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• T-SQL Tuesday : Reflections on the PASS Summit and our community

  - by AaronBertrand

  Last week I attended the PASS Summit in Seattle. I blogged from both keynotes ( Keynote #1 and Keynote #2 ), as well as the WIT Luncheon - which SQL Sentry sponsored. I had a fantastic time at the conference, even though these days I attend far fewer sessions that I used to. As a company, we were overwhelmed by the positive energy in the Expo Hall. I really liked the notebook idea, where board members were assigned notebooks to carry around and take ideas from attendees. I took full advantage when...(read more)

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• Animate from end frame of one animation to end frame of another Unity3d/C#

  - by Timothy Williams

  So I have two legacy FBX animations; Animation A and Animation B. What I'm looking to do is to be able to fade from A to B regardless of the current frame A is on. Using animation.CrossFade() will play A in reverse until it reaches frame 0, then play B forward. What I'm looking to do is blend from the current frame of A to the end frame of B. Probably via some sort of lerp between the facial position in A and the facial position in the last frame of B. Does anyone know how I might be able to accomplish this? Either via a built in function or potentially lerping of some sort?

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• How to Delete/Disable gnome panels. No existing solutions working

  - by Alan Peabody

  I would like to remove gnome panel completely. I spend most of my time in a (tmux) terminal or a browser. Synapse and a small hidden AWN panel fit the rest of my needs. I have tried all recommended solutions including this (found it a few places): How to delete Gnome Panel? However it always comes back at log in. I have tried changing the required components panel to avant-whatever as well as to empty. I have tried setting them both as default (right click set as default). Right now I just have the last panel set to transparent and auto hide, but it still tends to be annoying. What do I need to do to get rid of this damn thing? Clarification: Using gconf-editor, gconftool2, and/or Ubuntu tweak to set /desktop/gnome/session/required_component/panel to avant-window-navigator is not working. The setting stays when I reboot, but the empty gnome panel sticks around.

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• Tag link suggestion plugin for wordpress?

  - by Emerson

  Hi, every time I write a post I make sure I add links to wordsthat I have tags for. For example: "The economy of Brazil has improved in the last few years" this ensure that when people re-post my content, a lot of back-links will be created to my tags. This is quite a lot of work to do manually for every post. It would be cool if there was a plugin that would suggest tags to be applied when they match existing words in the text of the post. Is there such a thing?

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• Connectify Dispatch Links Multiple Network Nodes Into a Mega Connection

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Connectify Dispatch wants to change the way you interact with the networks around you by making it dead simple to mesh all available Wi-Fi, Cellular, and Ethernet connections into a massive and stable pipeline. Dispatch makes it open-and-click easy to hook up multiple Wi-Fi nodes, your cellphone, and even Ethernet connections into a single blended connection. While the video above gives a great overview of the process, check out the video below to see it in real world action: The project is currently in the last phase of KickStarter funding, so now is a great time to score Connectify Dispatch at a steep discount–pledging as little as $10 to fund the project, for example, scores you 50% of a 6-month Pro license. Hit up the link below to read more about the project, check the KickStarter status, and see all the neat features in the development pipeline. Dispatch: The Internet, Faster. [KickStarter] HTG Explains: What The Windows Event Viewer Is and How You Can Use It HTG Explains: How Windows Uses The Task Scheduler for System Tasks HTG Explains: Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows?

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• How do I add changes resolv.conf without getting overwritten?

  - by Sam

  I have migrated to 12.04 from 7.10 finally. I have one last part to complete but I am stumped. I am using puppet on each server, and in the past have used resolv.conf to point to my search to the puppetmaster. search puppetmaster.com nameserver 192.168.1.XXX When trying to use the file on 12.04 resolv.conf the file gets over written when rebooted. I cannot use a static IP for these, so using the /etc/network/interfaces to help me out is a nill point. # Dynamic resolv.conf(5) file for glibc resolver(3) generated by resolvconf(8) # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE BY HAND -- YOUR CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN nameserver 127.0.0.1 Is there a way to get resolvconf to handle this either in the head, tail or base. If there is, are there any examples I can use to tweak on my server. Any help is much appreciated.

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• Problem in Kubuntu: Default browser never opens

  - by user170852

  I'm using Kubuntu, and I switched the default browser to my favourite one. The thing is, when I did this, both my Twitter clients stopped working. Now each and every Twitter client I download and install fails to open any web browser to finish my account authorization. It's impossible they're all broken, so I reset my default browser to rekonq and it works well as a default browser, but still can't login to twitter from any client. In fact, every button in every program that should open a browser window (like Amarok with the "like on last.fm" button) does nothing. So I think there may be a problem with my system but I can't figure out what is it. My user is not in the admin group (it's a shared user), I have an admin user but I only use it to install programs. Could that be the cause? Also, hitting alt+F2 and writing man:file (enter) opens a rekonq window normally.

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• Netflix Rolls Out Polished New iPhone and Android Apps [Video]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  If you’re a Netflix subscriber, you’ve got a brand spanking new mobile interface to take for a spin. Last week Netflix released a brand new iOS interface, this week it’s a brand new Android interface. The above video showcases the new iOS interface for mobile playback on devices like the iPhone and iPad. The slick new layout makes it even easier to browser new content and resume watching content you’ve paused at home or on the go. For a peek at the new (and similar) Android interface, check out the video below: For more information about the respective apps, visit their download pages to read up and grab a copy. Netflix for Android / iOS How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates How to Get Pro Features in Windows Home Versions with Third Party Tools HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using?

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• Seven Random Thoughts on JavaOne

  - by HecklerMark

  As most people reading this blog may know, last week was JavaOne. There are a lot of summary/recap articles popping up now, and while I didn't want to just "add to pile", I did want to share a few observations. Disclaimer: I am an Oracle employee, but most of these observations are either externally verifiable or based upon a collection of opinions from Oracle and non-Oracle attendees alike. Anyway, here are a few take-aways: The Java ecosystem is alive and well, with a breadth and depth that is impossible to adequately describe in a short post...or a long post, for that matter. If there is any one area within the Java language or JVM that you would like to - or need to - know more about, it's well-represented at J1. While there are several IDEs that are used to great effect by the developer community, NetBeans is on a roll. I lost count how many sessions mentioned or used NetBeans, but it was by far the dominant IDE in use at J1. As a recent re-convert to NetBeans, I wasn't surprised others liked it so well, only how many. OpenJDK, OpenJFX, etc. Many developers were understandably concerned with the change of sponsorship/leadership when Java creator and longtime steward Sun Microsystems was acquired by Oracle. The read I got from attendees regarding Oracle's stewardship was almost universally positive, and the push for "openness" is deep and wide within the current Java environs. Few would probably have imagined it to be this good, this soon. Someone observed that "Larry (Ellison) is competitive, and he wants to be the best...so if he wants to have a community, it will be the best community on the planet." Like any company, Oracle is bound to make missteps, but leadership seems to be striking an excellent balance between embracing open efforts and innovating in competitive paid offerings. JavaFX (2.x) isn't perfect or comprehensive, but a great many people (myself included) see great potential, are developing for it, and are really excited about where it is and where it may be headed. This is another part of the Java ecosystem that has impressive depth for being so new (JavaFX 1.x aside). If you haven't kicked the tires yet, give it a try! You'll be surprised at how capable and versatile it is, and you'll probably catch yourself smiling while coding again.  :-) JavaEE is everywhere. Not exactly a newsflash, but there is a lot of buzz around EE still/again/anew. Sessions ranged from updated component specs/technologies to Websockets/HTML5, from frameworks to profiles and application servers. Programming "server-side" Java isn't confined to the server (as you no doubt realize), and if you still consider JavaEE a cumbersome beast, you clearly haven't been using the last couple of versions. Download GlassFish or the WebLogic Zip distro (or another JavaEE 6 implementation) and treat yourself. JavaOne is not inexpensive, but to paraphrase an old saying, "If you think that's expensive, you should try ignorance." :-) I suppose it's possible to attend J1 and learn nothing, but you'd have to really work at it! Attending even a single session is bound to expand your horizons and make you approach your code, your problem domain, differently...even if it's a session about something you already know quite well. The various presenters offer vastly different perspectives and challenge you to re-think your own approach(es). And finally, if you think the scheduled sessions are great - and make no mistake, most are clearly outstanding - wait until you see what you pick up from what I like to call the "hallway sessions". Between the presentations, people freely mingle in the hallways, go to lunch and dinner together, and talk. And talk. And talk. Ideas flow freely, sparking other ideas and the "crowdsourcing" of knowledge in a way that is hard to imagine outside of a conference of this magnitude. Consider this the "GO" part of a "BOGO" (Buy One, Get One) offer: you buy the ticket to the "structured" part of JavaOne and get the hallway sessions at no additional charge. They're really that good. If you weren't able to make it to JavaOne this year, you can still watch/listen to the sessions online by visiting the JavaOne course catalog and clicking the media link(s) in the right column - another demonstration of Oracle's commitment to the Java community. But make plans to be there next year to get the full benefit! You'll be glad you did. All the best,Mark P.S. - I didn't mention several other exciting developments in areas like the embedded space and the "internet of things" (M2M), robotics, optimization, and the cloud (among others), but I think you get the idea. JavaOne == brainExpansion;  Hope to see you there next year!

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• VirtualBox appliance for the Oracle Communications Service Delivery Platform (SDP) Products

  - by chlander

  It's been quite awhile since we last blogged. This blog is written by Leif Lourie, a Curriculum Developer for the Oracle Communications Service Delivery Platform (SDP) products. For the last 8 years, Leif has worked as a Curriculum Developer for many of the telecom-oriented products that Oracle offers. He has been working in the telecom industry for about 25 years and has also worked as a software developer, project manager, and solutions architect. He is currently working on courseware for an upcoming release for one of the Service Delivery Platform products. Thanks to Leif not only for this blog, but for making the VM described in the blog available. Cheryl Lander, Oracle Communications InfoDev Senior Director To be able to download, install and test a product within a day is many times very important for people that are doing the primary evaluation of a software product. If it takes longer, it will require a bigger effort, like a proof-of-concept project with many people involved. Of course, if the product is chosen for a more thorough test, it will probably happen anyway, but then maybe with focus on integration instead of product features. We have a long tradition of creating complex software that is easy to install and test and we have often been praised for the ease of getting our products up and running. One key for this has been that there has always been an installer for Windows, as well as for the production environments that usually are Unix and Linux. And, the windows installer has, in most cases, been released for developing and testing purposes. Lately, this has changed. Our products are very seldom released for the Windows platform, at all. And even the Linux versions are almost always released for 64-bit systems. This is creating problems for many of the people that want to try out our products, since few have access to a 64-bit Linux system of the right platform. Most of us are using a laptop with Windows or Mac OS. Some of us are using Linux or Solaris, but probably a non certified distribution for the product you want to test. My job, among other things, is to develop hands-on practices for our products. For me, it is crucial to have access to environments for installing and using our products. For this reason I have been using virtual machines for many years.I have a ready-made base system, with the necessary tools installed for all the products I create hands-on practices for. Whenever I start working on hands-on practices for a new product or a new version, I just copy the base system and start working with a clean slate. This saves me a lot of time! Now, I would like to start saving time for my favorite student: You! If you are using our products and regularly test new versions you might benefit from the virtual machine that is now available on Oracle Technology Network: The Virtual Machine for the Oracle Communications Service Delivery Platform (SDP) Products. This virtual machine contains an installation of the 64-bit version of Oracle Enterprise Linux, version 6. It also has Oracle Database Express Edition (XE), Oracle Java and Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse installed. By using Oracle VM VirtualBox you may use Windows, OS X, Linux or Solaris on your laptop. VirtualBox can be installed on top of any of these platforms and give you the ability to run virtual machines in your laptop. After downloading and starting the virtual machine you will also need to download the installation files for the product you want to test; for example Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper or Oracle Communications Online Mediation Controller. In some cases there are lessons and practices available for the products. The freely available courses are listed in Oracle Learning Library as a Collection of Oracle Communications Service Delivery Platform Courses. As time goes by, we will make this list collection bigger. Also, the goal is to update the virtual machine about one to two times per year. So you will always be able to get a well maintained virtual machine for the Service Delivery Platform products from us. We Value Your Feedback If you would like to suggest improvements or report issues on any of the product documentation, curriculum, or training produced by the Oracle Communications Information Development team, you can use these channels: Email [email protected]. Post a comment on this blog. Thanks for reading!

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• Software Architecture - From design to sucessful implementation

  - by user20358

  As the subject goes; once a software architect puts down the high level design and approach to a software that is to be developed from scratch, how does the team ensure that it is implemented successfully? To my mind the following things will need to be done Proper understanding of requirements Setting down coding practices and guidelines Regular code reviews to ensure the guidelines are being adhered to Revisiting the requirements phase and making necessary changes to design based on client inputs if there are any changes to requirements Proper documentation of what is being done in code Proper documentation of requirements and changes to them Last but not the least, implementing the design via object oriented code where appropriate Did I miss anything? Would love to hear any mistakes that you have learned from in your project experiences. What went wrong, what could have been done better. Thanks for taking the time..

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• Join me on MSDN Radio next Monday Mark your calendar.

  Announcement: MSDN Radio: The ASP.NET Developer Evolved with Joe Stagner Event ID: 1032448575 Date: Monday, April 12, 2010 9:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) 30 Minutes Event Overview You may know him as Mr. How Do I with Microsoft ASP.NET. For the last few years Joe has been busy working with the ASP.NET product team to simplify and educate developers on what's possible with the latest web tools. We talk with Joe about how the web developer is able to learn about and leverage new tools...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Are too many assertions code smell?

  - by Florents

  I've really fallen in love with unit testing and TDD - I am test infected. However, unit testing is used for public methods. Sometimes though I do have to test some assumptions-assertions in private methods too, because some of them are "dangerous" and refactoring can't help further. (I know, testing frameworks allo testing private methods). So, It became a habit of mine that (almost always) the first and the last line of a private method are both assertions. I guess this couldn't be bad (right ??). However, I've noticed that I also tend to use assertions in public methods too (as in the private) just "to be sure". Could this be "testing duplication" since the public method assumpotions are tested from the unit testng framework? Could someone think of too many assertions as a code smell?

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• Year 2012 So Far...

  - by rajeshr

  It's hard to seek excuses for not showing up in here for regular updates. I'm not venturing into it hence. Year 2012 has been very engaging, both professionally and personally, and I wish to present before you some wonderful people whom I met in the OU classrooms while delivering training programs on various Oracle technologies. While I went through a number of Oracle products in the last few months, two of 'em were more regular than others: Solaris 11 and MySQL. Not to forget the First Global Teach Live Virtual Class on Java ME. Oracle Solaris 11 Training in Bangalore Oracle Solaris 11 Training in Delhi Oracle Solaris 11 Training in Hyderabad Oracle VM for SPARC Training at OU Hong Kong Oracle VM for SPARC Training at Bangalore Oracle Solaris 11 Training in Bangalore Oracle Solaris 10 Training in Bangalore Oracle Solaris 11 Training in Delhi MySQL training Programs at Kochi, Kerala. Attending Ofir Leitner's Pilot teach on Java ME Oracle Solaris 11 Training in Bangalore Sad, I don't have photographs of some smart people whom I came across in my live virtual classes on various Oracle technologies

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• Reverse X11 forwarding

  - by Oli

  I was playing with my phone (that runs a Linux/X stack) last night and I managed to ssh into my desktop and run an application and have it show up on my phone. It was awesome. Today I'd like to sort of do the opposite. I want to view an application running on my phone on my PC. I could install a SSH server on my phone but I frankly don't fancy that purely for security reasons. I want this to be initiated from my phone. Is there a way to connect from my phone and tunnel the PC's X connection back to the phone and then run an application on the phone that show on the PC?

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• Getting out of my head

  - by BenCole

  (I put this on SO, but it got a couple close votes saying it belonged here instead...) I've spent the last year as a single person team developing a rich-client application (35,000+ LoC, for what it's worth). It's currently stable and in production. However, I know that my skills were rusty at the beginning of the project, so without a doubt there are major issues to the code. At this point, most of the issues are in architecture, structure, or interactions - the easy problems, even architecture/design problems, have already been weeded out. Unfortunately, I've spent so much time with this project that I'm having a hard time thinking outside of it - approaching it from a new perspective to see the flaws deeply buried or inherent in the design. How do I step outside my head and outside my code so I can get a fresh look at this code so I can make it better? Is this less of an issue than I think it is, or is this a problem for other people as well?

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• Typical collision detection

  - by marcg11

  I would like to know how is the typical collision detection of most games. For example, you control a character which can move in 2 dimensional directions (except up and down). Now lets asume he walks into a wall, most of the games depending on character angle and the BB normal face will only stop the player in one axis, but will continue moving in the other along the wall axis. How is that done? I've only managed to stop the character from going through the wall by seting the position to the last one in the past frame if the new position colllisions the bounding box. But this just makes the player stop sharply and unrealisticly.

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• Is it risky to install KDE on Ubuntu alongside Unity and Gnome?

  - by Vagrant232

  The last time I installed KDE and Gnome on the same OS (Opensuse 12.1), GDM and KDM started conflicting and they both stopped working properly and I was plagued with applications from both environments till the point the applications overview in gnome was flooded with useless KDE trash. Moreover, I still had parts of the KDE desktop appearing when I'm running Gnome (such as the password manager and kde fonts and some apps refused to give up the oxygen theme). If I install the plasma-desktop package on Ubuntu, am I at risk of having such issues? I just want KDE with the bare minimum number of applications; just the necessary ones to make things work. I'd rather not have dolphin installed either. Also, is it all right to install the kde-standard pack? Or should I just stick to the plasma-desktop pack?

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• Data-tier Applications in SQL Server 2008 R2

  - by BuckWoody

  I had the privilege of presenting to the Adelaide SQL Server User Group in Australia last evening, and I covered the Data Access Component (DAC) and the Utility Control Point (UCP) from SQL Server 2008 R2. Here are some links from that presentation:   Whitepaper: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381683.aspx Tutorials: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee210554(SQL.105).aspx From Visual Studio: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd193245(VS.100).aspx Restrictions and capabilities by Edition: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645993(SQL.105).aspx    Glen Berry's Blog entry on scripts for UCP/DAC: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/glennberry/archive/2010/05/19/sql-server-utility-script-from-24-hours-of-pass.aspx    Objects supported by a DAC: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee210549(SQL.105).aspx   Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Motorola India meets Mayan calender dead line – earlier than predicted

  - by Boonei

  My favorite cell phone maker Moto is closing it doors in India. Plan is to  have their service shops open. If you still want to grab the last living decendent of the phone in India there is good news “would continue to sell its phones till stocks are exhausted while service centers would continue to function”. Ya !  lock up in your safe, wait 20 years, then sell this antique for a fortune. There is will be staff cut and Moto promised to help employees at these difficult times. India is one of the most sort out market for mobile makers, what is running in Googles mind ? May be world is falling apart like Mayans predicted ?    

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• Software development magazines [closed]

  - by Sebastian

  Ive spent the last hour or so browsing the web for professional development magazines. I am mostly interested in the java platform, agile methods, "programming in general" (tutorials on languages or whatever, "hot new stuff" etc) and software craftmanship. My best finding yet was pragpub and maybe MSDN magazine. I am willing to pay and have a Zinio account if anyone knows a magazine about programming that is distributed by them. Ive already browsed a couple of related threads here on stackexchange. ACM and IEEE does not seem relevant, as Im not interested in research articles. Maybe conferences like OOPSLA as somebody mentioned in another thread. PS. I prefer if they are in pdf or readable on kindle or a tablet. DS. BR Sebastian

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• Build an Inexpensive but Polished Sous Vide Cooker for Geeky Culinary Fun

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Kitchen craft has taken a turn for the geekier in the last few years with all manner of DIY projects; this DIY Sous Video cooker stands apart from the average hacked-together model and is polished enough to leave on the counter. We see a lot of cooking related hacks in our news feeds and this one is definitely one of the cleaner builds. It sports a clean display, nice case, and and easy to use interface–perfect for Sous Vide’ing yourself a delicious streak or other culinary treat. Hit up the link below for a full run down on the build. DIY Sous Vide Immersion Cooker On The Cheap [via Make] How To Customize Your Wallpaper with Google Image Searches, RSS Feeds, and More 47 Keyboard Shortcuts That Work in All Web Browsers How To Hide Passwords in an Encrypted Drive Even the FBI Can’t Get Into

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• New Procurement Report for Transportation Sourcing

  - by John Murphy

  Welcome to our fourth annual transportation procurement benchmark report. American Shipper, in partnership with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) and the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), surveyed roughly 275 transportation buyers and sellers on procurement practices, processes, technologies and results. Some key findings: • Manual, spreadsheet-based procurement processes remain the most prevalent among transportation buyers, with 42 percent of the total • Another 25 percent of respondents use a hybrid platform, which presumably means these buyers are using spreadsheets for at least one mode and/or geography • Only 23 percent of buyers are using a completely systems-based approach of some kind • Shippers were in a holding pattern with regards to investment in procurement systems the past year • Roughly three-quarters of survey respondents report that transportation spend has increased in 2012, although the pace has declined slightly from last year’s increases • Nearly every survey respondent purchases multiple modes of transportation • The number of respondents with plans to address technology to support the procurement process has increased in 2012. About one quarter of respondents who do not have a system report they have a budget for this investment in the next two years.

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• Microsoft BUILD 2013 Day 1&ndash;Keynote

  - by Tim Murphy

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

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• 24 Hours of PASS – first reflections

  - by Rob Farley

  A few days after the end of 24HOP, I find myself reflecting on it. I’m still waiting on most of the information. I want to be able to discover things like where the countries represented on each of the sessions, and things like that. So far, I have the feedback scores and the numbers of attendees. The data was provided in a PDF, so while I wait for it to appear in a more flexible format, I’ve pushed the 24 attendee numbers into Excel. This chart shows the numbers by time. Remember that we started at midnight GMT, which was 10:30am in my part of the world and 8pm in New York. It’s probably no surprise that numbers drooped a bit at the start, stayed comparatively low, and then grew as the larger populations of the English-speaking world woke up. I remember last time 24HOP ran for 24 hours straight, there were quite a few sessions with less than 100 attendees. None this time though. We got close, but even when it was 4am in New York, 8am in London and 7pm in Sydney (which would have to be the worst slot for attracting people), we still had over 100 people tuning in. As expected numbers grew as the UK woke up, and even more so as the US did, with numbers peaking at 755 for the “3pm in New York” session on SQL Server Data Tools. Kendra Little almost reached those numbers too, and certainly contributed the biggest ‘spike’ on the chart with her session five hours earlier. Of all the sessions, Kendra had the highest proportion of ‘Excellent’s for the “Overall Evaluation of the session” question, and those of you who saw her probably won’t be surprised by that. Kendra had one of the best ranked sessions from the 24HOP event this time last year (narrowly missing out on being top 3), and she has produced a lot of good video content since then. The reports indicate that there were nearly 8.5 thousand attendees across the 24 sessions, averaging over 350 at each one. I’m looking forward to seeing how many different people that was, although I do know that Wil Sisney managed to attend every single one (if you did too, please let me know). Wil even moderated one of the sessions, which made his feat even greater. Thanks Wil. I also want to send massive thanks to Dave Dustin. Dave probably would have attended all of the sessions, if it weren’t for a power outage that forced him to take a break. He was also a moderator, and it was during this session that he earned special praise. Part way into the session he was moderating, the speaker lost connectivity and couldn’t get back for about fifteen minutes. That’s an incredibly long time when you’re in a live presentation. There were over 200 people tuned in at the time, and I’m sure Dave was as stressed as I was to have a speaker disappear. I started chasing down a phone number for the speaker, while Dave spoke to the audience. And he did brilliantly. He started answering questions, and kept doing that until the speaker came back. Bear in mind that Dave hadn’t expected to give a presentation on that topic (or any other), and was simply drawing on his SQL expertise to get him through. Also consider that this was between midnight at 1am in Dave’s part of the world (Auckland, NZ). I would’ve been expecting just to welcome people, monitor questions, probably read some out, and in general, help make things run smoothly. He went far beyond the call of duty, and if I had a medal to give him, he’d definitely be getting one. On the whole, I think this 24HOP was a success. We tried a different platform, and I think for the most part it was a popular move. We didn’t ask the question “Was this better than LiveMeeting?”, but we did get a number of people telling us that they thought the platform was very good. Some people have told me I get a chance to put my feet up now that this is over. As I’m also co-ordinating a tour of SQLSaturday events across the Australia/New Zealand region, I don’t quite get to take that much of a break (plus, there’s the little thing of squeezing in seven SQL 2012 exams over the next 2.5 weeks). But I am pleased to be reflecting on this event rather than anticipating it. There were a number of factors that could have gone badly, but on the whole I’m pleased about how it went. A massive thanks to everyone involved. If you’re reading this and thinking you wish you could’ve tuned in more, don’t worry – they were all recorded and you’ll be able to watch them on demand very soon. But as well as that, PASS has a stream of content produced by the Virtual Chapters, so you can keep learning from the comfort of your desk all year round. More info on them at sqlpass.org, of course.

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