to our MySQL experts. NEW!! WebTechCon / IPC, Munich Germany, October 26-29, 2014 NEW!! DOAG, Nuremberg, Germany, November 18-20, 2014 There will be a full day of MySQL talks and one full day of MySQL workshop & sessions with live demo. This event is simply hard to miss! NEW!! Forum PHP Paris, France, November 21-22, 2014 More details: TBD NEW!! UK OUG, Liverpool, UK, December 8-10, 2014 MySQL will be part of the Oracle booth and we hope to get more space for MySQL talks.  USA NEW!! Texas Linux Fest, Austin, Texas, US, June 13-14, 2014 NEW!! SouthEast Linux Fest, Charlotte, US, June 20-22, 2014 NEW!! Debian Conference 2014, Portland, OR, US, August 23-31, 2014 NEW!! FossetCon, Orlando, US, September 11-13, 2014 NEW!! Oracle Open World, San Francisco, US, September 29-October 3, 2014 NEW!! MySQL Central @ Open/World, San Francisco, US, September 29-October 3, 2014 NEW!! PyTexas 2014, Dallas, TX, US, October 3-5, 2014 NEW!! All Things Open (replacing POSSCON), Raleigh, NC, October 23-24, 2014 NEW!! Ohio LinuxFest 2014, Columbus, Ohio, US, October 24-25, 2014 NEW!! ZendCon PHP, Santa Clara, US, October 27-30, 2014 NEW!! Kuali Days 2014, Indianapolis, US, November 10-13, 2014 NEW!! Live 360, Orlando, FL, US, November 17-20, 2014 APAC OpenSourceConference Japan, Hokkaido, June 13-14, 2014 MySQL is represented by Ryusuke Kajiyama with the talk on "MySQL Technology Updates". NEW!! db tech showcase, Osaka Japan, June 18-20, 2014 Three MySQL talks are scheduled for this show, "MySQL for Oracle DBA" & "MySQL Technology Updates" by Ryusuke Kajiyama. The last talk will be on MySQL Fabric by Yoshiaki Yamasaki. NEW!! PyCon Singapore, Singapore, June 18-20, 2014 Ryusuke Kajiyama will be talking about "Sharding and scale-out using Python-based MySQL Fabric". NEW!! COSCUP, Taipei, Taiwan, July 19-20, 2014 We are going to run a technical session on MySQL Workbench & one talk on how to make MySQL better MySQL. NEW!! PyCon New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand, September 13-14, 2014 MySQL talks were submitted as well as one talk by Solaris Modernization team on Python & Solaris, watch the website for schedule updates. NEW!! PyCon Japan, Tokyo Japan, September 13-15, 2014 MySQL will be a MySQL session speaker, no schedule is announced yet. Ruby Kaigi, Tokyo, Japan, September 18-20, 2014 Another event MySQL supports and attends in APAC region. Ruby Kaigi is the international Ruby Conference in Japan, Tokyo. Ruby started in Japan, so Ruby Kaigi has excellent speakers and developers! MySQL team is going to be present at this conference with MySQL talks and active networking around the venue. NEW!! PyCon India, Bangalore, India, September 26-28, 2014 A MySQL talk on "MySQL Utilities scaling MySQL with Python" has been submitted, please watch the PyCon website for the schedule updates. NEW!! OpenSourceConference Japan, Tokyo, October 18-19, 2014 NEW!! OpenSource India, Bengaluru, India, November 7-8, 2014 NEW!! OpenSourceConference Japan, Fukuoka, November 14-15, 2014 You can check the MySQL wikis for updates on the conferences we are attending. Next time I hope to have more details for each event above (especially for the US ones).

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• Silverlight Cream for February 26, 2011 -- #1052

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Mark Monster, Gill Cleeren, Pencho Popadiyn, Kevin Dockx, Joost van Schaik, Jesse Liberty, John Papa, Jeremy Likness, Arik Poznanski(-2-), Page Brooks, Deborah Kurata, Mike Snow, Alfred Astort, Samuel Jack, XAMLNinja, and Shawn Wildermuth. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Asynchronous Callbacks with Rx" Jesse Liberty WP7: "Phoney Windows Phone 7 Project Now Available!" Shawn Wildermuth MVVM: "Validating our ViewModel" Mark Monster Shoutouts: Shawn Wildermuth has a video up of his FadingMessage class to show it off: Introducing Phoney's FadingMessage Class From SilverlightCream.com: Validating our ViewModel Mark Monster discusses Validation in his latest post... using INotifyDataErrorInfo and his own implementation of a ViewModel base that supports it and INPC. Getting ready for Microsoft Silverlight Exam 70-506 (Part 7) Gill Cleeren hits part 7 of his series at SilverlightShow on a great walk through Silverlight and getting ready for the exam. This is the final part and concentrates on deploying apps. Windows Phone 7–Creating Custom Keyboard Pencho Popadiyn has a post at SilverlightShow discussing problems with WP7 keyboards in his native Bulgaria, and his solution to the problem... create his own. 360 Degrees Feedback by Kevin Dockx Kevin Dockx produced a white paper for his company about an employee review solution they did in Silverlight. The white paper is available, and SilverlightShow interviewd Kevin to answer questions about the app. Extended Windows Phone 7 page for handling rotation, focused element updates and back key press Looks like Joost van Schaik has a few posts I've missed... and I'm not going to get to them all today! ... this one is about the base class he uses for WP7 apps... a bunch of utilities he uses... definitely worth a look (and a take). Asynchronous Callbacks with Rx Jesse Liberty has his 8th post in the Rx series up and this one's on Asynchronous Callbacks... if you haven't seen this before, you should definitely look into it... cool stuff, Jesse! Silverlight TV 63: Exploring National Instruments' App Using Data and Business Features John Papa has Silverlight TV number 63 up and is talking to Steve Lasker about National Instruments and their Lab View product. Great demo and discussion. Jounce Part 11: Debugging MEF Jeremy Likness's latest (number 11) in his series on his MVVM framework Jounce is out, and he's discussing how to debug MEF, which Jounce handles nicely through the logging he provides... and you can use it externally to Jounce. Get Twitter Trends on Windows Phone 7 Arik Poznanski has a couple Twitter for WP7 posts up... first is one for pulling Twitter trends from whatthetrend.com... plus the code to do it. Searching Twitter on Windows Phone 7 In his next post, Arik Poznanski shows how to search twitter from your WP7 ... again with code. Tiled Background Control in Silverlight Page Brooks shows how to get a tiled background control in Silverlight ... did you know there was one in the JetPack them? Silverlight Charting: Displaying Data Above the Column Deborah Kurata continues her charting posts with this one displaying the column value above the column. I like this... it has a clean look and all the data is available at a glance. Silverlight: Tasks on the Win7 Mobile Phone Mike Snow has a list of the WP7 tasks available and an example of using them... looks like a pretty good reference! 10 of 10 - Aesthetics and alignment matter Alfred Astort discusses aesthetics and WP7 dev... looks like it's the same as any app development, but if you're not doing it, you should be. Simon Squared – We have Multi-player: Days 4, 5 and (ahem!) 6 Samuel Jack details the completion of his multi-player game for WP7 utilizing Azure, in the hour-by-hour detail he's done the rest... plus a video of the final product! Who ate all the pies!! XAMLNinja has a very good discussion/link set of Charting posts all leading up to a portrait-only version of charting for WP7 with labels that looks looks great Phoney Windows Phone 7 Project Now Available! Shawn Wildermuth has a collection of classes he always uses with WP7 dev, and he's sharing them with all of us a "Phoney" Tools project on Codeplex... and now has a NuGet project also. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• What's going on with INETA and the Regional Speakers Bureau?

  - by Chris Williams

  For those of you that have been waiting patiently (and not so patiently) I'm happy to say that we're very near completion on some changes/enhancements/improvements that will allow us to finally go live with the INETA Regional Speakers Bureau. I know quite a few of you have already registered, which is great (though some of you may need to come back and update your info) and we've had a few folks submit requests, mostly in a test capacity, but soon we'll be up and live. Here's how it breaks down. Be sure to read this, because things have changed a bit from when we initially announced it. 1. The majority of our speaker/event funding is going into the Regional Speakers Bureau.  The National Bureau still exists, but it's a good bit smaller than it was before, and it's not an "every group" benefit anymore. We'll be using the National Bureau as more of a strategic task force, targeting high impact events and areas that need some community building love from INETA. These will be identified and handled on a case by case basis, and may include more than just user group events. 2. You're going to get more events per group, per year than you did before. Not only are we focusing more resources on this program, but we're also making a lot of efforts to use it more effectively. With the INETA Regional Speakers Bureau, you should be able to get 2-3 INETA speakers per year, on average. Not every geographical area will have exactly the same experience, but we're doing the best we can. 3. It's not a farm team program for the National Bureau. Unsurprisingly, I managed to offend a number of people when I previously made the comment that the Regional Speakers Bureau program was a farm team or stepping stone to the National Bureau. It was a poor choice of words.  Anyone can participate in the Regional Speakers Bureau, and I look forward to working with all of you. 4. There is assistance for your efforts. The exact final details are still being hammered out, but expect it to look something like this: (all distances listed are based on a round trip) Distances < 120 miles = $0 121 miles - 240 miles = $50 (effectively 1 to 2 hours, each way) 241 miles - 360 miles = $100 (effectively 2 to 3 hours, each way) 361 miles - 480 miles = $200 (effectively 3 to 4 hours, each way) For those of you who travel a lot, we're working on a solution to handle group visits when you're away from home. These will (for now) be handled on a case by case basis. 5. We're going to make it as easy as possible to work with the program. In order to do this, we need a few things from you. For speakers, that means your home address. It also means (maybe) filling out a simple 1 line expense report via the INETA website. For user groups, it means making sure your meeting address is up to date as well. 6. Distances will be automatically calculated from your home of record to the user group event and back. We realize that this is not a perfect solution to every instance, but we're not paying you to speak at an event, and you won't be taxed on this money. It's simply some assistance to make your community efforts easier. Our way of saying thanks for everything you do. 7. Sounds good so far, what's the catch? There's always a catch, right? In this case there are two of them: 1) At this time, Microsoft employees are welcome to use the website to line up speaking engagements with user groups, but are not eligible for financial assistance. 2) Anyone can register and use the website to line up speaking engagements with user groups, however you must receive and maintain a net score of 3+ positive ratings (we're implementing a thumbs up / thumbs down system) in order to receive financial assistance. These ratings are provided by the User Group leaders after the meeting has taken place. 8. Involvement by the User Group leaders is a key factor in the success of this program. Your job isn't done once you request a speaker. After you've had your meeting, it's critical that you go back to the website and take a very small survey. Doing this ensures that the speaker gets rated (and compensated if eligible) and also ensures that you can make another request, since you won't be able to make a new request if you have an old one outstanding. 9. What about Canada? We're definitely working on that. Unfortunately nothing new to report on that front, other than to say that we're trying. So... this is where things stand currently. We're working very quickly to get this in place and get speakers and groups together. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below and I'll answer them as quickly as possible. If I've forgotten anything, or if things change, I'll update it here. Thanks, Chris G. Williams INETA Board of Directors

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• Windows Phone 7 Review &ndash; Part 1: LG Quantum

  - by Nikita Polyakov

  As many of my fellow geeks, I ran out and got a retail windows Phone 7 on the first day. Just had to have it :) I’ve had the developer prototypes in my hands for previous 3 months on and off, so I finally wanted to have one I call my own. I’ve rushed the Launch   I’ve checked out both AT&T and T-Mobile offerings on day 1 and decided on a Samsung Focus. Great screen, super light and thin. If you don’t believe me that this phone can compete with the best of the non-Phone 7 offerings - get it in your hand to compare for yourself. I have to say that even though the on-screen keyboard on Windows Phone 7 is one of the best, the amount of text I write on my phone and my expectation of how long that takes for a short reply are very high. Also the phone being so slick and sexy did not feel solid or confident in my hand or pocket. As the dust settled   Arrives the LG Quantum – now on AT&T and worldwide. First impression of the softer plastic, the back battery cover is solid metal - the entire phone feels solid and indestructible! Phone fits just right in my hand, it’s almost too good. It does not feel like it will crack in your jeans. I feel safe holding it and don’t feel like if I or someone were to bump into me walking it’d fly out of my hand. I’ve dropped and had thrown the Focus a few times on accident as it’s weight is negligible. I won’t even dream of lying the first day adjusting to a 3.5’ LCD screen from the Samsung’s blistering bright and poppy AMOLED 4’ was hard. But the colors and sharpness are still very good. I find it almost easier on the eyes actually for day to day use.  I had a chance to lay the phone down in the line with the prototypes and final versions of other phones that had LCD screens – LG makes HTC looks like a budget LCD compared to a high end LCD in the home theatre department. I am consistently complemented by friends that have the HD7 or Surround on how much better my screen looks. The screen just looks like the most color correct phone out of the line up. Even next to Samsung it makes it look oversaturated, but can’t match the true blacks compensating with true white.   Day to Day Usability   What I also noticed that is a huge difference is how much I am not accidently hitting the soft keys at the bottom. I real pain on Focus since holding it in am average size hand already would accidently touch the controls at the bottom. QWERTY keyboard on this phone is great. It’s like the mission for LG is “make it solid!”. Keyboard has a very durable feel.   LG’s has a secret wild card though is the DLNA support. If you seen an ad for it, you should. Imagine this – playing a song from your phone straight to your network connected A/V receiver. Done. Pictures to TV. Done. Video. Done. DLNA works with components that advertise to as well as Windows 7, XBOX 360 and other consoles.  I will write an extensive review of that experience in near future. LG Exclusive apps – from panorama photo taker to voice to text translator and even look-n-type app that works like a backup inverse camera, there is quite a bit there that won’t be found on the other phones. I’ll review those in more detail in another segment. Conclusion So for a quick comparison: If you want a phone that is super thin, light and is core reference of a Windows Phone 7 – Samsung Focus it is. If you want a great phone with solid secure feel, real keyboard, media features - the hands down winner is LG Quantum.   You can pick up the LG Quantum at AT&T in US and worldwide as LG Optimus 7Q.   Final thought: I have not had SmartPhone that I felt was a reliable trusty primary communication device since Samsung BlackJack II, this time the LG got the crown.   [ Disclosure: Phone was provided to me free of charge. That has been the case for all of my phones for years, nothing new - I get them all. ]

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• I, Android

  - by andrewbrust

  I’m just back from the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES).  I go to CES to get a sense of what Microsoft is doing in the consumer space, and how people are reacting to it.  When I first went to CES 2 years ago, Steve Ballmer announced the beta of Windows 7 at his keynote address, and the crowd went wild.  When I went again last year, everyone was hoping for a Windows tablet announcement at the Ballmer keynote.  Although they didn’t get one (unless you count the unreleased HP Slate running Windows 7), people continued to show anticipation around Project Natal (which became Xbox 360 Kinect) and around Windows Phone 7.  On the show floor last year, there were machines everywhere running Windows 7, including lots of netbooks.  Microsoft had a serious influence at the show both years. But this year, one brand, one product, one operating system evidenced itself over and over again: Android.  Whether in the multitude of tablet devices that were shown across the show, or the burgeoning number of smartphones shown (including all four forthcoming 4G-LTE handsets at Verizon Wireless’ booth) or the Google TV set top box from Logitech and the embedded implementation in new Sony TV models, Android was was there. There was excitement in the ubiquity of Android 2.2 (Froyo) and the emergence of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).  There was anticipation around the tablet-optimized Android 3.0 (Honeycomb).  There were highly customized skins.  There was even an official CES Android app for navigating the exhibit halls and planning events.  Android was so ubiquitous, in fact, that it became surprising to find a device that was running anything else.  It was as if Android had become the de facto Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) operating system. Motorola’s booth was nothing less than an Android showcase.  And it was large, and it was packed.  Clearly Moto’s fortunes have improved dramatically in the last year and change.  The fact that the company morphed from being a core Windows Mobile OEM to an Android poster child seems non-coincidental to their improved fortunes. Even erstwhile WinMo OEMs who now do produce Windows Phone 7 devices were not pushing them.  Perhaps I missed them, but I couldn’t find WP7 handsets at Samsung’s booth, nor at LG’s.  And since the only carrier exhibiting at the show was Verizon Wireless, which doesn’t yet have WP7 devices, this left Microsoft’s booth as the only place to see the phones. Why is Android so popular with consumer electronics manufacturers in Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan?  Yes, it’s free, but there’s more to it than that.  Android seems to have succeeded as an OEM OS because it’s directed at OEMs who are permitted to personalize it and extend it, and it provides enough base usability and touch-friendliness that OEMs want it.  In the process, it has become a de facto standard (which makes OEMs want it even more), and has done so in a remarkably short time: the OS was launched on a single phone in the US just 2 1/4 years ago. Despite its success and popularity, Apple’s iOS would never be used by OEMs, because it’s not meant to be embedded and customized, but rather to provide a fully finished experience.  Ironically, Windows Phone 7 is likewise disqualified from such embedded use.  Windows Mobile (6.x and earlier) may have been a candidate had it not atrophied so much in its final 5 years of life. What can Microsoft do?  It could start by developing a true touch-centric OS for tablets, whether that be within Windows 8, or derived from Windows Phone 7.  It would then need to deconstruct that finished product into components, via a new or altered version of Windows Embedded or Windows Embedded Compact.  And if Microsoft went that far, it would only make sense to work with its OEMs and mobile carriers to make certain they showcase their products using the OS at CES, and other consumer electronics venues, prominently. Mostly though, Microsoft would need to decide if it were really committed to putting sustained time, effort and money into a commodity product, especially given the far greater financial return that it now derives from its core Windows and Office franchises. Microsoft would need to see an OEM OS for what it is: a loss leader that helps build brand and platform momentum for up-level products.  Is that enough to make the investment worthwhile?  One thing is certain: if that question is not acknowledged and answered honestly, then any investment will be squandered.

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• Phones, Nokia, Microsoft and More

  - by Bill Evjen

  The phone revolution that is under way at the moment is insanely interesting and continuously full of buzz about directions, failures, and promises. The movement started with Apple completely reinventing what a smart phone was all about and now we have the followers. Though – don’t dismiss the followers, they are usually the ones that come out with the leap frog products when most of the world is thinking about jumping on. Remember the often used analogy – the USA invented the TV – but it was Japan that took it to the next level and now all TVs are from somewhere else other than the USA. Really there are two camps for the phones – the Cool Kids and other kids that no one wants to hang out with anymore. When it comes to cool – for some reason, the phone is an important part of that factor. Everyone wants to show their phone and its configuration (apps installed, etc) to their friends as a sign of (1) “I have money” and (2) I have smarts/tastes/style/etc when it comes to my applications that are on my phone. For those that don’t know – the Cool Kids include: Apple – this is quite obvious as everything Apple produces is in the cool camp. Just having an Apple product on your person means you can dance. Google – this is one of the more interesting releases as they have created something called Android (which in it’s own right is a major brand in itself). Microsoft – you might be saying “Really, Microsoft is cool?”. I would argue that they are indeed cool as it is now associated with XBOX 360, Kinect, and Windows 7. Gone are the days of Bob and that silly paperclip. Well – that’s it. There is nobody else I would stick in that camp. The other kids that weren’t picked for that dodgeball team include: Nokia Motorola Palm Blackberry and many many more The sad part of all this is that no matter what this second camp does now, it won’t be able to get out of this bucket easily. They will always be associated as yesterday’s technology and that association will drive the sales of the phone purchasers of the world. For those in that group, the only possible way out is to get invited to the cool club by one of the cool club members in the hope that their coolness somehow rubs off. To me, this is the move that Nokia is making. They are at this point where they have realized that they don’t have the full scope of the required end to end solution to make this all work. They have the plants to build the phones and the reach of the retailers that sell what they have. What they are missing is the proper operating system for the new world of multi-touch form factor phones. Even the companies that come up with some sort of new operating system for this type of new device, they are still associated with the yesterday and lack the developer community behind them to be the real wave of adoption that this market needs. Think about that – this is a major different between Nokia/Blackberry when you compare it to the likes of Apple, Google, and Microsoft. These three powerhouses having a very large and strong development community that will eagerly take on new initiatives using the skillsets that they have already cultivated over the years of already working with the company. This then results in a plethora of applications that are then placed on an app store of some kind. The developer gets a cut and then Apple/Google/Microsoft then get their cut. It is definitely a win-win. None of the other phone companies and wannabies can provide the same results. What Microsoft was missing was the major phone manufactures coming on board to create and push forward with the phones that are required to start the wave. This is where Nokia can come in and help Microsoft. They have the ability to promote the Windows Phone operating system on a new wave of phones. This does mean that Nokia will sell phones, but they lose out on the application store that they might have been thinking about making some money on as well as controlling the end to end solution. What is interesting is in questioning to oneself if Microsoft will purchase Nokia. It really depends upon how they want to compete and with whom Microsoft views as the major competitor. For instance, they can purchase Nokia and have their own hardware company and distribution network for phones – thereby taking on a model that is quite similar to Apple. On the other hand, they could just leave it up to the phone hardware companies such as Nokia and others to build and promote phones in a model that is similar to Google. Both ways have pluses and minuses. If they own the phone manufacturer, they really can put some thought into the design and technical specifications of the phone that is really designed to exactly how they want it. Microsoft has shown that they have this ability – especially with the XBOX initiative they have done over the years. Think about how good and powerful they have moved forward with XBOX – and I am not talking about just copying what others are doing, but coming up with leapfrog products that are steps ahead of everyone else. Though, if they didn’t do it themselves, they could then leave it up to the phone manufacturers to drive each other to build better and better phones that run the Microsoft OS – competition drives better products. We have seen this with the Android line of phones that are out there on the market. I have read a lot about Nokia investors really upset about the new Microsoft relationship – but really, this is a great thing. I for one am a fan of this relationship (I am also a Nokia stock holder btw). This will mean better days for Nokia.

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• Siemens AG, Sector Healthcare, Increases Transparency and Improves Customer Loyalty with Web Portal Solution

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  Siemens AG, Sector Healthcare, Increases Transparency and Improves Customer Loyalty with Web Portal Solution CUSTOMER AND PARTNER INFORMATION Customer Name – Siemens AG, Sector Healthcare Customer Revenue – 73,515 Billion Euro (2011, Siemens AG total) Customer Quote – “The realization of our complex requirements within a very short amount of time was enabled through the competent implementation partner Sapient, who fully used the  very broad scope of standard functionality provided in the Oracle WebCenter Portal, and the management of customer services, who continuously supported the project setup. ” – Joerg Modlmayr, Project Manager, Healthcare Customer Service Portal, Siemens AG The Siemens Healthcare Sector is one of the world's largest suppliers to the healthcare industry and a trendsetter in medical imaging, laboratory diagnostics, medical information technology and hearing aids. Siemens offers its customers products and solutions for the entire range of patient care from a single source – from prevention and early detection to diagnosis, and on to treatment and aftercare. By optimizing clinical workflows for the most common diseases, Siemens also makes healthcare faster, better and more cost-effective. To ensure greater transparency, increased efficiency, higher user acceptance, and additional services, Siemens AG, Sector Healthcare, replaced several existing legacy portal solutions that could not meet the company’s future needs with Oracle WebCenter Portal. Various existing portal solutions that cannot meet future demands will be successively replaced by the new central service portal, which will also allow for the efficient and intuitive implementation of new service concepts.  With Oracle, doctors and hospitals using Siemens medical solutions now have access to a central information portal that provides important information and services at just the push of a button.  Customer Name – Siemens AG, Sector Healthcare Customer URL – www.siemens.com Customer Headquarters – Erlangen, Germany Industry – Industrial Manufacturing Employees – 360,000  Challenges – Replace disparate medical service portals to meet future demands and eliminate an  unnecessarily high level of administrative work caused by heterogeneous installations Ensure portals meet current user demands to improve user-acceptance rates and increase number of total users Enable changes and expansion through standard functionality to eliminate the need for reliance on IT and reduce administrative efforts and associated high costs Ensure efficient and intuitive implementation of new service concepts for all devices and systems Ensure hospitals and clinics to transparently monitor and measure services rendered for the various medical devices and systems  Increase electronic interaction and expand services to achieve a higher level of customer loyalty Solution –  Deployed Oracle WebCenter Portal to ensure greater transparency, and as a result, a higher level of customer loyalty  Provided a centralized platform for doctors and hospitals using Siemens’ medical technology solutions that provides important information and services at the push of a button Reduced significantly the administrative workload by centralizing the solution in the new customer service portal Secured positive feedback from customers involved in the pilot program developed by design experts from Oracle partner Sapient. The interfaces were created with customer needs in mind. The first survey taken shortly after implementation came back with 2.4 points on a scale of 0-3 in the category “customer service portal intuitiveness level” Met all requirements including alignment with the Siemens Style Guide without extensive programming Implemented additional services via the portal such as benchmarking options to ensure the optimal use of the Customer Device Park Provided option for documentation of all services rendered in conjunction with the medical technology systems to ensure that the value of the services are transparent for the decision makers in the hospitals  Saved and stored all machine data from approximately 100,000 remote systems in the central service and information platform Provided the option to register errors online and follow the call status in real-time on the portal Made  available at the push of a button all information on the medical technology devices used in hospitals or clinics—from security checks and maintenance activities to current device statuses Provided PDF format Service Performance Reports that summarize information from periods of time ranging from previous weeks up to one year, meeting medical product law requirements  Why Oracle – Siemens AG favored Oracle for many reasons, however, the company ultimately decided to go with Oracle due to the enormous range of functionality the solutions offered for the healthcare sector.“We are not programmers; we are service providers in the medical technology segment and focus on the contents of the portal. All the functionality necessary for internet-based customer interaction is already standard in Oracle WebCenter Portal, which is a huge plus for us. Having Oracle as our technology partner ensures that the product will continually evolve, providing a strong technology platform for our customer service portal well into the future,” said Joerg Modlmayr project manager, Healthcare Customer Service Portal, Siemens AG. Partner Involvement – Siemens AG selected Oracle Partner Sapient because the company offered a service portfolio that perfectly met Siemens’ requirements and had a wealth of experience implementing Oracle WebCenter Portal. Additionally, Sapient had designers with a very high level of expertise in usability—an aspect that Siemens considered to be of vast importance for the project.  “The Sapient team completely met all our expectations. Our tightly timed project was completed on schedule, and the positive feedback from our users proves that we set the right measures in terms of usability—all thanks to the folks at Sapient,” Modlmayr said.  Partner Name – Sapient GmbH Deutschland Partner URL – www.sapient.com

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• What to do after a servicing fails on TFS 2010

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  What do you do if you run a couple of hotfixes against your TFS 2010 server and you start to see seem odd behaviour? A customer of mine encountered that very problem, but they could not just, or at least not easily, go back a version.   You see, around the time of the TFS 2010 launch this company decided to upgrade their entire 250+ development team from TFS 2008 to TFS 2010. They encountered a few problems, owing mainly to the size of their TFS deployment, and the way they were using TFS. They were not doing anything wrong, but when you have the largest deployment of TFS outside of Microsoft you tend to run into problems that most people will never encounter. We are talking half a terabyte of source control in TFS with over 80 proxy servers. Its certainly the largest deployment I have ever heard of. When they did their upgrade way back in April, they found two major flaws in the product that meant that they had to back out of the upgrade and wait for a couple of hotfixes. KB983504 – Hotfix KB983578 – Patch KB2401992 -Hotfix In the time since they got the hotfixes they have run 6 successful trial migrations, but we are not talking minutes or hours here. When you have 400+ GB of data it takes time to copy it around. It takes time to do the upgrade and it takes time to do a backup. Well, last week it was crunch time with their developers off for Christmas they had a window of opportunity to complete the upgrade. Now these guys are good, but they wanted Northwest Cadence to be available “just in case”. They did not expect any problems as they already had 6 successful trial upgrades. The problems surfaced around 20 hours in after the first set of hotfixes had been applied. The new Team Project Collection, the only thing of importance, had disappeared from the Team Foundation Server Administration console. The collection would not reattach either. It would not even list the new collection as attachable! Figure: We know there is a database there, but it does not This was a dire situation as 20+ hours to repeat would leave the customer over time with 250+ developers sitting around doing nothing. We tried everything, and then we stumbled upon the command of last resort. TFSConfig Recover /ConfigurationDB:SQLServer\InstanceName;TFS_ConfigurationDBName /CollectionDB:SQLServer\instanceName;"Collection Name" -http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff407077.aspx WARNING: Never run this command! Now this command does something a little nasty. It assumes that there really should not be anything wrong and sets about fixing it. It ignores any servicing levels in the Team Project Collection database and forcibly applies the latest version of the schema. I am sure you can imagine the types of problems this may cause when the schema is updated leaving the data behind. That said, as far as we could see this collection looked good, and we were even able to find and attach the team project collection to the Configuration database. Figure: After attaching the TPC it enters a servicing mode After reattaching the team project collection we found the message “Re-Attaching”. Well, fair enough that sounds like something that may need to happen, and after checking that there was disk IO we left it to it. 14+ hours later, it was still not done so the customer raised a priority support call with MSFT and an engineer helped them out. Figure: Everything looks good, it is just offline. Tip: Did you know that these logs are not represented in the ~/Logs/* folder until they are opened once? The engineer dug around a bit and listened to our situation. He knew that we had run the dreaded “tfsconfig restore”, but was not phased. Figure: This message looks suspiciously like the wrong servicing version As it turns out, the servicing version was slightly out of sync with the schema. KB Schema Successful           KB983504 341 Yes   KB983578 344 sort of   KB2401992 360 nope   Figure: KB, Schema table with notation to its success The Schema version above represents the final end of run version for that hotfix or patch. The only way forward The problem was that the version was somewhere between 341 and 344. This is not a nice place to be in and the engineer give us the  only way forward as the removal of the servicing number from the database so that the re-attach process would apply the latest schema. if his sounds a little like the “tfsconfig recover” command then you are exactly right. Figure: Sneakily changing that 3 to a 1 should do the trick Figure: Changing the status and dropping the version should do it Now that we have done that we should be able to safely reattach and enable the Team Project Collection. Figure: The TPC is now all attached and running You may think that this is the end of the story, but it is not. After a while of mulling and seeking expert advice we came to the opinion that the database was, for want of a better term, “hosed”. There could well be orphaned data in there and the likelihood that we would have problems later down the line is pretty high. We contacted the customer back and made them aware that in all likelihood the repaired database was more like a “cut and shut” than anything else, and at the first sign of trouble later down the line was likely to split in two. So with 40+ hours invested in getting this new database ready the customer threw it away and started again. What would you do? Would you take the “cut and shut” to production and hope for the best?

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• Specs, Form and Function – What am I Missing?

  - by Barry Shulam

  0 0 1 628 3586 08041 29 8 4206 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Friday October 26th the Microsoft Surface RT arrived at the office.  I was summoned to my boss’s office for the grand unpacking.  If I had planned ahead I could have used my iPhone 4 to film the event and post it on YouTube however the desire to hold the device and turn it ON was more inviting than becoming a proxy reviewer for Engadget’s website.  1980 was the first time we had a personal computer in our house.  It was a  Kaypro computer. It weighed 29 pounds more than any persons lap could hold.  Then the term “portable computer” meant you could remove it from the building and take it else where.  Today I am typing on this entry on a Macbook Air which weighs 2.38 pounds. This morning Amazons front page main title is: “Much More for Much Less” I was born at the right time to start with the CPM operating system on the Kaypro thru the DOS, Windows, Linux, Mac OSX and mobile phone operating systems and languages.  If you are not aware Technology is moving at a rapid pace.  The New iPad (those who are keeping score – iPad4) is replacing a 7 month old machine the New iPad (iPad 3) I have used and owned many technology devices in my life.  The main point that most of the reader who are in the USA overlook is the fact that we are in the USA.  The devices we purchase have a great digital garden to support them.  The Kaypro computer had a 7-inch screen.  It was a TV tube with two colors – Black and Green.  You could see the 80-column screen flicker with characters – have you every played Pac-Man emulated on the screen with the ABC characters. Traveling across the world you will find that not all apps on your device will function as they did back home because they are not offered outside of your country of origin. I think the main question a buyer of technology should be asking is Function.  The greatest Specs with out function limit you.  The most beautiful form with out function is the same as a crystal vase on your shelf – not a good cereal bowl in the morning. Microsoft Surface RT, Amazon Kindle Fire and Apple iPad all great devices in their respective customers hands. My advice for those looking to purchase on this year:  If the device is your only technology device you buy what you WANT and LIKE. Consider this parallel universe if its not your only device?  Ever go shopping for clothing, shoes, and accessories with your wife, girlfriend, sister or mother?  If you listen carefully you will hear the little voices coming out of there heads saying:  “This goes well with that and I can use it also with that outfit” ”Do you think this clashes with that?”  “Ohh I love how that combination looks on you”.  Portable devices such as tablets and computers can offer a whole lot more when they are combined with the digital echo system you have at home and the manufacturer offers online. Pros of each Device: Microsoft Surface RT: There is a new functionality named SmartGlass which will let you share the content off your tablet to your XBOX 360.  Microsoft office is loaded on the tablet.  You can have more than one user profile on the tablet if you share it with others.   Amazon Kindle or Kindle HD: If you are an Amazon consumer with an annual Amazon Prime service you can consume videos and read books off the Amazon site.  Its the cheapest device.  Its a step up from the kindle reader in many ways.   Apple Ipad or Ipad mini: Over 270 Thousand applications.  Airplay permits you the ability to share to your TV screen. If you are a cord cutter (a person who gets their entertainment content over the web or air vs Cable Providers) the Airplay or Smart glass are a huge bonus.  iPad mini or not: The mini will fit in a purse where the larger one will not.  Its lighter which makes it nice to hold for prolonged periods.  It has an option for LTE wireless which non of the other sub 9 inch tables offer.  The screen is non retina which means the applications are smaller.  Speaking with individuals who are above 50 in age that wear glasses they retina does not make a difference for them however they prefer the larger iPad over the new mini.   Happy Shopping this Channuka Season.   The Kosher Coder.   Follow me on twitter @KosherCoder

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• Mark Hurd on the Customer Revolution: Oracle's Top 10 Insights

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  Reprint of an article from Forbes Businesses that fail to focus on customer experience will hear a giant sucking sound from their vanishing profitability. Because in today’s dynamic global marketplace, consumers now hold the power in the buyer-seller equation, and sellers need to revamp their strategy for this new world order. The ability to relentlessly deliver connected, personalized and rewarding customer experiences is rapidly becoming one of the primary sources of competitive advantage in today’s dynamic global marketplace. And the inability or unwillingness to realize that the customer is a company’s most important asset will lead, inevitably, to decline and failure. Welcome to the lifecycle of customer experience, in which consumers explore, engage, shop, buy, ask, compare, complain, socialize, exchange, and more across multiple channels with the unconditional expectation that each of those interactions will be completed in an efficient and personalized manner however, wherever, and whenever the customer wants. While many niche companies are offering point solutions within that sprawling and complex spectrum of needs and requirements, businesses looking to deliver superb customer experiences are still left having to do multiple product evaluations, multiple contract negotiations, multiple test projects, multiple deployments, and–perhaps most annoying of all–multiple and never-ending integration projects to string together all those niche products from all those niche vendors. With its new suite of customer-experience solutions, Oracle believes it can help companies unravel these challenges and move at the speed of their customers, anticipating their needs and desires and creating enduring and profitable relationships. Those solutions span the full range of marketing, selling, commerce, service, listening/insights, and social and collaboration tools for employees. When Oracle launched its suite of Customer Experience solutions at a recent event in New York City, president Mark Hurd analyzed the customer experience revolution taking place and presented Oracle’s strategy for empowering companies to capitalize on this important market shift. From Hurd’s presentation and related materials, I’ve extracted a list of Hurd’s Top 10 Insights into the Customer Revolution. 1. Please Don’t Feed the Competitor’s Pipeline!After enduring a poor experience, 89% of consumers say they would immediately take their business to your competitor. (Except where noted, the source for these findings is the 2011 Customer Experience Impact (CEI) Report including a survey commissioned by RightNow (acquired by Oracle in March 2012) and conducted by Harris Interactive.) 2. The Addressable Market Is Massive. Only 1% of consumers say their expectations were always met by their actual experiences. 3. They’re Willing to Pay More! In return for a great experience, 86% of consumers say they’ll pay up to 25% more. 4. The Social Media Microphone Is Always Live. After suffering through a poor experience, more than 25% of consumers said they posted a negative comment on Twitter or Facebook or other social media sites. Conversely, of those consumers who got a response after complaining, 22% posted positive comments about the company. 5.  The New Deal Is Never Done: Embrace the Entire Customer Lifecycle. An appropriately active and engaged relationship, says Hurd, extends across every step of the entire processs: need, research, select, purchase, receive, use, maintain, and recommend. 6. The 360-Degree Commitment. Customers want to do business with companies that actively and openly demonstrate the desire to establish strong and seamless connections across employees, the company, and the customer, says research firm Temkin Group in its report called “The CX Competencies.” 7. Understand the Emotional Drivers Behind Brand Love. What makes consumers fall in love with a brand? Among the top factors are friendly employees and customer reps (73%), easy access to information and support (55%), and personalized experiences, such as when companies know precisely what products or services customers have purchased in the past and what issues those customers have raised (36%). 8.  The Importance of Immediate Action. You’ve got one week to respond–and then the opportunity’s lost. If your company needs more than a week to answer a prospect’s question or request, most of those prospects will terminate the relationship. 9.  Want More Revenue, Less Churn, and More Referrals? Then improve the overall customer experience: Forrester’s research says that approach put an extra $900 million in the pockets of wireless service providers, $800 million for hotels, and $400 million for airlines. 10. The Formula for CX Success.  Hurd says it includes three elegantly interlaced factors: Connected Engagement, to personalize the experience; Actionable Insight, to maximize the engagement; and Optimized Execution, to deliver on the promise of value. RECOMMENDED READING: The Top 10 Strategic CIO Issues For 2013 Wal-Mart, Amazon, eBay: Who’s the Speed King of Retail? Career Suicide and the CIO: 4 Deadly New Threats Memo to Marc Benioff: Social Is a Tool, Not an App

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• Microsoft BUILD 2013 Day 1&ndash;Keynote

  - by Tim Murphy

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/06/27/microsoft-build-2013-day-1ndashkeynote.aspx This one is going to be a little long because the keynote was jam-packed so bare with me. The keynote for the first day of BUILD 2013 was kicked off by Steve Balmer.  He made it very clear that Microsoft’s focus is on accelerating its time to market with products and product updates.  His quote was that “Rapid release” is the new norm.  He continued by showing off several new Lumias that have been buzzing around the internet for a while and announce that Sprint will now be carrying the HTC 8XT and Samsung ATIV. Balmer is known for repeating words or phrase for affect.  This time it was “Rapid release, rapid release” and “Touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, …”.  This was fun, but even more fun was when he announce that all attendees would receive an Acer Iconia 8” tablet. SCORE! The next subject Balmer focused on is new apps.  The three new ones were Flipboard, Facebook and NFL Fantasy Football.  I liked the first two because these are ones that people coming from other platforms are missing.  The NFL app is great just because it targets a demographic that can be fanatical.  If these types of apps keep coming than the missing app argument goes away. While many Negative Nancy’s are describing Windows 8.1 as Windows 180 Steve Balmer chose to call it a “refined blend” as in a coffee that has been improved with a new mix.  This includes more multi-tasking options and leveraging Bing straight throughout the entire ecosystem. He ended this first section by explaining that this will also bring more Bing development opportunities to the community. Steve Balmer was followed by Julie Larson-Green who spent her time on stage selling us on Windows 8 all over again from my point of view.  Something that I would not have thought was needed until I had listened to some other attendees who had a number of concerns and complaints.  She showed a number of new gestures that will come with Windows 8.1, and while they were cool I was left wondering if they really improved the experience.  I guess only time will tell. I did like the fact that it the UI implementation to bring up “All Apps” now mirrors that of Windows Phone.  The consistency is a big step forward that I hope to see continue.  The cool factor went up from there as she swiped content from a desktop (mega-tablet) to the XBox One.  This seamless experience I believe is what is really needed for any future platform to be relevant. I was much more enthused by the presentation of Antoine Leblond who humbled us by letting us know that there are 5k new API.  How that can be or how anyone would ever use all of them is another question.  His announcement was that the Visual Studio 2013 preview would be available today along with the Windows 8.1 bits.  One of the features of VS2013 that he demonstrated is the power consumption profiler.  With battery life being a key factor with consumer consumption devices this is a welcome addition. He didn’t limit his presentation to VS2013 features though.  He showed how the Store has been redesigned to enable better search and discoverability of apps and how Win 8.1 can perform multiple screen scales depending on the resolution of the device automatically.  The last feature he demoed was the real time video streaming API which he made sure we understood by attaching a Surface to a little robot.  Oh, but there was one more thing.  Antoine and Julie announce that all attendees would also be getting Surface Pros.  BONUS! How much more could there be?  Gurdeep Singh Pall was about to pile on.  He introduced us to Bing as a platform (BaaP?).  He said if they (Microsoft) could do something with and API that is good 3rd party developers can do something that is dynamite and showed us some of the tools they had produced.  These included natural user interface improvements such as voice commands that looked to put Siri to shame.  Add to that 3D, OCR and translation capabilities and the future looks to be full of opportunities. Balmer then came out to show us one last thing.  Project Spark is a game design environment that will be available for Windows 8.1, XBox 360 and XBox One.  All I can say is that if my kids get their hands on this they are going to be able to learn some of what dad does in a much more enjoyable way. At the end of it all I was both exhausted and energized by what I saw.  What could they have possibly left for the day 2 keynote?  I hear it will feature Scott Hanselman.  If that is right we are in for a treat.  See you there. del.icio.us Tags: BUILD 2013,Windows 8.1,Winodws Phone,XAML,Keynote,Bing,Visual Studio 2013,Project Spark

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• Black Screen: How to set Projection/View Matrix

  - by Lisa

  I have a Windows Phone 8 C#/XAML with DirectX component project. I'm rendering some particles, but each particle is a rectangle versus a square (as I've set the vertices to be positions equally offset from each other). I used an Identity matrix in the view and projection matrix. I decided to add the windows aspect ratio to prevent the rectangles. But now I get a black screen. None of the particles are rendered now. I don't know what's wrong with my matrices. Can anyone see the problem? These are the default matrices in Microsoft's project example. View Matrix: XMVECTOR eye = XMVectorSet(0.0f, 0.7f, 1.5f, 0.0f); XMVECTOR at = XMVectorSet(0.0f, -0.1f, 0.0f, 0.0f); XMVECTOR up = XMVectorSet(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); XMStoreFloat4x4(&m_constantBufferData.view, XMMatrixTranspose(XMMatrixLookAtRH(eye, at, up))); Projection Matrix: void CubeRenderer::CreateWindowSizeDependentResources() { Direct3DBase::CreateWindowSizeDependentResources(); float aspectRatio = m_windowBounds.Width / m_windowBounds.Height; float fovAngleY = 70.0f * XM_PI / 180.0f; if (aspectRatio < 1.0f) { fovAngleY /= aspectRatio; } XMStoreFloat4x4(&m_constantBufferData.projection, XMMatrixTranspose(XMMatrixPerspectiveFovRH(fovAngleY, aspectRatio, 0.01f, 100.0f))); } I've tried modifying them to use cocos2dx's WP8 example. XMMATRIX identityMatrix = XMMatrixIdentity(); float fovy = 60.0f; float aspect = m_windowBounds.Width / m_windowBounds.Height; float zNear = 0.1f; float zFar = 100.0f; float xmin, xmax, ymin, ymax; ymax = zNear * tanf(fovy * XM_PI / 360); ymin = -ymax; xmin = ymin * aspect; xmax = ymax * aspect; XMMATRIX tmpMatrix = XMMatrixPerspectiveOffCenterRH(xmin, xmax, ymin, ymax, zNear, zFar); XMMATRIX projectionMatrix = XMMatrixMultiply(tmpMatrix, identityMatrix); // View Matrix float fEyeX = m_windowBounds.Width * 0.5f; float fEyeY = m_windowBounds.Height * 0.5f; float fEyeZ = m_windowBounds.Height / 1.1566f; float fLookAtX = m_windowBounds.Width * 0.5f; float fLookAtY = m_windowBounds.Height * 0.5f; float fLookAtZ = 0.0f; float fUpX = 0.0f; float fUpY = 1.0f; float fUpZ = 0.0f; XMMATRIX tmpMatrix2 = XMMatrixLookAtRH(XMVectorSet(fEyeX,fEyeY,fEyeZ,0.f), XMVectorSet(fLookAtX,fLookAtY,fLookAtZ,0.f), XMVectorSet(fUpX,fUpY,fUpZ,0.f)); XMMATRIX viewMatrix = XMMatrixMultiply(tmpMatrix2, identityMatrix); XMStoreFloat4x4(&m_constantBufferData.view, viewMatrix); Vertex Shader cbuffer ModelViewProjectionConstantBuffer : register(b0) { //matrix model; matrix view; matrix projection; }; struct VertexInputType { float4 position : POSITION; float2 tex : TEXCOORD0; float4 color : COLOR; }; struct PixelInputType { float4 position : SV_POSITION; float2 tex : TEXCOORD0; float4 color : COLOR; }; PixelInputType main(VertexInputType input) { PixelInputType output; // Change the position vector to be 4 units for proper matrix calculations. input.position.w = 1.0f; //===================================== // TODO: ADDED for testing input.position.z = 0.0f; //===================================== // Calculate the position of the vertex against the world, view, and projection matrices. //output.position = mul(input.position, model); output.position = mul(input.position, view); output.position = mul(output.position, projection); // Store the texture coordinates for the pixel shader. output.tex = input.tex; // Store the particle color for the pixel shader. output.color = input.color; return output; } Before I render the shader, I set the view/projection matrices into the constant buffer void ParticleRenderer::SetShaderParameters() { ViewProjectionConstantBuffer* dataPtr; D3D11_MAPPED_SUBRESOURCE mappedResource; DX::ThrowIfFailed(m_d3dContext->Map(m_constantBuffer.Get(), 0, D3D11_MAP_WRITE_DISCARD, 0, &mappedResource)); dataPtr = (ViewProjectionConstantBuffer*)mappedResource.pData; dataPtr->view = m_constantBufferData.view; dataPtr->projection = m_constantBufferData.projection; m_d3dContext->Unmap(m_constantBuffer.Get(), 0); // Now set the constant buffer in the vertex shader with the updated values. m_d3dContext->VSSetConstantBuffers(0, 1, m_constantBuffer.GetAddressOf() ); // Set shader texture resource in the pixel shader. m_d3dContext->PSSetShaderResources(0, 1, &m_textureView); } Nothing, black screen... I tried so many different look at, eye, and up vectors. I tried transposing the matrices. I've set the particle center position to always be (0, 0, 0), I tried different positions too, just to make sure they're not being rendered offscreen.

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• Android: Trusting all Certificates using HttpClient over HTTPS

  - by psuguitarplayer

  Hi all, Recently posted a question regarding the HttpClient over Https (found here). I've made some headway, but I've run into new issues. As with my last problem, I can't seem to find an example anywhere that works for me. Basically, I want my client to accept any certificate (because I'm only ever pointing to one server) but I keep getting a javax.net.ssl.SSLException: Not trusted server certificate exception. So this is what I have: public void connect() throws A_WHOLE_BUNCH_OF_EXCEPTIONS { HttpPost post = new HttpPost(new URI(PROD_URL)); post.setEntity(new StringEntity(BODY)); KeyStore trusted = KeyStore.getInstance("BKS"); trusted.load(null, "".toCharArray()); SSLSocketFactory sslf = new SSLSocketFactory(trusted); sslf.setHostnameVerifier(SSLSocketFactory.ALLOW_ALL_HOSTNAME_VERIFIER); SchemeRegistry schemeRegistry = new SchemeRegistry(); schemeRegistry.register(new Scheme ("https", sslf, 443)); SingleClientConnManager cm = new SingleClientConnManager(post.getParams(), schemeRegistry); HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient(cm, post.getParams()); HttpResponse result = client.execute(post); } And here's the error I'm getting: W/System.err( 901): javax.net.ssl.SSLException: Not trusted server certificate W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.harmony.xnet.provider.jsse.OpenSSLSocketImpl.startHandshake(OpenSSLSocketImpl.java:360) W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.http.conn.ssl.AbstractVerifier.verify(AbstractVerifier.java:92) W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.http.conn.ssl.SSLSocketFactory.connectSocket(SSLSocketFactory.java:321) W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.http.impl.conn.DefaultClientConnectionOperator.openConnection(DefaultClientConnectionOperator.java:129) W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.http.impl.conn.AbstractPoolEntry.open(AbstractPoolEntry.java:164) W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.http.impl.conn.AbstractPooledConnAdapter.open(AbstractPooledConnAdapter.java:119) W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector.execute(DefaultRequestDirector.java:348) W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient.execute(AbstractHttpClient.java:555) W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient.execute(AbstractHttpClient.java:487) W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient.execute(AbstractHttpClient.java:465) W/System.err( 901): at me.harrisonlee.test.ssl.MainActivity.connect(MainActivity.java:129) W/System.err( 901): at me.harrisonlee.test.ssl.MainActivity.access$0(MainActivity.java:77) W/System.err( 901): at me.harrisonlee.test.ssl.MainActivity$2.run(MainActivity.java:49) W/System.err( 901): Caused by: java.security.cert.CertificateException: java.security.InvalidAlgorithmParameterException: the trust anchors set is empty W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.harmony.xnet.provider.jsse.TrustManagerImpl.checkServerTrusted(TrustManagerImpl.java:157) W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.harmony.xnet.provider.jsse.OpenSSLSocketImpl.startHandshake(OpenSSLSocketImpl.java:355) W/System.err( 901): ... 12 more W/System.err( 901): Caused by: java.security.InvalidAlgorithmParameterException: the trust anchors set is empty W/System.err( 901): at java.security.cert.PKIXParameters.checkTrustAnchors(PKIXParameters.java:645) W/System.err( 901): at java.security.cert.PKIXParameters.<init>(PKIXParameters.java:89) W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.harmony.xnet.provider.jsse.TrustManagerImpl.<init>(TrustManagerImpl.java:89) W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.harmony.xnet.provider.jsse.TrustManagerFactoryImpl.engineGetTrustManagers(TrustManagerFactoryImpl.java:134) W/System.err( 901): at javax.net.ssl.TrustManagerFactory.getTrustManagers(TrustManagerFactory.java:226) W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.http.conn.ssl.SSLSocketFactory.createTrustManagers(SSLSocketFactory.java:263) W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.http.conn.ssl.SSLSocketFactory.<init>(SSLSocketFactory.java:190) W/System.err( 901): at org.apache.http.conn.ssl.SSLSocketFactory.<init>(SSLSocketFactory.java:216) W/System.err( 901): at me.harrisonlee.test.ssl.MainActivity.connect(MainActivity.java:107) W/System.err( 901): ... 2 more

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• System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host

  - by coffeeaddict

  We have 2 identical database tables on our dev server. In both is a table that holds an X509Certificate2 data in one of its fields. When I grab the cert along with the password that I've been using all along, it works over the first database just fine. I run the same code though over the 2nd database and get this error and I don't get why if the setup is exactly the same and the database is also on this server. So I'm not sure why when I switch my connection string to talk to Database2, even though it's setup the same and the code I'm running over it is the same, it complains. Here's the stack trace: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. Exception Details: System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host Source Error: An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below. Stack Trace: [SocketException (0x2746): An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host] System.Net.Sockets.NetworkStream.Read(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size) +232 [IOException: Unable to read data from the transport connection: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.] System.Net.Sockets.NetworkStream.Read(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size) +7035903 System.Net.FixedSizeReader.ReadPacket(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count) +58 System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReadFrame(Byte[] buffer, Int32 readBytes, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest) +116 System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReceiveBlob(Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest) +123 System.Net.Security.SslState.ProcessReceivedBlob(Byte[] buffer, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest) +86 System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReceiveBlob(Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest) +123 System.Net.Security.SslState.ProcessReceivedBlob(Byte[] buffer, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest) +86 System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReceiveBlob(Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest) +123 System.Net.Security.SslState.ProcessReceivedBlob(Byte[] buffer, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest) +86 System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReceiveBlob(Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest) +123 System.Net.Security.SslState.ForceAuthentication(Boolean receiveFirst, Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest) +7184357 System.Net.Security.SslState.ProcessAuthentication(LazyAsyncResult lazyResult) +217 System.Threading.ExecutionContext.runTryCode(Object userData) +376 System.Runtime.CompilerServices.RuntimeHelpers.ExecuteCodeWithGuaranteedCleanup(TryCode code, CleanupCode backoutCode, Object userData) +0 System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state) +98 System.Net.TlsStream.ProcessAuthentication(LazyAsyncResult result) +1134 System.Net.TlsStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size) +88 System.Net.PooledStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size) +20 System.Net.ConnectStream.WriteHeaders(Boolean async) +360 [WebException: The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a send.] System.Web.Services.Protocols.WebClientProtocol.GetWebResponse(WebRequest request) +857631 System.Web.Services.Protocols.HttpWebClientProtocol.GetWebResponse(WebRequest request) +10 System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.Invoke(String methodName, Object[] parameters) +243 Pmall.PayPal.PayPalApi.PayPalAPIAASoapBinding.SetExpressCheckout(SetExpressCheckoutReq SetExpressCheckoutReq) in C:\www\ssss\ssss\ssss\ssss\Reference.cs:1304 ssss.PayPal.ExpressCheckout.PayPalCheckout.SetExpressCheckout(PaymentDetailsType[] paymentDetails, String returnURL, String cancelURL, PayPalPaymentFlowType paymentFlowType) in C:\www\ssss\ssss\ssss\PayPalCheckout.cs:96 ssss.Web.ssss.SetExpressCheckout() in C:\www\ssss\ssss\ssss.aspx.cs:83 ssss.Web.ssss.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) in C:\www\ssss\ssss\Register.aspx.cs:24 System.Web.Util.CalliHelper.EventArgFunctionCaller(IntPtr fp, Object o, Object t, EventArgs e) +25 System.Web.Util.CalliEventHandlerDelegateProxy.Callback(Object sender, EventArgs e) +42 System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +132 System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +66 System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +2428

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• Color Theory: How to convert Munsell HVC to RGB/HSB/HSL

  - by Ian Boyd

  I'm looking at at document that describes the standard colors used in dentistry to describe the color of a tooth. They quote hue, value, chroma values, and indicate they are from the 1905 Munsell description of color: The system of colour notation developed by A. H. Munsell in 1905 identifies colour in terms of three attributes: HUE, VALUE (Brightness) and CHROMA (saturation) [15] HUE (H): Munsell defined hue as the quality by which we distinguish one colour from another. He selected five principle colours: red, yellow, green, blue, and purple; and five intermediate colours: yellow-red, green-yellow, blue-green, purple-blue, and red-purple. These were placed around a colour circle at equal points and the colours in between these points are a mixture of the two, in favour of the nearer point/colour (see Fig 1.). VALUE (V): This notation indicates the lightness or darkness of a colour in relation to a neutral grey scale, which extends from absolute black (value symbol 0) to absolute white (value symbol 10). This is essentially how ‘bright’ the colour is. CHROMA (C): This indicates the degree of divergence of a given hue from a neutral grey of the same value. The scale of chroma extends from 0 for a neutral grey to 10, 12, 14 or farther, depending upon the strength (saturation) of the sample to be evaluated. There are various systems for categorising colour, the Vita system is most commonly used in Dentistry. This uses the letters A, B, C and D to notate the hue (colour) of the tooth. The chroma and value are both indicated by a value from 1 to 4. A1 being lighter than A4, but A4 being more saturated than A1. If placed in order of value, i.e. brightness, the order from brightest to darkest would be: A1, B1, B2, A2, A3, D2, C1, B3, D3, D4, A3.5, B4, C2, A4, C3, C4 The exact values of Hue, Value and Chroma for each of the shades is shown below (16) So my question is, can anyone convert Munsell HVC into RGB, HSB or HSL? Hue Value (Brightness) Chroma(Saturation) === ================== ================== 4.5 7.80 1.7 2.4 7.45 2.6 1.3 7.40 2.9 1.6 7.05 3.2 1.6 6.70 3.1 5.1 7.75 1.6 4.3 7.50 2.2 2.3 7.25 3.2 2.4 7.00 3.2 4.3 7.30 1.6 2.8 6.90 2.3 2.6 6.70 2.3 1.6 6.30 2.9 3.0 7.35 1.8 1.8 7.10 2.3 3.7 7.05 2.4 They say that Value(Brightness) varies from 0..10, which is fine. So i take 7.05 to mean 70.5%. But what is Hue measured in? i'm used to hue being measured in degrees (0..360). But the values i see would all be red - when they should be more yellow, or brown. Finally, it says that Choma/Saturation can range from 0..10 ...or even higher - which makes it sound like an arbitrary scale. So can anyone convert Munsell HVC to HSB or HSL, or better yet, RGB?

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