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• MySQL is running VERY slow

  - by user1032531

  I have two servers: a VPS and a laptop. I recently re-built both of them, and MySQL is running about 20 times slower on the laptop. Both servers used to run CentOS 5.8 and I think MySQL 5.1, and the laptop used to do great so I do not think it is the hardware. For the VPS, my provider installed CentOS 6.4, and then I installed MySQL 5.1.69 using yum with the CentOS repo. For the laptop, I installed CentOS 6.4 basic server and then installed MySQL 5.1.69 using yum with the CentOS repo. my.cnf for both servers are identical, and I have shown below. For both servers, I've also included below the output from SHOW VARIABLES; as well as output from sysbench, file system information, and cpu information. I have tried adding skip-name-resolve, but it didn't help. The matrix below shows the SHOW VARIABLES output from both servers which is different. Again, MySQL was installed the same way, so I do not know why it is different, but it is and I think this might be why the laptop is executing MySQL so slowly. Why is the laptop running MySQL slowly, and how do I fix it? Differences between SHOW VARIABLES on both servers +---------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------+ | Variable | Value-VPS | Value-Laptop | +---------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------+ | hostname | vps.site1.com | laptop.site2.com | | max_binlog_cache_size | 4294963200 | 18446744073709500000 | | max_seeks_for_key | 4294967295 | 18446744073709500000 | | max_write_lock_count | 4294967295 | 18446744073709500000 | | myisam_max_sort_file_size | 2146435072 | 9223372036853720000 | | myisam_mmap_size | 4294967295 | 18446744073709500000 | | plugin_dir | /usr/lib/mysql/plugin | /usr/lib64/mysql/plugin | | pseudo_thread_id | 7568 | 2 | | system_time_zone | EST | PDT | | thread_stack | 196608 | 262144 | | timestamp | 1372252112 | 1372252046 | | version_compile_machine | i386 | x86_64 | +---------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------+ my.cnf for both servers [root@server1 ~]# cat /etc/my.cnf [mysqld] datadir=/var/lib/mysql socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock user=mysql # Disabling symbolic-links is recommended to prevent assorted security risks symbolic-links=0 [mysqld_safe] log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid innodb_strict_mode=on sql_mode=TRADITIONAL # sql_mode=STRICT_TRANS_TABLES,NO_ZERO_DATE,NO_ZERO_IN_DATE character-set-server=utf8 collation-server=utf8_general_ci log=/var/log/mysqld_all.log [root@server1 ~]# VPS SHOW VARIABLES Info Same as Laptop shown below but changes per above matrix (removed to allow me to be under the 30000 characters as required by ServerFault) Laptop SHOW VARIABLES Info auto_increment_increment 1 auto_increment_offset 1 autocommit ON automatic_sp_privileges ON back_log 50 basedir /usr/ big_tables OFF binlog_cache_size 32768 binlog_direct_non_transactional_updates OFF binlog_format STATEMENT bulk_insert_buffer_size 8388608 character_set_client utf8 character_set_connection utf8 character_set_database latin1 character_set_filesystem binary character_set_results utf8 character_set_server latin1 character_set_system utf8 character_sets_dir /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ collation_connection utf8_general_ci collation_database latin1_swedish_ci collation_server latin1_swedish_ci completion_type 0 concurrent_insert 1 connect_timeout 10 datadir /var/lib/mysql/ date_format %Y-%m-%d datetime_format %Y-%m-%d %H:%i:%s default_week_format 0 delay_key_write ON delayed_insert_limit 100 delayed_insert_timeout 300 delayed_queue_size 1000 div_precision_increment 4 engine_condition_pushdown ON error_count 0 event_scheduler OFF expire_logs_days 0 flush OFF flush_time 0 foreign_key_checks ON ft_boolean_syntax + -><()~*:""&| ft_max_word_len 84 ft_min_word_len 4 ft_query_expansion_limit 20 ft_stopword_file (built-in) general_log OFF general_log_file /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.log group_concat_max_len 1024 have_community_features YES have_compress YES have_crypt YES have_csv YES have_dynamic_loading YES have_geometry YES have_innodb YES have_ndbcluster NO have_openssl DISABLED have_partitioning YES have_query_cache YES have_rtree_keys YES have_ssl DISABLED have_symlink DISABLED hostname server1.site2.com identity 0 ignore_builtin_innodb OFF init_connect init_file init_slave innodb_adaptive_hash_index ON innodb_additional_mem_pool_size 1048576 innodb_autoextend_increment 8 innodb_autoinc_lock_mode 1 innodb_buffer_pool_size 8388608 innodb_checksums ON innodb_commit_concurrency 0 innodb_concurrency_tickets 500 innodb_data_file_path ibdata1:10M:autoextend innodb_data_home_dir innodb_doublewrite ON innodb_fast_shutdown 1 innodb_file_io_threads 4 innodb_file_per_table OFF innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit 1 innodb_flush_method innodb_force_recovery 0 innodb_lock_wait_timeout 50 innodb_locks_unsafe_for_binlog OFF innodb_log_buffer_size 1048576 innodb_log_file_size 5242880 innodb_log_files_in_group 2 innodb_log_group_home_dir ./ innodb_max_dirty_pages_pct 90 innodb_max_purge_lag 0 innodb_mirrored_log_groups 1 innodb_open_files 300 innodb_rollback_on_timeout OFF innodb_stats_method nulls_equal innodb_stats_on_metadata ON innodb_support_xa ON innodb_sync_spin_loops 20 innodb_table_locks ON innodb_thread_concurrency 8 innodb_thread_sleep_delay 10000 innodb_use_legacy_cardinality_algorithm ON insert_id 0 interactive_timeout 28800 join_buffer_size 131072 keep_files_on_create OFF key_buffer_size 8384512 key_cache_age_threshold 300 key_cache_block_size 1024 key_cache_division_limit 100 language /usr/share/mysql/english/ large_files_support ON large_page_size 0 large_pages OFF last_insert_id 0 lc_time_names en_US license GPL local_infile ON locked_in_memory OFF log OFF log_bin OFF log_bin_trust_function_creators OFF log_bin_trust_routine_creators OFF log_error /var/log/mysqld.log log_output FILE log_queries_not_using_indexes OFF log_slave_updates OFF log_slow_queries OFF log_warnings 1 long_query_time 10.000000 low_priority_updates OFF lower_case_file_system OFF lower_case_table_names 0 max_allowed_packet 1048576 max_binlog_cache_size 18446744073709547520 max_binlog_size 1073741824 max_connect_errors 10 max_connections 151 max_delayed_threads 20 max_error_count 64 max_heap_table_size 16777216 max_insert_delayed_threads 20 max_join_size 18446744073709551615 max_length_for_sort_data 1024 max_long_data_size 1048576 max_prepared_stmt_count 16382 max_relay_log_size 0 max_seeks_for_key 18446744073709551615 max_sort_length 1024 max_sp_recursion_depth 0 max_tmp_tables 32 max_user_connections 0 max_write_lock_count 18446744073709551615 min_examined_row_limit 0 multi_range_count 256 myisam_data_pointer_size 6 myisam_max_sort_file_size 9223372036853727232 myisam_mmap_size 18446744073709551615 myisam_recover_options OFF myisam_repair_threads 1 myisam_sort_buffer_size 8388608 myisam_stats_method nulls_unequal myisam_use_mmap OFF net_buffer_length 16384 net_read_timeout 30 net_retry_count 10 net_write_timeout 60 new OFF old OFF old_alter_table OFF old_passwords OFF open_files_limit 1024 optimizer_prune_level 1 optimizer_search_depth 62 optimizer_switch index_merge=on,index_merge_union=on,index_merge_sort_union=on,index_merge_intersection=on pid_file /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid plugin_dir /usr/lib64/mysql/plugin port 3306 preload_buffer_size 32768 profiling OFF profiling_history_size 15 protocol_version 10 pseudo_thread_id 3 query_alloc_block_size 8192 query_cache_limit 1048576 query_cache_min_res_unit 4096 query_cache_size 0 query_cache_type ON query_cache_wlock_invalidate OFF query_prealloc_size 8192 rand_seed1 rand_seed2 range_alloc_block_size 4096 read_buffer_size 131072 read_only OFF read_rnd_buffer_size 262144 relay_log relay_log_index relay_log_info_file relay-log.info relay_log_purge ON relay_log_space_limit 0 report_host report_password report_port 3306 report_user rpl_recovery_rank 0 secure_auth OFF secure_file_priv server_id 0 skip_external_locking ON skip_name_resolve OFF skip_networking OFF skip_show_database OFF slave_compressed_protocol OFF slave_exec_mode STRICT slave_load_tmpdir /tmp slave_max_allowed_packet 1073741824 slave_net_timeout 3600 slave_skip_errors OFF slave_transaction_retries 10 slow_launch_time 2 slow_query_log OFF slow_query_log_file /var/run/mysqld/mysqld-slow.log socket /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock sort_buffer_size 2097144 sql_auto_is_null ON sql_big_selects ON sql_big_tables OFF sql_buffer_result OFF sql_log_bin ON sql_log_off OFF sql_log_update ON sql_low_priority_updates OFF sql_max_join_size 18446744073709551615 sql_mode sql_notes ON sql_quote_show_create ON sql_safe_updates OFF sql_select_limit 18446744073709551615 sql_slave_skip_counter sql_warnings OFF ssl_ca ssl_capath ssl_cert ssl_cipher ssl_key storage_engine MyISAM sync_binlog 0 sync_frm ON system_time_zone PDT table_definition_cache 256 table_lock_wait_timeout 50 table_open_cache 64 table_type MyISAM thread_cache_size 0 thread_handling one-thread-per-connection thread_stack 262144 time_format %H:%i:%s time_zone SYSTEM timed_mutexes OFF timestamp 1372254399 tmp_table_size 16777216 tmpdir /tmp transaction_alloc_block_size 8192 transaction_prealloc_size 4096 tx_isolation REPEATABLE-READ unique_checks ON updatable_views_with_limit YES version 5.1.69 version_comment Source distribution version_compile_machine x86_64 version_compile_os redhat-linux-gnu wait_timeout 28800 warning_count 0 VPS Sysbench Info [root@vps ~]# cat sysbench.txt sysbench 0.4.12: multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark Running the test with following options: Number of threads: 8 Doing OLTP test. Running mixed OLTP test Doing read-only test Using Special distribution (12 iterations, 1 pct of values are returned in 75 pct cases) Using "BEGIN" for starting transactions Using auto_inc on the id column Threads started! Time limit exceeded, exiting... (last message repeated 7 times) Done. OLTP test statistics: queries performed: read: 1449966 write: 0 other: 207138 total: 1657104 transactions: 103569 (1726.01 per sec.) deadlocks: 0 (0.00 per sec.) read/write requests: 1449966 (24164.08 per sec.) other operations: 207138 (3452.01 per sec.) Test execution summary: total time: 60.0050s total number of events: 103569 total time taken by event execution: 479.1544 per-request statistics: min: 1.98ms avg: 4.63ms max: 330.73ms approx. 95 percentile: 8.26ms Threads fairness: events (avg/stddev): 12946.1250/381.09 execution time (avg/stddev): 59.8943/0.00 [root@vps ~]# Laptop Sysbench Info [root@server1 ~]# cat sysbench.txt sysbench 0.4.12: multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark Running the test with following options: Number of threads: 8 Doing OLTP test. Running mixed OLTP test Doing read-only test Using Special distribution (12 iterations, 1 pct of values are returned in 75 pct cases) Using "BEGIN" for starting transactions Using auto_inc on the id column Threads started! Time limit exceeded, exiting... (last message repeated 7 times) Done. OLTP test statistics: queries performed: read: 634718 write: 0 other: 90674 total: 725392 transactions: 45337 (755.56 per sec.) deadlocks: 0 (0.00 per sec.) read/write requests: 634718 (10577.78 per sec.) other operations: 90674 (1511.11 per sec.) Test execution summary: total time: 60.0048s total number of events: 45337 total time taken by event execution: 479.4912 per-request statistics: min: 2.04ms avg: 10.58ms max: 85.56ms approx. 95 percentile: 19.70ms Threads fairness: events (avg/stddev): 5667.1250/42.18 execution time (avg/stddev): 59.9364/0.00 [root@server1 ~]# VPS File Info [root@vps ~]# df -T Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/simfs simfs 20971520 16187440 4784080 78% / none tmpfs 6224432 4 6224428 1% /dev none tmpfs 6224432 0 6224432 0% /dev/shm [root@vps ~]# Laptop File Info [root@server1 ~]# df -T Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/vg_server1-lv_root ext4 72383800 4243964 64462860 7% / tmpfs tmpfs 956352 0 956352 0% /dev/shm /dev/sdb1 ext4 495844 60948 409296 13% /boot [root@server1 ~]# VPS CPU Info Removed to stay under the 30000 character limit required by ServerFault Laptop CPU Info [root@server1 ~]# cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 15 model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7100 @ 1.80GHz stepping : 13 cpu MHz : 800.000 cache size : 2048 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 2 core id : 0 cpu cores : 2 apicid : 0 initial apicid : 0 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 10 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm ida dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority bogomips : 3591.39 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: processor : 1 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 15 model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7100 @ 1.80GHz stepping : 13 cpu MHz : 800.000 cache size : 2048 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 2 core id : 1 cpu cores : 2 apicid : 1 initial apicid : 1 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 10 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm ida dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority bogomips : 3591.39 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: [root@server1 ~]# EDIT New Info requested by shakalandy [root@localhost ~]# cat /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 2044804 kB MemFree: 761464 kB Buffers: 68868 kB Cached: 369708 kB SwapCached: 0 kB Active: 881080 kB Inactive: 246016 kB Active(anon): 688312 kB Inactive(anon): 4416 kB Active(file): 192768 kB Inactive(file): 241600 kB Unevictable: 0 kB Mlocked: 0 kB SwapTotal: 4095992 kB SwapFree: 4095992 kB Dirty: 0 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 688428 kB Mapped: 65156 kB Shmem: 4216 kB Slab: 92428 kB SReclaimable: 31260 kB SUnreclaim: 61168 kB KernelStack: 2392 kB PageTables: 28356 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB WritebackTmp: 0 kB CommitLimit: 5118392 kB Committed_AS: 1530212 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB VmallocUsed: 343604 kB VmallocChunk: 34359372920 kB HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB AnonHugePages: 520192 kB HugePages_Total: 0 HugePages_Free: 0 HugePages_Rsvd: 0 HugePages_Surp: 0 Hugepagesize: 2048 kB DirectMap4k: 8556 kB DirectMap2M: 2078720 kB [root@localhost ~]# ps aux | grep mysql root 2227 0.0 0.0 108332 1504 ? S 07:36 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.pid mysql 2319 0.1 24.5 1470068 501360 ? Sl 07:36 0:57 /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --plugin-dir=/usr/lib64/mysql/plugin --user=mysql --log-error=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.err --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.pid root 3579 0.0 0.1 201840 3028 pts/0 S+ 07:40 0:00 mysql -u root -p root 13887 0.0 0.1 201840 3036 pts/3 S+ 18:08 0:00 mysql -uroot -px xxxxxxxxxx root 14449 0.0 0.0 103248 840 pts/2 S+ 18:16 0:00 grep mysql [root@localhost ~]# ps aux | grep mysql root 2227 0.0 0.0 108332 1504 ? S 07:36 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.pid mysql 2319 0.1 24.5 1470068 501356 ? Sl 07:36 0:57 /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --plugin-dir=/usr/lib64/mysql/plugin --user=mysql --log-error=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.err --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.badobe.com.pid root 3579 0.0 0.1 201840 3028 pts/0 S+ 07:40 0:00 mysql -u root -p root 13887 0.0 0.1 201840 3048 pts/3 S+ 18:08 0:00 mysql -uroot -px xxxxxxxxxx root 14470 0.0 0.0 103248 840 pts/2 S+ 18:16 0:00 grep mysql [root@localhost ~]# vmstat 1 procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- -----cpu----- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa st 0 0 0 742172 76376 371064 0 0 6 6 78 202 2 1 97 1 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371060 0 0 0 16 191 467 2 1 93 5 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 148 388 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 159 418 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 145 380 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 166 429 2 1 97 0 0 1 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 148 373 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 149 382 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 168 408 2 0 97 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 165 394 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76380 371064 0 0 0 0 159 354 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 742164 76388 371060 0 0 0 16 180 447 2 0 91 6 0 0 0 0 742164 76388 371064 0 0 0 0 143 344 2 1 98 0 0 0 1 0 742784 76416 370044 0 0 28 580 360 678 3 1 74 23 0 1 0 0 744768 76496 367772 0 0 40 1036 437 865 3 1 53 43 0 0 1 0 747248 76596 365412 0 0 48 1224 561 923 3 2 53 43 0 0 1 0 749232 76696 363092 0 0 32 1132 512 883 3 2 52 44 0 0 1 0 751340 76772 361020 0 0 32 1008 472 872 2 1 52 45 0 0 1 0 753448 76840 358540 0 0 36 1088 512 860 2 1 51 46 0 0 1 0 755060 76936 357636 0 0 28 1012 481 922 2 2 52 45 0 0 1 0 755060 77064 357988 0 0 12 896 444 902 2 1 53 45 0 0 1 0 754688 77148 358448 0 0 16 1096 506 1007 1 1 56 42 0 0 2 0 754192 77268 358932 0 0 12 1060 481 957 1 2 53 44 0 0 1 0 753696 77380 359392 0 0 12 1052 512 1025 2 1 55 42 0 0 1 0 751028 77480 359828 0 0 8 984 423 909 2 2 52 45 0 0 1 0 750524 77620 360200 0 0 8 788 367 869 1 2 54 44 0 0 1 0 749904 77700 360664 0 0 8 928 439 924 2 2 55 43 0 0 1 0 749408 77796 361084 0 0 12 976 468 967 1 1 56 43 0 0 1 0 748788 77896 361464 0 0 12 992 453 944 1 2 54 43 0 1 1 0 748416 77992 361996 0 0 12 784 392 868 2 1 52 46 0 0 1 0 747920 78092 362336 0 0 4 896 382 874 1 1 52 46 0 0 1 0 745252 78172 362780 0 0 12 1040 444 923 1 1 56 42 0 0 1 0 744764 78288 363220 0 0 8 1024 448 934 2 1 55 43 0 0 1 0 744144 78408 363668 0 0 8 1000 461 982 2 1 53 44 0 0 1 0 743648 78488 364148 0 0 8 872 443 888 2 1 54 43 0 0 1 0 743152 78548 364468 0 0 16 1020 511 995 2 1 55 43 0 0 1 0 742656 78632 365024 0 0 12 928 431 913 1 2 53 44 0 0 1 0 742160 78728 365468 0 0 12 996 470 955 2 2 54 44 0 1 1 0 739492 78840 365896 0 0 8 988 447 939 1 2 52 46 0 0 1 0 738872 78996 366352 0 0 12 972 442 928 1 1 55 44 0 1 1 0 738244 79148 366812 0 0 8 948 549 1126 2 2 54 43 0 0 1 0 737624 79312 367188 0 0 12 996 456 953 2 2 54 43 0 0 1 0 736880 79456 367660 0 0 12 960 444 918 1 1 53 46 0 0 1 0 736260 79584 368124 0 0 8 884 414 921 1 1 54 44 0 0 1 0 735648 79716 368488 0 0 12 976 450 955 2 1 56 41 0 0 1 0 733104 79840 368988 0 0 12 932 453 918 1 2 55 43 0 0 1 0 732608 79996 369356 0 0 16 916 444 889 1 2 54 43 0 1 1 0 731476 80128 369800 0 0 16 852 514 978 2 2 54 43 0 0 1 0 731244 80252 370200 0 0 8 904 398 870 2 1 55 43 0 1 1 0 730624 80384 370612 0 0 12 1032 447 977 1 2 57 41 0 0 1 0 730004 80524 371096 0 0 12 984 469 941 2 2 52 45 0 0 1 0 729508 80636 371544 0 0 12 928 438 922 2 1 52 46 0 0 1 0 728888 80756 371948 0 0 16 972 439 943 2 1 55 43 0 0 1 0 726468 80900 372272 0 0 8 960 545 1024 2 1 54 43 0 1 1 0 726344 81024 372272 0 0 8 464 490 1057 1 2 53 44 0 0 1 0 726096 81148 372276 0 0 4 328 441 1063 2 1 53 45 0 1 1 0 726096 81256 372292 0 0 0 296 387 975 1 1 53 45 0 0 1 0 725848 81380 372284 0 0 4 332 425 1034 2 1 54 44 0 1 1 0 725848 81496 372300 0 0 4 308 386 992 2 1 54 43 0 0 1 0 725600 81616 372296 0 0 4 328 404 1060 1 1 54 44 0 procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- -----cpu----- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa st 0 1 0 725600 81732 372296 0 0 4 328 439 1011 1 1 53 44 0 0 1 0 725476 81848 372308 0 0 0 316 441 1023 2 2 52 46 0 1 1 0 725352 81972 372300 0 0 4 344 451 1021 1 1 55 43 0 2 1 0 725228 82088 372320 0 0 0 328 427 1058 1 1 54 44 0 1 1 0 724980 82220 372300 0 0 4 336 419 999 2 1 54 44 0 1 1 0 724980 82328 372320 0 0 4 320 430 1019 1 1 54 44 0 1 1 0 724732 82436 372328 0 0 0 388 363 942 2 1 54 44 0 1 1 0 724608 82560 372312 0 0 4 308 419 993 1 2 54 44 0 1 0 0 724360 82684 372320 0 0 0 304 421 1028 2 1 55 42 0 1 0 0 724360 82684 372388 0 0 0 0 158 416 2 1 98 0 0 1 1 0 724236 82720 372360 0 0 0 6464 243 855 3 2 84 12 0 1 0 0 724112 82748 372360 0 0 0 5356 266 895 3 1 84 12 0 2 1 0 724112 82764 372380 0 0 0 3052 221 511 2 2 93 4 0 1 0 0 724112 82796 372372 0 0 0 4548 325 1067 2 2 81 16 0 1 0 0 724112 82816 372368 0 0 0 3240 259 829 3 1 90 6 0 1 0 0 724112 82836 372380 0 0 0 3260 309 822 3 2 88 8 0 1 1 0 724112 82876 372364 0 0 0 4680 326 978 3 1 77 19 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372380 0 0 0 512 207 508 2 1 95 2 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 138 361 2 1 98 0 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 158 397 2 1 98 0 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 146 395 2 1 98 0 0 2 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 160 395 2 1 98 0 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 163 382 1 1 98 0 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 176 422 2 1 98 0 0 1 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 134 351 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 724112 82884 372388 0 0 0 0 190 429 2 1 97 0 0 0 0 0 724104 82884 372392 0 0 0 0 139 358 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 724848 82884 372392 0 0 0 4 211 432 2 1 97 0 0 1 0 0 724980 82884 372392 0 0 0 0 166 370 2 1 98 0 0 0 0 0 724980 82884 372392 0 0 0 0 164 397 2 1 98 0 0 ^C [root@localhost ~]#

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• OOW 2013 Summary for Fusion Middleware Architects & Administrators by Simon Haslam

  - by JuergenKress

  OOW 2013 Summary for Fusion Middleware Architects & Administrators by Simon Haslam This September during Oracle OpenWorld 2013 the weather in San Francisco, as you see can from the photo, was exceptionally sunny. The dramatic final few days of the Americas Cup sailing competition, being held every day in the bay, coincided with the conference and meant that there was almost a holiday feel to the whole event. Here's my annual round-up of what I think was most interesting at OpenWorld 2013 for Fusion Middleware architects and administrators; I hope you find it useful and if you think I've missed something please add a comment! WebLogic and Cloud Application Foundation (CAF) The big WebLogic release of the year has already happened a few months ago with 12.1.2 so I won't duplicate that here. Will Lyons discussed the WebLogic and Coherence roadmap which essentially is that 12.1.3 will probably be released to coincide with SOA 12c next year and that 12.1.4, the next feature-rich WebLogic release, is more likely to be in 2015. This latter release will probably include full Java EE 7 support, have enhancements for multi-tenancy and further auto-scaling features to support increased density (i.e. more WebLogic usage for the same amount of hardware). There's a new Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder (OVAB) out already and an Oracle Traffic Director (OTD) 12c release round the corner too. Also of relevance to administrators is that Oracle has increased the support lifetime for Fusion Middleware 11g (e.g. WebLogic 10.3.6) so that Premier Support will now run to the end of 2018 and Extended Support until 2021 - this should remove any Oracle-driven pressure to upgrade at least. Java Mission Control Java Mission Control (JMC) is the HotSpot Java 7 version of JRockit 6 Mission Control, a very nice performance monitoring tool from Oracle's BEA acquisition. Flight Recorder is a feature built into the JVM which records diagnostic events into, typically, a circular buffer which can then be used for historical analysis, particularly in the case of a JVM crash or hang. It's been available separately for WebLogic only for perhaps a year now but, more significantly, it now includes JVM events and was bundled in with JDK7 Update 40 a few weeks ago. I attended a couple of interesting Java One sessions on JMC/Flight Recorder and have to say it's looking really good - it has all the previous JRMC features except for memory leak detector, plus some enhancements around operative sets and ECID filtering I think. Marcus also showed how you could add your own events into flight recorder by building your own event class - they are then available for graphing alongside all the other events in JMC. This uses a currently an unsupported/undocumented API, but it's also the same one that WebLogic uses for WLDF events so I imagine it is stable. I'm not sure quite whether this would be useful to custom applications, as opposed to infrastructure services or ISV packaged applications, but it was a very nice demonstration. I've been testing JMC / FR enabling on several environments recently and my confidence is growing - it feels robust and I think could very soon be part of my standard builds. Read the full article here. WebLogic Partner Community For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Technorati Tags: OOW,Simon Haslam,Oracle OpenWorld,WebLogic,WebLogic Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Functional programming constructs in non-functional programming languages

  - by Giorgio

  This question has been going through my mind quite a lot lately and since I haven't found a convincing answer to it I would like to know if other users of this site have thought about it as well. In the recent years, even though OOP is still the most popular programming paradigm, functional programming is getting a lot of attention. I have only used OOP languages for my work (C++ and Java) but I am trying to learn some FP in my free time because I find it very interesting. So, I started learning Haskell three years ago and Scala last summer. I plan to learn some SML and Caml as well, and to brush up my (little) knowledge of Scheme. Well, a lot of plans (too ambitious?) but I hope I will find the time to learn at least the basics of FP during the next few years. What is important for me is how functional programming works and how / whether I can use it for some real projects. I have already developed small tools in Haskell. In spite of my strong interest for FP, I find it difficult to understand why functional programming constructs are being added to languages like C#, Java, C++, and so on. As a developer interested in FP, I find it more natural to use, say, Scala or Haskell, instead of waiting for the next FP feature to be added to my favourite non-FP language. In other words, why would I want to have only some FP in my originally non-FP language instead of looking for a language that has a better support for FP? For example, why should I be interested to have lambdas in Java if I can switch to Scala where I have much more FP concepts and access all the Java libraries anyway? Similarly: why do some FP in C# instead of using F# (to my knowledge, C# and F# can work together)? Java was designed to be OO. Fine. I can do OOP in Java (and I would like to keep using Java in that way). Scala was designed to support OOP + FP. Fine: I can use a mix of OOP and FP in Scala. Haskell was designed for FP: I can do FP in Haskell. If I need to tune the performance of a particular module, I can interface Haskell with some external routines in C. But why would I want to do OOP with just some basic FP in Java? So, my main point is: why are non-functional programming languages being extended with some functional concept? Shouldn't it be more comfortable (interesting, exciting, productive) to program in a language that has been designed from the very beginning to be functional or multi-paradigm? Don't different programming paradigms integrate better in a language that was designed for it than in a language in which one paradigm was only added later? The first explanation I could think of is that, since FP is a new concept (it isn't new at all, but it is new for many developers), it needs to be introduced gradually. However, I remember my switch from imperative to OOP: when I started to program in C++ (coming from Pascal and C) I really had to rethink the way in which I was coding, and to do it pretty fast. It was not gradual. So, this does not seem to be a good explanation to me. Also, I asked myself if my impression is just plainly wrong due to lack of knowledge. E.g., do C# and C++11 support FP as extensively as, say, Scala or Caml do? In this case, my question would be simply non-existent. Or can it be that many non-FP programmers are not really interested in using functional programming, but they find it practically convenient to adopt certain FP-idioms in their non-FP language? IMPORTANT NOTE Just in case (because I have seen several language wars on this site): I mentioned the languages I know better, this question is in no way meant to start comparisons between different programming languages to decide which is better / worse. Also, I am not interested in a comparison of OOP versus FP (pros and cons). The point I am interested in is to understand why FP is being introduced one bit at a time into existing languages that were not designed for it even though there exist languages that were / are specifically designed to support FP.

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• A temporary disagreement

  - by Tony Davis

  Last month, Phil Factor caused a furore amongst some MVPs with an article that attempted to offer simple advice to developers regarding the use of table variables, versus local and global temporary tables, in their code. Phil makes clear that the table variables do come with some fairly major limitations.no distribution statistics, no parallel query plans for queries that modify table variables.but goes on to suggest that for reasonably small-scale strategic uses, and with a bit of due care and testing, table variables are a "good thing". Not everyone shares his opinion; in fact, I imagine he was rather aghast to learn that there were those felt his article was akin to pulling the pin out of a grenade and tossing it into the database; table variables should be avoided in almost all cases, according to their advice, in favour of temp tables. In other words, a fairly major feature of SQL Server should be more-or-less 'off limits' to developers. The problem with temp tables is that, because they are scoped either in the procedure or the connection, it is easy to allow them to hang around for too long, eating up precious memory and bulking up the shared tempdb database. Unless they are explicitly dropped, global temporary tables, and local temporary tables created within a connection rather than within a stored procedure, will persist until the connection is closed or, with connection pooling, until the connection is reused. It's also quite common with ASP.NET applications to have connection leaks, as Bill Vaughn explains in his chapter in the "SQL Server Deep Dives" book, meaning that the web page exits without closing the connection object, maybe due to an error condition. This will then hang around in the heap for what might be hours before picked up by the garbage collector. Table variables are much safer in this regard, since they are batch-scoped and so are cleaned up automatically once the batch is complete, which also means that they are intuitive to use for the developer because they conform to scoping rules that are closer to those in procedural code. On the surface then, an ideal way to deal with issues related to tempdb memory hogging. So why did Phil qualify his recommendation to use Table Variables? This is another of those cases where, like scalar UDFs and table-valued multi-statement UDFs, developers can sometimes get into trouble with a relatively benign-looking feature, due to way it's been implemented in SQL Server. Once again the biggest problem is how they are handled internally, by the SQL Server query optimizer, which can make very poor choices for JOIN orders and so on, in the absence of statistics, especially when joining to tables with highly-skewed data. The resulting execution plans can be horrible, as will be the resulting performance. If the JOIN is to a large table, that will hurt. Ideally, Microsoft would simply fix this issue so that developers can't get burned in this way; they've been around since SQL Server 2000, so Microsoft has had a bit of time to get it right. As I commented in regard to UDFs, when developers discover issues like with such standard features, the database becomes an alien planet to them, where death lurks around each corner, and they continue to avoid these "killer" features years after the problems have been eventually resolved. In the meantime, what is the right approach? Is it to say "hammers can kill, don't ever use hammers", or is it to try to explain, as Phil's article and follow-up blog post have tried to do, what the feature was intended for, why care must be applied in its use, and so enable developers to make properly-informed decisions, without requiring them to delve deep into the inner workings of SQL Server? Cheers, Tony.

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• How John Got 15x Improvement Without Really Trying

  - by rchrd

  The following article was published on a Sun Microsystems website a number of years ago by John Feo. It is still useful and worth preserving. So I'm republishing it here.  How I Got 15x Improvement Without Really Trying John Feo, Sun Microsystems Taking ten "personal" program codes used in scientific and engineering research, the author was able to get from 2 to 15 times performance improvement easily by applying some simple general optimization techniques. Introduction Scientific research based on computer simulation depends on the simulation for advancement. The research can advance only as fast as the computational codes can execute. The codes' efficiency determines both the rate and quality of results. In the same amount of time, a faster program can generate more results and can carry out a more detailed simulation of physical phenomena than a slower program. Highly optimized programs help science advance quickly and insure that monies supporting scientific research are used as effectively as possible. Scientific computer codes divide into three broad categories: ISV, community, and personal. ISV codes are large, mature production codes developed and sold commercially. The codes improve slowly over time both in methods and capabilities, and they are well tuned for most vendor platforms. Since the codes are mature and complex, there are few opportunities to improve their performance solely through code optimization. Improvements of 10% to 15% are typical. Examples of ISV codes are DYNA3D, Gaussian, and Nastran. Community codes are non-commercial production codes used by a particular research field. Generally, they are developed and distributed by a single academic or research institution with assistance from the community. Most users just run the codes, but some develop new methods and extensions that feed back into the general release. The codes are available on most vendor platforms. Since these codes are younger than ISV codes, there are more opportunities to optimize the source code. Improvements of 50% are not unusual. Examples of community codes are AMBER, CHARM, BLAST, and FASTA. Personal codes are those written by single users or small research groups for their own use. These codes are not distributed, but may be passed from professor-to-student or student-to-student over several years. They form the primordial ocean of applications from which community and ISV codes emerge. Government research grants pay for the development of most personal codes. This paper reports on the nature and performance of this class of codes. Over the last year, I have looked at over two dozen personal codes from more than a dozen research institutions. The codes cover a variety of scientific fields, including astronomy, atmospheric sciences, bioinformatics, biology, chemistry, geology, and physics. The sources range from a few hundred lines to more than ten thousand lines, and are written in Fortran, Fortran 90, C, and C++. For the most part, the codes are modular, documented, and written in a clear, straightforward manner. They do not use complex language features, advanced data structures, programming tricks, or libraries. I had little trouble understanding what the codes did or how data structures were used. Most came with a makefile. Surprisingly, only one of the applications is parallel. All developers have access to parallel machines, so availability is not an issue. Several tried to parallelize their applications, but stopped after encountering difficulties. Lack of education and a perception that parallelism is difficult prevented most from trying. I parallelized several of the codes using OpenMP, and did not judge any of the codes as difficult to parallelize. Even more surprising than the lack of parallelism is the inefficiency of the codes. I was able to get large improvements in performance in a matter of a few days applying simple optimization techniques. Table 1 lists ten representative codes [names and affiliation are omitted to preserve anonymity]. Improvements on one processor range from 2x to 15.5x with a simple average of 4.75x. I did not use sophisticated performance tools or drill deep into the program's execution character as one would do when tuning ISV or community codes. Using only a profiler and source line timers, I identified inefficient sections of code and improved their performance by inspection. The changes were at a high level. I am sure there is another factor of 2 or 3 in each code, and more if the codes are parallelized. The study’s results show that personal scientific codes are running many times slower than they should and that the problem is pervasive. Computational scientists are not sloppy programmers; however, few are trained in the art of computer programming or code optimization. I found that most have a working knowledge of some programming language and standard software engineering practices; but they do not know, or think about, how to make their programs run faster. They simply do not know the standard techniques used to make codes run faster. In fact, they do not even perceive that such techniques exist. The case studies described in this paper show that applying simple, well known techniques can significantly increase the performance of personal codes. It is important that the scientific community and the Government agencies that support scientific research find ways to better educate academic scientific programmers. The inefficiency of their codes is so bad that it is retarding both the quality and progress of scientific research. # cacheperformance redundantoperations loopstructures performanceimprovement 1 x x 15.5 2 x 2.8 3 x x 2.5 4 x 2.1 5 x x 2.0 6 x 5.0 7 x 5.8 8 x 6.3 9 2.2 10 x x 3.3 Table 1 — Area of improvement and performance gains of 10 codes The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: sections 2, 3, and 4 discuss the three most common sources of inefficiencies in the codes studied. These are cache performance, redundant operations, and loop structures. Each section includes several examples. The last section summaries the work and suggests a possible solution to the issues raised. Optimizing cache performance Commodity microprocessor systems use caches to increase memory bandwidth and reduce memory latencies. Typical latencies from processor to L1, L2, local, and remote memory are 3, 10, 50, and 200 cycles, respectively. Moreover, bandwidth falls off dramatically as memory distances increase. Programs that do not use cache effectively run many times slower than programs that do. When optimizing for cache, the biggest performance gains are achieved by accessing data in cache order and reusing data to amortize the overhead of cache misses. Secondary considerations are prefetching, associativity, and replacement; however, the understanding and analysis required to optimize for the latter are probably beyond the capabilities of the non-expert. Much can be gained simply by accessing data in the correct order and maximizing data reuse. 6 out of the 10 codes studied here benefited from such high level optimizations. Array Accesses The most important cache optimization is the most basic: accessing Fortran array elements in column order and C array elements in row order. Four of the ten codes—1, 2, 4, and 10—got it wrong. Compilers will restructure nested loops to optimize cache performance, but may not do so if the loop structure is too complex, or the loop body includes conditionals, complex addressing, or function calls. In code 1, the compiler failed to invert a key loop because of complex addressing do I = 0, 1010, delta_x IM = I - delta_x IP = I + delta_x do J = 5, 995, delta_x JM = J - delta_x JP = J + delta_x T1 = CA1(IP, J) + CA1(I, JP) T2 = CA1(IM, J) + CA1(I, JM) S1 = T1 + T2 - 4 * CA1(I, J) CA(I, J) = CA1(I, J) + D * S1 end do end do In code 2, the culprit is conditionals do I = 1, N do J = 1, N If (IFLAG(I,J) .EQ. 0) then T1 = Value(I, J-1) T2 = Value(I-1, J) T3 = Value(I, J) T4 = Value(I+1, J) T5 = Value(I, J+1) Value(I,J) = 0.25 * (T1 + T2 + T5 + T4) Delta = ABS(T3 - Value(I,J)) If (Delta .GT. MaxDelta) MaxDelta = Delta endif enddo enddo I fixed both programs by inverting the loops by hand. Code 10 has three-dimensional arrays and triply nested loops. The structure of the most computationally intensive loops is too complex to invert automatically or by hand. The only practical solution is to transpose the arrays so that the dimension accessed by the innermost loop is in cache order. The arrays can be transposed at construction or prior to entering a computationally intensive section of code. The former requires all array references to be modified, while the latter is cost effective only if the cost of the transpose is amortized over many accesses. I used the second approach to optimize code 10. Code 5 has four-dimensional arrays and loops are nested four deep. For all of the reasons cited above the compiler is not able to restructure three key loops. Assume C arrays and let the four dimensions of the arrays be i, j, k, and l. In the original code, the index structure of the three loops is L1: for i L2: for i L3: for i for l for l for j for k for j for k for j for k for l So only L3 accesses array elements in cache order. L1 is a very complex loop—much too complex to invert. I brought the loop into cache alignment by transposing the second and fourth dimensions of the arrays. Since the code uses a macro to compute all array indexes, I effected the transpose at construction and changed the macro appropriately. The dimensions of the new arrays are now: i, l, k, and j. L3 is a simple loop and easily inverted. L2 has a loop-carried scalar dependence in k. By promoting the scalar name that carries the dependence to an array, I was able to invert the third and fourth subloops aligning the loop with cache. Code 5 is by far the most difficult of the four codes to optimize for array accesses; but the knowledge required to fix the problems is no more than that required for the other codes. I would judge this code at the limits of, but not beyond, the capabilities of appropriately trained computational scientists. Array Strides When a cache miss occurs, a line (64 bytes) rather than just one word is loaded into the cache. If data is accessed stride 1, than the cost of the miss is amortized over 8 words. Any stride other than one reduces the cost savings. Two of the ten codes studied suffered from non-unit strides. The codes represent two important classes of "strided" codes. Code 1 employs a multi-grid algorithm to reduce time to convergence. The grids are every tenth, fifth, second, and unit element. Since time to convergence is inversely proportional to the distance between elements, coarse grids converge quickly providing good starting values for finer grids. The better starting values further reduce the time to convergence. The downside is that grids of every nth element, n > 1, introduce non-unit strides into the computation. In the original code, much of the savings of the multi-grid algorithm were lost due to this problem. I eliminated the problem by compressing (copying) coarse grids into continuous memory, and rewriting the computation as a function of the compressed grid. On convergence, I copied the final values of the compressed grid back to the original grid. The savings gained from unit stride access of the compressed grid more than paid for the cost of copying. Using compressed grids, the loop from code 1 included in the previous section becomes do j = 1, GZ do i = 1, GZ T1 = CA(i+0, j-1) + CA(i-1, j+0) T4 = CA1(i+1, j+0) + CA1(i+0, j+1) S1 = T1 + T4 - 4 * CA1(i+0, j+0) CA(i+0, j+0) = CA1(i+0, j+0) + DD * S1 enddo enddo where CA and CA1 are compressed arrays of size GZ. Code 7 traverses a list of objects selecting objects for later processing. The labels of the selected objects are stored in an array. The selection step has unit stride, but the processing steps have irregular stride. A fix is to save the parameters of the selected objects in temporary arrays as they are selected, and pass the temporary arrays to the processing functions. The fix is practical if the same parameters are used in selection as in processing, or if processing comprises a series of distinct steps which use overlapping subsets of the parameters. Both conditions are true for code 7, so I achieved significant improvement by copying parameters to temporary arrays during selection. Data reuse In the previous sections, we optimized for spatial locality. It is also important to optimize for temporal locality. Once read, a datum should be used as much as possible before it is forced from cache. Loop fusion and loop unrolling are two techniques that increase temporal locality. Unfortunately, both techniques increase register pressure—as loop bodies become larger, the number of registers required to hold temporary values grows. Once register spilling occurs, any gains evaporate quickly. For multiprocessors with small register sets or small caches, the sweet spot can be very small. In the ten codes presented here, I found no opportunities for loop fusion and only two opportunities for loop unrolling (codes 1 and 3). In code 1, unrolling the outer and inner loop one iteration increases the number of result values computed by the loop body from 1 to 4, do J = 1, GZ-2, 2 do I = 1, GZ-2, 2 T1 = CA1(i+0, j-1) + CA1(i-1, j+0) T2 = CA1(i+1, j-1) + CA1(i+0, j+0) T3 = CA1(i+0, j+0) + CA1(i-1, j+1) T4 = CA1(i+1, j+0) + CA1(i+0, j+1) T5 = CA1(i+2, j+0) + CA1(i+1, j+1) T6 = CA1(i+1, j+1) + CA1(i+0, j+2) T7 = CA1(i+2, j+1) + CA1(i+1, j+2) S1 = T1 + T4 - 4 * CA1(i+0, j+0) S2 = T2 + T5 - 4 * CA1(i+1, j+0) S3 = T3 + T6 - 4 * CA1(i+0, j+1) S4 = T4 + T7 - 4 * CA1(i+1, j+1) CA(i+0, j+0) = CA1(i+0, j+0) + DD * S1 CA(i+1, j+0) = CA1(i+1, j+0) + DD * S2 CA(i+0, j+1) = CA1(i+0, j+1) + DD * S3 CA(i+1, j+1) = CA1(i+1, j+1) + DD * S4 enddo enddo The loop body executes 12 reads, whereas as the rolled loop shown in the previous section executes 20 reads to compute the same four values. In code 3, two loops are unrolled 8 times and one loop is unrolled 4 times. Here is the before for (k = 0; k < NK[u]; k++) { sum = 0.0; for (y = 0; y < NY; y++) { sum += W[y][u][k] * delta[y]; } backprop[i++]=sum; } and after code for (k = 0; k < KK - 8; k+=8) { sum0 = 0.0; sum1 = 0.0; sum2 = 0.0; sum3 = 0.0; sum4 = 0.0; sum5 = 0.0; sum6 = 0.0; sum7 = 0.0; for (y = 0; y < NY; y++) { sum0 += W[y][0][k+0] * delta[y]; sum1 += W[y][0][k+1] * delta[y]; sum2 += W[y][0][k+2] * delta[y]; sum3 += W[y][0][k+3] * delta[y]; sum4 += W[y][0][k+4] * delta[y]; sum5 += W[y][0][k+5] * delta[y]; sum6 += W[y][0][k+6] * delta[y]; sum7 += W[y][0][k+7] * delta[y]; } backprop[k+0] = sum0; backprop[k+1] = sum1; backprop[k+2] = sum2; backprop[k+3] = sum3; backprop[k+4] = sum4; backprop[k+5] = sum5; backprop[k+6] = sum6; backprop[k+7] = sum7; } for one of the loops unrolled 8 times. Optimizing for temporal locality is the most difficult optimization considered in this paper. The concepts are not difficult, but the sweet spot is small. Identifying where the program can benefit from loop unrolling or loop fusion is not trivial. Moreover, it takes some effort to get it right. Still, educating scientific programmers about temporal locality and teaching them how to optimize for it will pay dividends. Reducing instruction count Execution time is a function of instruction count. Reduce the count and you usually reduce the time. The best solution is to use a more efficient algorithm; that is, an algorithm whose order of complexity is smaller, that converges quicker, or is more accurate. Optimizing source code without changing the algorithm yields smaller, but still significant, gains. This paper considers only the latter because the intent is to study how much better codes can run if written by programmers schooled in basic code optimization techniques. The ten codes studied benefited from three types of "instruction reducing" optimizations. The two most prevalent were hoisting invariant memory and data operations out of inner loops. The third was eliminating unnecessary data copying. The nature of these inefficiencies is language dependent. Memory operations The semantics of C make it difficult for the compiler to determine all the invariant memory operations in a loop. The problem is particularly acute for loops in functions since the compiler may not know the values of the function's parameters at every call site when compiling the function. Most compilers support pragmas to help resolve ambiguities; however, these pragmas are not comprehensive and there is no standard syntax. To guarantee that invariant memory operations are not executed repetitively, the user has little choice but to hoist the operations by hand. The problem is not as severe in Fortran programs because in the absence of equivalence statements, it is a violation of the language's semantics for two names to share memory. Codes 3 and 5 are C programs. In both cases, the compiler did not hoist all invariant memory operations from inner loops. Consider the following loop from code 3 for (y = 0; y < NY; y++) { i = 0; for (u = 0; u < NU; u++) { for (k = 0; k < NK[u]; k++) { dW[y][u][k] += delta[y] * I1[i++]; } } } Since dW[y][u] can point to the same memory space as delta for one or more values of y and u, assignment to dW[y][u][k] may change the value of delta[y]. In reality, dW and delta do not overlap in memory, so I rewrote the loop as for (y = 0; y < NY; y++) { i = 0; Dy = delta[y]; for (u = 0; u < NU; u++) { for (k = 0; k < NK[u]; k++) { dW[y][u][k] += Dy * I1[i++]; } } } Failure to hoist invariant memory operations may be due to complex address calculations. If the compiler can not determine that the address calculation is invariant, then it can hoist neither the calculation nor the associated memory operations. As noted above, code 5 uses a macro to address four-dimensional arrays #define MAT4D(a,q,i,j,k) (double *)((a)->data + (q)*(a)->strides[0] + (i)*(a)->strides[3] + (j)*(a)->strides[2] + (k)*(a)->strides[1]) The macro is too complex for the compiler to understand and so, it does not identify any subexpressions as loop invariant. The simplest way to eliminate the address calculation from the innermost loop (over i) is to define a0 = MAT4D(a,q,0,j,k) before the loop and then replace all instances of *MAT4D(a,q,i,j,k) in the loop with a0[i] A similar problem appears in code 6, a Fortran program. The key loop in this program is do n1 = 1, nh nx1 = (n1 - 1) / nz + 1 nz1 = n1 - nz * (nx1 - 1) do n2 = 1, nh nx2 = (n2 - 1) / nz + 1 nz2 = n2 - nz * (nx2 - 1) ndx = nx2 - nx1 ndy = nz2 - nz1 gxx = grn(1,ndx,ndy) gyy = grn(2,ndx,ndy) gxy = grn(3,ndx,ndy) balance(n1,1) = balance(n1,1) + (force(n2,1) * gxx + force(n2,2) * gxy) * h1 balance(n1,2) = balance(n1,2) + (force(n2,1) * gxy + force(n2,2) * gyy)*h1 end do end do The programmer has written this loop well—there are no loop invariant operations with respect to n1 and n2. However, the loop resides within an iterative loop over time and the index calculations are independent with respect to time. Trading space for time, I precomputed the index values prior to the entering the time loop and stored the values in two arrays. I then replaced the index calculations with reads of the arrays. Data operations Ways to reduce data operations can appear in many forms. Implementing a more efficient algorithm produces the biggest gains. The closest I came to an algorithm change was in code 4. This code computes the inner product of K-vectors A(i) and B(j), 0 = i < N, 0 = j < M, for most values of i and j. Since the program computes most of the NM possible inner products, it is more efficient to compute all the inner products in one triply-nested loop rather than one at a time when needed. The savings accrue from reading A(i) once for all B(j) vectors and from loop unrolling. for (i = 0; i < N; i+=8) { for (j = 0; j < M; j++) { sum0 = 0.0; sum1 = 0.0; sum2 = 0.0; sum3 = 0.0; sum4 = 0.0; sum5 = 0.0; sum6 = 0.0; sum7 = 0.0; for (k = 0; k < K; k++) { sum0 += A[i+0][k] * B[j][k]; sum1 += A[i+1][k] * B[j][k]; sum2 += A[i+2][k] * B[j][k]; sum3 += A[i+3][k] * B[j][k]; sum4 += A[i+4][k] * B[j][k]; sum5 += A[i+5][k] * B[j][k]; sum6 += A[i+6][k] * B[j][k]; sum7 += A[i+7][k] * B[j][k]; } C[i+0][j] = sum0; C[i+1][j] = sum1; C[i+2][j] = sum2; C[i+3][j] = sum3; C[i+4][j] = sum4; C[i+5][j] = sum5; C[i+6][j] = sum6; C[i+7][j] = sum7; }} This change requires knowledge of a typical run; i.e., that most inner products are computed. The reasons for the change, however, derive from basic optimization concepts. It is the type of change easily made at development time by a knowledgeable programmer. In code 5, we have the data version of the index optimization in code 6. Here a very expensive computation is a function of the loop indices and so cannot be hoisted out of the loop; however, the computation is invariant with respect to an outer iterative loop over time. We can compute its value for each iteration of the computation loop prior to entering the time loop and save the values in an array. The increase in memory required to store the values is small in comparison to the large savings in time. The main loop in Code 8 is doubly nested. The inner loop includes a series of guarded computations; some are a function of the inner loop index but not the outer loop index while others are a function of the outer loop index but not the inner loop index for (j = 0; j < N; j++) { for (i = 0; i < M; i++) { r = i * hrmax; R = A[j]; temp = (PRM[3] == 0.0) ? 1.0 : pow(r, PRM[3]); high = temp * kcoeff * B[j] * PRM[2] * PRM[4]; low = high * PRM[6] * PRM[6] / (1.0 + pow(PRM[4] * PRM[6], 2.0)); kap = (R > PRM[6]) ? high * R * R / (1.0 + pow(PRM[4]*r, 2.0) : low * pow(R/PRM[6], PRM[5]); < rest of loop omitted > }} Note that the value of temp is invariant to j. Thus, we can hoist the computation for temp out of the loop and save its values in an array. for (i = 0; i < M; i++) { r = i * hrmax; TEMP[i] = pow(r, PRM[3]); } [N.B. – the case for PRM[3] = 0 is omitted and will be reintroduced later.] We now hoist out of the inner loop the computations invariant to i. Since the conditional guarding the value of kap is invariant to i, it behooves us to hoist the computation out of the inner loop, thereby executing the guard once rather than M times. The final version of the code is for (j = 0; j < N; j++) { R = rig[j] / 1000.; tmp1 = kcoeff * par[2] * beta[j] * par[4]; tmp2 = 1.0 + (par[4] * par[4] * par[6] * par[6]); tmp3 = 1.0 + (par[4] * par[4] * R * R); tmp4 = par[6] * par[6] / tmp2; tmp5 = R * R / tmp3; tmp6 = pow(R / par[6], par[5]); if ((par[3] == 0.0) && (R > par[6])) { for (i = 1; i <= imax1; i++) KAP[i] = tmp1 * tmp5; } else if ((par[3] == 0.0) && (R <= par[6])) { for (i = 1; i <= imax1; i++) KAP[i] = tmp1 * tmp4 * tmp6; } else if ((par[3] != 0.0) && (R > par[6])) { for (i = 1; i <= imax1; i++) KAP[i] = tmp1 * TEMP[i] * tmp5; } else if ((par[3] != 0.0) && (R <= par[6])) { for (i = 1; i <= imax1; i++) KAP[i] = tmp1 * TEMP[i] * tmp4 * tmp6; } for (i = 0; i < M; i++) { kap = KAP[i]; r = i * hrmax; < rest of loop omitted > } } Maybe not the prettiest piece of code, but certainly much more efficient than the original loop, Copy operations Several programs unnecessarily copy data from one data structure to another. This problem occurs in both Fortran and C programs, although it manifests itself differently in the two languages. Code 1 declares two arrays—one for old values and one for new values. At the end of each iteration, the array of new values is copied to the array of old values to reset the data structures for the next iteration. This problem occurs in Fortran programs not included in this study and in both Fortran 77 and Fortran 90 code. Introducing pointers to the arrays and swapping pointer values is an obvious way to eliminate the copying; but pointers is not a feature that many Fortran programmers know well or are comfortable using. An easy solution not involving pointers is to extend the dimension of the value array by 1 and use the last dimension to differentiate between arrays at different times. For example, if the data space is N x N, declare the array (N, N, 2). Then store the problem’s initial values in (_, _, 2) and define the scalar names new = 2 and old = 1. At the start of each iteration, swap old and new to reset the arrays. The old–new copy problem did not appear in any C program. In programs that had new and old values, the code swapped pointers to reset data structures. Where unnecessary coping did occur is in structure assignment and parameter passing. Structures in C are handled much like scalars. Assignment causes the data space of the right-hand name to be copied to the data space of the left-hand name. Similarly, when a structure is passed to a function, the data space of the actual parameter is copied to the data space of the formal parameter. If the structure is large and the assignment or function call is in an inner loop, then copying costs can grow quite large. While none of the ten programs considered here manifested this problem, it did occur in programs not included in the study. A simple fix is always to refer to structures via pointers. Optimizing loop structures Since scientific programs spend almost all their time in loops, efficient loops are the key to good performance. Conditionals, function calls, little instruction level parallelism, and large numbers of temporary values make it difficult for the compiler to generate tightly packed, highly efficient code. Conditionals and function calls introduce jumps that disrupt code flow. Users should eliminate or isolate conditionls to their own loops as much as possible. Often logical expressions can be substituted for if-then-else statements. For example, code 2 includes the following snippet MaxDelta = 0.0 do J = 1, N do I = 1, M < code omitted > Delta = abs(OldValue ? NewValue) if (Delta > MaxDelta) MaxDelta = Delta enddo enddo if (MaxDelta .gt. 0.001) goto 200 Since the only use of MaxDelta is to control the jump to 200 and all that matters is whether or not it is greater than 0.001, I made MaxDelta a boolean and rewrote the snippet as MaxDelta = .false. do J = 1, N do I = 1, M < code omitted > Delta = abs(OldValue ? NewValue) MaxDelta = MaxDelta .or. (Delta .gt. 0.001) enddo enddo if (MaxDelta) goto 200 thereby, eliminating the conditional expression from the inner loop. A microprocessor can execute many instructions per instruction cycle. Typically, it can execute one or more memory, floating point, integer, and jump operations. To be executed simultaneously, the operations must be independent. Thick loops tend to have more instruction level parallelism than thin loops. Moreover, they reduce memory traffice by maximizing data reuse. Loop unrolling and loop fusion are two techniques to increase the size of loop bodies. Several of the codes studied benefitted from loop unrolling, but none benefitted from loop fusion. This observation is not too surpising since it is the general tendency of programmers to write thick loops. As loops become thicker, the number of temporary values grows, increasing register pressure. If registers spill, then memory traffic increases and code flow is disrupted. A thick loop with many temporary values may execute slower than an equivalent series of thin loops. The biggest gain will be achieved if the thick loop can be split into a series of independent loops eliminating the need to write and read temporary arrays. I found such an occasion in code 10 where I split the loop do i = 1, n do j = 1, m A24(j,i)= S24(j,i) * T24(j,i) + S25(j,i) * U25(j,i) B24(j,i)= S24(j,i) * T25(j,i) + S25(j,i) * U24(j,i) A25(j,i)= S24(j,i) * C24(j,i) + S25(j,i) * V24(j,i) B25(j,i)= S24(j,i) * U25(j,i) + S25(j,i) * V25(j,i) C24(j,i)= S26(j,i) * T26(j,i) + S27(j,i) * U26(j,i) D24(j,i)= S26(j,i) * T27(j,i) + S27(j,i) * V26(j,i) C25(j,i)= S27(j,i) * S28(j,i) + S26(j,i) * U28(j,i) D25(j,i)= S27(j,i) * T28(j,i) + S26(j,i) * V28(j,i) end do end do into two disjoint loops do i = 1, n do j = 1, m A24(j,i)= S24(j,i) * T24(j,i) + S25(j,i) * U25(j,i) B24(j,i)= S24(j,i) * T25(j,i) + S25(j,i) * U24(j,i) A25(j,i)= S24(j,i) * C24(j,i) + S25(j,i) * V24(j,i) B25(j,i)= S24(j,i) * U25(j,i) + S25(j,i) * V25(j,i) end do end do do i = 1, n do j = 1, m C24(j,i)= S26(j,i) * T26(j,i) + S27(j,i) * U26(j,i) D24(j,i)= S26(j,i) * T27(j,i) + S27(j,i) * V26(j,i) C25(j,i)= S27(j,i) * S28(j,i) + S26(j,i) * U28(j,i) D25(j,i)= S27(j,i) * T28(j,i) + S26(j,i) * V28(j,i) end do end do Conclusions Over the course of the last year, I have had the opportunity to work with over two dozen academic scientific programmers at leading research universities. Their research interests span a broad range of scientific fields. Except for two programs that relied almost exclusively on library routines (matrix multiply and fast Fourier transform), I was able to improve significantly the single processor performance of all codes. Improvements range from 2x to 15.5x with a simple average of 4.75x. Changes to the source code were at a very high level. I did not use sophisticated techniques or programming tools to discover inefficiencies or effect the changes. Only one code was parallel despite the availability of parallel systems to all developers. Clearly, we have a problem—personal scientific research codes are highly inefficient and not running parallel. The developers are unaware of simple optimization techniques to make programs run faster. They lack education in the art of code optimization and parallel programming. I do not believe we can fix the problem by publishing additional books or training manuals. To date, the developers in questions have not studied the books or manual available, and are unlikely to do so in the future. Short courses are a possible solution, but I believe they are too concentrated to be much use. The general concepts can be taught in a three or four day course, but that is not enough time for students to practice what they learn and acquire the experience to apply and extend the concepts to their codes. Practice is the key to becoming proficient at optimization. I recommend that graduate students be required to take a semester length course in optimization and parallel programming. We would never give someone access to state-of-the-art scientific equipment costing hundreds of thousands of dollars without first requiring them to demonstrate that they know how to use the equipment. Yet the criterion for time on state-of-the-art supercomputers is at most an interesting project. Requestors are never asked to demonstrate that they know how to use the system, or can use the system effectively. A semester course would teach them the required skills. Government agencies that fund academic scientific research pay for most of the computer systems supporting scientific research as well as the development of most personal scientific codes. These agencies should require graduate schools to offer a course in optimization and parallel programming as a requirement for funding. About the Author John Feo received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin in 1986. After graduate school, Dr. Feo worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where he was the Group Leader of the Computer Research Group and principal investigator of the Sisal Language Project. In 1997, Dr. Feo joined Tera Computer Company where he was project manager for the MTA, and oversaw the programming and evaluation of the MTA at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. In 2000, Dr. Feo joined Sun Microsystems as an HPC application specialist. He works with university research groups to optimize and parallelize scientific codes. Dr. Feo has published over two dozen research articles in the areas of parallel parallel programming, parallel programming languages, and application performance.

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• OpenWorld: Spotlight on Fusion CRM

  - by Tony Berk

  Oracle OpenWorld is less than 2 weeks away, so you need to start figuring out how you are going to maximize your week. I don't want to discourage you, but I'm pretty sure it is impossible to attend all 2000+ sessions. So you need to focus on what's important to you. Many of our CRM customers will be interested in Fusion CRM, since they have already started Fusion implementations or determining when to start. If that's you, or you are just looking for an overview of Fusion CRM, we've got you covered! Let's start at the top! For an overview of what is in Fusion CRM and where it is going, you should attend the general session and roadmap session: General Session: Oracle Fusion CRM—Improving Sales Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Ease of Use (Session ID: GEN9674) - Oct 2, 11:45 AM. Anthony Lye, Senior VP, Oracle leads this general session focused on Oracle Fusion CRM. Oracle Fusion CRM optimizes territories, combines quota management and incentive compensation, integrates sales and marketing, and cleanses and enriches data—all within a single application platform. Oracle Fusion can be configured, changed, and extended at runtime by end users, business managers, IT, and developers. Oracle Fusion CRM can be used from the Web, from a smartphone, from Microsoft Outlook, or from an iPad. Deloitte, sponsor of the CRM Track, will also present key concepts on CRM implementations. Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management: Overview/Strategy/Customer Experiences/Roadmap (CON9407) - Oct 1, 3:15PM. In this session, learn how Oracle Fusion CRM enables companies to create better sales plans, generate more quality leads, and achieve higher win rates and find out why customers are adopting Oracle Fusion CRM. Gain a deeper understanding of the unique capabilities only Oracle Fusion CRM provides, and learn how Oracle’s commitment to CRM innovation is driving a wide range of future enhancements. There is also a General Session for all Fusion Applications providing insight into the current strategy of the full product line and a high-level roadmap for each product area: Oracle Fusion Applications—Overview, Strategy, and Roadmap (GEN9433) - Oct 1, 10:45AM. This session will be repeated on Oct 3, 10:15AM. Now, if you want to drill down into some more detail, there are a lot more sessions with Oracle product management and customers. I'll highlight a few, but suggest you review the Fusion CRM Focus On document, or the search in the Content Catalog or Session Builder.  Driving Sales Performance with Oracle Fusion CRM (CON9744) - Oct 3, 10:15AM. Demonstrates how sales executives can gain instant visibility into their business, deliver pervasive coaching to their reps, maximize their sales pipeline, and drive team alignment. The result is increased sales performance that enables sales executives to deliver more revenue without increasing their resources or expenses. Maximize Your Revenue Potential with Oracle Fusion CRM Sales Planning (CON9751) - Oct 2, 1:15PM. Learn how Oracle Fusion CRM helps companies intelligently optimize sales planning and manage sales performance including the ability to predict their future sales opportunities and use those predictions in conjunction with past sales data to optimally define their sales territories, sales quotas, and incentive compensation plans. Boost Marketing’s Contribution to Revenue with Oracle Fusion CRM Marketing (CON9746) - Oct 3, 11:45AM. Learn how Oracle Fusion CRM can help your organization integrate sales and marketing, using one CRM platform. See how Oracle Fusion CRM can help your organization learn where to invest its precious marketing dollars; drive more revenue with cross-channel marketing and prospecting capabilities, including and not limited to e-mail, Web, and social media; improve lead conversion with integrated lead management functionality; and do more with less by automating many manual tasks. Oracle Fusion CRM: Social Marketing (CON11559) - Oct 1, 3:15PM. Learn how Oracle’s acquisition of Collective Intellect, Vitrue, and Involver extends Oracle Fusion Marketing as a world-class social marketing solution. Oracle Fusion Social CRM Strategy and Roadmap: Future of Collaboration and Social Engagement (CON9750) - Oct 4, 11:15AM. Hear how Oracle can help you know your customers better, encourage brand affinity, and improve collaboration within your ecosystem. This session reviews Oracle's social media solution and shows how you can discover hidden insights buried in your enterprise and social data. Also learn how Oracle Social Network revolutionizes how enterprise users work, collaborate, and share to achieve successful outcomes. Of course, we recommend you hear from the current Fusion CRM customers too. So, don't miss Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management: Customer Adoption and Experiences (CON9415) on Oct 3 at 10:15AM for panel of customers discussing implementation experiences, best practices and benefits.  After listening to all of this great information, you are probably going to have questions. Well, the experts will be on hand to help answer your questions and plan how your organization can get going with Fusion CRM. Be sure to head down to the DEMOgrounds and CRM Pavilion in the Moscone West Exhibit Hall. And finally, there is the always popular Meet the Experts session focused on Fusion CRM (MTE9658) on Oct 2 at 5PM (pre-registration via Schedule Builder is recommended.) In addition, there are more sessions on Mobility, Extensibility, Incentive Compensation, Fusion Customer Hub and other key components of the Fusion Applications infrastructure, Oracle Cloud and much, much more! For a full list, utilize the Fusion CRM Focus On document and Content Catalog. Enjoy!

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• Failure Sucks, But Does It Have To?

  - by steve.diamond

  Hey Folks--It's "elephant in the room" time. Imagine a representative from a CRM VENDOR discussing CRM FAILURES. Well. I recently saw this blog post from Michael Krigsman on "six ways CRM projects go wrong." Now, I know this may come off defensive, but my comments apply to ALL CRM vendors, not just Oracle. As I perused the list, I couldn't find any failures related to technology. They all seemed related to people or process. Now, this isn't about finger pointing, or impugning customers. I love customers! And when they fail, WE fail. Although I sit in the cheap seats, i.e., I haven't funded any multi-million dollar CRM initiatives lately, I kept wondering how to convert the perception of failure as something that ends and is never to be mentioned again (see Michael's reason #4), to something that one learns from and builds upon. So to continue my tradition of speaking in platitudes, let me propose the following three tenets: 1) Try and get ahead of your failures while they're very very small. 2) Immediately assess what you can learn from those failures. 3) With more than 15 years of CRM deployments, seek out those vendors that have a track record both in learning from "misses" and in supporting MANY THOUSANDS of CRM successes at companies of all types and sizes. Now let me digress briefly with an unpleasant (for me, anyway) analogy. I really don't like flying. Call it 'fear of dying' or 'fear of no control.' Whatever! I've spoken with quite a few commercial pilots over the years, and they reassure me that there are multiple failures on most every flight. We as passengers just don't know about them. Most of them are too miniscule to make a difference, and most of them are "caught" before they become LARGER failures. It's typically the mid-sized to colossal failures we hear about, and a significant percentage of those are due to human error. What's the point? I'd propose that organizations consider the topic of FAILURE in five grades. On one end, FAILURE Grade 1 is a minor/miniscule failure. On the other end, FAILURE Grade 5 is a colossal failure A Grade 1 CRM FAILURE could be that a particular interim milestone was missed. Why? What can we learn from that? How can we prevent that from happening as we proceed through the project? Individual organizations will need to define their own Grade 2 and Grade 3 failures. The opportunity is to keep those Grade 3 failures from escalating any further. Because honestly, a GRADE 5 failure may not be recoverable. It could result in a project being pulled, countless amounts of hours and dollars lost, and jobs lost. We don't want to go there. In closing, I want to thank Michael for opening my eyes up to the world of "color," versus thinking of failure as both "black and white" and a dead end road that organizations can't learn from and avoid discussing like the plague.

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• DirectX works for 64-bit but not 32-bit

  - by dtbarne

  I'm trying to play a game (Civilization 5) which was previously working but no longer. I believe I've narrowed it down to a DirectX issue because I get an error running dxdiag.exe in 32 bit mode. My goal (at least I believe) is to get Direct3D Acceleration "Enabled" in dxdiag (as it is in 64 bit dxdiag). A very similar issue is here: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-gaming/direct3d-acceleration-is-not-available-in-windows/4c345e6e-dc68-e011-8dfc-68b599b31bf5?page=1 The proposed answer, which looks very promising, doesn't seem to work for me. Like other users in that thread, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Direct3D\Drivers does not have a SoftwareOnly key to change. I even tried manually adding it as a string and dword, to no avail. I have a NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M, and before you ask, yes I've tried updating (also uninstalling, reinstalling) my drivers. I've also tried doing the same with DirectX (and Civilization 5 for that matter). Been debugging for some 4+ hours now after a full day of work and I've run out of ideas. I'm hoping somebody knows the solution here! :) Here's what I see when I open dxdiag: DxDiag has detected that there mgiht have been a problem accessing Direct3D the last time this program was used. Would you like to bypass Direct3D this time? No - Crash Yes - Works, but in Display tab: DirectDraw Acceleration: Disabled Direct3D Acceleration: Not Available AGP Texture Acceleration: Not Available If I click "Run 64-bit DxDiag", all three are "Enabled". I should also note that I've tried the following steps as Microsoft suggests, but I'm not able to do so as the "Change Settings" button is disabled. Some programs run very slowly—or not at all—unless Microsoft DirectDraw or Direct3D hardware acceleration is turned on. To determine this, click the Display tab, and then under DirectX Features, check to see whether DirectDraw, Direct3D, and AGP Texture Acceleration appear as Enabled. If not, try turning on hardware acceleration. Click to open Screen Resolution. Click Advanced settings. Click the Troubleshoot tab, and then click Change settings. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. Move the Hardware Acceleration slider to Full. Full dxdiag dump: ------------------ System Information ------------------ Time of this report: 11/8/2012, 23:13:24 Machine name: DTBARNE Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.120830-0333) Language: English (Regional Setting: English) System Manufacturer: Dell Inc. System Model: Dell System XPS L502X BIOS: Default System BIOS Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2450M CPU @ 2.50GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.5GHz Memory: 8192MB RAM Available OS Memory: 8086MB RAM Page File: 2466MB used, 13704MB available Windows Dir: C:\Windows DirectX Version: DirectX 11 DX Setup Parameters: Not found User DPI Setting: Using System DPI System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent) DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled DxDiag Version: 6.01.7601.17514 32bit Unicode DxDiag Previously: Crashed in Direct3D (stage 2). Re-running DxDiag with "dontskip" command line parameter or choosing not to bypass information gathering when prompted might result in DxDiag successfully obtaining this information ------------ DxDiag Notes ------------ Display Tab 1: No problems found. Sound Tab 1: No problems found. Sound Tab 2: No problems found. Input Tab: No problems found. -------------------- DirectX Debug Levels -------------------- Direct3D: 0/4 (retail) DirectDraw: 0/4 (retail) DirectInput: 0/5 (retail) DirectMusic: 0/5 (retail) DirectPlay: 0/9 (retail) DirectSound: 0/5 (retail) DirectShow: 0/6 (retail) --------------- Display Devices --------------- Card name: Intel(R) HD Graphics 3000 Manufacturer: Chip type: DAC type: Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_0126&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_09 Display Memory: Dedicated Memory: n/a Shared Memory: n/a Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz) Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor Monitor Model: Monitor Id: Native Mode: Output Type: Driver Name: Driver File Version: () Driver Version: DDI Version: Driver Model: WDDM 1.1 Driver Attributes: Final Retail Driver Date/Size: , 0 bytes WHQL Logo'd: n/a WHQL Date Stamp: n/a Device Identifier: Vendor ID: Device ID: SubSys ID: Revision ID: Driver Strong Name: oem11.inf:IntelGfx.NTamd64.6.0:iSNBM0:8.15.10.2696:pci\ven_8086&dev_0126&subsys_04b61028 Rank Of Driver: 00E60001 Video Accel: Deinterlace Caps: n/a D3D9 Overlay: DXVA-HD: DDraw Status: Disabled D3D Status: Not Available AGP Status: Not Available ------------- Sound Devices ------------- Description: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device) Default Sound Playback: Yes Default Voice Playback: Yes Hardware ID: HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0665&SUBSYS_102804B6&REV_1000 Manufacturer ID: 1 Product ID: 65535 Type: WDM Driver Name: HdAudio.sys Driver Version: 6.01.7601.17514 (English) Driver Attributes: Final Retail WHQL Logo'd: Yes Date and Size: 11/20/2010 22:23:47, 350208 bytes Other Files: Driver Provider: Microsoft HW Accel Level: Basic Cap Flags: 0xF1F Min/Max Sample Rate: 100, 200000 Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 1, 0 Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 0, 0 HW Memory: 0 Voice Management: No EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: No, No I3DL2(tm) Listen/Src: No, No Sensaura(tm) ZoomFX(tm): No Description: Digital Audio (S/PDIF) (High Definition Audio Device) Default Sound Playback: No Default Voice Playback: No Hardware ID: HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0665&SUBSYS_102804B6&REV_1000 Manufacturer ID: 1 Product ID: 65535 Type: WDM Driver Name: HdAudio.sys Driver Version: 6.01.7601.17514 (English) Driver Attributes: Final Retail WHQL Logo'd: Yes Date and Size: 11/20/2010 22:23:47, 350208 bytes Other Files: Driver Provider: Microsoft HW Accel Level: Basic Cap Flags: 0xF1F Min/Max Sample Rate: 100, 200000 Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 1, 0 Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 0, 0 HW Memory: 0 Voice Management: No EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: No, No I3DL2(tm) Listen/Src: No, No Sensaura(tm) ZoomFX(tm): No --------------------- Sound Capture Devices --------------------- Description: Microphone (High Definition Audio Device) Default Sound Capture: Yes Default Voice Capture: Yes Driver Name: HdAudio.sys Driver Version: 6.01.7601.17514 (English) Driver Attributes: Final Retail Date and Size: 11/20/2010 22:23:47, 350208 bytes Cap Flags: 0x1 Format Flags: 0xFFFFF ------------------- DirectInput Devices ------------------- Device Name: Mouse Attached: 1 Controller ID: n/a Vendor/Product ID: n/a FF Driver: n/a Device Name: Keyboard Attached: 1 Controller ID: n/a Vendor/Product ID: n/a FF Driver: n/a Poll w/ Interrupt: No ----------- USB Devices ----------- + USB Root Hub | Vendor/Product ID: 0x8086, 0x1C26 | Matching Device ID: usb\root_hub20 | Service: usbhub | +-+ Generic USB Hub | | Vendor/Product ID: 0x8087, 0x0024 | | Location: Port_#0001.Hub_#0002 | | Matching Device ID: usb\class_09 | | Service: usbhub ---------------- Gameport Devices ---------------- ------------ PS/2 Devices ------------ + Standard PS/2 Keyboard | Matching Device ID: *pnp0303 | Service: i8042prt | + Terminal Server Keyboard Driver | Matching Device ID: root\rdp_kbd | Upper Filters: kbdclass | Service: TermDD | + Synaptics PS/2 Port TouchPad | Matching Device ID: *dll04b6 | Upper Filters: SynTP | Service: i8042prt | + Terminal Server Mouse Driver | Matching Device ID: root\rdp_mou | Upper Filters: mouclass | Service: TermDD ------------------------ Disk & DVD/CD-ROM Drives ------------------------ Drive: C: Free Space: 26.2 GB Total Space: 122.0 GB File System: NTFS Model: M4-CT128M4SSD2 ATA Device Drive: D: Model: Optiarc DVDRWBD BC-5540H ATA Device Driver: c:\windows\system32\drivers\cdrom.sys, 6.01.7601.17514 (English), , 0 bytes -------------- System Devices -------------- Name: High Definition Audio Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C20&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_05\3&11583659&0&D8 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard host CPU bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_0104&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_09\3&11583659&0&00 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C1A&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_B5\3&11583659&0&E5 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_0101&SUBSYS_20108086&REV_09\3&11583659&0&08 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C18&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_B5\3&11583659&0&E4 Driver: n/a Name: Intel(R) Centrino(R) Advanced-N 6230 Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_0091&SUBSYS_52218086&REV_34\4&2634DE8D&0&00E1 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard ISA bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C4B&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_05\3&11583659&0&F8 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C16&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_B5\3&11583659&0&E3 Driver: n/a Name: Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10EC&DEV_8168&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_06\4&109EAB2F&0&00E5 Driver: n/a Name: Intel(R) Management Engine Interface Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C3A&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_04\3&11583659&0&B0 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C12&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_B5\3&11583659&0&E1 Driver: n/a Name: NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0DF5&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_A1\4&4DCA75F&0&0008 Driver: n/a Name: Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C2D&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_05\3&11583659&0&D0 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C10&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_B5\3&11583659&0&E0 Driver: n/a Name: Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C26&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_05\3&11583659&0&E8 Driver: n/a Name: Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C03&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_05\3&11583659&0&FA Driver: n/a Name: SM Bus Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C22&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_05\3&11583659&0&FB Driver: n/a Name: Intel(R) HD Graphics 3000 Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_0126&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_09\3&11583659&0&10 Driver: n/a Name: Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_1033&DEV_0194&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_04\4&3494AC3A&0&00E3 Driver: n/a ------------------ DirectShow Filters ------------------ DirectShow Filters: WMAudio Decoder DMO,0x00800800,1,1,WMADMOD.DLL,6.01.7601.17514 WMAPro over S/PDIF DMO,0x00600800,1,1,WMADMOD.DLL,6.01.7601.17514 WMSpeech Decoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,WMSPDMOD.DLL,6.01.7601.17514 MP3 Decoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,mp3dmod.dll,6.01.7600.16385 Mpeg4s Decoder DMO,0x00800001,1,1,mp4sdecd.dll,6.01.7600.16385 WMV Screen decoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,wmvsdecd.dll,6.01.7601.17514 WMVideo Decoder DMO,0x00800001,1,1,wmvdecod.dll,6.01.7601.17514 Mpeg43 Decoder DMO,0x00800001,1,1,mp43decd.dll,6.01.7600.16385 Mpeg4 Decoder DMO,0x00800001,1,1,mpg4decd.dll,6.01.7600.16385 DV Muxer,0x00400000,0,0,qdv.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Color Space Converter,0x00400001,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 WM ASF Reader,0x00400000,0,0,qasf.dll,12.00.7601.17514 Screen Capture filter,0x00200000,0,1,wmpsrcwp.dll,12.00.7601.17514 AVI Splitter,0x00600000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 VGA 16 Color Ditherer,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 SBE2MediaTypeProfile,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,6.06.7601.17528 Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder,0x005fffff,2,4,msmpeg2vdec.dll,6.01.7140.0000 AC3 Parser Filter,0x00600000,1,1,mpg2splt.ax,6.06.7601.17528 StreamBufferSink,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,6.06.7601.17528 MJPEG Decompressor,0x00600000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 MPEG-I Stream Splitter,0x00600000,1,2,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 SAMI (CC) Parser,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 VBI Codec,0x00600000,1,4,VBICodec.ax,6.06.7601.17514 MPEG-2 Splitter,0x005fffff,1,0,mpg2splt.ax,6.06.7601.17528 Closed Captions Analysis Filter,0x00200000,2,5,cca.dll,6.06.7601.17514 SBE2FileScan,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,6.06.7601.17528 Microsoft MPEG-2 Video Encoder,0x00200000,1,1,msmpeg2enc.dll,6.01.7601.17514 Internal Script Command Renderer,0x00800001,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 MPEG Audio Decoder,0x03680001,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 DV Splitter,0x00600000,1,2,qdv.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Video Mixing Renderer 9,0x00200000,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Microsoft MPEG-2 Encoder,0x00200000,2,1,msmpeg2enc.dll,6.01.7601.17514 ACM Wrapper,0x00600000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Video Renderer,0x00800001,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 MPEG-2 Video Stream Analyzer,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,6.06.7601.17528 Line 21 Decoder,0x00600000,1,1,qdvd.dll,6.06.7601.17835 Video Port Manager,0x00600000,2,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Video Renderer,0x00400000,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 VPS Decoder,0x00200000,0,0,WSTPager.ax,6.06.7601.17514 WM ASF Writer,0x00400000,0,0,qasf.dll,12.00.7601.17514 VBI Surface Allocator,0x00600000,1,1,vbisurf.ax,6.01.7601.17514 File writer,0x00200000,1,0,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 iTV Data Sink,0x00600000,1,0,itvdata.dll,6.06.7601.17514 iTV Data Capture filter,0x00600000,1,1,itvdata.dll,6.06.7601.17514 DVD Navigator,0x00200000,0,3,qdvd.dll,6.06.7601.17835 Overlay Mixer2,0x00200000,1,1,qdvd.dll,6.06.7601.17835 AVI Draw,0x00600064,9,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 RDP DShow Redirection Filter,0xffffffff,1,0,DShowRdpFilter.dll, Microsoft MPEG-2 Audio Encoder,0x00200000,1,1,msmpeg2enc.dll,6.01.7601.17514 WST Pager,0x00200000,1,1,WSTPager.ax,6.06.7601.17514 MPEG-2 Demultiplexer,0x00600000,1,1,mpg2splt.ax,6.06.7601.17528 DV Video Decoder,0x00800000,1,1,qdv.dll,6.06.7601.17514 SampleGrabber,0x00200000,1,1,qedit.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Null Renderer,0x00200000,1,0,qedit.dll,6.06.7601.17514 MPEG-2 Sections and Tables,0x005fffff,1,0,Mpeg2Data.ax,6.06.7601.17514 Microsoft AC3 Encoder,0x00200000,1,1,msac3enc.dll,6.01.7601.17514 StreamBufferSource,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,6.06.7601.17528 Smart Tee,0x00200000,1,2,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Overlay Mixer,0x00200000,0,0,qdvd.dll,6.06.7601.17835 AVI Decompressor,0x00600000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 AVI/WAV File Source,0x00400000,0,2,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Wave Parser,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 MIDI Parser,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Multi-file Parser,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 File stream renderer,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder,0x005fffff,1,1,msmpeg2adec.dll,6.01.7140.0000 StreamBufferSink2,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,6.06.7601.17528 AVI Mux,0x00200000,1,0,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Line 21 Decoder 2,0x00600002,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 File Source (Async.),0x00400000,0,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 File Source (URL),0x00400000,0,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Infinite Pin Tee Filter,0x00200000,1,1,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Enhanced Video Renderer,0x00200000,1,0,evr.dll,6.01.7601.17514 BDA MPEG2 Transport Information Filter,0x00200000,2,0,psisrndr.ax,6.06.7601.17669 MPEG Video Decoder,0x40000001,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 WDM Streaming Tee/Splitter Devices: Tee/Sink-to-Sink Converter,0x00200000,1,1,ksproxy.ax,6.01.7601.17514 Video Compressors: WMVideo8 Encoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,wmvxencd.dll,6.01.7600.16385 WMVideo9 Encoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,wmvencod.dll,6.01.7600.16385 MSScreen 9 encoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,wmvsencd.dll,6.01.7600.16385 DV Video Encoder,0x00200000,0,0,qdv.dll,6.06.7601.17514 MJPEG Compressor,0x00200000,0,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Cinepak Codec by Radius,0x00200000,1,1,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Intel IYUV codec,0x00200000,1,1,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Intel IYUV codec,0x00200000,1,1,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Microsoft RLE,0x00200000,1,1,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Microsoft Video 1,0x00200000,1,1,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Audio Compressors: WM Speech Encoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,WMSPDMOE.DLL,6.01.7600.16385 WMAudio Encoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,WMADMOE.DLL,6.01.7600.16385 IMA ADPCM,0x00200000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 PCM,0x00200000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Microsoft ADPCM,0x00200000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 GSM 6.10,0x00200000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 CCITT A-Law,0x00200000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 CCITT u-Law,0x00200000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 MPEG Layer-3,0x00200000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Audio Capture Sources: Microphone (High Definition Aud,0x00200000,0,0,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 PBDA CP Filters: PBDA DTFilter,0x00600000,1,1,CPFilters.dll,6.06.7601.17528 PBDA ETFilter,0x00200000,0,0,CPFilters.dll,6.06.7601.17528 PBDA PTFilter,0x00200000,0,0,CPFilters.dll,6.06.7601.17528 Midi Renderers: Default MidiOut Device,0x00800000,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth,0x00200000,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 WDM Streaming Capture Devices: HD Audio Microphone 2,0x00200000,1,1,ksproxy.ax,6.01.7601.17514 Integrated Webcam,0x00200000,1,2,ksproxy.ax,6.01.7601.17514 WDM Streaming Rendering Devices: HD Audio Headphone/Speakers,0x00200000,1,1,ksproxy.ax,6.01.7601.17514 HD Audio SPDIF out,0x00200000,1,1,ksproxy.ax,6.01.7601.17514 BDA Network Providers: Microsoft ATSC Network Provider,0x00200000,0,1,MSDvbNP.ax,6.06.7601.17514 Microsoft DVBC Network Provider,0x00200000,0,1,MSDvbNP.ax,6.06.7601.17514 Microsoft DVBS Network Provider,0x00200000,0,1,MSDvbNP.ax,6.06.7601.17514 Microsoft DVBT Network Provider,0x00200000,0,1,MSDvbNP.ax,6.06.7601.17514 Microsoft Network Provider,0x00200000,0,1,MSNP.ax,6.06.7601.17514 Video Capture Sources: Integrated Webcam,0x00200000,1,2,ksproxy.ax,6.01.7601.17514 Multi-Instance Capable VBI Codecs: VBI Codec,0x00600000,1,4,VBICodec.ax,6.06.7601.17514 BDA Transport Information Renderers: BDA MPEG2 Transport Information Filter,0x00600000,2,0,psisrndr.ax,6.06.7601.17669 MPEG-2 Sections and Tables,0x00600000,1,0,Mpeg2Data.ax,6.06.7601.17514 BDA CP/CA Filters: Decrypt/Tag,0x00600000,1,1,EncDec.dll,6.06.7601.17708 Encrypt/Tag,0x00200000,0,0,EncDec.dll,6.06.7601.17708 PTFilter,0x00200000,0,0,EncDec.dll,6.06.7601.17708 XDS Codec,0x00200000,0,0,EncDec.dll,6.06.7601.17708 WDM Streaming Communication Transforms: Tee/Sink-to-Sink Converter,0x00200000,1,1,ksproxy.ax,6.01.7601.17514 Audio Renderers: Speakers (High Definition Audio,0x00200000,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Default DirectSound Device,0x00800000,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Default WaveOut Device,0x00200000,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Digital Audio (S/PDIF) (High De,0x00200000,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 DirectSound: Digital Audio (S/PDIF) (High Definition Audio Device),0x00200000,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 DirectSound: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device),0x00200000,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 --------------- EVR Power Information --------------- Current Setting: {651288E5-A7ED-4076-A96B-6CC62D848FE1} (Balanced) Quality Flags: 2576 Enabled: Force throttling Allow half deinterlace Allow scaling Decode Power Usage: 100 Balanced Flags: 1424 Enabled: Force throttling Allow batching Force half deinterlace Force scaling Decode Power Usage: 50 PowerFlags: 1424 Enabled: Force throttling Allow batching Force half deinterlace Force scaling Decode Power Usage: 0

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• Get to Know a Candidate (16 of 25): Stewart Alexander&ndash;Socialist Party USA

  - by Brian Lanham

  DISCLAIMER: This is not a post about “Romney” or “Obama”. This is not a post for whom I am voting. Information sourced for Wikipedia. Alexander is an American democratic socialist politician and a resident of California. Alexander was the Peace and Freedom Party candidate for Lieutenant Governor in 2006. He received 43,319 votes, 0.5% of the total. In August 2010, Alexander declared his candidacy for the President of the United States with the Socialist Party and Green Party. In January 2011, Alexander also declared his candidacy for the presidential nomination of the Peace and Freedom Party. Stewart Alexis Alexander was born to Stewart Alexander, a brick mason and minister, and Ann E. McClenney, a nurse and housewife.  While in the Air Force Reserve, Alexander worked as a full-time retail clerk at Safeway Stores and then began attending college at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Stewart began working overtime as a stocking clerk with Safeway to support himself through school. During this period he married to Freda Alexander, his first wife. They had one son. He was honorably discharged in October 1976 and married for the second time. He left Safeway in 1978 and for a brief period worked as a licensed general contractor. In 1980, he went to work for Lockheed Aircraft but quit the following year.  Returning to Los Angeles, he became involved in several civic organizations, including most notably the NAACP (he became the Labor and Industry Chairman for the Inglewood South Bay Branch of the NAACP). In 1986 he moved back to Los Angeles and hosted a weekly talk show on KTYM Radio until 1989. The show dealt with social issues affecting Los Angeles such as gangs, drugs, and redevelopment, interviewing government officials from all levels of government and community leaders throughout California. He also worked with Delores Daniels of the NAACP on the radio and in the street. The Socialist Party USA (SPUSA) is a multi-tendency democratic-socialist party in the United States. The party states that it is the rightful continuation and successor to the tradition of the Socialist Party of America, which had lasted from 1901 to 1972. The party is officially committed to left-wing democratic socialism. The Socialist Party USA, along with its predecessors, has received varying degrees of support, when its candidates have competed against those from the Republican and Democratic parties. Some attribute this to the party having to compete with the financial dominance of the two major parties, as well as the limitations of the United States' legislatively and judicially entrenched two-party system. The Party supports third-party candidates, particularly socialists, and opposes the candidates of the two major parties. Opposing both capitalism and "authoritarian Communism", the Party advocates bringing big business under public ownership and democratic workers' self-management. The party opposes unaccountable bureaucratic control of Soviet communism. Alexander has Ballot Access in: CO, FL, NY, OH (write-in access in: IN, TX) Learn more about Stewart Alexander and Socialist Party USA on Wikipedia.

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• career in Mobile sw/Application Development [closed]

  - by pramod

  i m planning to do a course on Wireless & mobile computing.The syllabus are given below.Please check & let me know whether its worth to do.How is the job prospects after that.I m a fresher & from electronic Engg.The modules are- *Wireless and Mobile Computing (WiMC) – Modules* C, C++ Programming and Data Structures 100 Hours C Revision C, C++ programming tools on linux(Vi editor, gdb etc.) OOP concepts Programming constructs Functions Access Specifiers Classes and Objects Overloading Inheritance Polymorphism Templates Data Structures in C++ Arrays, stacks, Queues, Linked Lists( Singly, Doubly, Circular) Trees, Threaded trees, AVL Trees Graphs, Sorting (bubble, Quick, Heap , Merge) System Development Methodology 18 Hours Software life cycle and various life cycle models Project Management Software: A Process Various Phases in s/w Development Risk Analysis and Management Software Quality Assurance Introduction to Coding Standards Software Project Management Testing Strategies and Tactics Project Management and Introduction to Risk Management Java Programming 110 Hours Data Types, Operators and Language Constructs Classes and Objects, Inner Classes and Inheritance Inheritance Interface and Package Exceptions Threads Java.lang Java.util Java.awt Java.io Java.applet Java.swing XML, XSL, DTD Java n/w programming Introduction to servlet Mobile and Wireless Technologies 30 Hours Basics of Wireless Technologies Cellular Communication: Single cell systems, multi-cell systems, frequency reuse, analog cellular systems, digital cellular systems GSM standard: Mobile Station, BTS, BSC, MSC, SMS sever, call processing and protocols CDMA standard: spread spectrum technologies, 2.5G and 3G Systems: HSCSD, GPRS, W-CDMA/UMTS,3GPP and international roaming, Multimedia services CDMA based cellular mobile communication systems Wireless Personal Area Networks: Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11a/b/g standards Mobile Handset Device Interfacing: Data Cables, IrDA, Bluetooth, Touch- Screen Interfacing Wireless Security, Telemetry Java Wireless Programming and Applications Development(J2ME) 100 Hours J2ME Architecture The CLDC and the KVM Tools and Development Process Classification of CLDC Target Devices CLDC Collections API CLDC Streams Model MIDlets MIDlet Lifecycle MIDP Programming MIDP Event Architecture High-Level Event Handling Low-Level Event Handling The CLDC Streams Model The CLDC Networking Package The MIDP Implementation Introduction to WAP, WML Script and XHTML Introduction to Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS) Symbian Programming 60 Hours Symbian OS basics Symbian OS services Symbian OS organization GUI approaches ROM building Debugging Hardware abstraction Base porting Symbian OS reference design porting File systems Overview of Symbian OS Development – DevKits, CustKits and SDKs CodeWarrior Tool Application & UI Development Client Server Framework ECOM STDLIB in Symbian iPhone Programming 80 Hours Introducing iPhone core specifications Understanding iPhone input and output Designing web pages for the iPhone Capturing iPhone events Introducing the webkit CSS transforms transitions and animations Using iUI for web apps Using Canvas for web apps Building web apps with Dashcode Writing Dashcode programs Debugging iPhone web pages SDK programming for web developers An introduction to object-oriented programming Introducing the iPhone OS Using Xcode and Interface builder Programming with the SDK Toolkit OS Concepts & Linux Programming 60 Hours Operating System Concepts What is an OS? Processes Scheduling & Synchronization Memory management Virtual Memory and Paging Linux Architecture Programming in Linux Linux Shell Programming Writing Device Drivers Configuring and Building GNU Cross-tool chain Configuring and Compiling Linux Virtual File System Porting Linux on Target Hardware WinCE.NET and Database Technology 80 Hours Execution Process in .NET Environment Language Interoperability Assemblies Need of C# Operators Namespaces & Assemblies Arrays Preprocessors Delegates and Events Boxing and Unboxing Regular Expression Collections Multithreading Programming Memory Management Exceptions Handling Win Forms Working with database ASP .NET Server Controls and client-side scripts ASP .NET Web Server Controls Validation Controls Principles of database management Need of RDBMS etc Client/Server Computing RDBMS Technologies Codd’s Rules Data Models Normalization Techniques ER Diagrams Data Flow Diagrams Database recovery & backup SQL Android Application 80 Hours Introduction of android Why develop for android Android SDK features Creating android activities Fundamental android UI design Intents, adapters, dialogs Android Technique for saving data Data base in Androids Maps, Geocoding, Location based services Toast, using alarms, Instant messaging Using blue tooth Using Telephony Introducing sensor manager Managing network and wi-fi connection Advanced androids development Linux kernel security Implement AIDL Interface. Project 120 Hours

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• Oracle Announces Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity 9.4

  - by helen.pitts(at)oracle.com

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Today's global insurers require the ability to provide higher levels of service and quickly bring to market life insurance and annuity products that not only help them stand out from the competition, but also stay current with local legislation. To succeed, they require agile and flexible core systems that enable them to meet the unique localization requirements of the markets in which they operate, whether in North America, Asia Pacific or the Pan-European Region. The release of Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity 9.4, announced today, helps insurers meet this need with expanded international market capabilities that enable them to reduce risk and profitably compete wherever their business takes them. It offers expanded multi-language along with unit-linked product and fund processing capabilities that enable regional and global insurers to rapidly configure and deliver localized products – along with providing better service for end users through a single policy admin solution. Key enhancements include: Kanji/Kana language support, pre-defined content, and imperial date processing for the Japanese market New localization flexibility for configuring and managing international mailing addresses along with regional variations for client information Enhanced capability to calculate unit-linked pricing and valuation, in addition to market-based processing and pre-configured unit linked content Expanded role-based security and masking capability to further protect sensitive customer data Enhanced capability to restrict processing specified activities based on time of day and user role, reducing exposure to market timing risks Further capability to eliminate duplicate client records, helping to reduce underwriting risks and enhance servicing through a single view of the client "The ability to leverage a single, rules-driven policy administration system for multiple global operation centers can help insurers realize significant improvements in speed to market, customer service, compliance with regional regulations, and consolidation efforts,” noted Celent's Craig Weber, senior vice president, Insurance. “We believe such initiatives are necessary to help the industry address service and distribution imperatives." Helping our customers meet these mission-critical business imperatives is a key objective for Oracle Insurance. Active, ongoing dialogue with our customers is an important part of the process to help understand how our solutions are and can continue to help them achieve success in the marketplace. I had the opportunity to meet with several of our insurance customers at the Oracle Insurance Policy Administration Client Advisory Board meeting last week in Philadelphia, Penn. (View photos on the Oracle Insurance Facebook page.)   It was a great forum for Oracle Insurance and our clients. Discussion centered on the latest business and IT trends, with opportunities to learn more about the latest release of Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity and other Oracle Insurance solutions such as data warehousing / business intelligence, while exchanging best practices for product innovation and servicing customers and sales channels. Helen Pitts is senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance's life and annuities solutions.

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• It was worth the wait… Welcome Oracle GoldenGate 11g Release 2

  - by Irem Radzik

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} It certainly was worth the wait to meet Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2, because it is full of new features on multiple fronts. In fact, this release has the longest and strongest list of new features in Oracle GoldenGate’s history. The new release brings GoldenGate closer to the Oracle Database while expanding the support for global implementations and heterogeneous systems. It is more secure, more flexible, and faster. We announced the availability of Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2 via a press release. If you haven’t seen it yet, please check it out. As covered in this announcement, there are a variety of improvements in the product: Integrated Capture for Oracle Database: brings Oracle GoldenGate’s Capture process closer to the Oracle Database engine and enables support for Advanced Compression among other benefits. Enhanced Conflict Detection & Resolution, speeds and simplifies the conflict detection and resolution process for Active-Active deployments. Globalization, meaning Oracle GoldenGate can be deployed for databases that use multi-byte/Unicode character sets. Security and Performance Improvements, includes support Federal Information Protection Standard (FIPS). Increased Extensibility by kicking off actions based on an event record in the transaction log or in the Trail file. Integration with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c , in addition to the Oracle GoldenGate Monitor product. Expanded Heterogeneity, including capture from IBM DB2 for i on iSeries (AS/400) and delivery to Postgres We will explain these new features in more detail at our upcoming launch webcast: Harness the Power of the New Release of Oracle GoldenGate 11g- (Sept 12 8am/10am PT) In addition to learning more about these new features, the webcast will allow you to ask your questions to product management via live Q&A section. So, I hope you will not miss this opportunity to explore the new release of Oracle GoldenGate 11g and see how it can deliver enterprise-class real-time data integration solutions.. I look forward to a great webcast to unveil GoldenGate’s new capabilities.

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• SQL SERVER – Another lesser known feature of SQL Server Management Studio 2012 – Guest Post by Balmukund Lakhani

  - by Pinal Dave

  This is a fantastic blog post from my dear friend Balmukund ( blog | twitter | facebook ). He had presented a fantastic session in our last UG and there were lots of requests from attendees that he blogs about it. Well, here is the blog post about the same very popular UG session. Let us read the entire blog post in the voice of the Balmukund himself. In one of my previous guest blog on SQL Authority, I wrote about “Additional Connection Parameter” tab of login screen in SQL Server Management Studio (a.k.a. SSMS). On the similar lines, this blog is going to show little less known new feature of login main screen (“Connect to Server”) of SSMS 2012. You might have seen below screen countless times and you might wonder what is there is blog about in this simple screen. Well, continue reading and you would get the answer. Many times, DBA have to login to production server from non-regular machine, may be a developer’s workstation. Once you login to SQL, do your work and close the management studio. Do you know that your server name is saved in management studio? Of course, very useful feature because you may not like to type server name/IP address every time. Whatever servers you have connected, it would be stored by management studio. But sometime, it’s annoying! What you would do if you want SQL Server Management Studio to forget “all” the servers listed in drop down of Server name? To do that, you need to know how and where it’s stored. You can use one of my favorite tool from sysinternals called Process Monitor (also known as ProcMon) and easily figure out that this is stored in a file under your windows user profile. Below is the file in SQL 2008 R2 Management Studio. %appdata%\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Shell\SqlStudio.bin For SQL Server 2012, here is what we can see in ProcMon So, the path is %appdata%\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Shell\SqlStudio.bin So far, you might wonder, where is the new feature? I have been asked by many users to delete entries from SSMS “Connect to Server” server name list. Well, unofficially, you can delete the file directly which we found via ProcMon. Note that delete file to get rid of server list is not officially supported by Microsoft. Better way to achieve this is provided in SSMS 2012. To delete the servers from the list, highlight the name we want to delete (via keyboard or mouse) and then press delete key via keyboard. We can’t be multi-select and has to be done one by one. We can delete as many entries we want. I have delete few from first screenshot taken and here is the modified version. This is not available in SQL 2008 R2 and its previous version. This came from feedback given to SQL Server Product group. Hope you have learned something new today! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• BizTalk 2009 - Architecture Decisions

  - by StuartBrierley

  In the first step towards implementing a BizTalk 2009 environment, from development through to live, I put forward a proposal that detailed the options available, as well as the costs and benefits associated with these options, to allow an informed discusion to take place with the business drivers and budget holders of the project.  This ultimately lead to a decision being made to implement an initial BizTalk Server 2009 environment using the Standard Edition of the product. It is my hope that in the long term, as projects require it and allow, we will be looking to implement my ideal recommendation of a multi-server enterprise level environment, but given the differences in cost and the likely initial work load for the environment this was not something that I could fully recommend at this time.  However, it must be noted that this decision was made in full awareness of the limits of the standard edition, and the business drivers of this project were made fully aware of the risks associated with running without the failover capabilities of the enterprise edition. When considering the creation of this new BizTalk Server 2009 environment, I have also recommended the creation of the following pre-production environments:   Usage Environment Development Development of solutions; Unit testing against technical specifications; Initial load testing; Testing of deployment packages;  Visual Studio; BizTalk; SQL; Client PCs/Laptops; Server environment similar to Live implementation; Test Testing of Solutions against business and technical requirements;  BizTalk; SQL; Server environment similar to Live implementation; Pseudo-Live As Live environment to allow testing against Live implementation; Acts as back-up hardware in case of failure of Live environment; BizTalk; SQL; Server environment identical to Live implementation; The creation of these differing environments allows for the separation of the various stages of the development cycle.  The development environment is for use when actively developing a solution, it is a potentially volatile environment whose state at any given time can not be guaranteed.  It allows developers to carry out initial tests in an environment that is similar to the live environment and also provides an area for the testing of deployment packages prior to any release to the test environment. The test environment is intended to be a semi-volatile environment that is similar to the live environment.  It will change periodically through the development of a solution (or solutions) but should be otherwise stable.  It allows for the continued testing of a solution against requirements without the worry that the environment is being actively changed by any ongoing development.  This separation of development and test is crucial in ensuring the quality and control of the tested solution. The pseudo-live environment should be considered to be an almost static environment.  It should mimic the live environment and can act as back up hardware in the case of live failure.  This environment acts as an area to allow for “as live” testing, where the performance and behaviour of the live solutions can be replicated.  There should be relatively few changes to this environment, with software releases limited to “release candidate” level releases prior to going live. Whereas the pseudo-live environment should always mimic the live environment, to save on costs the development and test servers could be implemented on lower specification hardware.  Consideration can also be given to the use of a virtual server environment to further reduce hardware costs in the development and test environments, indeed this virtual approach can also be extended to pseudo-live and live assuming the underlying technology is in place. Although there is no requirement for the development and test server environments to be identical to live, the overriding architecture implemented should be the same as in live and an understanding must be gained of the performance differences to be expected across the different environments.

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• SQL SERVER – TechEd India 2012 – Content, Speakers and a Lots of Fun

  - by pinaldave

  TechEd is one event which every developers and IT professionals are looking forward to attend. It is opportunity of life time and no matter how many time one gets chance to engage with it, it is never enough. I still remember every single moment of every TechEd I have attended so far. We are less than 100 hours away from TechEd India 2012 event.This event is the one must attend event for every Technology Enthusiast. Fourth time in the row I am going to attend this event and I am equally excited as the first time of the event. There are going to be two very solid SQL Server track this time and I will be attending end of the end both the tracks. Here is my view on each of the 10 sessions. Each session is carefully crafted and leading exeprts from industry will present it. Day 1, March 21, 2012 T-SQL Rediscovered with SQL Server 2012 – This session is going to bring some of the lesser known enhancements that were brought with SQL Server 2012. When I learned that Jacob Sebastian is going to do this session my reaction to this is DEMO, DEMO and DEMO! Jacob spends hours and hours of his time preparing his session and this will be one of those session that I am confident will be delivered over and over through out the next many events. Catapult your data with SQL Server 2012 Integration Services – Praveen is expert story teller and one of the wizard when it is about SQL Server and business intelligence. He is surely going to mesmerize you with some interesting insights on SSIS performance too. Processing Big Data with SQL Server 2012 and Hadoop – There are three sessions on Big Data at TechEd India 2012. Stephen is going to deliver one of the session. Watching Stephen present is always joy and quite entertaining. He shares knowledge with his typical humor which captures ones attention. I wrote about what is BIG DATA in a blog post. SQL Server Misconceptions and Resolutions – I will be presenting this Session along with Vinod Kumar. READ MORE HERE. Securing with ContainedDB in SQL Server 2012 – Pranab is expert when it is about SQL Server and Security. I have seen him presenting and he is indeed very pleasant to watch. A dry subject like security, he makes it much lively. A Contained Database is a database which contains all the necessary settings and metadata, making database easily portable to another server. This database will contain all the necessary details and will not have to depend on any server where it is installed for anything. You can take this database and move it to another server without having any worries. Day 3, March 23, 2012 Peeling SQL Server like an Onion: Internals Demystified – Vinod Kumar has been writing about this extensively on his other blog post. In recent conversation he suggested that he will be creating very exclusive content for this presentation. I know Vinod for long time and have worked with him along many community activities. I am going to pay special attention to the details. I know Vinod has few give-away planned now for attending the session now only if he shares with us. Speed Up – Parallel Processes and unparalleled Performance – Performance tuning is my favorite subject. I will be discussing effect of parallelism on performance in this session. Here me out, there will be lots of quiz questions during this session and if you get the answers correct – you can win some really cool goodies – I Promise! READ MORE HERE. Keep your database available – AlwaysOn – Balmukund is like an army man. He is always ready to show and prove that he has coolest toys in terms of SQL Server and he knows how to keep them running AlwaysON. Availability groups, Listener, Clustering, Failover, Read-Only replica etc all will be demo’ed in this session. This is really heavy but very interesting content not to be missed. Lesser known facts about SQL Server Backup and Restore – Amit Banerjee – this name is known internationally for solving SQL Server problems in 140 characters. He has already blogged about this and this topic is going to be interesting. A successful restore strategy for applications is as good as their last good known backup. I have few difficult questions to ask to Amit and I am very sure that his unique style will entertain people. By the way, his one of the slide may give few in audience a funny heart attack. Top 5 reasons why you want SQL Server 2012 BI – Praveen plans to take a tour of some of the BI enhancements introduced in the new version. Business Insights with SQL Server is a critical building block and this version of SQL Server is no exception. For the matter of the fact, when I saw the demos he was going to show during this session, I felt like that I wish I can set up all of this on my machine. If you miss this session – you will miss one of the most informative session of the day. Also TechEd India 2012 has a Live streaming of some content and this can be watched here. The TechEd Team is planning to have some really good exclusive content in this channel as well. If you spot me, just do not hesitate to come by me and introduce yourself, I want to remember you! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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• Unable to sign in. How to debug?

  - by Dmitriy Budnik

  I had to reboot system with reset button. After reboot I can't sign in. When I enter my password It seems like X-server just restarts. I can sing in as guest and also I can sign in in text TTY. Here is first 150 lines of my lightdm.log: [+0.04s] DEBUG: Logging to /var/log/lightdm/lightdm.log [+0.04s] DEBUG: Starting Light Display Manager 1.2.1, UID=0 PID=1070 [+0.04s] DEBUG: Loaded configuration from /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf [+0.04s] DEBUG: Using D-Bus name org.freedesktop.DisplayManager [+0.04s] DEBUG: Registered seat module xlocal [+0.04s] DEBUG: Registered seat module xremote [+0.04s] DEBUG: Adding default seat [+0.04s] DEBUG: Starting seat [+0.04s] DEBUG: Starting new display for automatic login as user dmytro [+0.04s] DEBUG: Starting local X display [+3.64s] DEBUG: X server :0 will replace Plymouth [+3.66s] DEBUG: Using VT 7 [+3.66s] DEBUG: Activating VT 7 [+3.66s] DEBUG: Logging to /var/log/lightdm/x-0.log [+3.66s] DEBUG: Writing X server authority to /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 [+3.66s] DEBUG: Launching X Server [+3.66s] DEBUG: Launching process 1154: /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch -background none [+3.66s] DEBUG: Waiting for ready signal from X server :0 [+3.66s] DEBUG: Acquired bus name org.freedesktop.DisplayManager [+3.66s] DEBUG: Registering seat with bus path /org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Seat0 [+10.78s] DEBUG: Got signal 10 from process 1154 [+10.78s] DEBUG: Got signal from X server :0 [+10.78s] DEBUG: Stopping Plymouth, X server is ready [+10.80s] DEBUG: Connecting to XServer :0 [+10.80s] DEBUG: Automatically logging in user dmytro [+10.80s] DEBUG: Started session 1303 with service 'lightdm-autologin', username 'dmytro' [+13.22s] DEBUG: Session 1303 authentication complete with return value 0: Success [+13.26s] DEBUG: Autologin user dmytro authorized [+13.27s] DEBUG: Autologin using session ubuntu [+14.44s] DEBUG: Dropping privileges to uid 1000 [+14.48s] DEBUG: Restoring privileges [+14.49s] DEBUG: Dropping privileges to uid 1000 [+14.49s] DEBUG: Writing /home/dmytro/.dmrc [+14.61s] DEBUG: Restoring privileges [+14.81s] DEBUG: Starting session ubuntu as user dmytro [+14.81s] DEBUG: Session 1303 running command /usr/sbin/lightdm-session gnome-session --session=ubuntu [+15.76s] DEBUG: New display ready, switching to it [+15.76s] DEBUG: Activating VT 7 [+15.76s] DEBUG: Registering session with bus path /org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Session0 [+16.63s] DEBUG: Session 1303 exited with return value 0 [+16.63s] DEBUG: User session quit [+16.63s] DEBUG: Stopping display [+16.63s] DEBUG: Sending signal 15 to process 1154 [+17.19s] DEBUG: Process 1154 exited with return value 0 [+17.19s] DEBUG: X server stopped [+17.19s] DEBUG: Removing X server authority /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 [+17.19s] DEBUG: Releasing VT 7 [+17.19s] DEBUG: Display server stopped [+17.19s] DEBUG: Display stopped [+17.19s] DEBUG: Active display stopped, switching to greeter [+17.19s] DEBUG: Switching to greeter [+17.19s] DEBUG: Starting new display for greeter [+17.19s] DEBUG: Starting local X display [+17.19s] DEBUG: Using VT 7 [+17.19s] DEBUG: Logging to /var/log/lightdm/x-0.log [+17.19s] DEBUG: Writing X server authority to /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 [+17.19s] DEBUG: Launching X Server [+17.19s] DEBUG: Launching process 1563: /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch [+17.19s] DEBUG: Waiting for ready signal from X server :0 [+17.48s] DEBUG: Got signal 10 from process 1563 [+17.48s] DEBUG: Got signal from X server :0 [+17.48s] DEBUG: Connecting to XServer :0 [+17.48s] DEBUG: Starting greeter [+17.48s] DEBUG: Started session 1575 with service 'lightdm', username 'lightdm' [+17.61s] DEBUG: Session 1575 authentication complete with return value 0: Success [+17.61s] DEBUG: Greeter authorized [+17.61s] DEBUG: Logging to /var/log/lightdm/x-0-greeter.log [+17.68s] DEBUG: Session 1575 running command /usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm-greeter-session /usr/sbin/unity-greeter [+20.86s] DEBUG: Greeter connected version=1.2.1 [+20.86s] DEBUG: Greeter connected, display is ready [+20.86s] DEBUG: New display ready, switching to it [+20.86s] DEBUG: Activating VT 7 [+20.86s] DEBUG: Stopping greeter display being switched from [+24.90s] DEBUG: Greeter start authentication for dmytro [+24.90s] DEBUG: Started session 1746 with service 'lightdm', username 'dmytro' [+25.10s] DEBUG: Session 1746 got 1 message(s) from PAM [+25.10s] DEBUG: Prompt greeter with 1 message(s) [+31.87s] DEBUG: Continue authentication [+33.75s] DEBUG: Session 1746 authentication complete with return value 7: Authentication failure [+33.75s] DEBUG: Authenticate result for user dmytro: Authentication failure [+33.75s] DEBUG: Greeter start authentication for dmytro [+33.75s] DEBUG: Session 1746: Sending SIGTERM [+33.75s] DEBUG: Started session 2264 with service 'lightdm', username 'dmytro' [+33.75s] DEBUG: Session 2264 got 1 message(s) from PAM [+33.75s] DEBUG: Prompt greeter with 1 message(s) [+36.41s] DEBUG: Continue authentication [+36.53s] DEBUG: Session 2264 authentication complete with return value 0: Success [+36.53s] DEBUG: Authenticate result for user dmytro: Success [+36.54s] DEBUG: User dmytro authorized [+36.54s] DEBUG: Greeter requests session ubuntu [+36.54s] DEBUG: Using session ubuntu [+36.54s] DEBUG: Stopping greeter [+36.54s] DEBUG: Session 1575: Sending SIGTERM [+37.41s] DEBUG: Greeter closed communication channel [+37.41s] DEBUG: Session 1575 exited with return value 0 [+37.41s] DEBUG: Greeter quit [+37.42s] DEBUG: Dropping privileges to uid 1000 [+37.42s] DEBUG: Restoring privileges [+37.43s] DEBUG: Dropping privileges to uid 1000 [+37.43s] DEBUG: Writing /home/dmytro/.dmrc [+38.35s] DEBUG: Restoring privileges [+40.37s] DEBUG: Starting session ubuntu as user dmytro [+40.37s] DEBUG: Session 2264 running command /usr/sbin/lightdm-session gnome-session --session=ubuntu [+40.39s] DEBUG: Registering session with bus path /org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Session1 [+50.78s] DEBUG: Session 2264 exited with return value 0 [+50.78s] DEBUG: User session quit [+50.78s] DEBUG: Stopping display [+50.78s] DEBUG: Sending signal 15 to process 1563 [+51.53s] DEBUG: Process 1563 exited with return value 0 [+51.53s] DEBUG: X server stopped [+51.53s] DEBUG: Removing X server authority /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 [+51.53s] DEBUG: Releasing VT 7 [+51.53s] DEBUG: Display server stopped [+51.53s] DEBUG: Display stopped [+51.53s] DEBUG: Active display stopped, switching to greeter [+51.53s] DEBUG: Switching to greeter [+51.53s] DEBUG: Starting new display for greeter [+51.53s] DEBUG: Starting local X display [+51.53s] DEBUG: Using VT 7 [+51.53s] DEBUG: Logging to /var/log/lightdm/x-0.log [+51.53s] DEBUG: Writing X server authority to /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 [+51.53s] DEBUG: Launching X Server [+51.53s] DEBUG: Launching process 2894: /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch [+51.53s] DEBUG: Waiting for ready signal from X server :0 [+51.75s] DEBUG: Got signal 10 from process 2894 [+51.75s] DEBUG: Got signal from X server :0 [+51.75s] DEBUG: Connecting to XServer :0 [+51.75s] DEBUG: Starting greeter [+51.75s] DEBUG: Started session 2898 with service 'lightdm', username 'lightdm' [+51.76s] DEBUG: Session 2898 authentication complete with return value 0: Success [+51.76s] DEBUG: Greeter authorized [+51.76s] DEBUG: Logging to /var/log/lightdm/x-0-greeter.log [+51.76s] DEBUG: Session 2898 running command /usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm-greeter-session /usr/sbin/unity-greeter [+53.26s] DEBUG: Greeter connected version=1.2.1 [+53.26s] DEBUG: Greeter connected, display is ready [+53.26s] DEBUG: New display ready, switching to it [+53.26s] DEBUG: Activating VT 7 [+53.26s] DEBUG: Stopping greeter display being switched from [+54.17s] DEBUG: Greeter start authentication for dmytro [+54.17s] DEBUG: Started session 3152 with service 'lightdm', username 'dmytro' [+54.18s] DEBUG: Session 3152 got 1 message(s) from PAM [+54.18s] DEBUG: Prompt greeter with 1 message(s) [+58.61s] DEBUG: Continue authentication [+58.65s] DEBUG: Session 3152 authentication complete with return value 0: Success [+58.65s] DEBUG: Authenticate result for user dmytro: Success [+58.66s] DEBUG: User dmytro authorized [+58.66s] DEBUG: Greeter requests session ubuntu [+58.66s] DEBUG: Using session ubuntu [+58.66s] DEBUG: Stopping greeter [+58.66s] DEBUG: Session 2898: Sending SIGTERM How can I fix it? What other .log files could possibly give me a clue? Update: Possibly it's duplicate of Desktop login fails, terminal works

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• SQL SERVER – Speed Up! – Parallel Processes and Unparalleled Performance – TechEd 2012 India

  - by pinaldave

  TechEd India 2012 is just around the corner and I will be presenting there on two different session. SQL Server Performance Tuning is a very challenging subject that requires expertise in Database Administration and Database Development. I always have enjoyed talking about SQL Server Performance tuning subject. Just like doctors I like to call my every attempt to improve the performance of SQL Server queries and database server as a practice too. I have been working with SQL Server for more than 8 years and I believe that many of the performance tuning concept I have mastered. However, performance tuning is not a simple subject. However there are occasions when I feel stumped, there are occasional when I am not sure what should be the next step. When I face situation where I cannot figure things out easily, it makes me most happy because I clearly see this as a learning opportunity. I have been presenting in TechEd India for last three years. This is my fourth time opportunity to present a technical session on SQL Server. Just like every other year, I decided to present something different, something which I have spend years of learning. This time, I am going to present about parallel processes. It is widely believed that more the CPU will improve performance of the server. It is true in many cases. However, there are cases when limiting the CPU usages have improved overall health of the server. I will be presenting on the subject of Parallel Processes and its effects. I have spent more than a year working on this subject only. After working on various queries on multi-CPU systems I have personally learned few things. In coming TechEd session, I am going to share my experience with parallel processes and performance tuning. Session Details Title: Speed Up! – Parallel Processes and Unparalleled Performance (Add to Calendar) Abstract: “More CPU More Performance” – A  very common understanding is that usage of multiple CPUs can improve the performance of the query. To get maximum performance out of any query – one has to master various aspects of the parallel processes. In this deep dive session, we will explore this complex subject with a very simple interactive demo. An attendee will walk away with proper understanding of CX_PACKET wait types, MAXDOP, parallelism threshold and various other concepts. Date and Time: March 23, 2012, 12:15 to 13:15 Location: Hotel Lalit Ashok - Kumara Krupa High Grounds, Bengaluru – 560001, Karnataka, India. Add to Calendar Please submit your questions in the comments area and I will be for sure discussing them during my session. If I pick your question to discuss during my session, here is your gift I commit right now – SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers Book. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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• ACORD LOMA Session Highlights Policy Administration Trends

  - by [email protected]

  Helen Pitts, senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance, attended and is blogging from the ACORD LOMA Insurance Forum this week. Above: Paul Vancheri, Chief Information Officer, Fidelity Investments Life Insurance Company. Vancheri gave a presentation during the ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum about the key elements of modern policy administration systems and how insurers can mitigate risk during legacy system migrations to safely introduce new technologies. When I had a few particularly challenging honors courses in college my father, a long-time technology industry veteran, used to say, "If you don't know how to do something go ask the experts. Find someone who has been there and done that, don't be afraid to ask the tough questions, and apply and build upon what you learn." (Actually he still offers this same advice today.) That's probably why my favorite sessions at industry events, like the ACORD LOMA Insurance Forum this week, are those that include insight on industry trends and case studies from carriers who share their experiences and offer best practices based upon their own lessons learned. I had the opportunity to attend a particularly insightful session Wednesday as Craig Weber, senior vice president of Celent's Insurance practice, and Paul Vancheri, CIO of Fidelity Life Investments, presented, "Managing the Dynamic Insurance Landscape: Enabling Growth and Profitability with a Modern Policy Administration System." Policy Administration Trends Growing the business is the top issue when it comes to IT among both life and annuity and property and casualty carriers according to Weber. To drive growth and capture market share from competitors, carriers are looking to modernize their core insurance systems, with 65 percent of those CIOs participating in recent Celent research citing plans to replace their policy administration systems. Weber noted that there has been continued focus and investment, particularly in the last three years, by software and technology vendors to offer modern, rules-based, configurable policy administration solutions. He added that these solutions are continuing to evolve with the ongoing aim of helping carriers rapidly meet shifting business needs--whether it is to launch new products to market faster than the competition, adapt existing products to meet shifting consumer and /or regulatory demands, or to exit unprofitable markets. He closed by noting the top four trends for policy administration either in the process of being adopted today or on the not-so-distant horizon for the future: Underwriting and service desktops New business automation Convergence of ultra-configurable and domain content-rich systems Better usability and screen design Mitigating the Risk When Making the Decision to Modernize Third-party analyst research from advisory firms like Celent was a key part of the due diligence process for Fidelity as it sought a replacement for its legacy policy administration system back in 2005, according to Vancheri. The company's business opportunities were outrunning system capability. Its legacy system had not been upgraded in several years and was deficient from a functionality and currency standpoint. This was constraining the carrier's ability to rapidly configure and bring new and complex products to market. The company sought a new, modern policy administration system, one that would enable it to keep pace with rapid and often unexpected industry changes and ahead of the competition. A cross-functional team that included representatives from finance, actuarial, operations, client services and IT conducted an extensive selection process. This process included deep documentation review, pilot evaluations, demonstrations of required functionality and complex problem-solving, infrastructure integration capability, and the ability to meet the company's desired cost model. The company ultimately selected an adaptive policy administration system that met its requirements to: Deliver ease of use - eliminating paper and rework, while easing the burden on representatives to sell and service annuities Provide customer parity - offering Web-based capabilities in alignment with the company's focus on delivering a consistent customer experience across its business Deliver scalability, efficiency - enabling automation, while simplifying and standardizing systems across its technology stack Offer desired functionality - supporting Fidelity's product configuration / rules management philosophy, focus on customer service and technology upgrade requirements Meet cost requirements - including implementation, professional services and licenses fees and ongoing maintenance Deliver upon business requirements - enabling the ability to drive time to market for new products and flexibility to make changes Best Practices for Addressing Implementation Challenges Based upon lessons learned during the company's implementation, Vancheri advised carriers to evaluate staffing capabilities and cultural impacts, review business requirements to avoid rebuilding legacy processes, factor in dependent systems, and review policies and practices to secure customer data. His formula for success: upfront planning + clear requirements = precision execution. Achieving a Return on Investment Vancheri said the decision to replace their legacy policy administration system and deploy a modern, rules-based system--before the economic downturn occurred--has been integral in helping the company adapt to shifting market conditions, while enabling growth in its direct channel sales of variable annuities. Since deploying its new policy admin system, the company has reduced its average time to market for new products from 12-15 months to 4.5 months. The company has since migrated its other products to the new system and retired its legacy system, significantly decreasing its overall product development cycle. From a processing standpoint Vancheri noted the company has achieved gains in automation, information, and ease of use, resulting in improved real-time data edits, controls for better quality, and tax handling capability. Plus, with by having only one platform to manage, the company has simplified its IT environment and is well positioned to deliver system enhancements for greater efficiencies. Commitment to Continuing the Investment In the short and longer term future Vancheri said the company plans to enhance business functionality to support money movement, wire automation, divorce processing on payout contracts and cost-based tracking improvements. It also plans to continue system upgrades to remain current as well as focus on further reducing cycle time, driving down maintenance costs, and integrating with other products. Helen Pitts is senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance focused on life/annuities and enterprise document automation.

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• SQLAuthority News – #SQLPASS 2012 Seattle Update – Memorylane 2009, 2010, 2011

  - by pinaldave

  Today is the first day of the SQLPASS 2012 and I will be soon posting SQL Server 2012 experience over here. Today when I landed in Seattle, I got the nostalgia feeling. I used to stay in the USA. I stayed here for more than 7 years – I studied here and I worked in USA. I had lots of friends in Seattle when I used to stay in the USA. I always wanted to visit Seattle because it is THE place. I remember once I purchased a ticket to travel to Seattle through Priceline (well it was the cheapest option and I was a student) but could not fly because of an interesting issue. I used to be Teaching Assistant of an advanced course and the professor asked me to build a pop-quiz for the course. I unfortunately had to cancel the trip. Before I returned to India – I pretty much covered every city existed in my list to must visit, except one – Seattle. It was so interesting that I never made it to Seattle even though I wanted to visit, when I was in USA. After that one time I never got a chance to travel to Seattle. After a few years I also returned to India for good. Once on Television I saw “Sleepless in Seattle” movie playing and I immediately changed the channel as it reminded me that I never made it to Seattle before. However, destiny has its own way to handle decisions. After I returned to India – I visited Seattle total of 5 times and this is my 6th visit to Seattle in less than 3 years. I was here for 3 previous SQLPASS events – 2009, 2010, and 2011 as well two Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Summit in 2009 and 2010. During these five trips I tried to catch up with all of my all friends but I realize that time has its own way of doing things. Many moved out of Seattle and many were too busy revive the old friendship but there were few who always make a point to meet me when I travel to the city. During the course of my visits I have made few fantastic new friends – Rick Morelan (Joes 2 Pros) and Greg Lynch. Every time I meet them I feel that I know them for years. I think city of Seattle has played very important part in our relationship that I got these fantastic friends. SQLPASS is the event where I find all of my SQL Friends and I look for this event for an entire year. This year’s my goal is to meet as many as new friends I can meet. If you are going to be at SQLPASS – FIND ME. I want to have a photo with you. I want to remember each name as I believe this is very important part of our life – making new friends and sustaining new friendship. Here are few of the pointers where you can find me. All Keynotes – Blogger’s Table Exhibition Booth Joes 2 Pros Booth #117 – Do not forget to stop by at the booth – I might have goodies for you – limited editions. Book Signing Events – Check details in tomorrow’s blog or stop by Booth #117 Evening Parties 6th Nov – Welcome Reception Evening Parties 7th Nov - Exhibitor Reception – Do not miss Booth #117 Evening Parties 8th Nov - Community Appreciation Party Additionally at few other locations – Embarcadero Booth In Coffee shops in Convention Center If you are SQLPASS – make sure that I find an opportunity to meet you at the event. Reserve a little time and lets have a coffee together. I will be continuously tweeting about my where about on twitter so let us stay connected on twitter. Here is my experience of my earlier experience of attending SQLPASS. SQLAuthority News – Book Signing Event – SQLPASS 2011 Event Log SQLAuthority News – Meeting SQL Friends – SQLPASS 2011 Event Log SQLAuthority News – Story of Seattle – SQLPASS 2011 Event Log SQLAuthority News – SQLPASS Nov 8-11, 2010-Seattle – An Alternative Look at Experience SQLAuthority News – Notes of Excellent Experience at SQL PASS 2009 Summit, Seattle Let us meet! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)   Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL PASS, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• E-Business Suite Plug-in 12.1.0.1 for Enterprise Manager 12c Now Available

  - by Steven Chan (Oracle Development)

  Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 12.1.0.1.0 is now available for use with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c.  Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 12.1.0.1 is an integral part of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12 Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite. This latest plug-in extends EM 12c Cloud Control with E-Business Suite specific system management capabilities and features enhanced change management support. The Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite includes: Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 12.1.0.1 combines functionality that was available in the previously-standalone Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite and Application Change Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle Real User Experience Insight Oracle Configuration & Compliance capabilities  Features that were previously available in the standalone management packs are now packaged in the Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in, which is certified with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control:  Functionality previously available for Application Management Pack (AMP) is now classified as “System Management for Oracle E-Business Suite” within the plug-in. Functionality previously available for Application Change Management Pack (ACMP) is now classified as “Change Management for Oracle E-Business Suite” within the plug-in. The Application Configuration Console and the Configuration Change Console are now native components of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c. System Management Enhancements General Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Base Platform uptake: All components of the management suite are certified with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control. Security Privilege Delegation: The Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in now extends Enterprise Manager’s privilege delegation through Sudo and PowerBroker to Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in host targets. Privileges and Roles for Managing Oracle E-Business Suite: This release includes new ready-to-use target and resource privileges to monitor, manage, and perform Change Management functionality. Cloning Named Credentials Uptake in Cloning: The Clone module transactions now let users leverage the Named Credential feature introduced in Enterprise Manager 12c, thereby passing all the benefits of Named Credentials features in Enterprise Manager to the Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in users. Smart Clone improvements: In addition to the existing 11i support that was available on previous releases, the new Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in widens the coverage supporting Oracle E-Business Suite releases 12.0.x and 12.1.x. The new and improved Smart Clone UI supports the adding of "pre and post" custom steps to a copy of the ready-to-use cloning deployment procedure. Now a user can pass parameters to the custom steps through the interview screen of the UI as well as pass ready-to-use parameters to the custom steps. Additional configuration enhancements are included for configuring RAC targets databases, such as the ability to customize listener names and the option to configure with Virtual IP or Scan IP. Change Management Enhancements Customization Manager Support for longer file names: Customization Manager now handles file names up to thirty characters in length. Patch Manager Queuing of Patch Manager Runs: This feature allows patch runs to queue up if Patch Manager detects a specific target is in a blackout state. Multi-node system patching: The patch run interview has been enhanced to allow Enterprise Manager Administrator to choose which nodes adpatch will run on. New AD Administration Options: The patch run interview has been extended to include AD Administration Options "Relink Application Programs", "Generate Product Jars Files", "Generate Report Files", and "Generate Form Files". Downloads Fresh install For new customers or existing customers wishing to perform a fresh install Enterprise Manager Store (within Enterprise Manager 12c) Oracle Software Delivery Cloud Upgrades For existing customers wishing to upgrade their AMP 4.0 or AMP 3.1 installations Oracle Technology Network Getting Started with Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-In, Release 12.1.0.1 (Note 1434392.1) Prerequisites Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12cOne or more of the following Oracle E-Business Suite Releases Release 11.5.10 CU2 with 11i.ATG_PF.H.RUP6 or higher Release 12.0.4 with R12.ATG_PF.A.delta.6 Release 12.1 with R12.ATG_PF.B.delta.3 Platforms and OS Release certification information is available from My Oracle Support via the Certification page. Search for "Oracle Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite and release 12.1.0.1.0." Related Articles Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 4.0 Released for OEM 11g (11.1.0.1)

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• The Oracle Retail Week Awards - in review

  - by user801960

  The Oracle Retail Week Awards 2012 were another great success, building on the legacy of previous award ceremonies. Over 1,600 of the UK's top retailers gathered at the Grosvenor House Hotel and many of Europe's top retail leaders attended the prestigious Oracle Retail VIP Reception in the Grosvenor House Hotel's Red Bar. Over the years the Oracle Retail Week Awards have become a rallying point for the morale of the retail industry, and each nominated retailer served as a demonstration that the industry is fighting fit. It was an honour to speak to so many figureheads of UK - and global - retail. All of us at Oracle Retail would like to congratulate both the winners and the nominees for the awards. Retail is a cornerstone of the economy and it was inspiring to see so many outstanding demonstrations of innovation and dedication in the entries. Winners 2012   The Market Force Customer Service Initiative of the Year Winner: Dixons Retail: Knowhow Highly Commended: Hughes Electrical: Digital Switchover     The Deloitte Employer of the Year Winner: Morrisons     Growing Retailer of the Year Winner: Hallett Retail - The Concessions People Highly Commended: Blue Inc     The TCC Marketing/Advertising Campaign of the Year Winner: Sainsbury's: Feed your Family for £50     The Brandbank Multichannel Retailer of the Year Winner: Debenhams Highly Commended: Halfords     The Ashton Partnership Product Innovation of the Year Winner: Argos: Chad Valley Highly Commended: Halfords: Private label bikes     The RR Donnelley Pure-play Online Retailer of the Year Winner: Wiggle     The Hitachi Consulting Responsible Retailer of the Year Winner: B&Q: One Planet Home     The CA Technologies Retail Technology Initiative of the Year Winner: Oasis: Argyll Street flagship launch with iPad PoS     The Premier Tax Free Speciality Retailer of the Year Winner: Holland & Barrett     Store Design of the Year Winner: Next Home and Garden, Shoreham, Sussex Highly Commended: Dixons Retail, Black concept store, Birmingham Bullring     Store Manager of the Year Winner: Ian Allcock, Homebase, Aylesford Highly Commended: Darren Parfitt, Boots UK, Melton Mowbray Health Centre     The Wates Retail Destination of the Year Winner: Westfield, Stratford     The AlixPartners Emerging Retail Leader of the Year Winner: Catriona Marshall, HobbyCraft, Chief Executive     The Wipro Retail International Retailer of the Year Winner: Apple     The Clarity Search Retail Leader of the Year Winner: Ian Cheshire, Chief Executive, Kingfisher     The Oracle Retailer of the Year Winner: Burberry     Outstanding Contribution to Retail Winner: Lord Harris of Peckham     Oracle Retail and "Your Experience Platform" Technology is the key to providing that differentiated retail experience. More specifically, it is what we at Oracle call ‘the experience platform’ - a set of integrated, cross-channel business technology solutions, selected and operated by a retail business and IT team, and deployed in accordance with that organisation’s individual strategy and processes. This business systems architecture simultaneously: Connects customer interactions across all channels and touchpoints, and every customer lifecycle phase to provide a differentiated customer experience that meets consumers’ needs and expectations. Delivers actionable insight that enables smarter decisions in planning, forecasting, merchandising, supply chain management, marketing, etc; Optimises operations to align every aspect of the retail business to gain efficiencies and economies, to align KPIs to eliminate strategic conflicts, and at the same time be working in support of customer priorities.   Working in unison, these three goals not only help retailers to successfully navigate the challenges of today but also to focus on delivering that personalised customer experience based on differentiated products, pricing, services and interactions that will help you to gain market share and grow sales.  

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• Dynamic Bursting ... no really!

  - by Tim Dexter

  If any of you have seen me or my colleagues present BI Publisher to you then we have hopefully mentioned 'bursting.' You may have even seen a demo where we talk about being able to take a batch of data, say invoices. Then split them by some criteria, say customer id; format them with a template; generate the output and then deliver the documents to the recipients with a click. We and especially I, always say this can be completely dynamic! By this I mean, that you could store customer preferences in a database. What layout would each customer like; what output format they would like and how they would like the document delivered. We (I) talk a good talk, but typically don't do the walk in a demo. We hard code everything in the bursting query or bursting control file to get the concept across. But no more peeps! I have finally put together a dynamic bursting demo! Its been minutes in the making but its been tough to find those minutes! Read on ... It's nothing amazing in terms of making the burst dynamic. I created a CUSTOMER_PREFS table with some simple UI in an APEX application so that I can maintain their requirements. In EBS you have descriptive flexfields that could do the same thing or probably even 'contact' fields to store most of the info. Here's my table structure: Name                           Type ------------------------------ -------- CUSTOMER_ID                    NUMBER(6) TEMPLATE_TYPE                  VARCHAR2(20) TEMPLATE_NAME                  VARCHAR2(120) OUTPUT_FORMAT                  VARCHAR2(20) DELIVERY_CHANNEL               VARCHAR2(50) EMAIL                          VARCHAR2(255) FAX                            VARCHAR2(20) ATTACH                         VARCHAR2(20) FILE_LOC                       VARCHAR2(255) Simple enough right? Just need CUSTOMER_ID as the key for the bursting engine to join it to the customer data at burst time. I have not covered the full delivery options, just email, fax and file location. Remember, its a demo people :0) However the principal is exactly the same for each delivery type. They each have a set of attributes that need to be provided and you will need to handle that in your bursting query. On a side note, in EBS, you use a bursting control file, you can apply the same principals that I'm laying out here you just need to get the customer bursting info into the XML data stream so that you can refer to it in the control file using XPATH expressions. Next, we need to look up what attributes or parameters are required for each delivery method. that can be found in the documentation here.  Now we know the combinations of parameters and delivery methods we can construct the query using a series a decode statements: select distinct cp.customer_id "KEY", cp.template_name TEMPLATE, cp.template_type TEMPLATE_FORMAT, 'en-US' LOCALE, cp.output_format OUTPUT_FORMAT, 'false' SAVE_FORMAT, cp.delivery_channel DEL_CHANNEL, decode(cp.delivery_channel,'FILE', cp.file_loc , 'EMAIL', cp.email , 'FAX', cp.fax) PARAMETER1, decode(cp.delivery_channel,'FILE', c.cust_last_name||'_orders.pdf' ,'EMAIL','[email protected]' ,'FAX', 'faxserver.com') PARAMETER2, decode(cp.delivery_channel,'FILE',NULL ,'EMAIL','[email protected]' ,'FAX', null) PARAMETER3, decode(cp.delivery_channel,'FILE',NULL ,'EMAIL','Your current orders' ,'FAX',NULL) PARAMETER4, decode(cp.delivery_channel,'FILE',NULL ,'EMAIL','Please find attached a copy of your current orders with BI Publisher, Inc' ,'FAX',NULL) PARAMETER5, decode(cp.delivery_channel,'FILE',NULL ,'EMAIL','false' ,'FAX',NULL) PARAMETER6, decode(cp.delivery_channel,'FILE',NULL ,'EMAIL','[email protected]' ,'FAX',NULL) PARAMETER7 from cust_prefs cp, customers c, orders_view ov where cp.customer_id = c.customer_id and cp.customer_id = ov.customer_id order by cp.customer_id Pretty straightforward, just need to test, test, test, the query and ensure it's bringing back the correct data based on each customers preferences. Notice the NULL values for parameters that are not relevant for a given delivery channel. You should end up with bursting control data that the bursting engine can use:  Now, your users can run the burst and documents will be formatted, generated and delivered based on the customer prefs. If you're interested in the example, I have used the sample OE schema data for the base report. The report files and CUST_PREFS table are zipped up here. The zip contains the data model (.xdmz), the report and templates (.xdoz) and the sql scripts to create and load data to the CUST_PREFS table.  Once you load the report into the catalog, you'll need to create the OE data connection and point the data model at it. You'll probably need to re-point the report to the data model too. Happy Bursting!

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• Silverlight Cream for January 11, 2011 -- #1024

  - by Dave Campbell

  1,000 blogposts is quite a few, but to die-hard geeks, 1000 isn't the number... 1K is the number, and today is my 1K blogpost! I've been working up to this for at least 11 months. Way back at MIX10, I approached some vendors about an idea I had. A month ago I contacted them and others, and everyone I contacted was very generous and supportive of my idea. My idea was not to run a contest, but blog as normal, and whoever ended up on my 1K post would get some swag... and I set a cut-off at 13 posts. So... blogging normally, I had some submittals, and then ran my normal process to pick up the next posts until I hit a total of 13. To provide a distribution channel for the swag, everyone on the list, please send me your snail mail (T-shirts) and email (licenses) addresses as soon as possible.   I'd like to thank the following generous sponsors for their contributions to my fun (in alphabetic order): and Rachel Hawley for contributing 4 Silverlight control sets First Floor Software and Koen Zwikstra for contributing 13 licenses for Silverlight Spy and Sara Faatz/Jason Beres for contributing 13 licenses for Silverlight Data Visualization controls and Svetla Stoycheva for contributing T-Shirts for everyone on the post and Ina Tontcheva for contributing 13 licenses for RadControls for Silverlight + RadControls for Windows Phone and Charlene Kozlan for contributing 1 combopack standard, 2 DataGrid for Silverlight, and 2 Listbox for Silverlight Standard And now finally...in this Issue: Nigel Sampson, Jeremy Likness, Dan Wahlin, Kunal Chowdhurry, Alex Knight, Wei-Meng Lee, Michael Crump, Jesse Liberty, Peter Kuhn, Michael Washington, Tau Sick, Max Paulousky, Damian Schenkelman Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Demystifying Silverlight Dependency Properties" Dan Wahlin WP7: "Using Windows Phone Gestures as Triggers" Nigel Sampson Expression Blend: "PathListBox: making data look cool" Alex Knight From SilverlightCream.com: Using Windows Phone Gestures as Triggers Nigel Sampson blogged about WP7 Gestures, the Toolkit, and using Gestures as Triggers, and actually makes it looks simple :) Jounce Part 9: Static and Dynamic Module Management Jeremy Likness has episode 9 of his explanation of his MVVM framework, Jounce, up... and a big discussion of Modules and Module Management from a Jounce perspective. Demystifying Silverlight Dependency Properties Dan Wahlin takes a page from one of his teaching opportunities, and shares his knowledge of Dependency Properties with us... beginning with what they are, defining them in code, and demonstrating their use. Customizing Silverlight ChildWindow Style using Blend Kunal Chowdhurry has a great post up about getting your Child Windows to match the look & feel of the rest of youra app... plus a bunch of Blend goodness thrown in. PathListBox: making data look cool File this post by Alex Knight in the 'holy crap' file along with the others in this series! ... just check out that cool Ticker Style Path ListBox at the top of the blog... too cool! Web Access in Windows Phone 7 Apps Wei-Meng Lee has the 3rd part of his series on WP7 development up and in this one is discussing Web Access... I mean *discussing* it... tons of detail, code, and explanation... great post. Prevent your Silverlight XAP file from caching in your browser. Michael Crump helps relieve stress on Silverlight developers everywhere by exploring how to avoid caching of your XAP in the browser... (WPFS) MVVM Light Toolkit: Soup To Nuts Part I Jesse Liberty continues his Windows Phone from Scratch series with a new segment exploring Laurent Bugnion's MVVMLight Toolkit beginning with acquiring and installing the toolkit, then proceeds to discuss linking the View and ViewModel, the ViewModel Locator, and page navigation. Silverlight: Making a DateTimePicker Peter Kuhn attacks a problem that crops up on the forums a lot -- a DateTimePicker control for Silverlight... following the "It's so simple to build one yourself" advice, he did so, and provides the code for all of us! Windows Phone 7 Animated Button Press Michael Washington took exception to button presses that gave no visual feedback and produced a behavior that does just that. Using TweetSharp in a Windows Phone 7 app Tau Sick demonstrates using TweetSharp to put a twitter feed into a WP7 app, as he did in "Hangover Helper"... all the instructions from getting Tweeetshaprt to the code necessary. Bindable Application Bar Extensions for Windows Phone 7 Max Paulousky has a post discussing some real extensions to the ApplicationBar for WP7.. he begins with a bindable application bar by Nicolas Humann that I've missed, probably because his blog is in French... and extends it to allow using DelegateCommand. How to: Load Prism modules packaged in a separate XAP file in an OOB application Damian Schenkelman posts about Prism, AppModules in separate XAPs and running OOB... if you've tried this, you know it's a hassle.. Damian has the solution. 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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• Go From Social Glum to Guru at the Social Media Rally Station @ OOW

  - by Kristin Rose

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} @OPN Partners,We have some #exciting news for you! Just when you thought Oracle OpenWorld #OOW couldn’t get any better; OPN wants to announce a little something called the Social Media Rally Station™. #OMG!Enough with the social talk, hash tags and @’s, since there will be plenty of that at Oracle OpenWorld! This awesome station full of experts is the opportunity you've been looking for to optimize your online presence. You’ll start by receiving an overall evaluation of where you stand online, and get customized, face-to-face, expert advice on how to better engage with your customers and find new prospects online! Here’s what will happen at the Social Media Rally Stations: Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Partners will check in with a Rally Coordinator who will assess your needs and move you to the appropriate station. You will take part in a Professional Photo Station where you’ll get a head shot to use on social profiles, your own website, or for articles and posts about your company. Finally, the One-2-One Station Consultants will walk you through how you’re using social media today and next steps including, Google Alerts, Google Analytics, Search Engine Optimization, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and more. Finally, this is a custom engagement so you can decide how you want to focus the time. Go from Social Media glum to guru in under 25 minutes! Oh and a few other things to remember… Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} These Social Media Rally Stations will be taking place on: Sunday, 9/30 from 3-5 p.m.PT at the Esplanade level, Moscone South and Monday, 10/1 from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. PT at the OPN Lounge in Moscone South, Exhibit Hall Level Please wear professional attire from the waist up for your head-shot Bring any login info for your social platforms Come prepared with questions for our One-2-One Consultants! If you have any questions before the hitting the ground running at the Social Media Station™ sponsored by Oracle and provided by Channel Maven Consulting, or if you’d like to schedule some time while you’re at Oracle OpenWorld, send an email to [email protected]. Oh and don’t forget to RT this post on Twitter and ‘like’ us on Facebook to spread the word! #Thanks!See you around the social-sphere,#OPN

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• Oracle Social Network Developer Challenge Winners

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  Originally posted by Jake Kuramoto on The Apps Lab blog. Now that OpenWorld 2012 has wrapped, I have time to tell you all about what happened. Maybe you recall that Noel (@noelportugal) and I were running a modified hackathon during the show, the Oracle Social Network Developer Challenge. Without further ado, congratulations to Dimitri Gielis (@dgielis) and Martin Giffy D’Souza (@martindsouza) on their winning entry, an integration between Oracle APEX and Oracle Social Network that integrates feedback and bug submission with Oracle Social Network Conversations, allowing developers, end-users and project leaders to view and discuss the feedback on their APEX applications from within Oracle Social Network. Update: Bob Rhubart of OTN (@brhubart) interviewed Dimitri and Martin right after their big win. Money quote from Dimitri when asked what he’d buy with the $500 in Amazon gift cards, “Oracle Social Network.” Nice one. In their own words: In the developers perspective it’s important to get feedback soon, so after a first iteration and end-users start to test, they can give feedback of the application. Previously it stopped there, and it was up to the developer to communicate further with email, phone etc. With OSN every feedback and communication gets logged and other people can see the discussion immediately as well. For the end users perspective he can now communicate in a more efficient way to not only the developers, but also between themselves. Maybe many end-users (in different locations) would like to change some behaviour, by using OSN they can see the entry somebody put in with a screenshot and they can just start to chat about it. Some key technical end users can have lighten the tasks of the development team by looking at the feedback first and start to communicate with their peers. For the project manager he has now the ability to really see what communication has taken place in certain areas and can make decisions on that. Later, if things come up again, he can always go back in OSN and see what was said at that moment in time. Integrating OSN in the APEX applications enhances the user experience, makes the lives of the developers easier and gives a better overview to project managers. Incidentally, you may already know Dimitri and Martin, since both are Oracle Ace Directors. I ran into Martin at the Ace Director briefings Friday before the conference started, and at that point, he wasn’t sure he’d have time to enter the Challenge. After some coaxing, he and Dimitri agreed to give it a go and banged out their entry on Tuesday night, or more accurately, very early Wednesday morning, the day of the Challenge judging. I think they said it took them about four hours of hardcore coding to get it done, very much like a traditional hackathon, which is essentially a code sprint from idea to finished product. Here are some screenshots of the workflow they built. #gallery-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-1 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-1 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-1 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } I love this idea, i.e. closing the loop between web developers and users, a very common pain point, and so did our judges. Speaking of, special thanks to our panel of three judges: Reggie Bradford (@reggiebradford), serial entrepreneur, founder of Vitrue and SVP of Cloud Product Development at Oracle Robert Hipps (@roberthipps), VP of Development for Oracle Social Network and my former boss Roland Smart (@rsmartx), VP of Social Marketing and the brains behind the Oracle Social Developer Community Finally, thanks to everyone who made this possible, including: The three other teams from HarQen (@harqen), TEAM Informatics (@teaminformatics) and Fishbowl Solutions (@fishbowle20) featuring Friend of the ‘Lab John Sim (@jrsim_uix), who finished and presented entries. I’ll be posting the details of their work this week. The one guy who finished an entry, but couldn’t make the judging, Bex Huff (@bex). Bex rallied from a hospitalization due to an allergic reaction during the show; he’s fine, don’t worry. I’ll post details of his work next week, too. The 40-plus people who registered to compete in the Challenge. Noel for all his hard work, sample code, and flying monkey target, more on that to come. The Oracle Social Network development team for supporting this event. Everyone in legal and the beta program office for their help. And finally, the Oracle Technology Network (@oracletechnet) for hosting the event and providing countless hours of operational and moral support. Sorry if I’ve missed some people, since this was a huge team effort. This event was a big success, and we plan to do similar events in the future. Stay tuned to this channel for more. 

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