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• What scenarios are implementations of Object Management Group (OMG) Data Distribution Service best suited for?

  - by mindcrime

  I've always been a big fan of asynchronous messaging and pub/sub implementations, but coming from a Java background, I'm most familiar with using JMS based messaging systems, such as JBoss MQ, HornetQ, ActiveMQ, OpenMQ, etc. I've also loosely followed the discussion of AMQP. But I recently became aware of the Data Distribution Service Specification from the Object Management Group, and found there are a couple of open-source implementations: OpenSplice OpenDDS It sounds like this stuff is focused on the kind of high-volume scenarios one tends to associate with financial trading exchanges and what-not. My current interest is more along the lines of notifications related to activity stream processing (think Twitter / Facebook) and am wondering if the DDS servers are worth looking into further. Could anyone who has practical experience with this technology, and/or a deep understanding of it, comment on how useful it is, and what scenarios it is best suited for? How does it stack up against more "traditional" JMS servers, and/or AMQP (or even STOMP or OpenWire, etc?) Edit: FWIW, I found some information at this StackOverflow thread. Not a complete answer, but anybody else finding this question might also find that thread useful, hence the added link.

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• Compressing 2D level data

  - by Lucius

  So, I'm developing a 2D, tile based game and a map maker thingy - all in Java. The problem is that recently I've been having some memory issues when about 4 maps are loaded. Each one of these maps are composed of 128x128 tiles and have 4 layers (for details and stuff). I already spent a good amount of time searching for solutions and the best thing I found was run-length enconding (RLE). It seems easy enough to use with static data, but is there a way to use it with data that is constantly changing, without a big drop in performance? In my maps, supposing I'm compressing the columns, I would have 128 rows, each with some amount of data (hopefully less than it would be without RLE). Whenever I change a tile, that whole row would have to be checked and I'm affraid that would slow down too much the production (and I'm in a somewhat tight schedule). Well, worst case scenario I work on each map individually, and save them using RLE, but it would be really nice if I could avoind that. EDIT: What I'm currently using to store the data for the tiles is a 2D array of HashMaps that use the layer as key and store the id of the tile in that position - like this: private HashMap< Integer, Integer [][]

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• Requesting quality analysis test cases up front of implementation/change

  - by arin

  Recently I have been assigned to work on a major requirement that falls between a change request and an improvement. The previous implementation was done (badly) by a senior developer that left the company and did so without leaving a trace of documentation. Here were my initial steps to approach this problem: Considering that the release date was fast approaching and there was no time for slip-ups, I initially asked if the requirement was a "must have". Since the requirement helped the product significantly in terms of usability, the answer was "If possible, yes". Knowing the wide-spread use and affects of this requirement, had it come to a point where the requirement could not be finished prior to release, I asked if it would be a viable option to thrash the current state and revert back to the state prior to the ex-senior implementation. The answer was "Most likely: no". Understanding that the requirement was coming from the higher management, and due to the complexity of it, I asked all usability test cases to be written prior to the implementation (by QA) and given to me, to aid me in the comprehension of this task. This was a big no-no for the folks at the management as they failed to understand this approach. Knowing that I had to insist on my request and the responsibility of this requirement, I insisted and have fallen out of favor with some of the folks, leaving me in a state of "baffledness". Basically, I was trying a test-driven approach to a high-risk, high-complexity and must-have requirement and trying to be safe rather than sorry. Is this approach wrong or have I approached it incorrectly? P.S.: The change request/improvement was cancelled and the implementation was reverted back to the prior state due to the complexity of the problem and lack of time. This only happened after a 2 hour long meeting with other seniors in order to convince the aforementioned folks.

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• Bounding volume hierarchy - linked nodes (linear model)

  - by teodron

  The scenario A chain of points: (Pi)i=0,N where Pi is linked to its direct neighbours (Pi-1 and Pi+1). The goal: perform efficient collision detection between any two, non-adjacent links: (PiPi+1) vs. (PjPj+1). The question: it's highly recommended in all works treating this subject of collision detection to use a broad phase and to implement it via a bounding volume hierarchy. For a chain made out of Pi nodes, it can look like this: I imagine the big blue sphere to contain all links, the green half of them, the reds a quarter and so on (the picture is not accurate, but it's there to help understand the question). What I do not understand is: How can such a hierarchy speed up computations between segments collision pairs if one has to update it for a deformable linear object such as a chain/wire/etc. each frame? More clearly, what is the actual principle of collision detection broad phases in this particular case/ how can it work when the actual computation of bounding spheres is in itself a time consuming task and has to be done (since the geometry changes) in each frame update? I think I am missing a key point - if we look at the picture where the chain is in a spiral pose, we see that most spheres are already contained within half of others or do intersect them.. it's odd if this is the way it should work.

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• Engineered Systems: Oracle schlägt drei Fliegen mit einer Klappe

  - by A&C Redaktion

  Die News aus dem Partnergeschäft von Oracle sorgen für Schlagzeilen im Magazin ChannelPartner. Über den neuen Fokus auf Engineered Systems und die SMB Appliances heißt es dort, so könne Oracle „drei Fliegen mit einer Klappe schlagen“: Erstens wird früheren Sun Hardware-Resellern der Einstieg ins Software-Geschäft erleichtert, zweitens bieten die Appliances neue Möglichkeiten für den Mittelstand und drittens bekräftigt die Strategie das zweistufige Channel-Modell. Dazu Silvia Kaske, Senior Director Channel Sales & Alliances Oracle Deutschland: "Wir stärken weltweit den Channel, weil das SMB-Geschäft zunehmend anzieht." Neben der durchaus positiven Wertung der Channel-Strategie bietet der Artikel einen anschaulichen Überblich darüber, was Engineered Systems eigentlich sind. Außerdem werden die Einsatzmöglichkeiten (Big Data, Mobile Computing, Cloud etc.) und Angebote von Oracle in diesem Bereich dargestellt und diskutiert. Das Highlight hierbei ist – wen wundert’s – die Oracle Database Appliance. Mit dem Portfolio wächst natürlich auch die Zahl der Spezialisierungen. Logisch, findet Silvia Kaske: "Endkunden erwarten keine Generalisten, sondern Spezialisten. Nur mit einem klaren Fokus wird der Partner erfolgreich sein". Hier geht’s zum vollständigen CP-Artikel unter dem Titel „Oracle lockt Channel mit SMB-Appliances“.

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• Reinventing the Wheel, why should I?

  - by Mercfh

  So I have this problem, it may be my OCD (i have OCD it's not severe.....but It makes me very..lets say specific about certain things, programming being one of them) or it may be the fact that I graduated college and still feel "meh" at programming. Reading This made me think "OH thats me!" but thats not really my main problem. My big problem is....anytime im using a high level language/API/etc. I always think to myself that im not really "programming". I know I know...it sounds stupid. But Like I feel like....if i can't figure out how to do it at the lowest level then Im not really "understanding" it. I do this for just about every new technology I learn. I look at the lowest level and try to understand it. Sometimes I do.....most of the time I don't, I mean i've only really been programming for 4 years (at college, if you even call it programming.....our university's program was "meh"). For instance I do a little bit of embedded programming (with the Atmel AVR 8bits/Arduino stuff). And I can't bring myself to use the C compiler, even though it's 8 million times easier than using assembly......it's stupid I know... Anyone else feel like this, I think it's just my OCD that makes me feel this way....but has anyone else ever felt like they need to go down to the lowest level of the language to even be satisfied with using it? I apologize for the very very odd question, but I think it really hinders me in getting deep seeded into a programming language and making a real application of my own. (it's silly I know)

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• Ubuntu 12.04 Precise on Dell Inspirion Duo

  - by Roman M. Kos

  I installed 12.04 version of Ubuntu on my Dell Inspiron Duo. After installing with help of program like UNetBootIn or smth like that. ( Besides i have no problem with kernel panic on chargin on/off like in 11.10. ) After that i followed with steps from here, in the first post here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1658635 There left one big problem with touchscreen: When i whant to drag with touchscreen like i`m doing it with mouse (for ex. selecting multile files with mouse) the selectable rectangular doesnot shows while im dragging, when dragging was finished (i put my finger off) it shows the rectangular and hides it. This thing disables all my tries to drag a window or smth else.... Also some time after using touchscreen such things are disabeling: - Often - click from a mouse (after keyboard using functinality restores) - less often - mouse movement disables (sometimes restores sometimes not) - lesser than other - keyboards works but no sygnals accepting (keyoards has indicator, so thay react, mouse of course not) The test from eTouchU utility passes perfeclty. Any idia for solving this problem? P.S.: Im from Ukraine, so sorry if my possible grammar mistakes. P.P.S.: Besides how to know the physicall position of my tabled mode? For automaticall rotating. Like on each rotation do some script.

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• Does an inexperienced programmer need an IDE?

  - by Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

  Reading this other question makes me wonder if I (as an absolute beginner PHP programmer) should stick with WAMP and Notepad++ or to switch to some IDE like Eclipse. It's understandable that skilled developers will benefit from a big shiny IDE. But why should an absolute beginner use an IDE? Do the benefits outweigh the extra challenge of learning the IDE on top of learning to develop? Update for clarification: My goal is to get some basic programming experience. By choosing PHP and WAMP (and FogBugz and Kiln) I hope to avoid having to navigate the tricky / messy OS specifics and compiling etc. and just focus on basic functionality like an online user registration form. I've got lots of theoretical understanding from university a decade ago but no practical experience. I want to remedy that with a hobby project that would be similar to a real-world sellable web app. There are so many questions to ask. So many pitfalls I probably have to blunder into. This question is just one piece (my first!) of that puzzle.

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• Resize a pendrive Linux?

  - by user11239

  I'm running Ubuntu from USB media, which has a drive capacity of 250 GB, all existing as one FAT32 partition. However, when I created the bootable Ubuntu drive, only 4.79 GB were allocated for usage. Rather than put files directly into the /cdrom where the drive is mounted, I want to expand what is listed here in aufs to be at least 200 GB. I'm hopeful that I can do this live. Output of df : Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on aufs 4051904 4050108 0 100% / none 1542852 284 1542568 1% /dev /dev/sdb1 244076800 4901648 239175152 3% /cdrom /dev/loop0 688000 688000 0 100% /rofs none 1547840 1496 1546344 1% /dev/shm tmpfs 1547840 4828 1543012 1% /tmp none 1547840 80 1547760 1% /var/run none 1547840 0 1547840 0% /var/lock none 1547840 0 1547840 0% /lib/init/rw Output of fdisk -l : Disk /dev/sdb: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00083fe4 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 * 1 30401 244196001 c W95 FAT32 (LBA) So basically what I want to do is get /dev/sdb1 to be entirely, or almost entirely read as aufs. I'm confused over how to do this, as the file systems are all part of /dev/sdb1 on one big partition, rather than separate partitions for separate file systems.

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• How to view/mount other partitions on your hard drive

  - by Preston Zacharias

  Recently I have installed Ubuntu 12.04 Beta 2 on a USB flash drive and decided to install it on an old external HDD which I have taken out of the casing and succesfully mounted in my desktop computer. There is no other operating system besides the newly install Ubuntu. However, there is about 500gb of data on the drive. This is why i used a partitioning software on my windows 7 netbook to partition the hard drive to set aside 1tb for files, 350gb of space for linux and the remaining 650gb for Vista which i plan on installing soon. But this is where the problem sets in...when installing Ubuntu it does not recognize that the drive is partitioned at all, it's just one big open block of space...so I used the installers built in partitioning feature to set aside 300gb for main Ubuntu install and 50gb for swap space. I set both of these partitions to be created at the "end" so that it wouldn't delete or write over my data. And this is where i am really lost; when booting into Ubuntu i am able to use it perfectly fine, got on internet, etc...but i have NO CLUE as to how i can view files that were previously on the drive (all of my data that i had prior to install). How can I mount/be able to view the other partition so that i can have access to my data? Thank you ahead of time! I REALLY appreciate any help or advice! ~Preston

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• Social-network, online community, company and job reviews, salaries statistics and much more.. Do we have it? Do we need it?

  - by Vlad Lazarenko

  I have many friends from Ukraine who are programmers. So I found out that they have a web site that collects, organizes and analyzing information about IT companies, which includes location, feedbacks, company reviews from current and former employees etc. They also collect programming salaries and organize them by language, region etc. That web site is ran by programmers and for programmers, all information is absolutely public and free. Plus, web site has forums, and people can discuss (more or less social than specific programming stuff) things, publish articles, news etc. I personally think that is useful, especially for those who are new in this industry. For example, you may do a small research and find out that, for example, Java programmers getting paid more than PHP programmers but demand is lower. Or you get an offer from the company, is about to accept it, but read reviews and find out that they don't even provide internet access at work and if you need to download something, you have to ask your manager to do it for you, and managers share a single computer that has internet connection to get that stuff for you (there is only one such company in Kiev, Ukraine, called SMK, for Software Mac Kiev, a big shame). So the question is - do we have something like it in US? Or at least, say, for New York region? Or state? All information I managed to find online is inaccurate or not full. Forums are very specific. If we don't have it, would you be interested in creating such a portal? Thanks!

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• Windows Phone 7 event

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  This might not be of interest to anyone living outside of the Netherlands, but I still wanted to share this. On march 10th the dutch .net usergroup dotNed (of which I am chairman) organizes a LAN party together with the company Sevensteps. Sevensteps is a big player in the Surface area: they are one of the few companies whose applications are part of the standard tools you get when you buy a Surface unit. They were also present at the CES in Las Vegas earlier this year to introduce the SUR40, as mentioned in my previous post. But they do not only develop software for the Surface, they also do a lot of interesting things on other platforms. One of these is Windows Phone 7, or WP7 in short. Sevensteps and dotNed have joined forces to organize a free full day event where we will develop a WP7 application. The people attending will be developers (experienced and not so experienced on WP7), designers and all other sorts of people you’d expect in a project team. The day will start around 9.00 am and will end when the app is finished. We will form teams of both experienced and not experienced developers so that we can learn from each other. Each team will have their own task to perform, and in the end all parts will be assembled to form a killer WP7 app. As with everything that dotNed does this event is free for everyone. Microsoft will pay for dinner, Sevensteps will provide the room, lunch and ideas (and their expertise of course) and the rest is up to us! So if you are in The Netherlands that date, and you feel like hanging out with other WP7 or wannabe WP7 developers, join us! For more information (in Dutch) see http://www.dotned.nl Tags van Technorati: wp7,dotned

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• What should a developer know before building a public web site?

  - by Joel Coehoorn

  What things should a programmer implementing the technical details of a web site address before making the site public? If Jeff Atwood can forget about HttpOnly cookies, sitemaps, and cross-site request forgeries all in the same site, what important thing could I be forgetting as well? I'm thinking about this from a web developer's perspective, such that someone else is creating the actual design and content for the site. So while usability and content may be more important than the platform, you the programmer have little say in that. What you do need to worry about is that your implementation of the platform is stable, performs well, is secure, and meets any other business goals (like not cost too much, take too long to build, and rank as well with Google as the content supports). Think of this from the perspective of a developer who's done some work for intranet-type applications in a fairly trusted environment, and is about to have his first shot and putting out a potentially popular site for the entire big bad world wide web. Also: I'm looking for something more specific than just a vague "web standards" response. I mean, HTML, JavaScript, and CSS over HTTP are pretty much a given, especially when I've already specified that you're a professional web developer. So going beyond that, Which standards? In what circumstances, and why? Provide a link to the standard's specification. This question is community wiki, so please feel free to edit that answer to add links to good articles that will help explain or teach each particular point. To search in only the answers from this question, use the inquestion:this option.

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• Are web application usability issues equal to website usability issues?

  - by Kor

  I've been reading two books about web usability issues and tests (Rocket Surgery Made Easy¹ and Prioritizing Web Usability²) and they claim some strategies and typical problems about website usability and how to lead them. However, I want to do a web application, and I think I lost track of what I am trying to solve. These two books claim to work with raw websites (e-commerce, business sites, even intranet), but I'm not sure if everything about web usability is applicable to web application usability. They sure talk about always having available (and usable) the Back button, to focus on short information rather than big amounts of text, etc., but they could be inaccurate in deeper problems that may be easier (or just skippable) in regular websites. Has anybody some experience in this field and could tell me if both web applications and websites share their usability issues? Thanks in advance Edit: Quoting Wikipedia, a website is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets, and a web application is an application that is accessed over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. To sum up, both shows/lets you search/produce information but websites are "simple" in interaction and keep the classics of websites (one-click actions) and the other one is closer to desktop applications in the meaning of their uses and ways of interaction (double click, modal windows, asynchronous calls [to keep you in the same "environment" instead of reloading it] etc.). I don't know if this clarifies the difference. Edit 2: Quoting @Victor and myself, a website is anything running in your browser, but a web application is somewhat running in your browser that could be running in your desktop, with similar behaviors and features. Gmail is a web application that could replace Outlook. GDocs could replace Office. Grooveshark could replace your music player, etc.

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• When running a .jar application with OpenJDK, my keyboard becomes unresponsive?

  - by Mochan

  I recently downloaded a Java application with the .jar format, and had it running on my computer not so long ago. Now that I'm using my desktop instead of laptop temporarily, I want it to run. On my laptop it was a tremendous hassle to get OpenJDK to even run the application without it going black, and now on my desktop I don't have that problem. However, when I run the application, my keyboard becomes unresponsive and doesn't type at all. This is a really big problem because it's demands the use of a keyboard. It works as normal on my laptop though, and it works perfectly. But now on the desktop its completely useless. I don't know if there's like a keyboard driver I'm missing, but there shouldn't be because the keyboard runs flawlessly everywhere else. I'm using OpenJDK 6 because the 7 has the same 'black screen' I mentioned, so I need this to work within OpenJDK 6. Thanks so much in advance and I'll try to specify as many details as I can. M

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• How can I reduce the amount of time it takes to fully regression test an application ready for release?

  - by DrLazer

  An app I work on is being developed with a modified version of scrum. If you are not familiar with scrum, it's just an alternative approach to a more traditional watefall model, where a series of features are worked on for a set amount of time known as a sprint. The app is written in C# and makes use of WPF. We use Visual C# 2010 Express edition as an IDE. If we work on a sprint and add in a few new features, but do not plan to release until a further sprint is complete, then regression testing is not an issue as such. We just test the new features and give the app a good once over. However, if a release is planned that our customers can download - a full regression test is factored in. In the past this wasn't a big deal, it took 3 or 4 days and the devs simply fix up any bugs found in the regression phase, but now, as the app is getting larger and larger and incorporating more and more features, the regression is spanning out for weeks. I am interested in any methods that people know of or use that can decrease this time. At the moment the only ideas I have are to either start writing Unit Tests, which I have never fully tried out in a commercial environment, or to research the possibilty of any UI Automation API's or tools that would allow me to write a program to perform a series of batch tests. I know literally nothing about the possibilities of UI automation so any information would be valuable. I don't know that much about Unit testing either, how complicated can the tests be? Is it possible to get Unit tests to use the UI? Are there any other methods I should consider? Thanks for reading, and for any advice in advance. Edit: Thanks for the information. Does anybody know of any alternatives to what has been mentioned so far (NUnit, RhinoMocks and CodedUI)?

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• Selling an open source project: some issues

  - by Sander

  I am the creator / main developer of a small sized open source (PHP) project (GPL3). Currently there is a development team of 3 people (me included). This team has been quite active for some time, but since almost 2 years not much has happened. I myself have decided I want to stop working on the project, but I can't just leave the project because I care about it and I know if I abandon it, it will just be a matter of time before the project completely dies. At this moment, there are still some users and the project is only slightly out-of-date. So I'm thinking about selling the whole project. Of course I'd need to get consent of the other developers, but for now I'm assuming that's not a big problem. So at this moment I have 2 questions: 1) If the project would be sold to a commercial party, would it be possible for them to convert the project to closed source? I would prefer to sell the project to a company/organization that would continue the development under an open source license. 2) Does anyone have any tips to find interested parties? I don't know if I just want to put up a "For Sale" sign on the website of the project. Maybe someone has experience with a comparable situation. Ok guys, thanks in advance!

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• Encrypt SSD or not?

  - by JamesBradbury

  My desktop machine is running Ubuntu 12.04 (and will probably stay with it until the next LTS). I've got a new 120GB SSD on the way as my existing 420GB spinning disk. If it makes any difference I'll be dual-booting with Windows 7 across both disks too. I've read some helpful answers here about /home setup and enabling TRIM, which I intend to follow. So most of my /home will be on the SSD, with only photos, videos and music on the spinning disk. The question is, when I reinstall Ubuntu from CD or USB, whether I should encrypt the SSD? Specifically: I'm reading that drive wear isn't much of an issue with modern SSDs as they last decades even if you spam them. Is this true? How big a performance reduction will encrypting cause (I have an i7 Sandybridge, so I guess it can cope)? Is it more important from a security point of view to encrypt an SSD? I think I read somewhere that it may be hard to reliably wipe data. By all means answer even if you only know about one of those things.

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• Solaris at LISA 2011

  - by dminer

  As is our custom, the Solaris team will be out in force at the USENIX LISA conference; this year it's in Boston so it's sort of a home game for me for a change.  The big event we'll have is Tuesday, December 6, the Oracle Solaris 11 Summit Day.  We'll be covering deployment, ZFS, Networking, Virtualization, Security, Clustering, and how Oracle apps run best on Solaris 11.  We've done this the past couple of years and it's always a very full day.On Wednesday, December 7, we've got a couple of BOF sessions scheduled back-to-back.  At 7:30 we'll have the ever-popular engineering panel, with all of us who are speaking at Tuesday's summit day there for a free-flowing discussion of all things Solaris.  Following that, Bart & I are hosting a second BOF at 9:30 to talk more about deployment for clouds and traditional data centers.Also, on Wednesday and Thursday we'll have a booth at the exhibition where there'll be demos and just a general chance to talk with various Solaris staff from engineering and product management.The conference program looks great and I look forward to seeing you there!

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• Ubuntu 12.10: Installing proprietary Nvidia driver causes freeze at boot

  - by Greg

  Ok, so I just installed Ubuntu on my laptop, and I immediately encountered an issue: the HDMI audio output won't work. Yes, I know about the sound settings thing where you have to select the HDMI option, but even when it's selected I get no sound out of the TV I'm hooking it up to. This is a dealbreaker for me, because my laptop speakers are terrible, it's one of the big reasons I use my TV monitor. So I decided to work on solving the problem by upgrading my Nvidia drivers. I switched to one of the propriety drivers offered in that software updating utility that comes with the OS, the one option that said (tested). Viola, sound over the HDMI is now working. Unfortunately, this now brings me to my next problem: when I reboot Ubuntu with this or any other proprietary driver installed, it freezes when it tries to load my desktop. As in I can see my wallpaper, but no icons or options of any kind. The system is totally frozen, and gives me one of those "we've experienced an error, do you want to report it messages." So there's my bind. I need HDMI audio out, that's a total dealbreaker for me, but installing the drivers that give me that capability crash the system. Does anyone have any idea what's causing this

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• Is there a secure way to add a database troubleshooting page to an application?

  - by Josh Yeager

  My team makes a product (business management software) that our customers install on their own servers. The product uses a SQL database for data storage and app configuration. There have been quite a few cases where something strange happened in the customer's database (caused by bugs in our app and also sometimes admins who mess with the database). To figure out what is wrong with the data, we have to send SQL scripts to the customer and tell them how to run them on the database server. Then, once we know how to fix it, we have to send another script to repair the data. Is there a secure way to add a page in our application that allows an application admin to enter SQL scripts that read and write directly to the database? Our support team could use that to help customers run these scripts, without needing direct access to the SQL server. My big concerns are that someone might abuse this power to get data they shouldn't have and maybe to erase or modify data that they shouldn't be able to modify. I'm not worried about system admins, because they could find another way to do the same thing. But what if someone else got access to the form? Is there any way to do this kind of thing securely?

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• How to show or direct a business analyst to do data modelling?

  - by AaronLS

  Our business analysts pushed hard to collect data through a spreadsheet. I am the programmer responsible for importing that data. Usually when they push hard for something like this, I never know how well it will work out until a few weeks later when I have time assigned to work on the task of programming the import of the data. I have tried to do as much as possible along the way, named ranges, data validations, etc. But I usually don't have time to take a detailed look at all the data and compare to the destination in the database to determine how well it matches up. A lot of times there will be maybe a little table of items that somehow I have to relate to something else in the database, but there are not natural or business keys present that would allow me to do so. Make the best of this, trying to write something that can compare strings and make a best guess at it and then go through the effort of creating interfaces for a user to match the imported data to the destination. I feel like if the business analyst was actually creating a data model, they would be forced to think about these relationships, and have an appreciation for the need of natural or business keys to be part of the spreadsheet for the purposes of smoothly importing the data. The closest they come to business analysis is a big flat list of fields, and that would be fine if it were like any other data dictionary and include data types+relationships, but it isn't. They are just a bunch of names. No indication of what type of data they might hold, and it is up to me to guess. When I have pushed for more detail, they say that it is just busy work. How can I explain the importance of data modelling? How can I tell them what it is and how to do it? It feels impossible, because they don't have an appreciation for its importance. They do however, usually have an interest in helping out in whatever way they can, it's just this in particular has never gotten a motivated response.

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• A new tool in beta: Conflict Alert

  - by Alex Davies

  You know that manual merges are a real pain? Well, I’ve just released a Visual Studio extension that makes manual merges a thing of the past. No source control system can automatically merge two edits to the same line of code. Conflict Alert solves this by warning you that you are heading down a path that will cause a manual merge later down the line. You choose whether you want to carry on, or talk to your teammate and find out what they are doing. Have you ever warned your teammates that you are doing a big refactor, and that they should ‘keep out of class X’? Conflict Alert tells them for you automatically by highlighting the sections of code that you have edited.   It doesn’t need to connect to your source control system, so it works no matter which you use. Its a first release, and I hope it is useful. Any feedback would be gratefully received. Grab a teammate and try it now.

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• Optimize Many-to-Many with SUMMARIZE and Other Techniques

  - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

  We are still in the early days of DAX and even if I have been using it since 2 years ago, there is still a lot to learn on that. One of the topics that historically interests me (and many of the readers here, probably) is the many-to-many relationships between dimensions in a dimensional data model. When I and Alberto wrote the The Many to Many Revolution 2.0 we discovered the SUMMARIZE based pattern very late in the whitepaper writing. It is very important for performance optimization and it should be always used. In the last month, Gerhard Brueckl also presented an approach based on cross table filtering behavior that simplify the syntax involved, even if it’s harder to explain how it works internally. I published a short article titled Optimize Many-to-Many Calculation in DAX with SUMMARIZE and Cross Table Filtering on SQLBI website just to provide a quick reference to the three patterns available. A further study is still required to compare performance between SUMMARIZE and Cross Table Filtering patterns. Up to now, I haven’t observed big differences between them, even if their execution plans might be not identical and this suggest me that depending on other conditions you might favor one over the other.

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• Recommended storage scheme for home server? (LVM/JBOD/RAID 5...)

  - by j-g-faustus

  Are there any guidelines for which storage scheme(s) makes most sense for a multiple-disk home server? I am assuming a separate boot/OS disk (so bootability is not a concern, this is for data storage only) and 4-6 storage disks of 1-2 TB each, for a total storage capacity in the range 4-12 TB. The file system is ext4, I expect there will be only one big partition spanning all disks. As far as I can tell, the alternatives are individual disks pros: works with any combination of disk sizes; losing a disk loses only the data on that disk; no need for volume management. cons: data management is clumsy when logical units (like a "movies" folder) are larger than the capacity of any single drive. JBOD span pros: can merge disks of any size. cons: losing a disk loses all data on all disks LVM pros: can merge disks of any size; relatively simple to add and remove disks. cons: losing a disk loses all data on all disks RAID 0 pros: speed cons: losing one drive loses all data; disks must be same size RAID 5 pros: data survives losing one disk cons: gives up one disk worth of capacity; disks must be same size RAID 6 pros: data survives losing two disks cons: gives up two disks worth of capacity; disks must be same size I'm primarily considering either LVM or JBOD span simply because it will let me reuse older, smaller-capacity disks when I upgrade the system. The runner-up is RAID 0 for speed. I'm planning on having full backups to a separate system, so I expect the extra redundancy from RAID levels 5 or 6 won't be important. Is this a fair representation of the alternatives? Are there other considerations or alternatives I have missed? And what would you recommend?

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