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• Improving performance of a particle system (OpenGL ES)

  - by Jason

  I'm in the process of implementing a simple particle system for a 2D mobile game (using OpenGL ES 2.0). It's working, but it's pretty slow. I start getting frame rate battering after about 400 particles, which I think is pretty low. Here's a summary of my approach: I start with point sprites (GL_POINTS) rendered in a batch just using a native float buffer (I'm in Java-land on Android, so that translates as a java.nio.FloatBuffer). On GL context init, the following are set: GLES20.glViewport(0, 0, width, height); GLES20.glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); GLES20.glEnable(GLES20.GL_CULL_FACE); GLES20.glDisable(GLES20.GL_DEPTH_TEST); Each draw frame sets the following: GLES20.glEnable(GLES20.GL_BLEND); GLES20.glBlendFunc(GLES20.GL_ONE, GLES20.GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA); And I bind a single texture: GLES20.glActiveTexture(GLES20.GL_TEXTURE0); GLES20.glBindTexture(GLES20.GL_TEXTURE_2D, textureHandle); GLES20.glUniform1i(mUniformTextureHandle, 0); Which is just a simple circle with some blur (and hence some transparency) http://cl.ly/image/0K2V2p2L1H2x Then there are a bunch of glVertexAttribPointer calls: mBuffer.position(position); mGlEs20.glVertexAttribPointer(mAttributeRGBHandle, valsPerRGB, GLES20.GL_FLOAT, false, stride, mBuffer); ...4 more of these Then I'm drawing: GLES20.glUniformMatrix4fv(mUniformProjectionMatrixHandle, 1, false, Camera.mProjectionMatrix, 0); GLES20.glDrawArrays(GLES20.GL_POINTS, 0, drawCalls); GLES20.glBindTexture(GLES20.GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0); My vertex shader does have some computation in it, but given that they're point sprites (with only 2 coordinate values) I'm not sure this is the problem: #ifdef GL_ES // Set the default precision to low. precision lowp float; #endif uniform mat4 u_ProjectionMatrix; attribute vec4 a_Position; attribute float a_PointSize; attribute vec3 a_RGB; attribute float a_Alpha; attribute float a_Burn; varying vec4 v_Color; void main() { vec3 v_FGC = a_RGB * a_Alpha; v_Color = vec4(v_FGC.x, v_FGC.y, v_FGC.z, a_Alpha * (1.0 - a_Burn)); gl_PointSize = a_PointSize; gl_Position = u_ProjectionMatrix * a_Position; } My fragment shader couldn't really be simpler: #ifdef GL_ES // Set the default precision to low. precision lowp float; #endif uniform sampler2D u_Texture; varying vec4 v_Color; void main() { gl_FragColor = texture2D(u_Texture, gl_PointCoord) * v_Color; } That's about it. I had read that transparent pixels in point sprites can cause issues, but surely not at only 400 points? I'm running on a fairly new device (12 month old Galaxy Nexus). My question is less about my approach (although I'm open to suggestion) but more about whether there are any specific OpenGL "no no's" that have leaked into my code. I'm sure there's GL master out there facepalming right now... I'd love to hear any critique.

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• PHP Web Services - Nice try

  Thanks to the membership in the O'Reilly User Group Programme the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community (short: MSCC) recently received a welcome package with several book titles. Among them is the latest publication of Lorna Jane Mitchell - 'PHP Web Services: APIs for the Modern Web'. Following is the book review I put on Amazon: Nice try! Initially, I was astonished that a small book like 'PHP Web Services' would be able to cover all the interesting topics about APIs and Web Services, independently whether they are written in PHP or not. And unfortunately, the title isn't able to stand up to the readers (or at least my) expectations. Maybe as a light defense, there is no usual paragraph about the intended audience of that book, but still I have to admit that the first half (chapters 1 to 8) are well written and Lorna has her points on the various technologies. Also, the code samples in PHP are clean and easy to understand. With chapter 'Debugging Web Services' the book started to change my mind about the clarity of advice and the instructions on designing and developing good APIs. Eventually, this might be related to the fact that I'm used to other tools since years, like Telerik Fiddler as HTTP proxy in order to trace and inspect any kind of request/response handling. Including localhost monitoring, SSL certification acceptance, and the ability to debug mobile devices, especially iOS-based ones. Compared to Charles, Fiddler is available for free. What really got me off the hook is the following statement in chapter 10 about Service Type Decisions: "For users who have larger systems using technology stacks such as Java, C++, or .NET, it may be easier for them to integrate with a SOAP service." WHAT? A couple of pages earlier the author recommends to stay away from 'old-fashioned' API styles like SOAP (if possible). And on top of that I wonder why there are tons of documentation towards development of RESTful Web Services based on WebAPI. The ASP.NET stack clearly moves away from SOAP to JSON and REST since years! Honestly, as a software developer on the .NET stack this leaves a mixed feeling after all. As for the remaining chapters I simply consider them as 'blah blah' without any real value and lots of theoretical advice. Related to the chapter 13 about 'Documentation', I just had the 'pleasure' to write a C#-based client against a Java-based SOAP Web Service. Personally, I take the WSDL as the master reference in the first place and Visual Studio generates all the stub types involved in the communication. During the implementation and testing I came across a 'java.lang.NullPointerException' in various methods and for various method parameters. The WSDL and the generated types were declared as Nullable, so nothing to worry about, or? Well, I logged in a support ticket, and guess what was the response to that scenario? "The service definition in the WSDL is wrong, please refer to the documentation in order to use the methods and parameters correctly" - No comment! Lorna's title is a quick read and in some areas she has good advice on designing and implementing Web Services and APIs. But roughly 100 pages aren't enough to cover a vast topic like that. After all, nice try and I'm looking forward to an improved second edition. Honestly, I never thought that I would come across a poor review. In general, it's a good book but it clearly has a lack of depth, the PHP code samples are incomplete (closing tags missing), and there are too many assumptions and theoretical statements.

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• Happy 3rd Birthday SilverlightCream!

  - by Dave Campbell

  Happy 3rd Birthday!     Yesterday (May 16) was the 'Birthday' of SilverlightCream, which started just after MIX in 2007 with a post "Interesting Silverlight posts today: Silverlight Control & Silverlight Pad". Too many good posts flying around led me to want to archive them, particularly since I was being aggregated at a new site Silverlight.net, and I could give some of that 'reach' to the community. Saturday's post was number 862, and as of that post, there were 5697 blog posts archived in the database all tagged up and searchable at SilverlightCream.com using the search page. The search needs to be better, and that's another discussion, but it does work. The blog didn't begin life as the SilverlightCream blog, as is obvious from the name, but once I realized people were following it closely, I've tried to keep the signal-to-noise ratio very high. I even secured another blog for when I just want to rant about something to keep that stuff out of this one :) If you've been around since MIX07 days you've heard all this, but after talking to some people at MIX10 I realized not everyone knows all the ways the information is presented, so I figured doing a post like this once a year probably isn't a bad idea :) I scrounge through an ever-growing list of blogs (right now sitting at 505) looking for good stuff. I try to spin through the list every day, but with the list growing that large, it's getting tough. I usually use it as a background task while working or watching TV. If I just sit and go through the blogs it takes about an hour. The list is long enough now that from time to time, I'll only get partway through it and have 10 to 13 entries, so I'll just stop there and go on the next day... I don't like to have more than 15 in any single post. It's all pattern recognition as in "seen that", "seen that", "that's new", etc... so if you're a blogger, look at a heading below for some comments about blogging from my perspective. When I see something new, I make sure you're not pulling a 'Mike Taulty' on me and dumping 6 or 8 new posts in one day :), and I tag the ones I want to review. If there's not a lot going on, I may just push the posts as I come across them. Some days there may be 60 posts in that 'to review' list! Some are non-Silverlight, some are essentially duplicates of others, some are demos, ads, new releases of something, session materials, etc. I push lots of material into a database at WynApse.com, and the "Tagged Posts" menu on the left sidebar there takes you to a tag cloud of (at this very moment) "9224 articles tagged 13915 different ways using 459 unique tags". There are links in there on Gibson guitars, Jazz Guitar instructional stuff, Ford F-250 links, and tons of technical and non-technical stuff I've been aggregating for about 5 years now. So when I decide to blog (or shoutout) something, I first push it into the database at WynApse.com. Then I tag it all up and push it into the database at SilverlightCream.com. Then it gets pushed to @SilverlightNews. For a little over a year now, we're tracking unique IP hits on posts launched from either the blog post or from one of the SilverlightCream.com pages, and the posts with top hits from unique IP addresses in the last 7 days are displayed in a 'Skim' page at SilverlightCream... and that page needs work as well. The Skim page and tracking was the brainchild of my buddy Michael Washington. What I blog/shoutout After some time doing posts, I decided there were things that probably have no need to be searchable, but are good information, so I post those as 'Shoutouts'. Eventually I also decided the Shoutouts should get posted to @SilverlightNews, and that's now taking place. Notes to bloggers Remember I said spinning throught the Big List-o-BlogsTM is pattern recognition... that means I don't spend a lot of time on any individual blog deciding if it has new content. If you're familiar with the term 'Above the Fold', then you're probably ok. If I have to scroll the page to see if there's something new, or wade through some maze of menus, I'm probably going to miss new stuff. Likewise if you only show the latest on the front page and make it a puzzle to find the rest of them, or if you make the titles and initial graphics almost identical to the previous article, I'll miss it. Another thing is name/brand-recognition. Far be it for me (WynApse) to comment on someone blogging with a pseudonym, but if you want to get get some recognition, you are going to want your name to be available somewhere. I can think right off the top of my head of a couple good blogs that I have no idea of the individuals' real names. I can pull that off a bit because I've been around so long almost everyone knows who I am, but if you're new to the blog-o-sphere, being able to be name-recognized is as important as getting your brand out there. Kick my tires Finally, stuff happens... I may hit the wrong key and delete your blog, or a post might slip past me and I not realize it's new because of the naming, and never blog it. If you think I missed something, send me an email or use the submit page at SilverlightCream.com. Some bloggers have figured out that if they submit (one way or another) to me, their posts will go out next. I try to honor anyone that takes the time to submit with a quicker 'Cream posting. Thanks! Finally, thanks to everyone that contributes to the community as a whole... the blogs, the videos, and the presentations. A special thanks to everyone that reads SilverlightCream, or follows @WynApse or @SilverlightNews. Keep it all coming, and... Stay in the 'Light

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• User Experience Fundamentals

  - by ultan o'broin

  Understanding what user experience means in the modern work environment is central to building great-looking usable applications on the desktop or mobile devices. What better place to start a series of blog posts on such Applications User Experience team enablement for customers and partners than by sharing what the term really means, writes team member Karen Scipi. Applications UX have gained valuable insights into developing a user experience that reflects the experience of today’s worker. We have observed real workers performing real tasks in real work environments, and we have developed a set of new standards of application design that have been scientifically proven to be beneficial to enable today’s workers. We share such expertise to enable our customers and partners to benefit from our insights and to further their return on investment when building Oracle applications. So, What is User Experience? ?The user interface (UI) is about the on-screen user context provided by the layout of widgets (such as icons, fields, and buttons and more) and the visual impact of colors, typographic choices, and so on. The UI comprises the “look and feel” of the application that users interact with, and reflects, in essence, the most immediate aspects of usability we can now all relate to.  User experience, on the other hand, is about understanding the whole context of the world of work, how workers go about completing tasks, crossing all sorts of boundaries along the way. It is a study of how business processes and workers goals coincide, how users work with technology or other tools to get their jobs done, their interactions with other users, and their response to the technical, physical, and cultural environment around them. User experience is all about how users work—their work environments, office layouts, desk tools, types of devices, their working day, and more. Even their job aids, such as sticky notes, offer insight for UX innovation. User experience matters because businesses needs to be efficient, work must be productive, and users now demand to be satisfied by the applications they work with. In simple terms, tasks finished quickly and accurately for a business evokes organization and worker satisfaction, which in turn makes workers feel good and more than willing to use the application again tomorrow. Design Principles for the Enterprise Worker The consumerization of information technology has raised the bar for enterprise applications. Applications must be consistent, simple, intuitive, but above all contextual, reflecting how and when workers work, in the office or on the go. For example, the Google search experience with its type-ahead keyword-prompting feature is how workers expect to be able to discover enterprise information, too. Type-ahead in PeopleSoft 9.1 To build software that enables workers to be productive, our design principles meet modern work requirements about consistency, with well-organized, context-driven information, geared for a working world of discovery and collaboration. Our applications must also behave in a simple, web-like way just like Amazon, Google, and Apple products that workers use at home or on the go. Our user experience must also reflect workers’ needs for flexibility and well-loved enterprise practices such as using popular desktop tools like Microsoft Excel or Outlook as required. Building User Experience Productively The building blocks of Oracle Fusion Applications are the user experience design patterns. Based on the Oracle Fusion Middleware technology used to build Oracle Fusion Applications, the patterns are reusable solutions to common usability challenges that ADF developers typically face as they build applications, extensions, and integrations. Developers use the patterns as part of their Oracle toolkits to realize great usability consistently and in a productive way. Our design pattern creation process is informed by user experience research and science, an understanding of our technology’s capabilities, the demands for simplification and intuitiveness from users, and the best of Oracle’s acquisitions strategy (an injection of smart people and smart innovation). The patterns are supported by usage guidelines and are tested in our labs and assembled into a library of proven resources we used to build own Oracle Fusion Applications and other Oracle applications user experiences. The design patterns library is now available to the ADF community and to our partners and customers, for free. Developers with ADF skills and other technology skills can now offer more than just coding and functionality and still use the best in enterprise methodologies to ensure that a great user experience is easily applied, scaled, and maintained, whether it be for SaaS or on-premise deployments for Oracle Fusion Applications, for applications coexistence, or for partner integrations scenarios.  Oracle partners and customers already using our design patterns to build solutions and win business in smart and productive ways are now sharing their experiences and insights on pattern use to benefit your entire business. Applications UX is going global with the message and the means. Our hands-on user experience enablement through ADF  is expanding. So, stay tuned to Misha Vaughan's Voice of User Experience (VOX) blog and follow along on Twitter at @usableapps for news of outreach events and other learning opportunities. Interested in Learning More? Oracle Fusion Applications User Experience Patterns and Guidelines Library Shout-outs for Oracle UX Design Patterns Oracle Fusion Applications User Experience Design Patterns: Productivity Realized

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• Patching and PCI Compliance

  - by Joel Weise

  One of my friends and master of the security universe, Darren Moffat, pointed me to Dan Anderson's blog the other day.  Dan went to Toorcon which is a security conference where he went to a talk on security patching titled, "Stop Patching, for Stronger PCI Compliance".  I realize that often times speakers will use a headline grabbing title to create interest in their talk and this one certainly got my attention.  I did not go to the conference and did not see the presentation, so I can only go by what is in the Toorcon agenda summary and on Dan's blog, but the general statement to stop patching for stronger PCI compliance seems a bit misleading to me.  Clearly patching is important to all systems management and should be a part of any organization's security hygiene.  Further, PCI does require the patching of systems to maintain compliance.  So it's important to mention that organizations should not simply stop patching their systems; and I want to believe that was not the speakers intent. So let's look at PCI requirement 6: "Unscrupulous individuals use security vulnerabilities to gain privileged access to systems. Many of these vulnerabilities are fixed by vendor- provided security patches, which must be installed by the entities that manage the systems. All critical systems must have the most recently released, appropriate software patches to protect against exploitation and compromise of cardholder data by malicious individuals and malicious software." Notice the word "appropriate" in the requirement.  This is stated to give organizations some latitude and apply patches that make sense in their environment and that target the vulnerabilities in question.  Haven't we all seen a vulnerability scanner throw a false positive and flag some module and point to a recommended patch, only to realize that the module doesn't exist on our system?  Applying such a patch would obviously not be appropriate.  This does not mean an organization can ignore the fact they need to apply security patches.  It's pretty clear they must.  Of course, organizations have other options in terms of compliance when it comes to patching.  For example, they could remove a system from scope and make sure that system does not process or contain cardholder data.  [This may or may not be a significant undertaking.  I just wanted to point out that there are always options available.] PCI DSS requirement 6.1 also includes the following note: "Note: An organization may consider applying a risk-based approach to prioritize their patch installations. For example, by prioritizing critical infrastructure (for example, public-facing devices and systems, databases) higher than less-critical internal devices, to ensure high-priority systems and devices are addressed within one month, and addressing less critical devices and systems within three months." Notice there is no mention to stop patching one's systems.  And the note also states organization may apply a risk based approach. [A smart approach but also not mandated].  Such a risk based approach is not intended to remove the requirement to patch one's systems.  It is meant, as stated, to allow one to prioritize their patch installations.   So what does this mean to an organization that must comply with PCI DSS and maintain some sanity around their patch management and overall operational readiness?  I for one like to think that most organizations take a common sense and balanced approach to their business and security posture.  If patching is becoming an unbearable task, review why that is the case and possibly look for means to improve operational efficiencies; but also recognize that security is important to maintaining the availability and integrity of one's systems.  Likewise, whether we like it or not, the cyber-world we live in is getting more complex and threatening - and I dont think it's going to get better any time soon.

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• SQL SERVER – Why Do We Need Data Quality Services – Importance and Significance of Data Quality Services (DQS)

  - by pinaldave

  Databases are awesome.  I’m sure my readers know my opinion about this – I have made SQL Server my life’s work after all!  I love technology and all things computer-related.  Of course, even with my love for technology, I have to admit that it has its limits.  For example, it takes a human brain to notice that data has been input incorrectly.  Computer “brains” might be faster than humans, but human brains are still better at pattern recognition.  For example, a human brain will notice that “300” is a ridiculous age for a human to be, but to a computer it is just a number.  A human will also notice similarities between “P. Dave” and “Pinal Dave,” but this would stump most computers. In a database, these sorts of anomalies are incredibly important.  Databases are often used by multiple people who rely on this data to be true and accurate, so data quality is key.  That is why the improved SQL Server features Master Data Management talks about Data Quality Services.  This service has the ability to recognize and flag anomalies like out of range numbers and similarities between data.  This allows a human brain with its pattern recognition abilities to double-check and ensure that P. Dave is the same as Pinal Dave. A nice feature of Data Quality Services is that once you set the rules for the program to follow, it will not only keep your data organized in the future, but go to the past and “fix up” any data that has already been entered.  It also allows you do combine data from multiple places and it will apply these rules across the board, so that you don’t have any weird issues that crop up when trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. There are two parts of Data Quality Services that help you accomplish all these neat things.  The first part is DQL Server, which you can think of as the hardware component of the system.  It is installed on the side of (it needs to install separately after SQL Server is installed) SQL Server and runs quietly in the background, performing all its cleanup services. DQS Client is the user interface that you can interact with to set the rules and check over your data.  There are three main aspects of Client: knowledge base management, data quality projects and administration.  Knowledge base management is the part of the system that allows you to set the rules, or program the “knowledge base,” so that your database is clean and consistent. Data Quality projects are what run in the background and clean up the data that is already present.  The administration allows you to check out what DQS Client is doing, change rules, and generally oversee the entire process.  The whole process is user-friendly and a pleasure to use.  I highly recommend implementing Data Quality Services in your database. Here are few of my blog posts which are related to Data Quality Services and I encourage you to try this out. SQL SERVER – Installing Data Quality Services (DQS) on SQL Server 2012 SQL SERVER – Step by Step Guide to Beginning Data Quality Services in SQL Server 2012 – Introduction to DQS SQL SERVER – DQS Error – Cannot connect to server – A .NET Framework error occurred during execution of user-defined routine or aggregate “SetDataQualitySessions” – SetDataQualitySessionPhaseTwo SQL SERVER – Configuring Interactive Cleansing Suggestion Min Score for Suggestions in Data Quality Services (DQS) – Sensitivity of Suggestion SQL SERVER – Unable to DELETE Project in Data Quality Projects (DQS) Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Data Quality Services, DQS

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

  - by pinaldave

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

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• Is your Credit Card Number valid?

  - by Rekha

  The credit card numbers may look like some random unique 16 digits number but those digits inform more than what we think it could be. The first digit of the card is the Major Industry Identifier: 1 and 2 -  Airlines 3  – Travel and Entertainment 4 and 5 -  Banking and Financial 6 – Merchandizing and Banking 7 – Petroleum 8 – Telecommunications 9 – National assignment The first 6 digits represent the Issuer Identification Number: Visa – 4xxxxx Master Card – 51xxxx & 55xxxx The 7th and following digits, excluding the last digit, are the person’s account number which leads to trillion possible combinations if the maximum of 12 digits is used. Many cards only use 9 digits. The final digit is the checksum or check digit. It is used to validate the card number using Luhn algorithm. How To Validate Credit Card Number? Take any credit card number, for example 5588 3201 2345 6789. Step 1: Double every other digit from the right: 5*2      8*2      3*2      0*2      2*2      4*2      6*2      8*2 ————————————————————————- 10        16        6          0          4          8      12        16 Step 2: Add these new digits to undoubled digits. All double digit numbers are added as a sum of their digits, so 16 becomes 1+6 = 7: Undoubled digits:       5          8          2          1          3          5          7          9 Doubled Digits:          10       16         6          0          4          8         12         16 Sum:  5+1+0+8+1+6+2+6+1+0+3+4+5+8+7+1+2+9+1+6 = 76 If the final sum is divisible by 10, then the Credit Card number is valid, if not, the number is invalid or fake!!! Hence the example is a fake number? via mint  cc and image credit This article titled,Is your Credit Card Number valid?, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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• Getting to grips with the stack in nasm

  - by MarkPearl

  Today I spent a good part of my day getting to grips with the stack and nasm. After looking at my notes on nasm I think this is one area for the course I am doing they could focus more on… So here are some snippets I have put together that have helped me understand a little bit about the stack… Simplest example of the stack You will probably see examples like the following in circulation… these demonstrate the simplest use of the stack… org 0x100 bits 16 jmp main main: push 42h push 43h push 44h mov ah,2h ;set to display characters pop dx    ;get the first value int 21h   ;and display it pop dx    ;get 2nd value int 21h   ;and display it pop dx    ;get 3rd value int 21h   ;and display it int 20h The output from above code would be… DCB Decoupling code using “call” and “ret” This is great, but it oversimplifies what I want to use the stack for… I do not know if this goes against the grain of assembly programmers or not, but I want to write loosely coupled assembly code – and I want to use the stack as a mechanism for passing values into my decoupled code. In nasm we have the call and return instructions, which provides a mechanism for decoupling code, for example the following could be done… org 0x100 bits 16 jmp main ;---------------------------------------- displayChar: mov ah,2h mov dx,41h int 21h ret ;---------------------------------------- main: call displayChar int 20h   This would output the following to the console A So, it would seem that call and ret allow us to jump to segments of our code and then return back to the calling position – a form of segmenting the code into what we would called in higher order languages “functions” or “methods”. The only issue is, in higher order languages there is a way to pass parameters into the functions and return results. Because of the primitive nature of the call and ret instructions, this does not seem to be obvious. We could of course use the registers to pass values into the subroutine and set values coming out, but the problem with this is we… Have a limited number of registers Are threading our code with tight coupling (it would be hard to migrate methods outside of their intended use in a particular program to another one) With that in mind, I turn to the stack to provide a loosely coupled way of calling subroutines… First attempt with the Stack Initially I thought this would be simple… we could use code that looks as follows to achieve what I want… org 0x100 bits 16 jmp main ;---------------------------------------- displayChar: mov ah,2h pop dx int 21h ret ;---------------------------------------- main: push 41h call displayChar int 20h   However running this application does not give the desired result, I want an ‘A’ to be returned, and I am getting something totally different (you will to). Reading up on the call and ret instructions a discovery is made… they are pushing and popping things onto and off the stack as well… When the call instruction is executed, the current value of IP (the address of the instruction to follow) is pushed onto the stack, when ret is called, the last value on the stack is popped off into the IP register. In effect what the above code is doing is as follows with the stack… push 41h push current value of ip pop current value of ip to dx pop 41h to ip This is not what I want, I need to access the 41h that I pushed onto the stack, but the call value (which is necessary) is putting something in my way. So, what to do? Remember we have other registers we can use as well as a thing called indirect addressing… So, after some reading around, I came up with the following approach using indirect addressing… org 0x100 bits 16 jmp main ;---------------------------------------- displayChar: mov bp,sp mov ah,2h mov dx,[bp+2] int 21h ret ;---------------------------------------- main: push 41h call displayChar int 20h In essence, what I have done here is used a trick with the stack pointer… it goes as follows… Push 41 onto the stack Make the call to the function, which will push the IP register onto the stack and then jump to the displayChar label Move the value in the stack point to the bp register (sp currently points at IP register) Move the at the location of bp minus 2 bytes to dx (this is now the value 41h) display it, execute the ret instruction, which pops the ip value off the stack and goes back to the calling point This approach is still very raw, some further reading around shows that I should be pushing the value of bp onto the stack before replacing it with sp, but it is the starting thread to getting loosely coupled subroutines. Let’s see if you get what the following output would be? org 0x100 bits 16 jmp main ;---------------------------------------- displayChar: mov bp,sp mov ah,2h mov dx,[bp+4] int 21h mov dx,[bp+2] int 21h ret ;---------------------------------------- main: push 41h push 42h call displayChar int 20h The output is… AB Where to from here? If by any luck some assembly programmer comes along and see this code and notices that I have made some fundamental flaw in my logic… I would like to know, so please leave a comment… appreciate any feedback!

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• Announcement: Employee Info Starter Kit (v5.0) is Released

  - by Mohammad Ashraful Alam

  Ever wanted to have a simple jQuery menu bound with ASP.NET web site map file? Ever wanted to have cool css design stuffs implemented on your ASP.NET data bound controls? Ever wanted to let Visual Studio generate logical layers for you, which can be easily tested, customized and bound with ASP.NET data controls? If your answers with respect to above questions are ‘yes’, then you will probably happy to try out latest release (v5.0) of Employee Starter Kit, which is intended to address different types of real world challenges faced by web application developers when performing common CRUD operations. Using a single database table ‘Employee’, the current release illustrates how to utilize Microsoft ASP.NET 4.0 Web Form Data Controls, Entity Framework 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 effectively in that context. Employee Info Starter Kit is an open source ASP.NET project template that is highly influenced by the concept ‘Pareto Principle’ or 80-20 rule, where it is targeted to enable a web developer to gain 80% productivity with 20% of effort with respect to learning curve and production. This project template is titled as “Employee Info Starter Kit”, which was initially hosted on Microsoft Code Gallery and been downloaded 1, 50,000+ of copies afterword.  The latest version of this starter kit is hosted in Codeplex. Release Highlights User End Functional Specification The user end functionalities of this starter kit are pretty simple and straight forward that are focused in to perform CRUD operation on employee records as described below. Creating a new employee record Read existing employee records Update an existing employee record Delete existing employee records Architectural Overview Simple 3 layer architecture (presentation, business logic and data access layer) ASP.NET web form based user interface Built-in code generators for logical layers, implemented in Visual Studio default template engine (T4) Built-in Entity Framework entities as business entities (aka: data containers) Data Mapper design pattern based Data Access Layer, implemented in C# and Entity Framework Domain Model design pattern based Business Logic Layer, implemented in C# Object Model for Cross Cutting Concerns (such as validation, logging, exception management) Minimum System Requirements Visual Studio 2010 (Web Developer Express Edition) or higher Sql Server 2005 (Express Edition) or higher Technology Utilized Programming Languages/Scripts Browser side: JavaScript Web server side: C# Code Generation Template: T-4 Template Frameworks .NET Framework 4.0 JavaScript Framework: jQuery 1.5.1 CSS Framework: 960 grid system .NET Framework Components .NET Entity Framework .NET Optional/Named Parameters (new in .net 4.0) .NET Tuple (new in .net 4.0) .NET Extension Method .NET Lambda Expressions .NET Anonymous Type .NET Query Expressions .NET Automatically Implemented Properties .NET LINQ .NET Partial Classes and Methods .NET Generic Type .NET Nullable Type ASP.NET Meta Description and Keyword Support (new in .net 4.0) ASP.NET Routing (new in .net 4.0) ASP.NET Grid View (CSS support for sorting - (new in .net 4.0)) ASP.NET Repeater ASP.NET Form View ASP.NET Login View ASP.NET Site Map Path ASP.NET Skin ASP.NET Theme ASP.NET Master Page ASP.NET Object Data Source ASP.NET Role Based Security Getting Started Guide To see Employee Info Starter Kit in action is pretty easy! Download the latest version. Extract the file. From the extracted folder click the C# project file (Eisk.Web.csproj) to open it in Visual Studio 2010 Hit Ctrl+F5! The current release (v5.0) of Employee Info Starter Kit is properly packaged, fully documented and well tested. If you want to learn more about it in details, just check the following links: Release Home Page Installation Walkthrough Hand on Coding Walkthrough Technical Reference Enjoy!

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

  - by pinaldave

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

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• How can we improve overall Programmer Education & Training?

  - by crosenblum

  Last week, I was just viewing this amazing interview by Kevin Rose of Phillip Rosedale, of Second Life. And they had an amazing discussion about how to find, hire and identify good programmer's, and how hard it is to find good ones. Which has lead me to really think about the way we programmer's learn, are taught. For a majority of us, myself included, we are self-taught. Which is great about being a programmer, anyone can learn and develop skills. But this also means, that there is no real standards of what a good programmer is/are, and what kind of environment's encourage the growth of programming skills. This isn't so much a question, but just a desire in me, to see how we can change the culture of programming, and the manager's of programming, so that education and self-improvement is encouraged. There are a lot of avenue's for continued education, youtube videos, books, conferences, but because of the experiental nature of what we do, it isn't always clear what's important to learn and to master. Let's look at the The Joel 12 Steps. The Joel Test Do you use source control? Can you make a build in one step? Do you make daily builds? Do you have a bug database? Do you fix bugs before writing new code? Do you have an up-to-date schedule? Do you have a spec? Do programmers have quiet working conditions? Do you use the best tools money can buy? Do you have testers? Do new candidates write code during their interview? Do you do hallway usability testing? I think all of these have important value, but because of something I call the Experiential Gap, if a programmer or manager has never experienced any of the negative consequences for not having done items on the list, they will never see the need to do any of them. The Experiental Gap, is my basic theory, that each of us has different jobs and different experiences. So for some of us, that have always worked with dozens of programmer's, source control is a must have. But for people who have always been the only programmer, they can not imagine the need for source control. And it's because of this major flaw in how we learn, that we evaluate people by what best practices they do or not do, and the reason for either can start a flame war. We always evaluate people in our field by what they do, and think "Oh if this guy/gal isn't doing xyz best practice, he/she can't be a good programmer, so let's not waste time or energy talking to them." This is exactly why we have so many programming flame wars, that it becomes, because of the Experiental Gap, we can't imagine people not having made the decisions that we have had to made. So this has lead me to think, that we totally need to rethink how we train, educate and manage programmer's. For example, what percentage of you have had encouragement by your manager's to go to conferences, and even have them pay for it? For me, and a lot of people, this is extremely rare, a lot of us would love to go to conferences, to learn more, but the money ain't there to do that. So the point of this question is really to spark a lot of how can we train, learn and manage better? How can we create a new culture of learning that doesn't insult people for not having the same job experiences. Yes we all have jobs and work to do, but our ability to do our jobs well, depends on our desire, interest and support in improving our mastery of our skills. Right now, I see our culture being rather disorganized, we support the elite, but those tons of us that want to get better, just don't have enough support to learn and improve ourselves. I mean, do we as an industry, want to be perceived as just replaceable cogs? Thank you...

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• Kill a tree, save your website? Content strategy in action, part III

  - by Roger Hart

  A lot has been written about how driving content strategy from within an organisation is hard. And that's true. Red Gate is pretty receptive to new ideas, so although I've not had a total walk in the park, it's been a hike with charming scenery. But I'm one of the lucky ones. Lots of people are involved in content, and depending on your organisation some of those people might be the kind who'll gleefully call themselves "stakeholders". People holding a stake generally want to stick it through something's heart and bury it at a crossroads. Winning them over is not always easy. (Richard Ingram has made a nice visual summary of how this can feel - Content strategy Snakes & ladders - pdf ) So yes, a lot of content strategy advocates are having a hard time. And sure, we've got a nice opportunity to get together and have a hug and a cry, but in the interim we could use a hand. What to do? My preferred approach is, I'll confess, brutal. I'd like nothing so much as to take a scorched earth approach to our website. Burn it, salt the ground, and build the new one right: focusing on clearly delineated business and user content goals, and instrumented so we can tell if we're doing it right. I'm never getting buy-in for that, but a boy can dream. So how about just getting buy-in for some small, tenable improvements? Easier, but still non-trivial. I sat down for a chat with our marketing and design guys. It seemed like a good place to start, even if they weren't up for my "Ctrl-A + Delete"  solution. We talked through some of this stuff, and we pretty much agreed that our content is a bit more broken than we'd ideally like. But to get everybody on board, the problems needed visibility. Doing a visual content inventory Print out the internet. Make a Wall Of Content. Seriously. If you've already done a content inventory, you know your architecture, and you know the scale of the problem. But it's quite likely that very few other people do. So make it big and visual. I'm going to carbon hell, but it seems to be working. This morning, I printed out a tiny, tiny part of our website: the non-support content pertaining to SQL Compare I made big, visual, A3 blowups of each page, and covered a wall with them. A page per web page, spread over something like 6M x 2M, with metrics, right in front of people. Even if nobody reads it (and they are doing) the sheer scale is shocking. 53 pages, all told. Some are redundant, some outdated, some trivial, a few fantastic, and frighteningly many that are great ideas delivered not-quite-right. You have to stand quite far away to get it all in your field of vision. For a lot of today, a whole bunch of folks have been gawping in amazement, talking each other through it, peering at the details, and generally getting excited about content. Developers, sales guys, our CEO, the marketing folks - they're engaged. Will it last? I make no promises. But this sort of wave of interest is vital to getting a content strategy project kicked off. While the content strategist is a saucer-eyed orphan in the cupboard under the stairs, they're not getting a whole lot done. Of course, just printing the site won't necessarily cut it. You have to know your content, and be able to talk about it. Ideally, you'll also have page view and time-on-page metrics. One of the most powerful things you can do is, when people are staring at your wall of content, ask them what they think half of it is for. Pretty soon, you've made a case for content strategy. We're also going to get folks to mark it up - cover it with notes and post-its, let us know how they feel about our content. I'll be blogging about how that goes, but it's exciting. Different business functions have different needs from content, so the more exposure the content gets, and the more feedback, the more you know about those needs. Fingers crossed for awesome.

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #006

  - by pinaldave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2006 This was my very first year of blogging so I was every day learning something new. As I have said many times, that blogging was never an intention. I had really not understood what exactly I am working on or beginning when I was beginning blogging in 2006. I had never knew that my life was going to change forever, once I started blogging. When I look back all of this year, I am happy that we are here together. 2007 IT Outsourcing to India – Top 10 Reasons Companies Outsource Outsourcing is about trust, collaboration and success. Helping other countries in need has been always the course of mankind, outsourcing is nothing different then that. With information technology and process improvements increasing the complexity, costs and skills required to accomplish routine tasks as well as challenging complex tasks, companies are outsourcing such tasks to providers who have the expertise to perform them at lower costs , with greater value and quality outcome. UDF – Remove Duplicate Chars From String This was a very interesting function I wrote in my early career. I am still using this function when I have to remove duplicate chars from strings. I have yet to come across a scenario where it does not work so I keep on using it till today. Please leave a comment if there is any better solution to this problem. FIX : Error : 3702 Cannot drop database because it is currently in use This is a very generic error when DROP Database is command is executed and the database is not dropped. The common mistake user is kept the connection open with this database and trying to drop the database. The database cannot be dropped if there is any other connection open along with it. It is always a good idea to take database in single user mode before dropping it. Here is the quick tutorial regarding how to bring the database in single user mode: Using T-SQL | Using SSMS. 2008 Install SQL Server 2008 – How to Upgrade to SQL Server 2008 – Installation Tutorial This was indeed one of the most popular articles in SQL Server 2008. Lots of people wanted to learn how to install SQL SErver 2008 but they were facing various issues while installation. I build this tutorial which becomes reference points for many. Default Collation of SQL Server 2008 What is the collation of SQL Server 2008 default installations? I often see this question confusing many experienced developers as well. Well the answer is in following image. Ahmedabad SQL Server User Group Meeting – November 2008 User group meetings are fun, now a days I am going to User Group meetings every week but there was a case when I have been just a beginner on this subject. The bug of the community was caught on me years ago when I started to present in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar SQ LServer User Groups. 2009 Validate an XML document in TSQL using XSD My friend Jacob Sebastian wrote an excellent article on the subject XML and XSD. Because of the ‘eXtensible’ nature of XML (eXtensible Markup Language), often there is a requirement to restrict and validate the content of an XML document to a pre-defined structure and values. XSD (XML Schema Definition Language) is the W3C recommended language for describing and validating XML documents. SQL Server implements XSD as XML Schema Collections. Star Join Query Optimization At present, when queries are sent to very large databases, millions of rows are returned. Also the users have to go through extended query response times when joining multiple tables are involved with such queries. ‘Star Join Query Optimization’ is a new feature of SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition. This mechanism uses bitmap filtering for improving the performance of some types of queries by the effective retrieval of rows from fact tables. 2010 These puzzles are very interesting and intriguing – there was lots of interest on this subject. If you have free time this weekend. You may want to try them out. SQL SERVER – Challenge – Puzzle – Usage of FAST Hint (Solution)  SQL SERVER – Puzzle – Challenge – Error While Converting Money to Decimal (Solution)  SQL SERVER – Challenge – Puzzle – Why does RIGHT JOIN Exists (Open)  Additionally, I had great fun presenting SQL Server Performance Tuning seminar at fantastic locations in Hyderabad. Installing AdventeWorks Database This has been the most popular request I have received on my blog. Here is the quick video about how one can install AdventureWorks. 2011 Effect of SET NOCOUNT on @@ROWCOUNT There was an interesting incident once while I was presenting a session. I wrote a code and suddenly 10 hands went up in the air.  This was a bit surprise to me as I do not know why they all got alerted. I assumed that there should be something wrong with either project, screen or my display. However the real reason was very interesting – I suggest you read the complete blog post to understand this interesting scenario. Error: Deleting Offline Database and Creating the Same Name This is very interesting because once a user deletes the offline database the MDF and LDF file still exists and if the user attempts to create a new database with the same name it will give error. I found this very interesting and the blog explains the concept very quickly. Have you ever faced a similar situation? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• HPCM 11.1.2.2.x - How to find data in an HPCM Standard Costing database

  - by Jane Story

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} When working with a Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management (HPCM) Standard Costing application, there can often be a requirement to check data or allocated results using reporting tools e.g Smartview. To do this, you are retrieving data directly from the Essbase databases related to your HPCM model. For information, running reports is covered in Chapter 9 of the HPCM User documentation. The aim of this blog is to provide a quick guide to finding this data for reporting in the HPCM generated Essbase database in v11.1.2.2.x of HPCM. In order to retrieve data from an HPCM generated Essbase database, it is important to understand each of the following dimensions in the Essbase database and where data is located within them: Measures dimension – identifies Measures AllocationType dimension – identifies Direct Allocation Data or Genealogy Allocation data Point Of View (POV) dimensions – there must be at least one, maximum of four. Business dimensions: Stage Business dimensions – these will be identified by the Stage prefix. Intra-Stage dimension – these will be identified by the _Intra suffix. Essbase outlines and reporting is explained in the documentation here:http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/hpm_user/ch09s02.html For additional details on reporting measures, please review this section of the documentation:http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/hpm_user/apas03.html Reporting requirements in HPCM quite often start with identifying non balanced items in the Stage Balancing report. The following documentation link provides help with identifying some of the items within the Stage Balancing report:http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/hpm_user/generatestagebalancing.html The following are some types of data upon which you may want to report: Stage Data: Direct Input Assigned Input Data Assigned Output Data Idle Cost/Revenue Unassigned Cost/Revenue Over Driven Cost/Revenue Direct Allocation Data Genealogy Allocation Data Stage Data Stage Data consists of: Direct Input i.e. input data, the starting point of your allocation e.g. in Stage 1 Assigned Input Data i.e. the cost/revenue received from a prior stage (i.e. stage 2 and higher). Assigned Output Data i.e. for each stage, the data that will be assigned forward is assigned post stage data. Reporting on this data is explained in the documentation here:http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/hpm_user/ch09s03.html Dimension Selection Measures Direct Input: CostInput RevenueInput Assigned Input (from previous stages): CostReceivedPriorStage RevenueReceivedPriorStage Assigned Output (to subsequent stages): CostAssignedPostStage RevenueAssignedPostStage AllocationType DirectAllocation POV One member from each POV dimension Stage Business Dimensions Any members for the stage business dimensions for the stage you wish to see the Stage data for. All other Dimensions NoMember Idle/Unassigned/OverDriven To view Idle, Unassigned or Overdriven Costs/Revenue, first select which stage for which you want to view this data. If multiple Stages have unassigned/idle, resolve the earliest first and re-run the calculation as differences in early stages will create unassigned/idle in later stages. Dimension Selection Measures Idle: IdleCost IdleRevenue Unassigned: UnAssignedCost UnAssignedRevenue Overdriven: OverDrivenCost OverDrivenRevenue AllocationType DirectAllocation POV One member from each POV dimension Dimensions in the Stage with Unassigned/ Idle/OverDriven Cost All the Stage Business dimensions in the Stage with Unassigned/Idle/Overdriven. Zoom in on each dimension to find the individual members to find which members have Unassigned/Idle/OverDriven data. All other Dimensions NoMember Direct Allocation Data Direct allocation data shows the data received by a destination intersection from a source intersection where a direct assignment(s) exists. Reporting on direct allocation data is explained in the documentation here:http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/hpm_user/ch09s04.html You would select the following to report direct allocation data Dimension Selection Measures CostReceivedPriorStage AllocationType DirectAllocation POV One member from each POV dimension Stage Business Dimensions Any members for the SOURCE stage business dimensions and the DESTINATION stage business dimensions for the direct allocations for the stage you wish to report on. All other Dimensions NoMember Genealogy Allocation Data Genealogy allocation data shows the indirect data relationships between stages. Genealogy calculations run in the HPCM Reporting database only. Reporting on genealogy data is explained in the documentation here:http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/hpm_user/ch09s05.html Dimension Selection Measures CostReceivedPriorStage AllocationType GenealogyAllocation (IndirectAllocation in 11.1.2.1 and prior versions) POV One member from each POV dimension Stage Business Dimensions Any stage business dimension members from the STARTING stage in Genealogy Any stage business dimension members from the INTERMEDIATE stage(s) in Genealogy Any stage business dimension members from the ENDING stage in Genealogy All other Dimensions NoMember Notes If you still don’t see data after checking the above, please check the following Check the calculation has been run. Here are couple of indicators that might help them with that. Note the size of essbase cube before and after calculations ensure that a calculation was run against the database you are examing. Export the essbase data to a text file to confirm that some data exists. Examine the date and time on task area to see when, if any, calculations were run and what choices were used (e.g. Genealogy choices) If data does not exist in places where they are expecting, it could be that No calculations/genealogy were run No calculations were successfully run The model/data at feeder location were either absent or incompatible, resulting in no allocation e.g no driver data. Smartview Invocation from HPCM From version 11.1.2.2.350 of HPCM (this version will be GA shortly), it is possible to directly invoke Smartview from HPCM. There is guided navigation before the Smartview invocation and it is then possible to see the selected value(s) in SmartView. Click to Download HPCM 11.1.2.2.x - How to find data in an HPCM Standard Costing database (Right click or option-click the link and choose "Save As..." to download this pdf file)

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• ORACLE RIGHTNOW DYNAMIC AGENT DESKTOP CLOUD SERVICE - Putting the Dynamite into Dynamic Agent Desktop

  - by Andreea Vaduva

  Untitled Document There’s a mountain of evidence to prove that a great contact centre experience results in happy, profitable and loyal customers. The very best Contact Centres are those with high first contact resolution, customer satisfaction and agent productivity. But how many companies really believe they are the best? And how many believe that they can be? We know that with the right tools, companies can aspire to greatness – and achieve it. Core to this is ensuring their agents have the best tools that give them the right information at the right time, so they can focus on the customer and provide a personalised, professional and efficient service. Today there are multiple channels through which customers can communicate with you; phone, web, chat, social to name a few but regardless of how they communicate, customers expect a seamless, quality experience. Most contact centre agents need to switch between lots of different systems to locate the right information. This hampers their productivity, frustrates both the agent and the customer and increases call handling times. With this in mind, Oracle RightNow has designed and refined a suite of add-ins to optimize the Agent Desktop. Each is designed to simplify and adapt the agent experience for any given situation and unify the customer experience across your media channels. Let’s take a brief look at some of the most useful tools available and see how they make a difference. Contextual Workspaces: The screen where agents do their job. Agents don’t want to be slowed down by busy screens, scrolling through endless tabs or links to find what they’re looking for. They want quick, accurate and easy. Contextual Workspaces are fully configurable and through workspace rules apply if, then, else logic to display only the information the agent needs for the issue at hand . Assigned at the Profile level, different levels of agent, from a novice to the most experienced, get a screen that is relevant to their role and responsibilities and ensures their job is done quickly and efficiently the first time round. Agent Scripting: Sometimes, agents need to deliver difficult or sensitive messages while maximising the opportunity to cross-sell and up-sell. After all, contact centres are now increasingly viewed as revenue generators. Containing sophisticated branching logic, scripting helps agents to capture the right level of information and guides the agent step by step, ensuring no mistakes, inconsistencies or missed opportunities. Guided Assistance: This is typically used to solve common troubleshooting issues, displaying a series of question and answer sets in a decision-tree structure. This means agents avoid having to bookmark favourites or rely on written notes. Agents find particular value in these guides - to quickly craft chat and email responses. What’s more, by publishing guides in answers on support pages customers, can resolve issues themselves, without needing to contact your agents. And b ecause it can also accelerate agent ramp-up time, it ensures that even novice agents can solve customer problems like an expert. Desktop Workflow: Take a step back and look at the full customer interaction of your agents. It probably spans multiple systems and multiple tasks. With Desktop Workflows you control the design workflows that span the full customer interaction from start to finish. As sequences of decisions and actions, workflows are unique in that they can create or modify different records and provide automation behind the scenes. This means your agents can save time and provide better quality of service by having the tools they need and the relevant information as required. And doing this boosts satisfaction among your customers, your agents and you – so win, win, win! I have highlighted above some of the tools which can be used to optimise the desktop; however, this is by no means an exhaustive list. In approaching your design, it’s important to understand why and how your customers contact you in the first place. Once you have this list of “whys” and “hows”, you can design effective policies and procedures to handle each category of problem, and then implement the right agent desktop user interface to support them. This will avoid duplication and wasted effort. Five Top Tips to take away: Start by working out “why” and “how” customers are contacting you. Implement a clean and relevant agent desktop to support your agents. If your workspaces are getting complicated consider using Desktop Workflow to streamline the interaction. Enhance your Knowledgebase with Guides. Agents can access them proactively and can be published on your web pages for customers to help themselves. Script any complex, critical or sensitive interactions to ensure consistency and accuracy. Desktop optimization is an ongoing process so continue to monitor and incorporate feedback from your agents and your customers to keep your Contact Centre successful.   Want to learn more? Having attending the 3-day Oracle RightNow Customer Service Administration class your next step is to attend the Oracle RightNow Customer Portal Design and 2-day Dynamic Agent Desktop Administration class. Here you’ll learn not only how to leverage the Agent Desktop tools but also how to optimise your self-service pages to enhance your customers’ web experience.   Useful resources: Review the Best Practice Guide Review the tune-up guide   About the Author: Angela Chandler joined Oracle University as a Senior Instructor through the RightNow Customer Experience Acquisition. Her other areas of expertise include Business Intelligence and Knowledge Management.  She currently delivers the following Oracle RightNow courses in the classroom and as a Live Virtual Class: RightNow Customer Service Administration (3 days) RightNow Customer Portal Design and Dynamic Agent Desktop Administration (2 days) RightNow Analytics (2 days) Rightnow Chat Cloud Service Administration (2 days)

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• Silverlight Cream for May 11, 2010 -- #859

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this All Submittal Issue: Colin Eberhardt, Ken Johnson, Alan Beasley, Pencho Popadiyn, Phil Middlemiss, Khawar(-2-), Levente Mihály, Alex van Beek, Bart Czernicki, Michael Washington, and Mark Monster. Shoutout: Not Silverlight necessarily, but definitely VS2010, read what Brett Balmer has to say In Defense of Portrait Mode From SilverlightCream.com: Silverlight MultiBinding solution for Silverlight 4 Colin Eberhardt updated his Silverlight Multibinding solution to Silverlight 4. Great article with explanatory graphics, and links to the code... congrats on the use in the FaceBook Client too! Spirograph Shapes: WPF Bezier shapes from math formulae Wow... I haven't seen this much math since my Master's Thesis! ... Check out all the shapes Ken Johnson has built... don't let the math scare you... just use it :) Busy Dizzy Bee-sley Spirographic Animation in Expression Blend and Silverlight This is just fun... I saw Michael Washington playing with this yesterday at the Arizona Day of .NET but didn't have a chance to ask what it was.. Alan Beasley had a good time building this, and is sharing a very detailed tutorial with us. ModalDialogs, IEditableObject and MVVM in Silverlight 4 Pencho Popadiyn said the 'M' word over at SilverlightShow... actually the 'MVVM' word :) ... he's discussing Modal dialogs with no code in the View ... check out how he did it. A Chrome and Glass Theme - Part 6 Phil Middlemiss is up to episode 6 in his Theme-building tutorial... this time out, he's giving the TabControl and TabItem new clothes ... specifically discussing what to change and what to allow to inherit ... good stuff! Silverlight 4 Fonts gotcha Check out Khawar's ATM Machine demo -- there's a link on the page for this post... he had an issue with fonts, ratted it out, and explains it for all of us... thanks Khawar Demystifying Silverlight Obfuscation Khawar also has a good post up on Obfuscating your Silverlight... definitely showing that it's not all that difficult to do. geoGallery, a WinPhone7 sample OK this is interesting... using the geoLocation feature of WP7, Levente Mihály hits Google Picasa to find pictures... good write-up and all the code. Silverlight 4: Digitally signing a XAP with Visual Studio 2010 Alex van Beek has a nice tutorial on Signing your XAP file using Visual Studio 2010... of course you may want to visit Tim Heuer's blog (search at SC) to find the two good deals on certificates that are still in play. Creating Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in Expression Blend 4 for Business Intelligence applications In an interesting post, Bart Czernicki describes using the shape assets in Blend 4 to produce a KPI display in Silverlight or WPF. A discussion of the shape's evolution for KPI is included as well as some alternate shape uses. A DotNetNuke Silverlight 4 Drag and Drop File Manager Michael Washington has blogged about his Drag and Drop File Manager using the View Model Style pattern. This is covered in two CodeProject articles listed in the post. The design work was done by Alan Beasely and links to his work is there as well as covered in other SC posts. How to select a ListItem on Hover Mark Monster had a Use Case for Selecting a ListBox entry by hovering ... but he did it with a Behavior and for a ListBox and PathListBox and it works with DataBinding... Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• SQL SERVER – Beginning New Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #001

  - by pinaldave

  I am introducing a new series today.  This series is called “Memory Lane.”  From the last six years and 2,300 articles, there are fantastic articles I keep revisiting.  Sometimes when I read old blog posts I think I should have included something or added a bit more to the topic.  But for many articles, I still feel they are fantastic (even after six years) and could be read again and again. I have also found that after six years of blogging, readers will write to me and say “Pinal, why don’t you write about X, Y or Z.”  The answer is: I already did!  It is here on the blog, or in the comments, or possibly in one of my books.  The solution has always been there, it is simply a matter of finding it and presenting it again.  That is why I have created Memory Lane.  I will be listing the best articles from the same week of the past six years.  You will find plenty of reading material every Saturday from articles of SQLAuthority past. Here is the list of curetted articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2006 Query to Display Foreign Key Relationships and Name of the Constraint for Each Table in Database My blogging journey began with this blog post. As many of you know my journey began with creating a repository of my scripts. This was very first script which I had written to find out foreign key relationship and constraints. The same query was updated later on using the new SYS schema modification in SQL Server. Version 1: Using sys.schema Version 2: Using sys.schema and additional columns 2007 Milestone Posts – 1 Year (365 blogs) and 1 Million Views When I reached 1st week of Nov in 2007 SQLAuthority.com blog had around 365 blog posts and 1 Million Views. I was not obsessed with the statistics before but this was indeed an interesting moment for me as I was blogging for myself and did not realize that so many people are reading my blog. In year 2006 there were not many bloggers so blogging was new to me as well. I was learning it as I go. 2008 Stored Procedure WITH ENCRYPTION and Execution Plan If you have stored procedure and its code is encrypted when you execute it what will be displayed in the execution plan. There are two kinds of execution plans 1) Estimated and 2) Actual. It will be indeed interesting to know what is displayed in both the cases when Stored Procedure is encrypted. What is your guess? Now go ahead and click on here and figure out your answer. If the user is not able to login into SQL Server due to any error or issues there were two different blog post addresses the same issue here and here. 2009 It seems like Nov is the month of SQLPASS month. In 2009 on the same week I was in USA attending SQLPASS event. I had a fantastic experience attending the event. Here are the blog posts covering the subject Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 2010 Finding the last backup time for all the databases This little script is very powerful and instantly gives details when was the last time your database backup performed. If you are reading this blog post – I say just go ahead and check if everything is alright on your server and you have all the necessary latest backup. It is better to be safe than sorrow. Version 1: Above script was improved to get more details about the database Version 2: This version of the script will include pretty much have all the backup related information in a single script. Do not miss to save it for future use. Are you a Database Administrator or a Database Developer? Three years ago I created a very small survey and the results which I have received are very interesting. The question was asking what is the profile of the visitor of that blog post and I noticed that DBA and Developers have balanced with little inclination towards Developers. Have you voted so far? If not, go ahead! 2011 New Book Released – SQL Server Interview Questions And Answers One year ago, on November 3, 2011 I published my book SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers.  The book has a lot of great reviews, and we have even received emails telling us this book was a life changer because it helped get them a great new job.  I don’t think anyone can get a job just from my book.  It was the individual who studied hard and took it seriously, and was determined to learn something new.  The book might have helped guide them and show them the topics to study, but they spent their own energy on it.  It was their own skills that helped them pass the exam. So, in this very first installment, I would like to thank the readers for accepting our book, for giving it great reviews and for using it and sharing it.  Our goal in writing this book was to help others, and it seems like we succeeded. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• JD Edwards Apps in a Box - Update

  - by Hartmut Wiese

  Summary and clarification JD Edwards Apps in a box is a Partner offering to the customer. We as Oracle have a huge interest in getting a successful offering to the market and we help the Partner building their offering. We provide components like JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and the Hardware. The Business Partner adds the installation services and position this as a solution to the market for a single price. As you know JD Edwards EnterpriseOne can run on multiple hardware platforms. Linux/X-86 version As you all know we do have JD Edwards VM Templates available from Oracle for the X-86 architecture. Each Partner should or is already able to install JD Edwards EnterpriseOne using these images from our software delivery cloud. We built a master bill of material for a X3-2 Hardware configuration now. It has been uploaded on the Community Workspace now. This is a SUGGESTION and limited to 50 Users MAX. However I strongly recommend you to do a sizing as usual and verify the configuration for each opportunity individually. T4-1/X3-2 version Oracle is not providing similar images for the T4-1 SPARC / SOLARIS architecture. There is an Optimized Solution Team inside Oracle who has created an Optimized Solution for JD Edwards some time ago. They created a whitepaper which is still available to download. This whitepaper was used as a starting point however we decided to build a new version of it using the latest Software and Hardware available. This has now been finalized and we are happy to provide this to our partners. This image is more a service we provide for each partner which they can reuse and extend based on their individual offerings. It is not an official supported Oracle Product and cannot be used to deploy to customers immediately. You cannot resell “JDE in a box”. You can use these images to save time while building your own Go-to-Market offering. You might want to add functionality like Mobility. It is also not complete as also the Deployment Server needs to be configured individually at the customer site. We will create some documentation about: what this images contains (and what not)? what final installation activities needs to be provided by each VAD/Partner in this process?  I will send an email to the community once we are ready to share it. You find these assets than in the Community Workspace. The Business Model with Oracle Hardware For those who have not done any Hardware business with Oracle yet: Usually a HW reseller orders the hardware through a Value Add Distributors (VAD) and not from Oracle directly. Each Partner needs to have Hardware Resell rights to do so. The VAD is assembling the boxes according to the needs of each customer. It is easily possible for them to prepare the boxes with the images we/you provide. However the final configuration is something a reseller/implementer needs to do at the customer site. This process is not the same in the EMEA region. Sometimes a VAD are taking the order but they do not see the Hardware at all. In those cases a VAD cannot provide any help with the pre-loading of any images and the reseller/implementer needs to do that. In some countries we do not have VADs at all.

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• Developer Profile: Marcelo Quinta

  - by Tori Wieldt

  As the Java developer community lead for Oracle, the best part of my job is going to conferences and meeting Java developers. I’ve had the pleasure to meet men and women who are smart, fun and passionate about Java—they make the Java community happen. The current issue of Java Magazine provides profiles of other young Java developers around the world. Subscribe to read them! Marcelo Quinta Age: 24Occupation: Professor, Federal University of GoiasLocation: Goias, Brazil Twitter: @mrquinta Marcelo (white polo shirt, center) and class OTN: When did you realize that you were good at programming? When I was in graduate school, I developed a Java system that displayed worked out the logics of getting the maximum coverage using the fewest resources (for example, the minimum number of soldiers [and positions] needed for a battlefield. It may seems not difficult, but it's a hard problem to solve, mathematically. Here I was, a freshman, who came up with an app  "solving" it. Some Master's students use my software today. It was then I began to believe in what I could do.OTN: What most inspires you about programming?I'm really inspired by the challenges and tension that comes from solving a complicated problems. Lately, I've been doing a new system focused on education and digital inclusion and was very gratifying to see it working and the results. I felt useful for the community. OTN: What are some things you would like to accomplish using Java?Java is a very strong platform and that gives us power to develop applications for different devices and purposes, from home automation with little microcontrollers to systems in big servers. I would like to build more systems that integrate the people life or different business contexts, from PCs to cell phones and tablets, ubiquitously. I think IT has reached a level where the current challenge is to make systems that leverage existing technologies that are present in daily life. Java gives us a very interesting set of options to put it into practice, especially in systems that require more strength.OTN: What technical insights into Java technology have been most important to you?I have really enjoyed the way that Java has evolved with Oracle, with new features added, many of them which were suggested by the community. Java 7 came with substantial improvements in the language syntax and it seems that Java 8 takes it even further. I also made some applications in JavaFX and liked the new version. The Java GUI is on a higher level than is offered out there. I saw some JavaFX prototypes running in modern tablets and I got excited. OTN: What would you like to be doing 10 years from now?I want my work to make a difference for individuals or an institution. It would be interesting to be improving one of the systems that I am making today. Recently I've been mixing my hobbies and work, playing with Arduino and home automation. The JHome project, winner of the Duke's Choice Award in 2011, is very interesting to me.OTN: Do you listen to music when you write code? If so, what kind?Absolutely! I usually listen to electronic music (Prodigy, Fatboy Slim and Paul Oakenfold), rock (Metallica, Strokes, The Black Keys) and a bit of local alternative music. I live in Goiânia, "The Brazilian Seattle" and I profit from it very well. OTN: What do you do when you're not programming?I like to play guitar and to fish. Last year I sold my economy car and bought a old jeep. Some people called me crazy, but since then I've been having a great time and having adventures on the backroads of Brazil. Once I broke my glasses in a funny game involving my car's suspension and the airbags. OTN: Does your girlfriend think you are crazy?Crazy is someone who doesn't have courage to do strange things! My girlfriend likes my style. =D Subscribe to the free Java Magazine to read profiles of other young Java developers. Visit the Java channel on YouTube to see a video of Marcelo in action.

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• SQL SERVER – Beginning New Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #002

  - by pinaldave

  Here is the list of curetted articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2006 Query to Find ByteSize of All the Tables in Database This was my second blog post and today I do not remember what was the business need which has made me build this query. It was built for SQL Server 2000 and it will not directly run on SQL Server 2005 or later version now. It measured the byte size of the tables in the database. This can be done in many different ways as well for example SP_HELPDB as well SP_HELP. I wish to build similar script in 2005 and later version. 2007 This week I had completed my – 1 Year (365 blogs) and very first 1 Million Views. I was pretty excited at that time with this new achievement. SQL SERVER Versions, CodeNames, Year of Release When I started with SQL Server I did not know all the names correctly for each version and I often used to get confused with this. However, as time passed by I started to remember all the codename as well. In this blog post I have not included SQL Server 2012′s code name as it was not released at the time. SQL Server 2012′s code name is Denali. Here is the question for you – anyone know what is the internal name of the SQL Server’s next version? Searching String in Stored Procedure I have already started to work with 2005 by this time and I was personally converting each of my stored procedures to SQL Server 2005 compatible. As we were upgrading from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005 we had to search each of the stored procedures and make sure that we remove incompatible code from it. For example, syscolumns of SQL Server 2000 was now being replaced by sys.columns of SQL Server 2005. This stored procedure was pretty helpful at that time. Later on I build few additional versions of the same stored procedure. Version 1: This version finds the Stored Procedures related to Table Version 2: This is specific version which works with SQL Server 2005 and later version 2008 Clear Drop Down List of Recent Connection From SQL Server Management Studio It happens to all of us when we connected to some remote client server and we never ever have to connect to it again. However, it keeps on bothering us that the name shows up in the list all the time. In this blog post I covered a quick tip about how we can remove the same. I also wrote a small article about How to Check Database Integrity for all Databases and there was a funny question from a reader requesting T-SQL code to refresh databases. 2009 Stored Procedure are Compiled on First Run – SP is taking Longer to Run First Time A myth is quite prevailing in the industry that Stored Procedures are pre-compiled and they should always run faster. It is not true. Stored procedures are compiled on very first execution of it and that is the reason why it takes longer when it executes first time. In this blog post I had a great time discussing the same concept. If you do not agree with it, you are welcome to read this blog post. Removing Key Lookup – Seek Predicate – Predicate – An Interesting Observation Related to Datatypes Performance Tuning is an interesting concept and my personal favorite one. In many blog posts I have described how to do performance tuning and how to improve the performance of the queries. In this quick quick tip I have explained how one can remove the Key Lookup and improve performance. Here are very relevant articles on this subject: Article 1 | Article 2 | Article 3 2010 Recycle Error Log – Create New Log file without a Server Restart During one of the consulting assignments I noticed DBA restarting server to create new log file. This is absolutely not necessary and restarting server might have many other negative impacts. There is a common sp_cycle_errorlog which can do the same task efficiently and properly. Have you ever used this SP or feature? Additionally I had a great time presenting on SQL Server Best Practices in SharePoint Conference. 2011 SSMS 2012 Reset Keyboard Shortcuts to Default It is very much possible that we mix up various SQL Server shortcuts and at times we feel like resetting it to default. In SQL Server 2012 it is not easy to do it, there is a process to follow and I enjoyed blogging about it. Fundamentals of Columnstore Index Columnstore index is introduced in SQL Server 2012 and have been a very popular subject. It increases the speed of the server dramatically as well can be an extremely useful feature with Datawharehousing. However updating the columnstore index is not as simple as a simple UPDATE statement. Read in a detailed blog post about how Update works with Columnstore Index. Additionally, you can watch a Quick Video on this subject. SQL Server 2012 New Features I had decided to explore SQL Server 2012 features last year and went through pretty much every single concept introduced in separate blog posts. Here are two blog posts where I describe how SQL Server 2012 functions works. Introduction to CUME_DIST – Analytic Functions Introduction to FIRST _VALUE and LAST_VALUE – Analytic Functions OVER clause with FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE – Analytic Functions I indeed enjoyed writing about SQL Server 2012 functions last year. Have you gone through all the new features which are introduced in SQL Server 2012? If not, it is still not late to go through them. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)   Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Upgrading SSIS Custom Components for SQL Server 2012

  Having finally got around to upgrading my custom components to SQL Server 2012, I thought I’d share some notes on the process. One of the goals was minimal duplication, so the same code files are used to build the 2008 and 2012 components, I just have a separate project file. The high level steps are listed below, followed by some more details. Create a 2012 copy of the project file Upgrade project, just open the new project file is VS2010 Change target framework to .NET 4.0 Set conditional compilation symbol for DENALI Change any conditional code, including assembly version and UI type name Edit project file to change referenced assemblies for 2012 Change target framework to .NET 4.0 Open the project properties. On the Applications page, change the Target framework to .NET Framework 4. Set conditional compilation symbol for DENALI Re-open the project properties. On the Build tab, first change the Configuration to All Configurations, then set a Conditional compilation symbol of DENALI. Change any conditional code, including assembly version and UI type name The value doesn’t have to be DENALI, it can actually be anything you like, that is just what I use. It is how I control sections of code that vary between versions. There were several API changes between 2005 and 2008, as well as interface name changes. Whilst we don’t have the same issues between 2008 and 2012, I still have some sections of code that do change such as the assembly attributes. #if DENALI [assembly: AssemblyDescription("Data Generator Source for SQL Server Integration Services 2012")] [assembly: AssemblyCopyright("Copyright © 2012 Konesans Ltd")] [assembly: AssemblyVersion("3.0.0.0")] #else [assembly: AssemblyDescription("Data Generator Source for SQL Server Integration Services 2008")] [assembly: AssemblyCopyright("Copyright © 2008 Konesans Ltd")] [assembly: AssemblyVersion("2.0.0.0")] #endif The Visual Studio editor automatically formats the code based on the current compilation symbols, hence in this case the 2008 code is grey to indicate it is disabled. As you can see in the previous example I have distinct assembly version attributes, ensuring I can run both 2008 and 2012 versions of my component side by side. For custom components with a user interface, be sure to update the UITypeName property of the DtsTask or DtsPipelineComponent attributes. As above I use the conditional compilation symbol to control the code. #if DENALI [DtsTask ( DisplayName = "File Watcher Task", Description = "File Watcher Task", IconResource = "Konesans.Dts.Tasks.FileWatcherTask.FileWatcherTask.ico", UITypeName = "Konesans.Dts.Tasks.FileWatcherTask.FileWatcherTaskUI,Konesans.Dts.Tasks.FileWatcherTask,Version=3.0.0.0,Culture=Neutral,PublicKeyToken=b2ab4a111192992b", TaskContact = "File Watcher Task; Konesans Ltd; Copyright © 2012 Konesans Ltd; http://www.konesans.com" )] #else [DtsTask ( DisplayName = "File Watcher Task", Description = "File Watcher Task", IconResource = "Konesans.Dts.Tasks.FileWatcherTask.FileWatcherTask.ico", UITypeName = "Konesans.Dts.Tasks.FileWatcherTask.FileWatcherTaskUI,Konesans.Dts.Tasks.FileWatcherTask,Version=2.0.0.0,Culture=Neutral,PublicKeyToken=b2ab4a111192992b", TaskContact = "File Watcher Task; Konesans Ltd; Copyright © 2004-2008 Konesans Ltd; http://www.konesans.com" )] #endif public sealed class FileWatcherTask: Task, IDTSComponentPersist, IDTSBreakpointSite, IDTSSuspend { // .. code goes on... } Shown below is another example I found that needed changing. I borrow one of the MS editors, and use it against a custom property, but need to ensure I reference the correct version of the MS controls assembly. This section of code is actually shared between the 2005, 2008 and 2012 versions of my component hence it has test for both DENALI and KATMAI symbols. #if DENALI const string multiLineUI = "Microsoft.DataTransformationServices.Controls.ModalMultilineStringEditor, Microsoft.DataTransformationServices.Controls, Version=11.0.00.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91"; #elif KATMAI const string multiLineUI = "Microsoft.DataTransformationServices.Controls.ModalMultilineStringEditor, Microsoft.DataTransformationServices.Controls, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91"; #else const string multiLineUI = "Microsoft.DataTransformationServices.Controls.ModalMultilineStringEditor, Microsoft.DataTransformationServices.Controls, Version=9.0.242.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91"; #endif // Create Match Expression parameter IDTSCustomPropertyCollection100 propertyCollection = outputColumn.CustomPropertyCollection; IDTSCustomProperty100 property = propertyCollection.New(); property = propertyCollection.New(); property.Name = MatchParams.Name; property.Description = MatchParams.Description; property.TypeConverter = typeof(MultilineStringConverter).AssemblyQualifiedName; property.UITypeEditor = multiLineUI; property.Value = MatchParams.DefaultValue; Edit project file to change referenced assemblies for 2012 We now need to edit the project file itself. Open the MyComponente2012.cproj  in you favourite text editor, and then perform a couple of find and replaces as listed below: Find Replace Comment Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91 Version=11.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91 Change the assembly references version from SQL Server 2008 to SQL Server 2012. Microsoft SQL Server\100\ Microsoft SQL Server\110\ Change any assembly reference hint path locations from from SQL Server 2008 to SQL Server 2012. If you use any Build Events during development, such as copying the component assembly to the DTS folder, or calling GACUTIL to install it into the GAC, you can also change these now. An example of my new post-build event for a pipeline component is shown below, which uses the .NET 4.0 path for GACUTIL. It also uses the 110 folder location, instead of 100 for SQL Server 2008, but that was covered the the previous find and replace. "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools\gacutil.exe" /if "$(TargetPath)" copy "$(TargetPath)" "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\110\DTS\PipelineComponents" /Y

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• JDK bug migration: components and subcomponents

  - by darcy

  One subtask of the JDK migration from the legacy bug tracking system to JIRA was reclassifying bugs from a three-level taxonomy in the legacy system, (product, category, subcategory), to a fundamentally two-level scheme in our customized JIRA instance, (component, subcomponent). In the JDK JIRA system, there is technically a third project-level classification, but by design a large majority of JDK-related bugs were migrated into a single "JDK" project. In the end, over 450 legacy subcategories were simplified into about 120 subcomponents in JIRA. The 120 subcomponents are distributed among 17 components. A rule of thumb used was that a subcategory had to have at least 50 bugs in it for it to be retained. Below is a listing the component / subcomponent classification of the JDK JIRA project along with some notes and guidance on which OpenJDK email addresses cover different areas. Eventually, a separate incidents project to host new issues filed at bugs.sun.com will use a slightly simplified version of this scheme. The preponderance of bugs and subcomponents for the JDK are in library-related areas, with components named foo-libs and subcomponents primarily named after packages. While there was an overall condensation of subcomponents in the migration, in some cases long-standing informal divisions in core libraries based on naming conventions in the description were promoted to formal subcomponents. For example, hundreds of bugs in the java.util subcomponent whose descriptions started with "(coll)" were moved into java.util:collections. Likewise, java.lang bugs starting with "(reflect)" and "(proxy)" were moved into java.lang:reflect. client-libs (Predominantly discussed on 2d-dev and awt-dev and swing-dev.) 2d demo java.awt java.awt:i18n java.beans (See beans-dev.) javax.accessibility javax.imageio javax.sound (See sound-dev.) javax.swing core-libs (See core-libs-dev.) java.io java.io:serialization java.lang java.lang.invoke java.lang:class_loading java.lang:reflect java.math java.net java.nio (Discussed on nio-dev.) java.nio.charsets java.rmi java.sql java.sql:bridge java.text java.util java.util.concurrent java.util.jar java.util.logging java.util.regex java.util:collections java.util:i18n javax.annotation.processing javax.lang.model javax.naming (JNDI) javax.script javax.script:javascript javax.sql org.openjdk.jigsaw (See jigsaw-dev.) security-libs (See security-dev.) java.security javax.crypto (JCE: includes SunJCE/MSCAPI/UCRYPTO/ECC) javax.crypto:pkcs11 (JCE: PKCS11 only) javax.net.ssl (JSSE, includes javax.security.cert) javax.security javax.smartcardio javax.xml.crypto org.ietf.jgss org.ietf.jgss:krb5 other-libs corba corba:idl corba:orb corba:rmi-iiop javadb other (When no other subcomponent is more appropriate; use judiciously.) Most of the subcomponents in the xml component are related to jaxp. xml jax-ws jaxb javax.xml.parsers (JAXP) javax.xml.stream (JAXP) javax.xml.transform (JAXP) javax.xml.validation (JAXP) javax.xml.xpath (JAXP) jaxp (JAXP) org.w3c.dom (JAXP) org.xml.sax (JAXP) For OpenJDK, most JVM-related bugs are connected to the HotSpot Java virtual machine. hotspot (See hotspot-dev.) build compiler (See hotspot-compiler-dev.) gc (garbage collection, see hotspot-gc-dev.) jfr (Java Flight Recorder) jni (Java Native Interface) jvmti (JVM Tool Interface) mvm (Multi-Tasking Virtual Machine) runtime (See hotspot-runtime-dev.) svc (Servicability) test core-svc (See serviceability-dev.) debugger java.lang.instrument java.lang.management javax.management tools The full JDK bug database contains entries related to legacy virtual machines that predate HotSpot as well as retired APIs. vm-legacy jit (Sun Exact VM) jit_symantec (Symantec VM, before Exact VM) jvmdi (JVM Debug Interface ) jvmpi (JVM Profiler Interface ) runtime (Exact VM Runtime) Notable command line tools in the $JDK/bin directory have corresponding subcomponents. tools appletviewer apt (See compiler-dev.) hprof jar javac (See compiler-dev.) javadoc(tool) (See compiler-dev.) javah (See compiler-dev.) javap (See compiler-dev.) jconsole launcher updaters (Timezone updaters, etc.) visualvm Some aspects of JDK infrastructure directly affect JDK Hg repositories, but other do not. infrastructure build (See build-dev and build-infra-dev.) licensing (Covers updates to the third party readme, licenses, and similar files.) release_eng (Release engineering) staging (Staging of web pages related to JDK releases.) The specification subcomponent encompasses the formal language and virtual machine specifications. specification language (The Java Language Specification) vm (The Java Virtual Machine Specification) The code for the deploy and install areas is not currently included in OpenJDK. deploy deployment_toolkit plugin webstart install auto_update install servicetags In the JDK, there are a number of cross-cutting concerns whose organization is essentially orthogonal to other areas. Since these areas generally have dedicated teams working on them, it is easier to find bugs of interest if these bugs are grouped first by their cross-cutting component rather than by the affected technology. docs doclet guides hotspot release_notes tools tutorial embedded build hotspot libraries globalization locale-data translation performance hotspot libraries The list of subcomponents will no doubt grow over time, but my inclination is to resist that growth since the addition of each subcomponent makes the system as a whole more complicated and harder to use. When the system gets closer to being externalized, I plan to post more blog entries describing recommended use of various custom fields in the JDK project.

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• Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g next launch phase - what a week of product releases! Feedback from our

  - by Jürgen Kress

    Product releases: SOA Suite 11gR1 Patch Set 2 (PS2) BPM Suite 11gR1 Released Oracle JDeveloper 11g (11.1.1.3.0) (Build 5660) Oracle WebLogic Server 11gR1 (10.3.3) Oracle JRockit (4.0) Oracle Tuxedo 11gR1 (11.1.1.1.0) Enterprise Manager 11g Grid Control Release 1 (11.1.0.1.0) for Linux x86/x86-64 All Oracle Fusion Middleware 11gR1 Software Download   BPM Suite 11gR1 Released by Manoj Das Oracle BPM Suite 11gR1 became available for download from OTN and eDelivery. If you have been following our plans in this area, you know that this is the release unifying BEA ALBPM product, which became Oracle BPM10gR3, with the Oracle stack. Some of the highlights of this release are: BPMN 2.0 modeling and simulation Web based Process Composer for BPMN and Rules authoring Zero-code environment with full access to Oracle SOA Suite’s rich set of application and other adapters Process Spaces – Out-of-box integration with Web Center Suite Process Analytics – Native process cubes as well as integration with Oracle BAM You can learn more about this release from the documentation. Notes about downloading and installing Please note that Oracle BPM Suite 11gR1 is delivered and installed as part of SOA 11.1.1.3.0, which is a sparse release (only incremental patch). To install: Download and install SOA 11.1.1.2.0, which is a full release (you can find the bits at the above location) Download and install SOA 11.1.1.3.0 During configure step (using the Fusion Middleware configuration wizard), use the Oracle Business Process Management template supplied with the SOA Suite11g (11.1.1.3.0) If you plan to use Process Spaces, also install Web Center 11.1.1.3.0, which also is delivered as a sparse release and needs to be installed on top of Web Center 11.1.1.2.0   SOA Suite 11gR1 Patch Set 2 (PS2) released by Demed L'Her We just released SOA Suite 11gR1 Patch Set 2 (PS2)! You can download it as usual from: OTN (main platforms only) eDelivery (all platforms) 11gR1 PS2 is delivered as a sparse installer, that is to say that it is meant to be applied on the latest full install (11gR1 PS1). That’s great for existing PS1 users who simply need to apply the patch and run the patch assistant – but an extra step for new users who will first need to download SOA Suite 11gR1 PS1 (in addition to the PS2 patch). What’s in that release? Bug fixes of course but also several significant new features. Here is a short selection of the most significant ones: Spring component (for native Java extensibility and integration) SOA Partitions (to organize and manage your composites) Direct Binding (for transactional invocations to and from Oracle Service Bus) HTTP binding (for those of you trying to do away with SOAP and looking for simple GET and POST) Resequencer (for ordering out-of-order messages) WS Atomic Transactions (WS-AT) support (for propagation of transactions across heterogeneous environments) Check out the complete list of new features in PS2 for more (including links to the documentation for the above)! But maybe even more importantly we are also releasing Oracle Service Bus 11gR1 and BPM Suite 11gR1 at the same time – all on the same base platform (WebLogic Server 10.3.3)! (NB: it might take a while for all pages and caches to be updated with the new content so if you don’t find what you need today, try again soon!)   Are you Systems Integrations and Independent Software Vendors ready to adopt and to deliver? Make sure that you become trained: Local training calendars Register for the SOA Partner Community & Webcast www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa What is your feedback?  Who installed the software? please feel free to share your experience at http://twitter.com/soacommunity #soacommunity Technorati Tags: SOA partner community ACE Directoris SOA Suite PS2 BPM11g First feedback from our ACE Directors and key Partners:   Now, these are great times to start the journey into BPM! Hajo Normann Reuse of components across the Oracle 11G Fusion Middleware stack, BPM just is one of the components plugging into the stack and reuses all other components. Mr. Leon Smiers With BPM11g, Oracle offers a very competitive product which will have a big effect on the IT market. Guido Schmutz We have real BPMN 2.0, which get's executed. No more transformation from business models to executable models - just press the run button... Torsten Winterberg Oracle BPM Suite 11g brings Out-of-box integration with WebCenter Suite and Oracle ADF development framework. Andrejus Baranovskis With the release of BPM Suite 11g, Oracle has defined new standards for Business Process platforms. Geoffroy de Lamalle With User Messaging Service you can let Soa Suite 11g do all your Messaging Edwin Biemond

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• A little primer on using TFS with a small team

  - by johndoucette

  The scenario; A small team of 3 developers mostly in maintenance mode with traditional ASP.net, classic ASP, .Net integration services and utilities with the company’s third party packages, and a bunch of java-based Coldfusion web applications all under Visual Source Safe (VSS). They are about to embark on a huge SharePoint 2010 new construction project and wanted to use subversion instead VSS. TFS was a foreign word and smelled of “high cost” and of an “over complicated process”. Since they had no preconditions about the old TFS versions (‘05 & ‘08), it was fun explaining how simple it was to install a TFS server and get the ball rolling, with or without all the heavy stuff one sometimes associates with such a huge and powerful application management lifecycle product. So, how does a small team begin using TFS? 1. Start by using source control and migrate current VSS source trees into TFS. You can take the latest version or migrate the entire version history. It’s up to you on whether you want a clean start or need quick access to all the version notes and history of the bits. 2. Since most shops are mainly in maintenance mode with existing applications, begin using bug workitems for everything. When you receive an issue/bug from your current tracking system, manually enter the workitem in TFS right through Visual Studio. You can automate the integration to the current tracking system later or replace it entirely. Believe me, this thing is powerful and can handle even the largest of help desks. 3. With new construction, begin work with requirements and task workitems and follow the traditional sprint-based development lifecycle. Obviously, some minor training will be needed, but don’t fear, this is very intuitive and MSDN has a ton of lesson based labs and videos. 4. For the java developers, use the new Team Explorer Everywhere 2010 plugin (recently known as Teamprise). There is a seamless interface in Eclipse, but also a good command-line utility for other environments such as Dreamweaver. 5. Wait to fully integrate the whole workitem/project management/testing process until your team is familiar with the integrated workitems for bugs and code. After a while, you will see the team wanting more transparency into the work they are all doing and naturally, everyone will want workitems to help them organize the chaos! 6. Management will be limited in the value of the reports until you have a fully blown implementation of project planning, construction, build, deployment and testing. However, there are some basic “bug rate” reports and current backlog listings that can provide good information. Some notable explanations of TFS; Work Item Tracking and Project Management - A workitem represents the unit of work within the system which enables tracking of all activities produced by a user, whether it is a developer, business user, project manager or tester. The properties of a workitem such as linked changesets (checked-in code), who updated the data and when, the states and reasons for change, are all transitioned to a data warehouse within TFS for reporting purposes. A workitem can be defines as a "bug", "requirement", test case", or a "change request". They drive the work effort by the individual assigned to it and also provide a key role in defining what needs to be done. Workitems are the things the team needs to do to accomplish a goal. Test Case Management - Starting with a workitem known as a "test case", a tester (or developer) can now author and manage test cases within a formal test plan subsystem. Although TFS supports the test case workitem type, there is a new product known as the VS Test Professional 2010 which allows a tester to facilitate manual tests including fast forwarding steps in the process to arrive at the assertion point quickly. This repeatable process provides quick regression tests and can be conducted by the business user to ensure completeness during UAT. In addition, developers no longer can provide a response to a bug with the line "cannot reproduce". With every test run, attachments including the recorded session, captured environment configurations and settings, screen shots, intellitrace (debugging history), and in some cases if the lab manager is being used, a snapshot of the tested environment is available. Version Control - A modern system allowing shared check-in/check-out, excellent merge conflict resolution, Shelvesets (personal check-ins), branching/merging visualization, public workspaces, gated check-ins, security hierarchy capabilities, and changeset/workitem tracking. Knowing what was done with the code by any developer has become much easier to picture and resolve issues. Team Build - Automate the compilation process whether you need it to be whenever a developer checks-in code, periodically such as nightly builds for testers in the morning, or manual builds to be deployed into production. Each build can run through pre-determined tests, perform code analysis to see if the developer conforms to the team standards, and reject the build if either fails. Project Portal & Reporting - Provide management with a dashboard with insight into the project(s). "Where are we" in each step of the way including past iterations and the current burndown rate. Enabling this feature is easy as it seamlessly interfaces with existing SharePoint implementations.

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