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  • Agile Executives

    - by Robert May
    Over the years, I have experienced many different styles of software development. In the early days, most of the development was Waterfall development. In the last few years, I’ve become an advocate of Scrum. As I talked about last month, many people have misconceptions about what Scrum really is. The reason why we do Scrum at Veracity is because of the difference it makes in the life of the team doing Scrum. Software is for people, and happy motivated people will build better software. However, not all executives understand Scrum and how to get the information from development teams that use Scrum. I think that these executives need a support system for managing Agile teams. Historical Software Management When Henry Ford pioneered the assembly line, I doubt he realized the impact he’d have on Management through the ages. Historically, management was about managing the process of building things. The people were just cogs in that process. Like all cogs, they were replaceable. Unfortunately, most of the software industry followed this same style of management. Many of today’s senior managers learned how to manage companies before software was a significant influence on how the company did business. Software development is a very creative process, but too many managers have treated it like an assembly line. Idea’s go in, working software comes out, and we just have to figure out how to make sure that the ideas going in are perfect, then the software will be perfect. Lean Manufacturing In the manufacturing industry, Lean manufacturing has revolutionized Henry Ford’s assembly line. Derived from the Toyota process, Lean places emphasis on always providing value for the customer. Anything the customer wouldn’t be willing to pay for is wasteful. Agile is based on similar principles. We’re building software for people, and anything that isn’t useful to them doesn’t add value. Waterfall development would have teams build reams and reams of documentation about how the software should work. Agile development dispenses with this work because excessive documentation doesn’t add value. Instead, teams focus on building documentation only when it truly adds value to the customer. Many other Agile principals are similar. Playing Catch-up Just like in the manufacturing industry, many managers in the software industry have yet to understand the value of the principles of Lean and Agile. They think they can wrap the uncertainties of software development up in a nice little package and then just execute, usually followed by failure. They spend a great deal of time and money trying to exactly predict the future. That expenditure of time and money doesn’t add value to the customer. Managers that understand that Agile know that there is a better way. They will instead focus on the priorities of the near term in detail, and leave the future to take care of itself. They have very detailed two week plans with less detailed quarterly plans. These plans are guided by a general corporate strategy that doesn’t focus on the exact implementation details. These managers also think in smaller features rather than large functionality. This adds a great deal of value to customers, since the features that matter most are the ones that the team focuses on in the near term and then are able to deliver to the customers that are paying for them. Agile managers also realize that stale software is very costly. They know that keeping the technology in their software current is much less expensive and risky than large rewrites that occur infrequently and schedule time in each release for refactoring of the existing software. Agile Executives Even though Agile is a better way, I’ve still seen failures using the Agile process. While some of these failures can be attributed to the team, most of them are caused by managers, not the team. Managers fail to understand what Agile is, how it works, and how to get the information that they need to make good business decisions. I think this is a shame. I’m very pleased that Veracity understands this problem and is trying to do something about it. Veracity is a key sponsor of Agile Executives. In fact, Galen is this year’s acting president for Agile Executives. The purpose of Agile Executives is to help managers better manage Agile teams and see better success. Agile Executives is trying to build a community of executives that range from managers interested in Agile to managers that have successfully adopted Agile. Together, these managers can form a community of support and ideas that will help make Agile teams more successful. Helping Your Team You can help too! Talk with your manager and get them involved in Agile Executives. Help Veracity build the community. If your manager understands Agile better, he’ll understand how to help his teams, which will result in software that adds more value for customers. If you have any questions about how you can be involved, please let me know. Technorati Tags: Agile,Agile Executives

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  • Business Choices and Evony

    - by Robert May
    Recently, I’ve been playing a game called Evony, and I finally decided to quit the game and thought I should warn others who might be tempted.  I also find a lot of insight with this game as an example.  A few of the companies that I’ve worked with or worked for have been like this and they are NOT good places to be. Evony is a joke designed to milk as much money out of people as possible.  As a professional software developer who mentors teams on how to build better software, here's what I see: They obviously offshore all development and have little oversight over that offshore development, and they probably have a small team at that.  Evidenced by the poor grammar throughout the game. They're seeking to maximize revenue and pushing to do as little development as possible, which would mean a small team. They're horribly understaffed in the customer support department as evidenced by never replying to this forum and never responding to bug reports or help requests (I've had one open with no response AT ALL for over a month . . .) They have way inadequate testing, no CI, and probably no automated unit tests.  You can see this by the poor grammar throughout the game and the type of bugs that show up. They aren't following a formal development process (no Agile, Waterfall, or anything else) as evidenced by their lack of predictable release cycle and lack of visibility. I'm guessing that the internal code base is terrible, otherwise, there wouldn't be an "Age II" that had nothing more than a new visual interface and a few rule tweaks.  This is also evidenced by the itty bitty scope of bug fixes and their inability to really fix bugs. Their Architect sucks.  Really, 42k user is all you can handle on a single server?  Could you REALLY not come up with a better way to scale to handle users?  They've built isolated worlds, instead of a single continuous world. Back to milking people for money--to really progress, you have to spend money. All of this adds up to knowing, deliberate actions on the part of management.  They CHOOSE to do this (like AOL choosing to send more discs instead of improve quality). So, what can we learn? This game will never really improve, since the bosses don't care, they're only in it for the money. The game will never have good support.  Again, the owners don't care. Giving them money only perpetuates this scam (and yes, I've given them money, way too much money. :() They don't care if you quit.  There's a new sucker born every day. Don't EVER go to work for them.  I've worked both with and for people like this and the culture is NEVER good. Ah well. Technorati Tags: Evony

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  • wcf erorr: The client and service bindings may be mismatched?

    - by Rev
    Hi let see server config and client config. Then help me find difference between these configs!! Client config <system.serviceModel> <client> <endpoint address="http://localhost/admin2/AdminCentralService.svc" binding="wsHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="WSHttpBinding_Config" contract="TIR.ThreeTier.ICommandInvoker" name="AdminCentralServiceConfig" /> <endpoint binding="wsHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="WSHttpBinding_Config" contract="TIR.ThreeTier.ICommandInvoker" name="CommandInvokerConfig" /> </client> <bindings> <wsHttpBinding> <binding name="WSHttpBinding_Config" closeTimeout="00:10:00" openTimeout="00:10:00" receiveTimeout="00:10:00" sendTimeout="00:10:00" bypassProxyOnLocal="false" transactionFlow="false" hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard" maxBufferPoolSize="2147483647" maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647" messageEncoding="Mtom" textEncoding="utf-8" useDefaultWebProxy="true" allowCookies="false"> <readerQuotas maxDepth="2147483647" maxStringContentLength="2147483647" maxArrayLength="2147483647" maxBytesPerRead="2147483647" maxNameTableCharCount="2147483647" /> <reliableSession ordered="true" inactivityTimeout="00:10:00" enabled="false" /> <security mode="Message"> <transport clientCredentialType="Windows" proxyCredentialType="None" realm="" /> <message clientCredentialType="Windows" negotiateServiceCredential="true" algorithmSuite="Default" establishSecurityContext="true" /> </security> </binding> </wsHttpBinding> </bindings> Server Config <system.serviceModel> <behaviors> <serviceBehaviors> <behavior name="AdminCentral.Business.Web.Service1Behavior"> <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" /> <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false" /> </behavior> </serviceBehaviors> </behaviors> <bindings> <wsHttpBinding> <binding name="WSHttpBinding_Config" closeTimeout="00:10:00" openTimeout="00:10:00" receiveTimeout="00:10:00" sendTimeout="00:10:00" bypassProxyOnLocal="false" transactionFlow="false" hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard" maxBufferPoolSize="2147483647" maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647" messageEncoding="Mtom" textEncoding="utf-8" useDefaultWebProxy="true" allowCookies="false"> <readerQuotas maxDepth="2147483647" maxStringContentLength="2147483647" maxArrayLength="2147483647" maxBytesPerRead="2147483647" maxNameTableCharCount="2147483647"/> <reliableSession ordered="true" inactivityTimeout="00:10:00" enabled="false"/> <security mode="Message"> <transport clientCredentialType="Windows" proxyCredentialType="None" realm=""/> <message clientCredentialType="Windows" negotiateServiceCredential="true" algorithmSuite="Default" establishSecurityContext="true"/> </security> </binding> </wsHttpBinding> </bindings> <services> <service behaviorConfiguration="AdminCentral.Business.Web.Service1Behavior" name="AdminCentral.Business.Web.AdminCentralService"> <endpoint address="" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="AdminCentral.Business.Web.ICommandInvoker"> <identity> <dns value="localhost" /> </identity> </endpoint> <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" /> </service> </services>

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  • Database Rebuild

    - by Robert May
    I promised I’d have a simpler mechanism for rebuilding the database.  Below is a complete MSBuild targets file for rebuilding the database from scratch.  I don’t know if I’ve explained the rational for this.  The reason why you’d WANT to do this is so that each developer has a clean version of the database on their local machine.  This also includes the continuous integration environment.  Basically, you can do whatever you want to the database without fear, and in a minute or two, have a completely rebuilt database structure. DBDeploy (including the KTSC build task for dbdeploy) is used in this script to do change tracking on the database itself.  The MSBuild ExtensionPack is used in this target file.  You can get an MSBuild DBDeploy task here. There are two database scripts that you’ll see below.  First is the task for creating an admin (dbo) user in the system.  This script looks like the following: USE [master] GO If not Exists (select Name from sys.sql_logins where name = '$(User)') BEGIN CREATE LOGIN [$(User)] WITH PASSWORD=N'$(Password)', DEFAULT_DATABASE=[$(DatabaseName)], CHECK_EXPIRATION=OFF, CHECK_POLICY=OFF END GO EXEC master..sp_addsrvrolemember @loginame = N'$(User)', @rolename = N'sysadmin' GO USE [$(DatabaseName)] GO CREATE USER [$(User)] FOR LOGIN [$(User)] GO ALTER USER [$(User)] WITH DEFAULT_SCHEMA=[dbo] GO EXEC sp_addrolemember N'db_owner', N'$(User)' GO The second creates the changelog table.  This script can also be found in the dbdeploy.net install\scripts directory. CREATE TABLE changelog ( change_number INTEGER NOT NULL, delta_set VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL, start_dt DATETIME NOT NULL, complete_dt DATETIME NULL, applied_by VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL, description VARCHAR(500) NOT NULL ) GO ALTER TABLE changelog ADD CONSTRAINT Pkchangelog PRIMARY KEY (change_number, delta_set) GO Finally, Here’s the targets file. <Projectxmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" ToolsVersion="4.0" DefaultTargets="Update">   <PropertyGroup>     <DatabaseName>TestDatabase</DatabaseName>     <Server>localhost</Server>     <ScriptDirectory>.\Scripts</ScriptDirectory>     <RebuildDirectory>.\Rebuild</RebuildDirectory>     <TestDataDirectory>.\TestData</TestDataDirectory>     <DbDeploy>.\DBDeploy</DbDeploy>     <User>TestUser</User>     <Password>TestPassword</Password>     <BCP>bcp</BCP>     <BCPOptions>-S$(Server) -U$(User) -P$(Password) -N -E -k</BCPOptions>     <OutputFileName>dbDeploy-output.sql</OutputFileName>     <UndoFileName>dbDeploy-output-undo.sql</UndoFileName>     <LastChangeToApply>99999</LastChangeToApply>   </PropertyGroup>     <ImportProject="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\ExtensionPack\4.0\MSBuild.ExtensionPack.tasks"/>   <UsingTask TaskName="Ktsc.Build.DBDeploy" AssemblyFile="$(DbDeploy)\Ktsc.Build.dll"/>   <ItemGroup>     <VariableInclude="DatabaseName">       <Value>$(DatabaseName)</Value>     </Variable>     <VariableInclude="Server">       <Value>$(Server)</Value>     </Variable>     <VariableInclude="User">       <Value>$(User)</Value>     </Variable>     <VariableInclude="Password">       <Value>$(Password)</Value>     </Variable>   </ItemGroup>     <TargetName="Rebuild">     <!--Take the database offline to disconnect any users. Requires that the current user is an admin of the sql server machine.-->     <MSBuild.ExtensionPack.SqlServer.SqlCmd Variables="@(Variable)" Database="$(DatabaseName)" TaskAction="Execute" CommandLineQuery ="ALTER DATABASE $(DatabaseName) SET OFFLINE WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE"/>         <!--Bring it back online.  If you don't, the database files won't be deleted.-->     <MSBuild.ExtensionPack.Sql2008.DatabaseTaskAction="SetOnline" DatabaseItem="$(DatabaseName)"/>     <!--Delete the database, removing the existing files.-->     <MSBuild.ExtensionPack.Sql2008.DatabaseTaskAction="Delete" DatabaseItem="$(DatabaseName)"/>     <!--Create the new database in the default database path location.-->     <MSBuild.ExtensionPack.Sql2008.DatabaseTaskAction="Create" DatabaseItem="$(DatabaseName)" Force="True"/>         <!--Create admin user-->     <MSBuild.ExtensionPack.SqlServer.SqlCmd TaskAction="Execute" Server="(local)" Database="$(DatabaseName)" InputFiles="$(RebuildDirectory)\0002 Create Admin User.sql" Variables="@(Variable)" />     <!--Create the dbdeploy changelog.-->     <MSBuild.ExtensionPack.SqlServer.SqlCmd TaskAction="Execute" Server="(local)" Database="$(DatabaseName)" LogOn="$(User)" Password="$(Password)" InputFiles="$(RebuildDirectory)\0003 Create Changelog.sql" Variables="@(Variable)" />     <CallTarget Targets="Update;ImportData"/>     </Target>    <TargetName="Update" DependsOnTargets="CreateUpdateScript">     <MSBuild.ExtensionPack.SqlServer.SqlCmd TaskAction="Execute" Server="(local)" Database="$(DatabaseName)" LogOn="$(User)" Password="$(Password)" InputFiles="$(OutputFileName)" Variables="@(Variable)" />   </Target>   <TargetName="CreateUpdateScript">     <ktsc.Build.DBDeploy DbType="mssql"                                        DbConnection="User=$(User);Password=$(Password);Data Source=$(Server);Initial Catalog=$(DatabaseName);"                                        Dir="$(ScriptDirectory)"                                        OutputFile="..\$(OutputFileName)"                                        UndoOutputFile="..\$(UndoFileName)"                                        LastChangeToApply="$(LastChangeToApply)"/>   </Target>     <TargetName="ImportData">     <ItemGroup>       <TestData Include="$(TestDataDirectory)\*.dat"/>     </ItemGroup>     <ExecCommand="$(BCP) $(DatabaseName).dbo.%(TestData.Filename) in&quot;%(TestData.Identity)&quot;$(BCPOptions)"/>   </Target> </Project> Technorati Tags: MSBuild

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  • Collabnet Subversion and Self Signed Certificates

    - by Robert May
    We installed Collabnet as our subversion server recently.  This is the first time that we’ve used it.  In general, it seems pretty good, but we ran into a problem with it.  People were getting the following error in Tortoise: OPTIONS of ’https://xxxx.xxxxxxxx.xxxx/svn/xxxxx’: SSL handshake failed: SSL error code – 1/1/336032856 (https://xxxx.xxxxxxxx.xxxx) The odd thing is that for some people, it worked, for others, it didn’t!  I also couldn’t find anything useful out on the internet. We had checked the Subversion Server should serve via https option in the settings, and all of the ports were open, etc. This option causes a self signed certificate to be used. What we discovered: Tortoise must use the same url as is in the Hostname field on the General settings for collabnet or you’ll get this error.  Basically, some people were using https://svn.xxxxxxx.xxxxx and others were using https://computername.xxxxxxxx.xxxx.  Because the host name said used the computer name version, the whole thing broke.  By changing the host name to the svn version, which is what they should be using, the problem went away.  The users do get the “Accept Certificate” prompt, but we can live with that! Technorati Tags: Subversion,Collabnet

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  • Oracle Linux Friday Spotlight - November 1, 2013

    - by Chris Kawalek
    Happy Friday! I hope you were able to catch our webcast "Why Choose Oracle Linux for your Oracle Database 12c Deployments" earlier this week so you could ask questions of our experts in real-time. But if you didn't, or want to share the content with your colleagues, the on-demand version is our Friday Spotlight this week. Watch now: Why Choose Oracle Linux for your Oracle Database 12c Deployments We'll see you next week! -Chris

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  • New Responsibilities

    - by Robert May
    With the start of the new year, I’m starting new responsibilities at Veracity. One responsibility that is staying constant is my love and evangelism of Agile.  In fact, I’ll be spending more time ensuring that all Veracity teams are performing agile, Scrum specifically, in a consistent manner so that all of our clients and consultants have a similar experience. Imagine, if you will, working for a consulting company on a project.  On that project, the project management style is Waterfall in iterations.  Now you move to another project and in that project, you’re doing real Scrum, but in both cases, you were told that what you were doing was Scrum.  Rather confusing.  I’ve found, however, that this happens on many teams and many projects.  Most companies simply aren’t disciplined enough to do Scrum.  Some think that being Agile means not being disciplined.  The opposite is true! So, my goals for Veracity are to make sure that all of our consultants have a consistent feel for Scrum and what it is and how it works and then to make sure that on the projects they’re assigned to, Scrum is appropriately applied for their situation.  This will help keep them happier, but also make switching to other projects easier and more consistent.  If we aren’t doing the project management on the project, we’ll help them know what good Agile practices should look like so that they can give good advice to the client, and so that if they move to another project, they have a consistent feel. I’m really looking forward to these new duties. Technorati Tags: Agile,Scrum

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  • Who are good suppliers of .NET 4 Hosted Virtual Private Servers ? (May 2010)

    - by Nick Haslam
    I'm looking for a supplier for hosting a Virtual server, running Windows Server 2008 (R2 ideally) and .NET 4 to run an internet facing ASP.NET web application. I'd also like to be able to remote desktop onto it, and install other apps as necessary, including other websites as and when. I'm based in the UK, so a UK based supplier would be great. I was looking at Fasthosts, but having researched them a bit more, they look like a bad idea.

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  • May we have Ruby and Rails performance statistics? We're persuading the business to use Rails!

    - by thekingoftruth
    We're convincing our Products officer that we want to use JRuby on Rails, and we're having a hard time coming up with some statistics which show that: Coding time is less using Rails vs. say Struts or Zend Framework or what have you. Ruby (and JRuby in particular) performance isn't horrible (anymore). Rails performance isn't bad either. If you can get us some good stats quickly, we might have a chance!

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  • Why C++ virtual function defined in header may not be compiled and linked in vtable?

    - by 0xDEAD BEEF
    Situation is following. I have shared library, which contains class definition - QueueClass : IClassInterface { virtual void LOL() { do some magic} } My shared library initialize class member QueueClass *globalMember = new QueueClass(); My share library export C function which returns pointer to globalMember - void * getGlobalMember(void) { return globalMember;} My application uses globalMember like this ((IClassInterface*)getGlobalMember())->LOL(); Now the very uber stuff - if i do not reference LOL from shared library, then LOL is not linked in and calling it from application raises exception. Reason - VTABLE contains nul in place of pointer to LOL() function. When i move LOL() definition from .h file to .cpp, suddenly it appears in VTABLE and everything works just great. What explains this behavior?! (gcc compiler + ARM architecture_)

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  • How may I scroll with vim into a big file ?

    - by Luc M
    Hello, I have a big file with thousands of lines of thousands of characters. I move the cursor to 3000th character. If I use PageDown or <CTRL>-D, the file will scroll but the cursor will come back to the first no-space character. There's is an option to set to keep the cursor in the same column after a such scroll ? I have the behavior with gvim on Window, vim on OpenVMS and Cygwin. Regards

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  • Performing a clean database build with MSBuild part 2

    - by Robert May
    In part 1, I showed a complicated mechanism for performing a clean database build. There’s an easier way.  The easier way is to use the msbuild extension tasks out on codeplex.  While you’ll still need to forcibly take the database offline (ALTER DATABASE [mydb] SET OFFLINE WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE), the other msbuild tasks more easily allow you to create and delete the database.  Eventually, I’ll post an example. Technorati Tags: MSBuild

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  • How to list all duplicated rows which may include NULL columns?

    - by Yousui
    Hi guys, I have a problem of listing duplicated rows that include NULL columns. Lemme show my problem first. USE [tempdb]; GO IF OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.t') IS NOT NULL BEGIN DROP TABLE dbo.t END GO CREATE TABLE dbo.t ( a NVARCHAR(8), b NVARCHAR(8) ); GO INSERT t VALUES ('a', 'b'); INSERT t VALUES ('a', 'b'); INSERT t VALUES ('a', 'b'); INSERT t VALUES ('c', 'd'); INSERT t VALUES ('c', 'd'); INSERT t VALUES ('c', 'd'); INSERT t VALUES ('c', 'd'); INSERT t VALUES ('e', NULL); INSERT t VALUES (NULL, NULL); INSERT t VALUES (NULL, NULL); INSERT t VALUES (NULL, NULL); INSERT t VALUES (NULL, NULL); GO Now I want to show all rows that have other rows duplicated with them, I use the following query. SELECT a, b FROM dbo.t GROUP BY a, b HAVING count(*) > 1 which will give us the result: a b -------- -------- NULL NULL a b c d Now if I want to list all rows that make contribution to duplication, I use this query: WITH duplicate (a, b) AS ( SELECT a, b FROM dbo.t GROUP BY a, b HAVING count(*) > 1 ) SELECT dbo.t.a, dbo.t.b FROM dbo.t INNER JOIN duplicate ON (dbo.t.a = duplicate.a AND dbo.t.b = duplicate.b) Which will give me the result: a b -------- -------- a b a b a b c d c d c d c d As you can see, all rows include NULLs are filtered. The reason I thought is that I use equal sign to test the condition(dbo.t.a = duplicate.a AND dbo.t.b = duplicate.b), and NULLs cannot be compared use equal sign. So, in order to include rows that include NULLs in it in the last result, I have change the aforementioned query to WITH duplicate (a, b) AS ( SELECT a, b FROM dbo.t GROUP BY a, b HAVING count(*) > 1 ) SELECT dbo.t.a, dbo.t.b FROM dbo.t INNER JOIN duplicate ON (dbo.t.a = duplicate.a AND dbo.t.b = duplicate.b) OR (dbo.t.a IS NULL AND duplicate.a IS NULL AND dbo.t.b = duplicate.b) OR (dbo.t.b IS NULL AND duplicate.b IS NULL AND dbo.t.a = duplicate.a) OR (dbo.t.a IS NULL AND duplicate.a IS NULL AND dbo.t.b IS NULL AND duplicate.b IS NULL) And this query will give me the answer as I wanted: a b -------- -------- NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL a b a b a b c d c d c d c d Now my question is, as you can see, this query just include two columns, in order to include NULLs in the last result, you have to use many condition testing statements in the query. As the column number increasing, the condition testing statements you need in your query is increasing astonishingly. How can I solve this problem? Great thanks.

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  • Using IE 9 as my primary browser

    - by Robert May
    With the release of Internet Explorer 9 RC the browser looks to be in a usable state.  So far, my experience has been positive. However, one area where I am having problems is when people are using the jQueryUI library.  Versions older than 1.8 cause IE 9.0 to be unable to drag and drop.  This is a real pain, especially at sites like Agile Zen, where dragging and dropping is a primary bit of functionality. Now that IE 9 is a release candidate, we’ll see how quickly these things improve.  I expect things to be rough, but so far, I’m really liking IE 9.  There’s more real estate than Chrome (it’s the tabs inline with the address bar) and its faster than Chrome 9.0 and FF 3.6.8 (as tested on my own machine). The biggest drawback so far is that because IE has been so badly behaved in the past, sites expect it to be badly behaved now, which is breaking things now. Technorati Tags: Internet Explorer

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  • Why I LOVE Dell

    - by Robert May
    We recently ordered a laptop for an employee.  It was delivered yesterday and we realized it had no web cam and wasn’t the 1080p resolution.  He wasn’t happy. So, this morning, I sent an e-mail to our rep and asked him what we could do.  Within an hour or two, he called me, arranged a replacement laptop with the corrected specs, set up a return and had everything arranged and charged us only for the difference.  No pain, no silly questions.  We won’t loose use of the laptop either.  The return and the new laptop will overlap so that we can just pack up the old laptop in the box of the new one, slap some labels on and away we go. This has been my experience with Dell over the past 10 years.  Their corporate service has always been fantastic, and it’s made me a huge fan.  Keep up the good work, Dell! Technorati Tags: Dell

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  • The Mac Tax

    - by Robert May
    One of our users was having difficulties with their mac and using some web software.  I decided to go peruse the landscape and see how much of a premium people were paying for their macs.  I priced out a Dell and a Mac from their websites.  I tried to get them as close to the same configuration, from a hardware standpoint, as I could.  I found the following: Apple Macbook Pro   Dell XPS 17 There are several important differences in the hardware: The mac doesn’t have a blueray player, but the dell does. The mac has a slightly slower processor. The mac claims to have a better battery, but doesn’t list the specifics, so there’s no way to tell. The mac doesn’t list the video card stats, so there’s no way to tell how comparable they are, but they’re probably close. The mac doesn’t come with any additional software.  No iWorks, iPhoto, etc.  They were left to their default of None, so arguably, the Dell is more functional out of the box. Other than changing the hardware specs to be close, all other configuration options were left at their default. So riddle me this, Batman:  Why do people buy Macs?  I have several dev buddies that own them, but I can’t justify the cost.  First, most of them load bootcamp and/or parallels at extra cost to run windows 7 and windows apps.  The hardware isn’t as good.  The price is almost twice as expensive. How do you justify the premium price? Technorati Tags: General

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  • How do I select distinct rows where a column may have a number of the same values but all their 2nd

    - by Martin Rose
    I have a table in the form: test_name| test_result | test1 | pass | test2 | fail | test1 | pass | test1 | pass | test2 | pass | test1 | pass | test3 | pass | test3 | fail | test3 | pass | As you can see all test1's pass while test2's and test3's have both passes and fails. Is there a SQL statement that I can use to return the distinct names of the tests that only pass? E.g. test1

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  • How can I loop over a query for a specific number of times that may be greater than the result?

    - by JS
    I need to loop over a query exactly 12 times to complete rows in a form but rarely will the query return 12 rows. The cfquery endRow attribute doesn't force the loop to keep going if the result is < 12. If it did that would be ideal to use something like cfloop query="myQuery" endRow="12"... The 2 options that I have now are to skip the loop and write out all 12 rows but that results in a lot of duplicate code (there are 20 columns), or do a query of queries for each row which seems like a lot of wasted processing. Thanks for any ideas.

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  • Remote Desktop Connection Manager

    - by Robert May
    For years, I’ve been using the “Remote Desktops” mmc plugin to manage servers in our infrastructure.  I’ve upgraded to Windows 8 and Remote Desktops is nowhere to be found!  I search and searched and came across a forum listing saying “Why don’t you just use Remove Desktop Connection Manager?” I downloaded it and started using it and its WAY better than Remote Desktops!  I’m glad they took it out and I discovered this tool.  I wish I had discovered this two years ago! Technorati Tags: System Administration

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  • Linux script that indicates time the server was offline?

    - by RD
    Below is data taken from my dedicated server: root@namhost [~]# last root pts/0 XXX Tue May 18 09:46 still logged in root pts/0 XXX Mon May 17 08:51 - 12:18 (03:26) reboot system boot XXX Mon May 17 08:49 (1+00:59) root pts/0 XXX Sun May 16 11:50 - 13:15 (01:25) root@namhost [~]# last | grep "system boot" reboot system boot 2.6.18-164.15.1. Mon May 17 08:49 (1+01:02) reboot system boot 2.6.18-164.el5 Tue May 11 04:20 (7+05:31) reboot system boot 2.6.18-164.el5 Tue May 11 03:53 (7+05:58) reboot system boot 2.6.18-128.el5 Mon Oct 5 22:40 (-3:-50) .... I need a script that I can run on an hourly basis that will: 1. Calculate the total downtime since the first date 2. The overall downtime percentage 3. Store this data in a file at /home/bla/file.txt, in the following format: TotalDowntime=03:02:02 Average=0.01% How do I go about doing this?

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  • How can I memoize a method that may return true or false in Ruby?

    - by Seamus Abshere
    Obviously ||= won't work def x? @x_query ||= expensive_way_to_calculate_x end because if it turns out to be false, then expensive_way_to_calculate_x will get run over and over. Currently the best way I know is to put the memoized true or false into an Array: def x? return @x_query.first if @x_query.is_a?(Array) @x_query = [expensive_way_to_calculate_x] @x_query.first end Is there a more conventional or efficient way of doing this?

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  • What is a good way of checking to see if a particular user may access a particular file?

    - by Rising Star
    I am working on application which runs as a special unprivileged user. I would like to be able to easily check to see if the user can read a given file. It seems like this should be easy, even when I go into the file in Windows Explorer and see that the read permission is checked, it sometimes seems that there is still something preventing the user from reading the file (such as a parent directory that the user cannot browse) when I try to read it as the user programmatically. The user has no console logon permission, so I can't just log in as the user and try to read the file. So... If I want to know, "Does UserBob have access to file c:\specialPath\specialFile, what is an easy way to find out? BTW, my environment is Windows Server 2003.

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