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Configuring UCM cache to check for external Content Server changes

- by Martin Deh

Recently, I was involved in a customer scenario where they were modifying the Content Server's contributor data files directly through Content Server. This operation of course is completely supported. However, since the contributor data file was modified through the "backdoor", a running WebCenter Spaces page, which also used the same data file, would not get the updates immediately. This was due to two reasons. The first reason is that the Spaces page was using Content Presenter to display the contents of the data file. The second reason is that the Spaces application was using the "cached" version of the data file. Fortunately, there is a way to configure cache so backdoor changes can be picked up more quickly and automatically. First a brief overview of Content Presenter. The Content Presenter task flow enables WebCenter Spaces users with Page-Edit permissions to precisely customize the selection and presentation of content in a WebCenter Spaces application. With Content Presenter, you can select a single item of content, contents under a folder, a list of items, or query for content, and then select a Content Presenter based template to render the content on a page in a Spaces application. In addition to displaying the folders and the files in a Content Server, Content Presenter integrates with Oracle Site Studio to allow you to create, access, edit, and display Site Studio contributor data files (Content Server Document) in either a Site Studio region template or in a custom Content Presenter display template. More information about creating Content Presenter Display Template can be found in the OFM Developers Guide for WebCenter Portal. The easiest way to configure the cache is to modify the WebCenter Spaces Content Server service connection setting through Enterprise Manager. From here, under the Cache Details, there is a section to set the Cache Invalidation Interval. Basically, this enables the cache to be monitored by the cache "sweeper" utility. The cache sweeper queries for changes in the Content Server, and then "marks" the object in cache as "dirty". This causes the application in turn to get a new copy of the document from the Content Server that replaces the cached version. By default the initial value for the Cache Invalidation Interval is set to 0 (minutes). This basically means that the sweeper is OFF. To turn the sweeper ON, just set a value (in minutes). The mininal value that can be set is 2 (minutes): Just a note. In some instances, once the value of the Cache Invalidation Interval has been set (and saved) in the Enterprise Manager UI, it becomes "sticky" and the interval value cannot be set back to 0. The good news is that this value can also be updated throught a WLST command. The WLST command to run is as follows: setJCRContentServerConnection(appName, name, [socketType, url, serverHost, serverPort, keystoreLocation, keystorePassword, privateKeyAlias, privateKeyPassword, webContextRoot, clientSecurityPolicy, cacheInvalidationInterval, binaryCacheMaxEntrySize, adminUsername, adminPassword, extAppId, timeout, isPrimary, server, applicationVersion]) One way to get the required information for executing the command is to use the listJCRContentServerConnections('webcenter',verbose=true) command. For example, this is the sample output from the execution: ------------------ UCM ------------------ Connection Name: UCM Connection Type: JCR External Appliction ID: Timeout: (not set) CIS Socket Type: socket CIS Server Hostname: webcenter.oracle.local CIS Server Port: 4444 CIS Keystore Location: CIS Private Key Alias: CIS Web URL: Web Server Context Root: /cs Client Security Policy: Admin User Name: sysadmin Cache Invalidation Interval: 2 Binary Cache Maximum Entry Size: 1024 The Documents primary connection is "UCM" From this information, the completed setJCRContentServerConnection would be: setJCRContentServerConnection(appName='webcenter',name='UCM', socketType='socket', serverHost='webcenter.oracle.local', serverPort='4444', webContextRoot='/cs', cacheInvalidationInterval='0', binaryCacheMaxEntrySize='1024',adminUsername='sysadmin',isPrimary=1) Note: The Spaces managed server must be restarted for the change to take effect. More information about using WLST for WebCenter can be found here. Once the sweeper is turned ON, only cache objects that have been changed will be invalidated. To test this out, I will go through a simple scenario. The first thing to do is configure the Content Server so it can monitor and report on events. Log into the Content Server console application, and under the Administration menu item, select System Audit Information. Note: If your console is using the left menu display option, the Administration link will be located there. Under the Tracing Sections Information, add in only "system" and "requestaudit" in the Active Sections. Check Full Verbose Tracing, check Save, then click the Update button. Once this is done, select the View Server Output menu option. This will change the browser view to display the log. This is all that is needed to configure the Content Server. For example, the following is the View Server Output with the cache invalidation interval set to 2(minutes) Note the time stamp: requestaudit/6 08.30 09:52:26.001 IdcServer-68 GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.016933999955654144(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 09:52:26.010 IdcServer-69 GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.006134999915957451(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 09:52:26.014 IdcServer-70 GET_DOCUMENT_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.004271999932825565(secs) ... other trace info ... requestaudit/6 08.30 09:54:26.002 IdcServer-71 GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.020323999226093292(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 09:54:26.011 IdcServer-72 GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.017928000539541245(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 09:54:26.017 IdcServer-73 GET_DOCUMENT_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.010185999795794487(secs) Now that the tracing logs are reporting correctly, the next step is set up the Spaces app to test the sweeper. I will use 2 different pages that will use Content Presenter task flows. Each task flow will use a different custom Content Presenter display template, and will be assign 2 different contributor data files (document that will be in the cache). The pages at run time appear as follows: Initially, when the Space pages containing the content is loaded in the browser for the first time, you can see the tracing information in the Content Server output viewer. requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:12.030 IdcServer-129 CLEAR_SERVER_OUTPUT [dUser=weblogic] 0.029171999543905258(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:12.101 IdcServer-130 GET_SERVER_OUTPUT [dUser=weblogic] 0.025721000507473946(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:26.592 IdcServer-131 VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME [dID=919][dDocName=DF_UCMCACHETESTER][dDocTitle=DF_UCMCacheTester][dUser=weblogic][RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased][IsJava=1] 0.21525299549102783(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:27.117 IdcServer-132 VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPES [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.5059549808502197(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:27.146 IdcServer-133 VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.03360399976372719(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:27.169 IdcServer-134 VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.008806000463664532(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:27.204 IdcServer-135 VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.013265999965369701(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:27.384 IdcServer-136 VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.18119299411773682(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:27.533 IdcServer-137 VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.1519480049610138(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:27.634 IdcServer-138 VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.10827399790287018(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:27.687 IdcServer-139 VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.059702999889850616(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:28.271 IdcServer-140 GET_USER_PERMISSIONS [dUser=weblogic][IsJava=1] 0.006703000050038099(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:28.285 IdcServer-141 GET_ENVIRONMENT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.010893999598920345(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:30.433 IdcServer-142 GET_SERVER_OUTPUT [dUser=weblogic] 0.017318999394774437(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:41.837 IdcServer-143 VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME [dID=508][dDocName=113_ES][dDocTitle=Landing Home][dUser=weblogic][RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased][IsJava=1] 0.15937699377536774(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:42.781 IdcServer-144 GET_FILE [dID=326][dDocName=WEBCENTERORACL000315][dDocTitle=Duke][dUser=anonymous][RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased][dSecurityGroup=Public][xCollectionID=0] 0.16288499534130096(secs) The highlighted sections show where the 2 data files DF_UCMCACHETESTER (P1 page) and 113_ES (P2 page) were called by the (Spaces) VCR connection to the Content Server. The most important line to notice is the VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME invocation. On subsequent refreshes of these 2 pages, you will notice (after you refresh the Content Server's View Server Output) that there are no further traces of the same VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME invocations. This is because the pages are getting the documents from the cache. The next step is to go through the "backdoor" and change one of the documents through the Content Server console. This operation can be done by first locating the data file document, and from the Content Information page, select Edit Data File menu option. This invokes the Site Studio Contributor, where the modifications can be made. Refreshing the Content Server View Server Output, the tracing displays the operations perform on the document. requestaudit/6 08.30 11:56:59.972 IdcServer-255 SS_CHECKOUT_BY_NAME [dID=922][dDocName=DF_UCMCACHETESTER][dUser=weblogic][dSecurityGroup=Public] 0.05558200180530548(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:57:00.065 IdcServer-256 SS_GET_CONTRIBUTOR_CONFIG [dID=922][dDocName=DF_UCMCACHETESTER][dDocTitle=DF_UCMCacheTester][dUser=weblogic][dSecurityGroup=Public][xCollectionID=0] 0.08632399886846542(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:57:00.470 IdcServer-259 DOC_INFO_BY_NAME [dID=922][dDocName=DF_UCMCACHETESTER][dDocTitle=DF_UCMCacheTester][dUser=weblogic][dSecurityGroup=Public][xCollectionID=0] 0.02268899977207184(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:57:10.177 IdcServer-264 GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.007652000058442354(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:57:10.181 IdcServer-263 GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.01868399977684021(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:57:10.187 IdcServer-265 GET_DOCUMENT_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.009367000311613083(secs) (internal)/6 08.30 11:57:26.118 IdcServer-266 File to be removed: /oracle/app/admin/domains/webcenter/ucm/cs/vault/~temp/703253295.xml (internal)/6 08.30 11:57:26.121 IdcServer-266 File to be removed: /oracle/app/admin/domains/webcenter/ucm/cs/vault/~temp/703253295.xml requestaudit/6 08.30 11:57:26.122 IdcServer-266 SS_SET_ELEMENT_DATA [dID=923][dDocName=DF_UCMCACHETESTER][dDocTitle=DF_UCMCacheTester][dUser=weblogic][dSecurityGroup=Public][xCollectionID=0][StatusCode=0][StatusMessage=Successfully checked in content item 'DF_UCMCACHETESTER'.] 0.3765290081501007(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:57:30.710 IdcServer-267 DOC_INFO_BY_NAME [dID=923][dDocName=DF_UCMCACHETESTER][dDocTitle=DF_UCMCacheTester][dUser=weblogic][dSecurityGroup=Public][xCollectionID=0] 0.07942699640989304(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:57:30.733 IdcServer-268 SS_GET_CONTRIBUTOR_STRINGS [dUser=weblogic] 0.0044570001773536205(secs) After a few moments and refreshing the P1 page, the updates has been applied. Note: The refresh time may very, since the Cache Invalidation Interval (set to 2 minutes) is not determined by when changes happened. The sweeper just runs every 2 minutes. Refreshing the Content Server View Server Output, the tracing displays the important information. requestaudit/6 08.30 11:59:10.171 IdcServer-270 GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.00952600035816431(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:59:10.179 IdcServer-271 GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.011118999682366848(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:59:10.182 IdcServer-272 GET_DOCUMENT_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.007447000127285719(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:59:16.885 IdcServer-273 VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME [dID=923][dDocName=DF_UCMCACHETESTER][dDocTitle=DF_UCMCacheTester][dUser=weblogic][RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased][IsJava=1] 0.0786449983716011(secs) After the specifed interval time the sweeper is invoked, which is noted by the GET_ ... calls. Since the history has noted the change, the next call is to the VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME to retrieve the new version of the (modifed) data file. Navigating back to the P2 page, and viewing the server output, there are no further VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME to retrieve the data file. This simply means that this data file was just retrieved from the cache. Upon further review of the server output, we can see that there was only 1 request for the VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME: requestaudit/6 08.30 12:08:00.021 Audit Request Monitor Request Audit Report over the last 120 Seconds for server webcenteroraclelocal16200**** requestaudit/6 08.30 12:08:00.021 Audit Request Monitor -Num Requests 8 Errors 0 Reqs/sec. 0.06666944175958633 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.02762500010430813 Max Thread Count 2 requestaudit/6 08.30 12:08:00.021 Audit Request Monitor 1 Service VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME Total Elapsed Time (secs) 0.09200000017881393 Num requests 1 Num errors 0 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.09200000017881393 requestaudit/6 08.30 12:08:00.021 Audit Request Monitor 2 Service GET_PERSONALIZED_JAVASCRIPT Total Elapsed Time (secs) 0.054999999701976776 Num requests 1 Num errors 0 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.054999999701976776 requestaudit/6 08.30 12:08:00.021 Audit Request Monitor 3 Service GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT Total Elapsed Time (secs) 0.028999999165534973 Num requests 2 Num errors 0 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.014499999582767487 requestaudit/6 08.30 12:08:00.021 Audit Request Monitor 4 Service GET_SERVER_OUTPUT Total Elapsed Time (secs) 0.017999999225139618 Num requests 1 Num errors 0 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.017999999225139618 requestaudit/6 08.30 12:08:00.021 Audit Request Monitor 5 Service GET_FILE Total Elapsed Time (secs) 0.013000000268220901 Num requests 1 Num errors 0 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.013000000268220901 requestaudit/6 08.30 12:08:00.021 Audit Request Monitor ****End Audit Report*****

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How Expedia Made My New Bride Cry

- by Lance Robinson

Tweet this? Email Expedia and ask them to give me and my new wife our honeymoon? When Expedia followed up their failure with our honeymoon trip with a complete and total lack of acknowledgement of any responsibility for the problem and endless loops of explaining the issue over and over again - I swore that they would make it right. When they brought my new bride to tears, I got an immediate and endless supply of motivation. I hope you will help me make them make it right by posting our story on Twitter, Facebook, your blog, on Expedia itself, and when talking to your friends in person about their own travel plans. If you are considering using them now for an important trip - reconsider. Short summary: We arrived early for a flight - but Expedia had made a mistake with the data they supplied to JetBlue and Emirates, which resulted in us not being able to check in (one leg of our trip was missing)! At the time of this post, three people (myself, my wife, and an exceptionally patient JetBlue employee named Mary) each spent hours on the phone with Expedia. I myself spent right at 3 hours (according to iPhone records), Lauren spent an hour and a half or so, and poor Mary was probably on the phone for a good 3.5 hours. This is after 5 hours total at the airport. If you add up our phone time, that is nearly 8 hours of phone time over a 5 hour period with little or no help, stall tactics (?), run-around, denial, shifting of blame, and holding. Details below (times are approximate): First, my wife and I were married yesterday - June 18th, the 3 year anniversary of our first date. She is awesome. She is the nicest person I have ever known, a ton of fun, absolutely beautiful in every way. Ok enough mushy - here are the dirty details. 2:30 AM - Early Check-in Attempt - we attempted to check-in for our flight online. Some sort of technology error on website, instructed to checkin at desk. 4:30 AM - Arrive at airport. Try to check-in at kiosk, get the same error. We got to the JetBlue desk at RDU International Airport, where Mary helped us. Mary discovered that the Expedia provided itinerary does not match the Expedia provided tickets. We are informed that when that happens American, JetBlue, and others that use the same software cannot check you in for the flight because. Why? Because the itinerary was missing a leg of our flight! Basically we were not shown in the system as definitely being able to make it home. Mary called Expedia and was put on hold by their automated system. 4:55 AM - Mary, myself, and my brand new bride all waited for about 25 minutes when finally I decided I would make a call myself on my iPhone while Mary was on the airport phone. In their automated system, I chose "make a new reservation", thinking they might answer a little more quickly than "customer service". Not surprisingly I was connected to an Expedia person within 1 minute. They informed me that they would have to forward me to a customer service specialist. I explained to them that we were already on hold for that and had been for nearly half an hour, that we were going on our honeymoon and that our flight would be leaving soon - could they please help us. "Yes, I will help you". I hand the phone to JetBlue Mary who explains the situation 3 or 4 times. Obviously I couldn't hear both ends of the conversation at this point, but the Expedia person explained what the problem was by stating exactly what Mary had just spent 15 minutes explaining. Mary calmly confirms that this is the problem, and asks Expedia to re-issue the itinerary. Expedia tells Mary that they'll have to transfer her to customer service. Mary asks for someone specific so that we get an answer this time, and goes on hold. Mary get's connected, explains the situation, and then Mary's connection gets terminated. 5:10 AM - Mary calls back to the Expedia automated system again, and we wait for about 5 minutes on hold this time before I pick up my iPhone and call Expedia again myself. Again I go to sales, a person picks up the phone in less than a minute. I explain the situation and let them know that we are now very close to missing our flight for our honeymoon, could they please help us. "Yes, I will help you". Again I give the phone to Mary who provides them with a call back number in case we get disconnected again and explains the situation again. More back and forth with Expedia doing nothing but repeating the same questions, Mary answering the questions with the same information she provided in the original explanation, and Expedia simply restating the problem. Mary again asks them to re-issue the itinerary, and explains that doing so will fix the problem. Expedia again repeats the problem instead of fixing it, and Mary's connection gets terminated. 5:20 AM - Mary again calls back to Expedia. My beautiful bride also calls on her own phone. At this point she is struggling to hold back her tears, stumbling through an explanation of all that has happened and that we are about to miss our flight. Please help us. "Yes, I will help". My beautiful bride's connection gets terminated. Ok, maybe this disconnection isn't an accident. We've now been disconnected 3 times on two different phones. 5:45 AM - I walk away and pleadingly beg a person to help me. They "escalate" the issue to "Rosy" (sp?) at Expedia. I go through the whole song and dance again with Rosy, who gives me the same treatment Mary was given. Rosy blames JetBlue for now having the correct data. Meanwhile Mary is on the phone with Emirates Air (the airline for the second leg of our trip), who agrees with JetBlue that Expedia's data isn't up to date. We are informed by two airport employees that issues like this with Expedia are not uncommon, and that the fix is simple. On the phone iwth Rosy, I ask her to re-issue the itinerary because we are about to miss our flight. She again explains the problem to me. At this point, I am standing at the window, pleading with Rosy to help us get to our honeymoon, watching our airplane. Then our airplane leaves without us. 6:03 AM - At this point we have missed our flight. Re-issuing the itinerary is no longer a solution. I ask Rosy to start from the beginning and work us up a new trip. She says that she cannot do that. She says that she needs to talk to JetBlue and Emirates and find out why we cannot check-in for our flight. I remind Rosy that our flight has already left - I just watched it taxi away - it no longer matters why (not to mention the fact that we already knew why, and have known why since 4:30 AM), and have known the solution since 4:30 AM. Rosy, can you please book a new trip? Yes, but it will cost $400. Excuse me? Now you can, but it will cost ME to fix your mistake? Rosy says that she can escalate the situation to her supervisor but that will take 1.5 hours. 6:15 AM - I told Rosy that if they had re-issued the itinerary as JetBlue asked (at 4:30 AM), my new wife and I might be on the airplane now instead of dealing with this on the phone and missing the beginning (and how much more?) of our honeymoon. Rosy said that it was not necessary to re-issue the itinerary. Out of curiosity, i asked Rosy if there was some financial burden on them to re-issue the itinerary. "No", said Rosy. I asked her if it was a large time burden on Expedia to re-issue the itinerary. "No", said Rosy. I directly asked Rosy: Why wouldn't Expedia have re-issued the itinerary when JetBlue asked? No answer. I asked Rosy: If you had re-issued the itinerary at 4:30, isn't it possible that I would be on that flight right now? She actually surprised me by answering "Yes" to that question. So I pointed out that it followed that Expedia was responsible for the fact that we missed out flight, and she immediately went into more about how the problem was with JetBlue - but now it was ALSO an Emirates Air problem as well. I tell Rosy to go ahead and escalate the issue again, and please call me back in that 1.5 hours (which how is about 1 hour and 10 minutes away). 6:30 AM - I start tweeting my frustration with iPhone. It's now pretty much impossible for us to make it to The Maldives by 3pm, which is the time at which we would need to arrive in order to be allowed service to the actual island where we are staying. Expedia has now given me the run-around for 2 hours, caused me to miss my flight, and worst of all caused my amazing new wife Lauren to miss our honeymoon. You think I was mad? No. Furious. Its ok to make mistakes - but to refuse to fix them and to ruin our honeymoon? No, not ok, Expedia. I swore right then that Expedia would make this right. 7:45 AM - JetBlue mary is still talking her tail off to other people in JetBlue and Emirates Air. Mary works it out so that if Expedia simply books a new trip, JetBlue and Emirates will both waive all the fees. Now we just have to convince Expedia to fix their mistake and get us on our way! Around this time Expedia Rosy calls me back! I inform her of the excellent work of JetBlue Mary - that JetBlue and Emirates both will waive the fees so Expedia can fix their mistake and get us going on our way. She says that she sees documentation of this in her system and that she needs to put me on hold "for 1 to 10 minutes" to talk to Emirates Air (why I'm not exactly sure). I say ok. 8:45 AM - After an hour on hold, Rosy comes on the line and asks me to hold more. I ask her to call me back. 9:35 AM - I put down the iPhone Twitter app and picks up the laptop. You think I made some noise with my iPhone? Heh 11:25 AM - Expedia follows me and sends a canned "We're sorry, DM us the details". If you look at their Twitter feed, 16 out of the most recent 20 tweets are exactly the same canned response. The other 4? Ads. Um - #MultiFAIL? To Expedia: You now have had (as explained above) 8 hours of 3 different people explaining our situation, you know the email address of our Expedia account, you know my web blog, you know my Twitter address, you know my phone number. You also know how upset you have made both me and my new bride by treating us with such a ... non caring, scripted, uncooperative, argumentative, and possibly even deceitful manner. In the wise words of the great Kenan Thompson of SNL: "FIX IT!". And no, I'm NOT going away until you make this right. Period. 11:45 AM - Expedia corporate office called. The woman I spoke to was very nice and apologetic. She listened to me tell the story again, she says she understands the problem and she is going to work to resolve it. I don't have any details on what exactly that resolution might me, she said she will call me back in 20 minutes. She found out about the problem via Twitter. Thank you Twitter, and all of you who helped. Hopefully social media will win my wife and I our honeymoon, and hopefully Expedia will encourage their customer service teams treat their customers properly. 12:22 PM - Spoke to Fran again from Expedia corporate office. She has a flight for us tonight. She is booking it now. We will arrive at our honeymoon destination of beautiful Veligandu Island Resort only 1 day late. She cannot confirm today, but she expects that Expedia will pay for the lost honeymoon night. Thank you everyone for your help. I will reflect more on this whole situation and confirm its resolution after our flight is 100% confirmed. For now, I'm going to take a breather and go kiss my wonderful wife! 1:50 PM - Have not yet received the promised phone call. We did receive an email with a new itinerary for a flight but the booking is not for specific seats, so there is no guarantee that my wife and I will be able to sit together. With the original booking I carefully selected our seats for every segment of our trip. I decided to call into the phone number that Fran from the Expedia corporate office gave me. Its automated voice system identified itself as "Tier 3 Support". I am currently still on hold with them, I have not gotten through to a human yet. 1:55 PM - Fran from Expedia called me back. She confirmed us as booked. She called the airlines to confirm. Unfortunately, Expedia was unwilling or unable to allow us any type of seat selection. It is possible that i won't get to sit next to the woman I married less than a day ago on our 40 total hours of flight time (there and back). In addition, our seats could be the worst seats on the planes, with no reclining seat back or right next to the restroom. Despite this fact (which in my opinion is huge), the horrible inconvenience, the hours at the airport, and the negative Internet publicity that Expedia is receiving, Expedia declined to offer us any kind of upgrade or to mark us as SFU (suitable for upgrade). Since they didn't offer - I asked, and was rejected. I am grateful to finally be heading in the right direction, but not only did Expedia horribly botch this job from the very beginning, they followed that botch job with near zero customer service, followed by a verbally apologetic but otherwise half-hearted resolution. If this works out favorably for us, great. If not - I'm not done making noise, Expedia. You owe us, and I expect you to make it right. You haven't quite done that yet. Thanks - Thank you to Twitter. Thanks to all those who sympathize with us and helped us get the attention of Expedia, since three people (one of them an airline employee) using Expedia's normal channels of communication for many hours didn't help. Thanks especially to my PowerShell and Sharepoint friends, my local friends, and those connectors who encouraged me and spread my story. 5:15 PM - Love Wins - After all this, Lauren and I are exhausted. We both took a short nap, and when we woke up we talked about the last 24 hours. It was a big, amazing, story-filled 24 hours. I said that Expedia won, but Lauren said no. She pointed out how lucky we are. We are in love and married. We have wonderful family and friends. We are both hard-working successful people who love what they do. We get to go to an amazing exotic destination for our honeymoon like Veligandu in The Maldives... That's a lot of good. Expedia didn't win. This was (is) a big loss for Expedia. It is a public blemish for all to see. But Lauren and I did win, big time. Expedia may not have made things right - but things are right for us. Post in progress... I will relay any further comments (or lack of) from Expedia soon, as well as an update on confirmation of their repayment of our lost resort room rates. I'll also post a picture of us on our honeymoon as soon as I can!

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Building The Right SharePoint Team For Your Organization

- by Mark Rackley

I see the question posted fairly often asking what kind SharePoint team an organization should have. How many people do I need? What roles do I need to fill? What is best for my organization? Well, just like every other answer in SharePoint, the correct answer is “it depends”. Do you ever get sick of hearing that??? I know I do… So, let me give you my thoughts and opinions based upon my experience and what I’ve seen and let you come to your own conclusions. What are the possible SharePoint roles? I guess the first thing you need to understand are the different roles that exist in SharePoint (and their are LOTS). Remember, SharePoint is a massive beast and you will NOT find one person who can do it all. If you are hoping to find that person you will be sorely disappointed. For the most part this is true in SharePoint 2007 and 2010. However, generally things are improved in 2010 and easier for junior individuals to grasp. SharePoint Administrator The absolutely positively only role that you should not be without no matter the size of your organization or SharePoint deployment is a SharePoint administrator. These guys are essential to keeping things running and figuring out what’s wrong when things aren’t running well. These unsung heroes do more before 10 am than I do all day. The bad thing is, when these guys are awesome, you don’t even know they exist because everything is running so smoothly. You should definitely invest some time and money here to make sure you have some competent if not rockstar help. You need an admin who truly loves SharePoint and will go that extra mile when necessary. Let me give you a real world example of what I’m talking about: We have a rockstar admin… and I’m sure she’s sick of my throwing her name around so she’ll just have to live with remaining anonymous in this post… sorry Lori… Anyway! A couple of weeks ago our Server teams came to us and said Hi Lori, I’m finalizing the MOSS servers and doing updates that require a restart; can I restart them? Seems like a harmless request from your server team does it not? Sure, go ahead and apply the patches and reboot during our scheduled maintenance window. No problem? right? Sounded fair to me… but no…. not to our fearless SharePoint admin… I need a complete list of patches that will be applied. There is an update that is out there that will break SharePoint… KB973917 is the patch that has been shown to cause issues. What? You mean Microsoft released a patch that would actually adversely affect SharePoint? If we did NOT have a rockstar admin, our server team would have applied these patches and then when some problem occurred in SharePoint we’d have to go through the fun task of tracking down exactly what caused the issue and resolve it. How much time would that have taken? If you have a junior SharePoint admin or an admin who’s not out there staying on top of what’s going on you could have spent days tracking down something so simple as applying a patch you should not have applied. I will even go as far to say the only SharePoint rockstar you NEED in your organization is a SharePoint admin. You can always outsource really complicated development projects or bring in a rockstar contractor every now and then to make sure you aren’t way off track in other areas. For your day-to-day sanity and to keep SharePoint running smoothly, you need an awesome Admin. Some rockstars in this category are: Ben Curry, Mike Watson, Joel Oleson, Todd Klindt, Shane Young, John Ferringer, Sean McDonough, and of course Lori Gowin. SharePoint Developer Another essential role for your SharePoint deployment is a SharePoint developer. Things do start to get a little hazy here and there are many flavors of “developers”. Are you writing custom code? using SharePoint Designer? What about SharePoint Branding? Are all of these considered developers? I would say yes. Are they interchangeable? I’d say no. Development in SharePoint is such a large beast in itself. I would say that it’s not so large that you can’t know it all well, but it is so large that there are many people who specialize in one particular category. If you are lucky enough to have someone on staff who knows it all well, you better make sure they are well taken care of because those guys are ready-made to move over to a consulting role and charge you 3 times what you are probably paying them. :) Some of the all-around rockstars are Eric Shupps, Andrew Connell (go Razorbacks), Rob Foster, Paul Schaeflein, and Todd Bleeker SharePoint Power User/No-Code Solutions Developer These SharePoint Swiss Army Knives are essential for quick wins in your organization. These people can twist the out-of-the-box functionality to make it do things you would not even imagine. Give these guys SharePoint Designer, jQuery, InfoPath, and a little time and they will create views, dashboards, and KPI’s that will blow your mind away and give your execs the “wow” they are looking for. Not only can they deliver that wow factor, but they can mashup, merge, and really help make your SharePoint application usable and deliver an overall better user experience. Before you hand off a project to your SharePoint Custom Code developer, let one of these rockstars look at it and show you what they can do (in probably less time). I would say the second most important role you can fill in your organization is one of these guys. Rockstars in this category are Christina Wheeler, Laura Rogers, Jennifer Mason, and Mark Miller SharePoint Developer – Custom Code If you want to really integrate SharePoint into your legacy systems, or really twist it and make it bend to your will, you are going to have to open up Visual Studio and write some custom code. Remember, SharePoint is essentially just a big, huge, ginormous .NET application, so you CAN write code to make it do ANYTHING, but do you really want to spend the time and effort to do so? At some point with every other form of SharePoint development you are going to run into SOME limitation (SPD Workflows is the big one that comes to mind). If you truly want to knock down all the walls then custom development is the way to go. PLEASE keep in mind when you are looking for a custom code developer that a .NET developer does NOT equal a SharePoint developer. Just SOME of the things these guys write are: Custom Workflows Custom Web Parts Web Service functionality Import data from legacy systems Export data to legacy systems Custom Actions Event Receivers Service Applications (2010) These guys are also the ones generally responsible for packaging everything up into solution packages (you are doing that, right?). Rockstars in this category are Phil Wicklund, Christina Wheeler, Geoff Varosky, and Brian Jackett. SharePoint Branding “But it LOOKS like SharePoint!” Somebody call the WAAAAAAAAAAAAHMbulance… Themes, Master Pages, Page Layouts, Zones, and over 2000 styles in CSS.. these guys not only have to be comfortable with all of SharePoint’s quirks and pain points when branding, but they have to know it TWICE for publishing and non-publishing sites. Not only that, but these guys really need to have an eye for graphic design and be able to translate the ramblings of business into something visually stunning. They also have to be comfortable with XSLT, XML, and be able to hand off what they do to your custom developers for them to package as solutions (which you are doing, right?). These rockstars include Heater Waterman, Cathy Dew, and Marcy Kellar SharePoint Architect SharePoint Architects are generally SharePoint Admins or Developers who have moved into more of a BA role? Is that fair to say? These guys really have a grasp and understanding for what SharePoint IS and what it can do. These guys help you structure your farms to meet your needs and help you design your applications the correct way. It’s always a good idea to bring in a rockstar SharePoint Architect to do a sanity check and make sure you aren’t doing anything stupid. Most organizations probably do not have a rockstar architect on staff. These guys are generally brought in at the deployment of a farm, upgrade of a farm, or for large development projects. I personally also find architects very useful for sitting down with the business to translate their needs into what SharePoint can do. A good architect will be able to pick out what can be done out-of-the-box and what has to be custom built and hand those requirements to the development Staff. Architects can generally fill in as an admin or a developer when needed. Some rockstar architects are Rick Taylor, Dan Usher, Bill English, Spence Harbar, Neil Hodgkins, Eric Harlan, and Bjørn Furuknap. Other Roles / Specialties On top of all these other roles you also get these people who specialize in things like Reporting, BDC (BCS in 2010), Search, Performance, Security, Project Management, etc... etc... etc... Again, most organizations will not have one of these gurus on staff, they’ll just pay out the nose for them when they need them. :) SharePoint End User Everyone else in your organization that touches SharePoint falls into this category. What they actually DO in SharePoint is determined by your governance and what permissions you give these guys. Hopefully you have these guys on a fairly short leash and are NOT giving them access to tools like SharePoint Designer. Sadly end users are the ones who truly make your deployment a success by using it, but are also your biggest enemy in breaking it. :) We love you guys… really!!! Okay, all that’s fine and dandy, but what should MY SharePoint team look like? It depends! Okay… Are you just doing out of the box team sites with no custom development? Then you are probably fine with a great Admin team and a great No-Code Solution Development team. How many people do you need? Depends on how busy you can keep them. Sorry, can’t answer the question about numbers without knowing your specific needs. I can just tell you who you MIGHT need and what they will do for you. I’ll leave you with what my ideal SharePoint Team would look like for a particular scenario: Farm / Organization Structure Dev, QA, and 2 Production Farms. 5000 – 10000 Users Custom Development and Integration with legacy systems Team Sites, My Sites, Intranet, Document libraries and overall company collaboration Team Rockstar SharePoint Administrator 2-3 junior SharePoint Administrators SharePoint Architect / Lead Developer 2 Power User / No-Code Solution Developers 2-3 Custom Code developers Branding expert With a team of that size and skill set, they should be able to keep a substantial SharePoint deployment running smoothly and meet your business needs. This does NOT mean that you would not need to bring in contract help from time to time when you need an uber specialist in one area. Also, this team assumes there will be ongoing development for the life of your SharePoint farm. If you are just going to be doing sporadic custom development, it might make sense to partner with an awesome firm that specializes in that sort of work (I can give you the name of a couple if you are interested). Again though, the size of your team depends on the number of requests you are receiving and how much active deployment you are doing. So, don’t bring in a team that looks like this and then yell at me because they are sitting around with nothing to do or are so overwhelmed that nothing is getting done. I do URGE you to take the proper time to asses your needs and determine what team is BEST for your organization. Also, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not skimp on the talent. When it comes to SharePoint you really do get what you pay for when it comes to employees, contractors, and software. SharePoint can become absolutely critical to your business and because you skimped on hiring a developer he created a web part that brings down the farm because he doesn’t know what he’s doing, or you hire an admin who thinks it’s fine to stick everything in the same Content Database and then can’t figure out why people are complaining. SharePoint can be an enormous blessing to an organization or it’s biggest curse. Spend the time and money to do it right, or be prepared to spending even more time and money later to fix it.

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Beware Sneaky Reads with Unique Indexes

- by Paul White NZ

A few days ago, Sandra Mueller (twitter | blog) asked a question using twitter’s #sqlhelp hash tag: “Might SQL Server retrieve (out-of-row) LOB data from a table, even if the column isn’t referenced in the query?” Leaving aside trivial cases (like selecting a computed column that does reference the LOB data), one might be tempted to say that no, SQL Server does not read data you haven’t asked for. In general, that’s quite correct; however there are cases where SQL Server might sneakily retrieve a LOB column… Example Table Here’s a T-SQL script to create that table and populate it with 1,000 rows: CREATE TABLE dbo.LOBtest ( pk INTEGER IDENTITY NOT NULL, some_value INTEGER NULL, lob_data VARCHAR(MAX) NULL, another_column CHAR(5) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK dbo.LOBtest pk] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (pk ASC) ); GO DECLARE @Data VARCHAR(MAX); SET @Data = REPLICATE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX), 'x'), 65540); WITH Numbers (n) AS ( SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 0)) FROM master.sys.columns C1, master.sys.columns C2 ) INSERT LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) ( some_value, lob_data ) SELECT TOP (1000) N.n, @Data FROM Numbers N WHERE N.n <= 1000; Test 1: A Simple Update Let’s run a query to subtract one from every value in the some_value column: UPDATE dbo.LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) SET some_value = some_value - 1; As you might expect, modifying this integer column in 1,000 rows doesn’t take very long, or use many resources. The STATITICS IO and TIME output shows a total of 9 logical reads, and 25ms elapsed time. The query plan is also very simple: Looking at the Clustered Index Scan, we can see that SQL Server only retrieves the pk and some_value columns during the scan: The pk column is needed by the Clustered Index Update operator to uniquely identify the row that is being changed. The some_value column is used by the Compute Scalar to calculate the new value. (In case you are wondering what the Top operator is for, it is used to enforce SET ROWCOUNT). Test 2: Simple Update with an Index Now let’s create a nonclustered index keyed on the some_value column, with lob_data as an included column: CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [IX dbo.LOBtest some_value (lob_data)] ON dbo.LOBtest (some_value) INCLUDE ( lob_data ) WITH ( FILLFACTOR = 100, MAXDOP = 1, SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON ); This is not a useful index for our simple update query; imagine that someone else created it for a different purpose. Let’s run our update query again: UPDATE dbo.LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) SET some_value = some_value - 1; We find that it now requires 4,014 logical reads and the elapsed query time has increased to around 100ms. The extra logical reads (4 per row) are an expected consequence of maintaining the nonclustered index. The query plan is very similar to before (click to enlarge): The Clustered Index Update operator picks up the extra work of maintaining the nonclustered index. The new Compute Scalar operators detect whether the value in the some_value column has actually been changed by the update. SQL Server may be able to skip maintaining the nonclustered index if the value hasn’t changed (see my previous post on non-updating updates for details). Our simple query does change the value of some_data in every row, so this optimization doesn’t add any value in this specific case. The output list of columns from the Clustered Index Scan hasn’t changed from the one shown previously: SQL Server still just reads the pk and some_data columns. Cool. Overall then, adding the nonclustered index hasn’t had any startling effects, and the LOB column data still isn’t being read from the table. Let’s see what happens if we make the nonclustered index unique. Test 3: Simple Update with a Unique Index Here’s the script to create a new unique index, and drop the old one: CREATE UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [UQ dbo.LOBtest some_value (lob_data)] ON dbo.LOBtest (some_value) INCLUDE ( lob_data ) WITH ( FILLFACTOR = 100, MAXDOP = 1, SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON ); GO DROP INDEX [IX dbo.LOBtest some_value (lob_data)] ON dbo.LOBtest; Remember that SQL Server only enforces uniqueness on index keys (the some_data column). The lob_data column is simply stored at the leaf-level of the non-clustered index. With that in mind, we might expect this change to make very little difference. Let’s see: UPDATE dbo.LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) SET some_value = some_value - 1; Whoa! Now look at the elapsed time and logical reads: Scan count 1, logical reads 2016, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 36015, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 15992. CPU time = 172 ms, elapsed time = 16172 ms. Even with all the data and index pages in memory, the query took over 16 seconds to update just 1,000 rows, performing over 52,000 LOB logical reads (nearly 16,000 of those using read-ahead). Why on earth is SQL Server reading LOB data in a query that only updates a single integer column? The Query Plan The query plan for test 3 looks a bit more complex than before: In fact, the bottom level is exactly the same as we saw with the non-unique index. The top level has heaps of new stuff though, which I’ll come to in a moment. You might be expecting to find that the Clustered Index Scan is now reading the lob_data column (for some reason). After all, we need to explain where all the LOB logical reads are coming from. Sadly, when we look at the properties of the Clustered Index Scan, we see exactly the same as before: SQL Server is still only reading the pk and some_value columns – so what’s doing the LOB reads? Updates that Sneakily Read Data We have to go as far as the Clustered Index Update operator before we see LOB data in the output list: [Expr1020] is a bit flag added by an earlier Compute Scalar. It is set true if the some_value column has not been changed (part of the non-updating updates optimization I mentioned earlier). The Clustered Index Update operator adds two new columns: the lob_data column, and some_value_OLD. The some_value_OLD column, as the name suggests, is the pre-update value of the some_value column. At this point, the clustered index has already been updated with the new value, but we haven’t touched the nonclustered index yet. An interesting observation here is that the Clustered Index Update operator can read a column into the data flow as part of its update operation. SQL Server could have read the LOB data as part of the initial Clustered Index Scan, but that would mean carrying the data through all the operations that occur prior to the Clustered Index Update. The server knows it will have to go back to the clustered index row to update it, so it delays reading the LOB data until then. Sneaky! Why the LOB Data Is Needed This is all very interesting (I hope), but why is SQL Server reading the LOB data? For that matter, why does it need to pass the pre-update value of the some_value column out of the Clustered Index Update? The answer relates to the top row of the query plan for test 3. I’ll reproduce it here for convenience: Notice that this is a wide (per-index) update plan. SQL Server used a narrow (per-row) update plan in test 2, where the Clustered Index Update took care of maintaining the nonclustered index too. I’ll talk more about this difference shortly. The Split/Sort/Collapse combination is an optimization, which aims to make per-index update plans more efficient. It does this by breaking each update into a delete/insert pair, reordering the operations, removing any redundant operations, and finally applying the net effect of all the changes to the nonclustered index. Imagine we had a unique index which currently holds three rows with the values 1, 2, and 3. If we run a query that adds 1 to each row value, we would end up with values 2, 3, and 4. The net effect of all the changes is the same as if we simply deleted the value 1, and added a new value 4. By applying net changes, SQL Server can also avoid false unique-key violations. If we tried to immediately update the value 1 to a 2, it would conflict with the existing value 2 (which would soon be updated to 3 of course) and the query would fail. You might argue that SQL Server could avoid the uniqueness violation by starting with the highest value (3) and working down. That’s fine, but it’s not possible to generalize this logic to work with every possible update query. SQL Server has to use a wide update plan if it sees any risk of false uniqueness violations. It’s worth noting that the logic SQL Server uses to detect whether these violations are possible has definite limits. As a result, you will often receive a wide update plan, even when you can see that no violations are possible. Another benefit of this optimization is that it includes a sort on the index key as part of its work. Processing the index changes in index key order promotes sequential I/O against the nonclustered index. A side-effect of all this is that the net changes might include one or more inserts. In order to insert a new row in the index, SQL Server obviously needs all the columns – the key column and the included LOB column. This is the reason SQL Server reads the LOB data as part of the Clustered Index Update. In addition, the some_value_OLD column is required by the Split operator (it turns updates into delete/insert pairs). In order to generate the correct index key delete operation, it needs the old key value. The irony is that in this case the Split/Sort/Collapse optimization is anything but. Reading all that LOB data is extremely expensive, so it is sad that the current version of SQL Server has no way to avoid it. Finally, for completeness, I should mention that the Filter operator is there to filter out the non-updating updates. Beating the Set-Based Update with a Cursor One situation where SQL Server can see that false unique-key violations aren’t possible is where it can guarantee that only one row is being updated. Armed with this knowledge, we can write a cursor (or the WHILE-loop equivalent) that updates one row at a time, and so avoids reading the LOB data: SET NOCOUNT ON; SET STATISTICS XML, IO, TIME OFF; DECLARE @PK INTEGER, @StartTime DATETIME; SET @StartTime = GETUTCDATE(); DECLARE curUpdate CURSOR LOCAL FORWARD_ONLY KEYSET SCROLL_LOCKS FOR SELECT L.pk FROM LOBtest L ORDER BY L.pk ASC; OPEN curUpdate; WHILE (1 = 1) BEGIN FETCH NEXT FROM curUpdate INTO @PK; IF @@FETCH_STATUS = -1 BREAK; IF @@FETCH_STATUS = -2 CONTINUE; UPDATE dbo.LOBtest SET some_value = some_value - 1 WHERE CURRENT OF curUpdate; END; CLOSE curUpdate; DEALLOCATE curUpdate; SELECT DATEDIFF(MILLISECOND, @StartTime, GETUTCDATE()); That completes the update in 1280 milliseconds (remember test 3 took over 16 seconds!) I used the WHERE CURRENT OF syntax there and a KEYSET cursor, just for the fun of it. One could just as well use a WHERE clause that specified the primary key value instead. Clustered Indexes A clustered index is the ultimate index with included columns: all non-key columns are included columns in a clustered index. Let’s re-create the test table and data with an updatable primary key, and without any non-clustered indexes: IF OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.LOBtest', N'U') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE dbo.LOBtest; GO CREATE TABLE dbo.LOBtest ( pk INTEGER NOT NULL, some_value INTEGER NULL, lob_data VARCHAR(MAX) NULL, another_column CHAR(5) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK dbo.LOBtest pk] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (pk ASC) ); GO DECLARE @Data VARCHAR(MAX); SET @Data = REPLICATE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX), 'x'), 65540); WITH Numbers (n) AS ( SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 0)) FROM master.sys.columns C1, master.sys.columns C2 ) INSERT LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) ( pk, some_value, lob_data ) SELECT TOP (1000) N.n, N.n, @Data FROM Numbers N WHERE N.n <= 1000; Now here’s a query to modify the cluster keys: UPDATE dbo.LOBtest SET pk = pk + 1; The query plan is: As you can see, the Split/Sort/Collapse optimization is present, and we also gain an Eager Table Spool, for Halloween protection. In addition, SQL Server now has no choice but to read the LOB data in the Clustered Index Scan: The performance is not great, as you might expect (even though there is no non-clustered index to maintain): Table 'LOBtest'. Scan count 1, logical reads 2011, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 36015, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 15992. Table 'Worktable'. Scan count 1, logical reads 2040, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 34000, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 8000. SQL Server Execution Times: CPU time = 483 ms, elapsed time = 17884 ms. Notice how the LOB data is read twice: once from the Clustered Index Scan, and again from the work table in tempdb used by the Eager Spool. If you try the same test with a non-unique clustered index (rather than a primary key), you’ll get a much more efficient plan that just passes the cluster key (including uniqueifier) around (no LOB data or other non-key columns): A unique non-clustered index (on a heap) works well too: Both those queries complete in a few tens of milliseconds, with no LOB reads, and just a few thousand logical reads. (In fact the heap is rather more efficient). There are lots more fun combinations to try that I don’t have space for here. Final Thoughts The behaviour shown in this post is not limited to LOB data by any means. If the conditions are met, any unique index that has included columns can produce similar behaviour – something to bear in mind when adding large INCLUDE columns to achieve covering queries, perhaps. Paul White Email: [email protected] Twitter: @PaulWhiteNZ

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guvcview recording video and audio out of synchronisation in Ubuntu 10.10

- by SIJAR

I finally got Guvcview, a great software for Logitech webcam and it does all the stuff that one wants out of it. But I'm not satisfy with the video recording, video and audio out of synchronisation also video seems to be in slow motion. Please help so that I can tweak in and get a good video recording with the webcam. Below is the log of Guvcview ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- guvcview 1.4.1 video_device: /dev/video0 vid_sleep: 0 cap_meth: 1 resolution: 640 x 480 windowsize: 1024 x 715 vert pane: 578 spin behavior: 0 mode: mjpg fps: 1/25 Display Fps: 0 bpp: 0 hwaccel: 1 avi_format: 4 sound: 1 sound Device: 4 sound samp rate: 0 sound Channels: 0 Sound delay: 0 nanosec Sound Format: 85 Pan Step: 2 degrees Tilt Step: 2 degrees Video Filter Flags: 0 image inc: 0 profile(default):/home/sijar/default.gpfl starting portaudio... bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111) bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111) bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111) bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111) Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory Cannot connect to server socket jack server is not running or cannot be started language catalog= dir:/usr/share/locale type:UTF-8 lang:en_US.utf8 cat:guvcview.mo mjpg: setting format to 1196444237 capture method = 1 video device: /dev/video0 libv4lconvert: warning more framesizes then I can handle! libv4lconvert: warning more framesizes then I can handle! /dev/video0 - device 1 libv4lconvert: warning more framesizes then I can handle! libv4lconvert: warning more framesizes then I can handle! Init. UVC Camera (046d:0825) (location: usb-0000:00:1d.7-5) { pixelformat = 'YUYV', description = 'YUV 4:2:2 (YUYV)' } { discrete: width = 640, height = 480 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, { discrete: width = 160, height = 120 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, { discrete: width = 176, height = 144 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, { discrete: width = 320, height = 176 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, { discrete: width = 320, height = 240 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, { discrete: width = 352, height = 288 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, { discrete: width = 432, height = 240 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, { discrete: width = 544, height = 288 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, { discrete: width = 640, height = 360 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, ... repeats a couple of times ... vid:046d pid:0825 driver:uvcvideo Adding control for Pan (relative) UVCIOC_CTRL_ADD - Error: Operation not permitted checking format: 1196444237 VIDIOC_G_COMP:: Invalid argument compression control not supported fps is set to 1/25 drawing controls control[0]: 0x980900 Brightness, 0:255:1, default 128 control[0]: 0x980901 Contrast, 0:255:1, default 32 control[0]: 0x980902 Saturation, 0:255:1, default 32 control[0]: 0x98090c White Balance Temperature, Auto, 0:1:1, default 1 control[0]: 0x980913 Gain, 0:255:1, default 0 control[0]: 0x980918 Power Line Frequency, 0:2:1, default 2 control[0]: 0x98091a White Balance Temperature, 0:10000:10, default 4000 control[0]: 0x98091b Sharpness, 0:255:1, default 24 control[0]: 0x98091c Backlight Compensation, 0:1:1, default 1 control[0]: 0x9a0901 Exposure, Auto, 0:3:1, default 3 control[0]: 0x9a0902 Exposure (Absolute), 1:10000:1, default 166 control[0]: 0x9a0903 Exposure, Auto Priority, 0:1:1, default 0 resolutions of format(2) = 19 frame rates of 1º resolution=6 Def. Res: 0 numb. fps:6 --------------------------------------- device #0 Name = Intel 82801DB-ICH4: Intel 82801DB-ICH4 (hw:0,0) Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 2, Max outputs = 2 Def. low input latency = 0.012 Def. low output latency = 0.012 Def. high input latency = 0.046 Def. high output latency = 0.046 Def. sample rate = 44100.00 --------------------------------------- device #1 Name = Intel 82801DB-ICH4: Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - MIC ADC (hw:0,1) Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 2, Max outputs = 0 Def. low input latency = 0.011 Def. low output latency = -1.000 Def. high input latency = 0.043 Def. high output latency = -1.000 Def. sample rate = 48000.00 --------------------------------------- device #2 Name = Intel 82801DB-ICH4: Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - MIC2 ADC (hw:0,2) Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 2, Max outputs = 0 Def. low input latency = 0.011 Def. low output latency = -1.000 Def. high input latency = 0.043 Def. high output latency = -1.000 Def. sample rate = 48000.00 --------------------------------------- device #3 Name = Intel 82801DB-ICH4: Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - ADC2 (hw:0,3) Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 2, Max outputs = 0 Def. low input latency = 0.011 Def. low output latency = -1.000 Def. high input latency = 0.043 Def. high output latency = -1.000 Def. sample rate = 48000.00 --------------------------------------- device #4 Name = Intel 82801DB-ICH4: Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - IEC958 (hw:0,4) Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 0, Max outputs = 2 Def. low input latency = -1.000 Def. low output latency = 0.011 Def. high input latency = -1.000 Def. high output latency = 0.043 Def. sample rate = 48000.00 --------------------------------------- device #5 Name = USB Device 0x46d:0x825: USB Audio (hw:1,0) Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 1, Max outputs = 0 Def. low input latency = 0.011 Def. low output latency = -1.000 Def. high input latency = 0.043 Def. high output latency = -1.000 Def. sample rate = 48000.00 --------------------------------------- device #6 Name = front Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 0, Max outputs = 2 Def. low input latency = -1.000 Def. low output latency = 0.012 Def. high input latency = -1.000 Def. high output latency = 0.046 Def. sample rate = 44100.00 --------------------------------------- device #7 Name = iec958 Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 0, Max outputs = 2 Def. low input latency = -1.000 Def. low output latency = 0.011 Def. high input latency = -1.000 Def. high output latency = 0.043 Def. sample rate = 48000.00 --------------------------------------- device #8 Name = spdif Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 0, Max outputs = 2 Def. low input latency = -1.000 Def. low output latency = 0.011 Def. high input latency = -1.000 Def. high output latency = 0.043 Def. sample rate = 48000.00 --------------------------------------- device #9 Name = pulse Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 32, Max outputs = 32 Def. low input latency = 0.012 Def. low output latency = 0.012 Def. high input latency = 0.046 Def. high output latency = 0.046 Def. sample rate = 44100.00 --------------------------------------- device #10 Name = dmix Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 0, Max outputs = 2 Def. low input latency = -1.000 Def. low output latency = 0.043 Def. high input latency = -1.000 Def. high output latency = 0.043 Def. sample rate = 48000.00 --------------------------------------- device #11 [ Default Input, Default Output ] Name = default Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 32, Max outputs = 32 Def. low input latency = 0.012 Def. low output latency = 0.012 Def. high input latency = 0.046 Def. high output latency = 0.046 Def. sample rate = 44100.00 ---------------------------------------------- SampleRate:0 Channels:0 Video driver: x11 A window manager is available VIDIOC_S_EXT_CTRLS for multiple controls failed (error -1) using VIDIOC_S_CTRL for user class controls control(0x0098091a) "White Balance Temperature" failed to set (error -1) VIDIOC_S_EXT_CTRLS for multiple controls failed (error -1) using VIDIOC_S_EXT_CTRLS on single controls for class: 0x009a0000 control(0x009a0902) "Exposure (Absolute)" failed to set (error -1) VIDIOC_S_EXT_CTRLS for multiple controls failed (error -1) using VIDIOC_S_CTRL for user class controls control(0x0098091a) "White Balance Temperature" failed to set (error -1) VIDIOC_S_EXT_CTRLS for multiple controls failed (error -1) using VIDIOC_S_EXT_CTRLS on single controls for class: 0x009a0000 control(0x009a0902) "Exposure (Absolute)" failed to set (error -1) Cap Video toggled: 1 (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25371756K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K using audio codec: 0x0055 Audio frame size is 1152 samples for selected codec IO thread started...OK [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2 Cache64 [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]profile Baseline, level 3.0 [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]non-strictly-monotonic PTS shift sound by -9 ms shift sound by -9 ms shift sound by -9 ms AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data ... repeats a couple of times ... AUDIO: droping audio data (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25371748K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data ... repeats a couple of times ... Cap Video toggled: 0 Shuting Down IO Thread AUDIO: droping audio data stop= 4426644744000 start=4416533023000 VIDEO: 146 frames in 10111.000000 ms = 14.439719 fps Stoping audio stream Closing audio stream... close avi Last message repeated 145 times [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]frame I:2 Avg QP:14.10 size: 24492 [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]frame P:103 Avg QP:16.06 size: 20715 [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]mb I I16..4: 48.4% 0.0% 51.6% [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]mb P I16..4: 57.5% 0.0% 0.0% P16..4: 40.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% skip: 2.3% [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]final ratefactor: 62.05 [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 79.7% 92.2% 68.4% inter: 62.4% 87.5% 48.0% [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]i16 v,h,dc,p: 23% 17% 41% 19% [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 30% 24% 26% 2% 5% 3% 3% 3% 4% [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]i8c dc,h,v,p: 53% 20% 23% 4% [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]ref P L0: 63.0% 37.0% [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]kb/s:-0.00 total frames encoded: 0 total audio frames encoded: 0 IO thread finished...OK IO Thread finished enabling controls Cap Video toggled: 1 (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25379744K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K using audio codec: 0x0055 Audio frame size is 1152 samples for selected codec IO thread started...OK [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2 Cache64 [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]profile Baseline, level 3.0 [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]non-strictly-monotonic PTS shift sound by -236 ms shift sound by -236 ms shift sound by -236 ms (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25377044K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25373408K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data ... repeats a couple of times ... (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25370696K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data ... repeats a couple of times ... (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25367680K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25364052K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25360312K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25356628K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25352908K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25349316K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25345552K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25341828K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25338092K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25334412K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K Cap Video toggled: 0 Shuting Down IO Thread stop= 4708817235000 start=4578624714000 VIDEO: 1604 frames in 130192.000000 ms = 12.320265 fps Stoping audio stream Closing audio stream... close avi Last message repeated 1603 times [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]frame I:16 Avg QP:14.78 size: 42627 [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]frame P:1547 Avg QP:16.44 size: 28599 [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]mb I I16..4: 21.6% 0.0% 78.4% [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]mb P I16..4: 28.1% 0.0% 0.0% P16..4: 70.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% skip: 1.4% [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]final ratefactor: 88.17 [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 74.4% 95.8% 83.2% inter: 75.2% 94.6% 69.2% [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]i16 v,h,dc,p: 27% 17% 40% 16% [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 25% 25% 21% 3% 6% 4% 5% 4% 7% [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]i8c dc,h,v,p: 61% 18% 18% 4% [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]ref P L0: 64.0% 36.0% [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]kb/s:-0.00 total frames encoded: 0 total audio frames encoded: 0 IO thread finished...OK IO Thread finished enabling controls Shuting Down Thread Thread terminated... cleaning Thread allocations: 100% SDL Quit Video Thread finished write /home/sijar/.guvcviewrc OK free audio mutex closed v4l2 strutures free controls free controls - vidState cleaned allocations - 100% Closing portaudio ...OK Closing GTK... OK

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SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #003

- 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 This was the first year of my blogging and lots of new things I was learning as I go. I was indeed an infant in blogging a few years ago. However, as time passed by I have learned a lot. This year was year of experiments and new learning. 2007 Working as a full time DBA I often encoutered various errors and I started to learn how to avoid those error and document the same. ERROR Msg 5174 Each file size must be greater than or equal to 512 KB Whenever I see this error I wonder why someone is trying to attempt a database which is extremely small. Anyway, it does not matter what I think I keep on seeing this error often in industries. Anyway the solution of the error is equally interesting – just created larger database. Dilbert Humor This was very first encounter with database humor and I started to love it. It does not matter how many time we read this cartoon it does not get old. Generate Script with Data from Database – Database Publishing Wizard Generating schema script with data is one of the most frequently performed tasks among SQL Server Data Professionals. There are many ways to do the same. In the above article I demonstrated that how we can use the Database Publishing Wizard to accomplish the same. It was new to me at that time but I have not seen much of the adoption of the same still in the industry. Here is one of my videos where I demonstrate how we can generate data with schema. 2008 Delete Backup History – Cleanup Backup History Deleting backup history is important too but should be done carefully. If this is not carried out at regular interval there is good chance that MSDB will be filled up with all the old history. Every organization is different. Some would like to keep the history for 30 days and some for a year but there should be some limit. One should regularly archive the database backup history. South Asia MVP Open Days 2008 This was my very first year Microsoft MVP. I had Indeed big blast at the event and the fun was incredible. After this event I have attended many different MVP events but the fun and learning this particular event presented was amazing and just like me many others are not able to forget the same. Here are other links related to the event: South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 1 South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 2 South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 3 2009 Enable or Disable Constraint This is very simple script but I personally keep on forgetting it so I had blogged it. Till today, I keep on referencing this again and again as sometime a very little thing is hard to remember. Policy Based Management – Create, Evaluate and Fix Policies This article will cover the most spectacular feature of SQL 2008 – Policy-based management and how the configuration of SQL Server with policy-based management architecture can make a powerful difference. Policy based management is loaded with several advantages. It can help you implement various policies for reliable configuration of the system. It also provides additional administrative assistance to DBAs and helps them effortlessly manage various tasks of SQL Server across the enterprise. SQLPASS 2009 – My Very First SQPASS Experience Just Brilliant! I never had an experience such a thing in my life. SQL SQL and SQL – all around SQL! I am listing my own reasons here in order of importance to me. Networking with SQL fellows and experts Putting face to the name or avatar Learning and improving my SQL skills Understanding the structure of the largest SQL Server Professional Association Attending my favorite training sessions Since last time I have never missed a single time this event. This event is my favorite event and something keeps me going. Here are additional post related SQLPASS 2009. SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 1 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 2 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 3 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 4 2010 Get All the Information of Database using sys.databases Even though we believe that we know everything about our database, we do not know a lot of things about our database. This little script enables us to know so many details about databases which we may not be familiar with. Run this on your server today and see how much you know your database. Reducing CXPACKET Wait Stats for High Transactional Database While engaging in a performance tuning consultation for a client, a situation occurred where they were facing a lot of CXPACKET Waits Stats. The client asked me if I could help them reduce this huge number of wait stats. I usually receive this kind of request from other client as well, but the important thing to understand is whether this question has any merits or benefits, or not. I discusses the same in this article – a bit long but insightful for sure. Error related to Database in Use There are so many database management operations in SQL Server which requires exclusive access to the database and it is not always possible to get it. When any database is online in SQL Server it either applications or system thread often accesses them. This means database can’t have exclusive access and the operations which required this access throws an error. There is very easy method to overcome this minor issue – a single line script can give you exclusive access to the database. Difference between DATETIME and DATETIME2 Developers have found the root reason of the problem when dealing with Date Functions – when data time values are converted (implicit or explicit) between different data types, which would lose some precision, so the result cannot match each other as expected. In this blog post I go over very interesting details and difference between DATETIME and DATETIME2 History of SQL Server Database Encryption I recently met Michael Coles and Rodeney Landrum the author of one of the kind book Expert SQL Server 2008 Encryption at SQLPASS in Seattle. During the conversation we ended up how Microsoft is evolving encryption technology. The same discussion lead to talking about history of encryption tools in SQL Server. Michale pointed me to page 18 of his book of encryption. He explicitly gave me permission to re-produce relevant part of history from his book. 2011 Functions FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause and ORDER BY Some time an interesting feature and smart audience make a total difference in places. From last two days, I have been writing on SQL Server 2012 feature FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE. I created a puzzle which was very interesting and got many people attempt to resolve it. It was based on following two articles: Introduction to FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE Introduction to FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause I even provided the hint about how one can solve this problem. The best part was many people solved the problem without using hints! Try your luck! A Real Story of Book Getting ‘Out of Stock’ to A 25% Discount Story Available This is a great problem and everybody would love to have it. We had it and we loved it. Our book got out of stock in 48 hours of releasing and stocks were empty. We faced many issues and learned many valuable lessons. Some we were able to avoid in the future and some we are still facing it as those problems have no solutions. However, since that day – our books never gone out of stock. This inspiring learning story for us and I am confident that you will love to read it as well. Introduction to LEAD and LAG – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical function LEAD() and LAG(). This function accesses data from a subsequent row (for lead) and previous row (for lag) in the same result set without the use of a self-join . It will be very difficult to explain this in words so I will attempt small example to explain you this function. I had a fantastic time writing this blog post and I am very confident when you read it, you will like the same. 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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How to Run Low-Cost Minecraft on a Raspberry Pi for Block Building on the Cheap

- by Jason Fitzpatrick

We’ve shown you how to run your own blocktastic personal Minecraft server on a Windows/OSX box, but what if you crave something lighter weight, more energy efficient, and always ready for your friends? Read on as we turn a tiny Raspberry Pi machine into a low-cost Minecraft server you can leave on 24/7 for around a penny a day. Why Do I Want to Do This? There’s two aspects to this tutorial, running your own Minecraft server and specifically running that Minecraft server on a Raspberry Pi. Why would you want to run your own Minecraft server? It’s a really great way to extend and build upon the Minecraft play experience. You can leave the server running when you’re not playing so friends and family can join and continue building your world. You can mess around with game variables and introduce mods in a way that isn’t possible when you’re playing the stand-alone game. It also gives you the kind of control over your multiplayer experience that using public servers doesn’t, without incurring the cost of hosting a private server on a remote host. While running a Minecraft server on its own is appealing enough to a dedicated Minecraft fan, running it on the Raspberry Pi is even more appealing. The tiny little Pi uses so little resources that you can leave your Minecraft server running 24/7 for a couple bucks a year. Aside from the initial cost outlay of the Pi, an SD card, and a little bit of time setting it up, you’ll have an always-on Minecraft server at a monthly cost of around one gumball. What Do I Need? For this tutorial you’ll need a mix of hardware and software tools; aside from the actual Raspberry Pi and SD card, everything is free. 1 Raspberry Pi (preferably a 512MB model) 1 4GB+ SD card This tutorial assumes that you have already familiarized yourself with the Raspberry Pi and have installed a copy of the Debian-derivative Raspbian on the device. If you have not got your Pi up and running yet, don’t worry! Check out our guide, The HTG Guide to Getting Started with Raspberry Pi, to get up to speed. Optimizing Raspbian for the Minecraft Server Unlike other builds we’ve shared where you can layer multiple projects over one another (e.g. the Pi is more than powerful enough to serve as a weather/email indicator and a Google Cloud Print server at the same time) running a Minecraft server is a pretty intense operation for the little Pi and we’d strongly recommend dedicating the entire Pi to the process. Minecraft seems like a simple game, with all its blocky-ness and what not, but it’s actually a pretty complex game beneath the simple skin and required a lot of processing power. As such, we’re going to tweak the configuration file and other settings to optimize Rasbian for the job. The first thing you’ll need to do is dig into the Raspi-Config application to make a few minor changes. If you’re installing Raspbian fresh, wait for the last step (which is the Raspi-Config), if you already installed it, head to the terminal and type in “sudo raspi-config” to launch it again. One of the first and most important things we need to attend to is cranking up the overclock setting. We need all the power we can get to make our Minecraft experience enjoyable. In Raspi-Config, select option number 7 “Overclock”. Be prepared for some stern warnings about overclocking, but rest easy knowing that overclocking is directly supported by the Raspberry Pi foundation and has been included in the configuration options since late 2012. Once you’re in the actual selection screen, select “Turbo 1000MhHz”. Again, you’ll be warned that the degree of overclocking you’ve selected carries risks (specifically, potential corruption of the SD card, but no risk of actual hardware damage). Click OK and wait for the device to reset. Next, make sure you’re set to boot to the command prompt, not the desktop. Select number 3 “Enable Boot to Desktop/Scratch” and make sure “Console Text console” is selected. Back at the Raspi-Config menu, select number 8 “Advanced Options’. There are two critical changes we need to make in here and one option change. First, the critical changes. Select A3 “Memory Split”: Change the amount of memory available to the GPU to 16MB (down from the default 64MB). Our Minecraft server is going to ruin in a GUI-less environment; there’s no reason to allocate any more than the bare minimum to the GPU. After selecting the GPU memory, you’ll be returned to the main menu. Select “Advanced Options” again and then select A4 “SSH”. Within the sub-menu, enable SSH. There is very little reason to keep this Pi connected to a monitor and keyboard, by enabling SSH we can remotely access the machine from anywhere on the network. Finally (and optionally) return again to the “Advanced Options” menu and select A2 “Hostname”. Here you can change your hostname from “raspberrypi” to a more fitting Minecraft name. We opted for the highly creative hostname “minecraft”, but feel free to spice it up a bit with whatever you feel like: creepertown, minecraft4life, or miner-box are all great minecraft server names. That’s it for the Raspbian configuration tab down to the bottom of the main screen and select “Finish” to reboot. After rebooting you can now SSH into your terminal, or continue working from the keyboard hooked up to your Pi (we strongly recommend switching over to SSH as it allows you to easily cut and paste the commands). If you’ve never used SSH before, check out how to use PuTTY with your Pi here. Installing Java on the Pi The Minecraft server runs on Java, so the first thing we need to do on our freshly configured Pi is install it. Log into your Pi via SSH and then, at the command prompt, enter the following command to make a directory for the installation: sudo mkdir /java/ Now we need to download the newest version of Java. At the time of this publication the newest release is the OCT 2013 update and the link/filename we use will reflect that. Please check for a more current version of the Linux ARMv6/7 Java release on the Java download page and update the link/filename accordingly when following our instructions. At the command prompt, enter the following command: sudo wget --no-check-certificate http://www.java.net/download/jdk8/archive/b111/binaries/jdk-8-ea-b111-linux-arm-vfp-hflt-09_oct_2013.tar.gz Once the download has finished successfully, enter the following command: sudo tar zxvf jdk-8-ea-b111-linux-arm-vfp-hflt-09_oct_2013.tar.gz -C /opt/ Fun fact: the /opt/ directory name scheme is a remnant of early Unix design wherein the /opt/ directory was for “optional” software installed after the main operating system; it was the /Program Files/ of the Unix world. After the file has finished extracting, enter: sudo /opt/jdk1.8.0/bin/java -version This command will return the version number of your new Java installation like so: java version "1.8.0-ea" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0-ea-b111) Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 25.0-b53, mixed mode) If you don’t see the above printout (or a variation thereof if you’re using a newer version of Java), try to extract the archive again. If you do see the readout, enter the following command to tidy up after yourself: sudo rm jdk-8-ea-b111-linux-arm-vfp-hflt-09_oct_2013.tar.gz At this point Java is installed and we’re ready to move onto installing our Minecraft server! Installing and Configuring the Minecraft Server Now that we have a foundation for our Minecraft server, it’s time to install the part that matter. We’ll be using SpigotMC a lightweight and stable Minecraft server build that works wonderfully on the Pi. First, grab a copy of the the code with the following command: sudo wget http://ci.md-5.net/job/Spigot/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/Spigot-Server/target/spigot.jar This link should remain stable over time, as it points directly to the most current stable release of Spigot, but if you have any issues you can always reference the SpigotMC download page here. After the download finishes successfully, enter the following command: sudo /opt/jdk1.8.0/bin/java -Xms256M -Xmx496M -jar /home/pi/spigot.jar nogui Note: if you’re running the command on a 256MB Pi change the 256 and 496 in the above command to 128 and 256, respectively. Your server will launch and a flurry of on-screen activity will follow. Be prepared to wait around 3-6 minutes or so for the process of setting up the server and generating the map to finish. Future startups will take much less time, around 20-30 seconds. Note: If at any point during the configuration or play process things get really weird (e.g. your new Minecraft server freaks out and starts spawning you in the Nether and killing you instantly), use the “stop” command at the command prompt to gracefully shutdown the server and let you restart and troubleshoot it. After the process has finished, head over to the computer you normally play Minecraft on, fire it up, and click on Multiplayer. You should see your server: If your world doesn’t popup immediately during the network scan, hit the Add button and manually enter the address of your Pi. Once you connect to the server, you’ll see the status change in the server status window: According to the server, we’re in game. According to the actual Minecraft app, we’re also in game but it’s the middle of the night in survival mode: Boo! Spawning in the dead of night, weaponless and without shelter is no way to start things. No worries though, we need to do some more configuration; no time to sit around and get shot at by skeletons. Besides, if you try and play it without some configuration tweaks first, you’ll likely find it quite unstable. We’re just here to confirm the server is up, running, and accepting incoming connections. Once we’ve confirmed the server is running and connectable (albeit not very playable yet), it’s time to shut down the server. Via the server console, enter the command “stop” to shut everything down. When you’re returned to the command prompt, enter the following command: sudo nano server.properties When the configuration file opens up, make the following changes (or just cut and paste our config file minus the first two lines with the name and date stamp): #Minecraft server properties #Thu Oct 17 22:53:51 UTC 2013 generator-settings= #Default is true, toggle to false allow-nether=false level-name=world enable-query=false allow-flight=false server-port=25565 level-type=DEFAULT enable-rcon=false force-gamemode=false level-seed= server-ip= max-build-height=256 spawn-npcs=true white-list=false spawn-animals=true texture-pack= snooper-enabled=true hardcore=false online-mode=true pvp=true difficulty=1 player-idle-timeout=0 gamemode=0 #Default 20; you only need to lower this if you're running #a public server and worried about loads. max-players=20 spawn-monsters=true #Default is 10, 3-5 ideal for Pi view-distance=5 generate-structures=true spawn-protection=16 motd=A Minecraft Server In the server status window, seen through your SSH connection to the pi, enter the following command to give yourself operator status on your Minecraft server (so that you can use more powerful commands in game, without always returning to the server status window). op [your minecraft nickname] At this point things are looking better but we still have a little tweaking to do before the server is really enjoyable. To that end, let’s install some plugins. The first plugin, and the one you should install above all others, is NoSpawnChunks. To install the plugin, first visit the NoSpawnChunks webpage and grab the download link for the most current version. As of this writing the current release is v0.3. Back at the command prompt (the command prompt of your Pi, not the server console–if your server is still active shut it down) enter the following commands: cd /home/pi/plugins sudo wget http://dev.bukkit.org/media/files/586/974/NoSpawnChunks.jar Next, visit the ClearLag plugin page, and grab the latest link (as of this tutorial, it’s v2.6.0). Enter the following at the command prompt: sudo wget http://dev.bukkit.org/media/files/743/213/Clearlag.jar Because the files aren’t compressed in a .ZIP or similar container, that’s all there is to it: the plugins are parked in the plugin directory. (Remember this for future plugin downloads, the file needs to be whateverplugin.jar, so if it’s compressed you need to uncompress it in the plugin directory.) Resart the server: sudo /opt/jdk1.8.0/bin/java -Xms256M -Xmx496M -jar /home/pi/spigot.jar nogui Be prepared for a slightly longer startup time (closer to the 3-6 minutes and much longer than the 30 seconds you just experienced) as the plugins affect the world map and need a minute to massage everything. After the spawn process finishes, type the following at the server console: plugins This lists all the plugins currently active on the server. You should see something like this: If the plugins aren’t loaded, you may need to stop and restart the server. After confirming your plugins are loaded, go ahead and join the game. You should notice significantly snappier play. In addition, you’ll get occasional messages from the plugins indicating they are active, as seen below: At this point Java is installed, the server is installed, and we’ve tweaked our settings for for the Pi. It’s time to start building with friends!

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SQL Cruise Alaska 2011

- by Grant Fritchey

I had the extreme good fortune to get sent on the last SQL Cruise to Alaska. I love my job. In case you don't what this is, SQL Cruise is a trip on a cruise ship during which you get to attend classes while on the boat, learning all about SQL Server and related topics as well as network with the instructors and the other Cruisers. Frankly, it's amazing. Classes ran from Monday, 5/30, to Saturday, 6/4. The networking was constant, between classes, at night on cruise ship, out on excursions in Alaskan rainforests and while snorkeling in ocean waters. Here's a run down of the experience from my point of view. Because I couldn't travel out 2 days early, I missed the BBQ that occurred the day before the cruise when many of the Cruisers received their swag bags. Some of that swag came from Red Gate. I researched what was useful on a cruise like this and purchased small flashlights and binoculars for all the Cruisers. The flashlights were because, depending on your cabin, ships can be very dark. The binoculars were so that the cruisers could watch all the beautiful landscape as it flowed by. I would have liked to have been there when the bags were opened, but I heard from several people that they appreciated the gifts. Cruisers "In" the hot tub. Pictured: Marjory Woody, Michele Grondin, Kyle Brandt, Grant Fritchey, John Halunen Sunday I went to board the ship with my wife. We had a bit of an adventure because I messed up our documents. It all worked out and we got on board to meet up at the back of the boat at one of the outdoor bars with the other Cruisers, thanks to tweets letting everyone know where to go. That was the end of electronic coordination on the trip (connectivity in Alaska was horrible for everyone except AT&T). The Cruisers were a great bunch of people and it was a real honor to meet them and get to spend time with them. After everyone settled into their cabins, our very first activity was a contest, sponsored by Red Gate. The Cruisers, in an effort to get to know each other and the ship, were required to go all over taking various photographs, some of them hilarious. The winning team of three would all win prizes. Some of the significant others helped out and I tagged along with a team that tied for first but lost the coin toss. The winning team consisted of Christina Leo (blog|twitter), Ryan Malcom (twitter), Neil Hambly (blog|twitter). They then had to do math and identify the cabin with the lowest prime number, oh, and get a picture of it and be the first to get back up to the bar where we were waiting. Christina came in first and very happily carried home an Ipad2. Ryan won a 1TB portable hard drive and Neil won a wireless mouse (picture below, note my special SQL Server Central Friday Shirt. Thanks Steve (blog|twitter)). Winners: Christina Leo, Neil Hambly, Ryan Malcolm. Just Lucky: Grant Fritchey Monday morning classes started. Buck Woody (blog|twitter) was a special guest speaker on this cruise. His theme was "Three C's on the High Seas: Career, Communication and Cloud." The first session was all on Career. I'm not going to type out all my notes from the session, but let's just say, if you get the chance to hear Buck talk about how to manage your career, I suggest you attend. I have a ton of blog posts that I'll be putting together over the next several months (yes, months) both here and over on ScaryDBA. I also have a bunch of work I'm going to be doing to get my career performance bumped up a notch or two (and let's face it, that won't be easy). Later on Monday, Tim Ford (blog|twitter) did a session on DMOs. Specifically the session was on Tim's Period Table of DMOs that he has put together, and how to use some of the more interesting DMOs in your day to day job. It was a great session, packed with good information. Next, Brent Ozar (blog|twitter) did a session on how to monitor and guide SAN configuration for the DBA that doesn't have access to the SAN. That was some seriously useful information. Tuesday morning we only had a single class. Kendra Little (blog|twitter) taught us all about "No Lock for Yes Fun". It was all about the different transaction isolation levels and how they work. There is so often confusion in this area and Kendra does a great job in clarifying the information. Also, she tosses in her excellent drawings to liven up the presentation. Then it was excursion time in Juneau. My wife and I, along with several other Cruisers, took a hike up around the Mendenhall Glacier. It was absolutely beautiful weather and walking through the Alaskan rain forest was a treat. Our guide, Jason, was a great guy and it was a good day of hiking. Wednesday was an all day excursion in Skagway. My wife and I took the "Ghost and Good Time Girls" walking tour that ended up at a bar that used to be a brothel, the Red Onion. It was a great history of the town. We went back out and hit a few museums and exhibits. We also hiked up the side of the mountain to see the Dewey Lake and some great views of the town. Finally we hiked out to the far side of town to see the Gold Rush cemetery. Hiking done we went back to the boat and had a quiet dinner on our own. Thursday we cruised through Glacier Bay and saw at least four different glaciers including sitting next to the Marjory Glacier for about an hour. It was amazing. Then it got better. We went into class with Buck again, this time to talk about Communication. Again, I've got pages of notes that I'm going to be referring back to for some time to come. This was an excellent opportunity to learn. Snorkelers: Nicole Bertrand, Aaron Bertrand, Grant Fritchey, Neil Hambly, Christina Leo, John Robel, Yanni Robel, Tim Ford Friday we pulled into Ketchikan. A bunch of us went snorkeling. Yes, snorkeling. Yes, in Alaska. Yes, snorkeling in the ocean in Alaska. It was fantastic. They had us put on 7mm thick wet suits (an adventure all by itself) so it was basically warm the entire time we were in the water (except for the occasional squirt of cold water down my back). Before we got in the water a bald eagle flew up and landed about 15 feet in front of us, which was just an incredible event. Then our guide pointed out about 14 other eagles in the area, hanging out in the trees. Wow! The water was pretty clear and there was a ton of things to see. That was absolutely a blast. Back on the boat I presented a session called Execution Plans: The Deep Dive (note the nautical theme). It seemed to go over well and I had several good questions come out of the session that will lead to new blog posts. After I presented, it was Aaron Bertrand's (blog|twitter) turn. He did a session on "What's New in Denali" that provided a lot of great information. He was able to incorporate new things straight out of Tech-Ed, so this was expanded beyond his usual presentation. The man really knows what he's talking about and communicates it well. Saturday we were travelling so there was time for a bunch of classes. Jeremiah Peschka (blog|twitter) did a great overview of some of the NoSQL databases and what they should be used for. The session was called "The Database is Dead" but it was really about how there are specific uses for these databases that SQL Server doesn't fill, but also that these databases can't replace SQL Server in other areas. Again, good material. Brent Ozar presented again with a session on Defensive Indexing. It was an overview of how indexes work and a deep dive into how to apply them appropriately in your databases to better support access. A good session, as you would expect. Then we pulled into Victoria, BC, in Canada and had a nice dinner with several of the Cruisers, including Denny Cherry (blog|twitter). After that it was back to Seattle on Sunday. By the way, the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle isn't a Science Fiction Museum any more. I was very disappointed to discover this. Overall, it was a great experience. I'm extremely appreciative of Red Gate for sending me and for Tim, Brent, Kendra and Jeremiah for having me. The other Cruisers were all amazing people and it was an honor & privilege to meet them and spend time with them. While this was a seriously fun time, it was also a very serious training opportunity with solid information coming from seasoned industry pros.

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Pain Comes Instantly

- by user701213

When I look back at recent blog entries – many of which are not all that current (more on where my available writing time is going later) – I am struck by how many of them focus on public policy or legislative issues instead of, say, the latest nefarious cyberattack or exploit (or everyone’s favorite new pastime: coining terms for the Coming Cyberpocalypse: “digital Pearl Harbor” is so 1941). Speaking of which, I personally hope evil hackers from Malefactoria will someday hack into my bathroom scale – which in a future time will be connected to the Internet because, gosh, wouldn’t it be great to have absolutely everything in your life Internet-enabled? – and recalibrate it so I’m 10 pounds thinner. The horror. In part, my focus on public policy is due to an admitted limitation of my skill set. I enjoy reading technical articles about exploits and cybersecurity trends, but writing a blog entry on those topics would take more research than I have time for and, quite honestly, doesn’t play to my strengths. The first rule of writing is “write what you know.” The bigger contributing factor to my recent paucity of blog entries is that more and more of my waking hours are spent engaging in “thrust and parry” activity involving emerging regulations of some sort or other. I’ve opined in earlier blogs about what constitutes good and reasonable public policy so nobody can accuse me of being reflexively anti-regulation. That said, you have so many cycles in the day, and most of us would rather spend it slaying actual dragons than participating in focus groups on whether dragons are really a problem, whether lassoing them (with organic, sustainable and recyclable lassos) is preferable to slaying them – after all, dragons are people, too - and whether we need lasso compliance auditors to make sure lassos are being used correctly and humanely. (A point that seems to evade many rule makers: slaying dragons actually accomplishes something, whereas talking about “approved dragon slaying procedures and requirements” wastes the time of those who are competent to dispatch actual dragons and who were doing so very well without the input of “dragon-slaying theorists.”) Unfortunately for so many of us who would just get on with doing our day jobs, cybersecurity is rapidly devolving into the “focus groups on dragon dispatching” realm, which actual dragons slayers have little choice but to participate in. The general trend in cybersecurity is that powers-that-be – which encompasses groups other than just legislators – are often increasingly concerned and therefore feel they need to Do Something About Cybersecurity. Many seem to believe that if only we had the right amount of regulation and oversight, there would be no data breaches: a breach simply must mean Someone Is At Fault and Needs Supervision. (Leaving aside the fact that we have lots of home invasions despite a) guard dogs b) liberal carry permits c) alarm systems d) etc.) Also note that many well-managed and security-aware organizations, like the US Department of Defense, still get hacked. More specifically, many powers-that-be feel they must direct industry in a multiplicity of ways, up to and including how we actually build and deploy information technology systems. The more prescriptive the requirement, the more regulators or overseers a) can be seen to be doing something b) feel as if they are doing something regardless of whether they are actually doing something useful or cost effective. Note: an unfortunate concomitant of Doing Something is that often the cure is worse than the ailment. That is, doing what overseers want creates unfortunate byproducts that they either didn’t foresee or worse, don’t care about. After all, the logic goes, we Did Something. Prescriptive practice in the IT industry is problematic for a number of reasons. For a start, prescriptive guidance is really only appropriate if: • It is cost effective• It is “current” (meaning, the guidance doesn’t require the use of the technical equivalent of buggy whips long after horse-drawn transportation has become passé)*• It is practical (that is, pragmatic, proven and effective in the real world, not theoretical and unproven)• It solves the right problem With the above in mind, heading up the list of “you must be joking” regulations are recent disturbing developments in the Payment Card Industry (PCI) world. I’d like to give PCI kahunas the benefit of the doubt about their intentions, except that efforts by Oracle among others to make them aware of “unfortunate side effects of your requirements” – which is as tactful I can be for reasons that I believe will become obvious below - have gone, to-date, unanswered and more importantly, unchanged. A little background on PCI before I get too wound up. In 2008, the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council (SSC) introduced the Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS). That standard requires vendors of payment applications to ensure that their products implement specific requirements and undergo security assessment procedures. In order to have an application listed as a Validated Payment Application (VPA) and available for use by merchants, software vendors are required to execute the PCI Payment Application Vendor Release Agreement (VRA). (Are you still with me through all the acronyms?) Beginning in August 2010, the VRA imposed new obligations on vendors that are extraordinary and extraordinarily bad, short-sighted and unworkable. Specifically, PCI requires vendors to disclose (dare we say “tell all?”) to PCI any known security vulnerabilities and associated security breaches involving VPAs. ASAP. Think about the impact of that. PCI is asking a vendor to disclose to them: • Specific details of security vulnerabilities • Including exploit information or technical details of the vulnerability • Whether or not there is any mitigation available (as in a patch) PCI, in turn, has the right to blab about any and all of the above – specifically, to distribute all the gory details of what is disclosed - to the PCI SSC, qualified security assessors (QSAs), and any affiliate or agent or adviser of those entities, who are in turn permitted to share it with their respective affiliates, agents, employees, contractors, merchants, processors, service providers and other business partners. This assorted crew can’t be more than, oh, hundreds of thousands of entities. Does anybody believe that several hundred thousand people can keep a secret? Or that several hundred thousand people are all equally trustworthy? Or that not one of the people getting all that information would blab vulnerability details to a bad guy, even by accident? Or be a bad guy who uses the information to break into systems? (Wait, was that the Easter Bunny that just hopped by? Bringing world peace, no doubt.) Sarcasm aside, common sense tells us that telling lots of people a secret is guaranteed to “unsecret” the secret. Notably, being provided details of a vulnerability (without a patch) is of little or no use to companies running the affected application. Few users have the technological sophistication to create a workaround, and even if they do, most workarounds break some other functionality in the application or surrounding environment. Also, given the differences among corporate implementations of any application, it is highly unlikely that a single workaround is going to work for all corporate users. So until a patch is developed by the vendor, users remain at risk of exploit: even more so if the details of vulnerability have been widely shared. Sharing that information widely before a patch is available therefore does not help users, and instead helps only those wanting to exploit known security bugs. There’s a shocker for you. Furthermore, we already know that insider information about security vulnerabilities inevitably leaks, which is why most vendors closely hold such information and limit dissemination until a patch is available (and frequently limit dissemination of technical details even with the release of a patch). That’s the industry norm, not that PCI seems to realize or acknowledge that. Why would anybody release a bunch of highly technical exploit information to a cast of thousands, whose only “vetting” is that they are members of a PCI consortium? Oracle has had personal experience with this problem, which is one reason why information on security vulnerabilities at Oracle is “need to know” (we use our own row level access control to limit access to security bugs in our bug database, and thus less than 1% of development has access to this information), and we don’t provide some customers with more information than others or with vulnerability information and/or patches earlier than others. Failure to remember “insider information always leaks” creates problems in the general case, and has created problems for us specifically. A number of years ago, one of the UK intelligence agencies had information about a non-public security vulnerability in an Oracle product that they circulated among other UK and Commonwealth defense and intelligence entities. Nobody, it should be pointed out, bothered to report the problem to Oracle, even though only Oracle could produce a patch. The vulnerability was finally reported to Oracle by (drum roll) a US-based commercial company, to whom the information had leaked. (Note: every time I tell this story, the MI-whatever agency that created the problem gets a bit shirty with us. I know they meant well and have improved their vulnerability handling/sharing processes but, dudes, next time you find an Oracle vulnerability, try reporting it to us first before blabbing to lots of people who can’t actually fix the problem. Thank you!) Getting back to PCI: clearly, these new disclosure obligations increase the risk of exploitation of a vulnerability in a VPA and thus, of misappropriation of payment card data and customer information that a VPA processes, stores or transmits. It stands to reason that VRA’s current requirement for the widespread distribution of security vulnerability exploit details -- at any time, but particularly before a vendor can issue a patch or a workaround -- is very poor public policy. It effectively publicizes information of great value to potential attackers while not providing compensating benefits - actually, any benefits - to payment card merchants or consumers. In fact, it magnifies the risk to payment card merchants and consumers. The risk is most prominent in the time before a patch has been released, since customers often have little option but to continue using an application or system despite the risks. However, the risk is not limited to the time before a patch is issued: customers often need days, or weeks, to apply patches to systems, based upon the complexity of the issue and dependence on surrounding programs. Rather than decreasing the available window of exploit, this requirement increases the available window of exploit, both as to time available to exploit a vulnerability and the ease with which it can be exploited. Also, why would hackers focus on finding new vulnerabilities to exploit if they can get “EZHack” handed to them in such a manner: a) a vulnerability b) in a payment application c) with exploit code: the “Hacking Trifecta!“ It’s fair to say that this is probably the exact opposite of what PCI – or any of us – would want. Established industry practice concerning vulnerability handling avoids the risks created by the VRA’s vulnerability disclosure requirements. Specifically, the norm is not to release information about a security bug until the associated patch (or a pretty darn good workaround) has been issued. Once a patch is available, the notice to the user community is a high-level communication discussing the product at issue, the level of risk associated with the vulnerability, and how to apply the patch. The notices do not include either the specific customers affected by the vulnerability or forensic reports with maps of the exploit (both of which are required by the current VRA). In this way, customers have the tools they need to prioritize patching and to help prevent an attack, and the information released does not increase the risk of exploit. Furthermore, many vendors already use industry standards for vulnerability description: Common Vulnerability Enumeration (CVE) and Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). CVE helps ensure that customers know which particular issues a patch addresses and CVSS helps customers determine how severe a vulnerability is on a relative scale. Industry already provides the tools customers need to know what the patch contains and how bad the problem is that the patch remediates. So, what’s a poor vendor to do? Oracle is reaching out to other vendors subject to PCI and attempting to enlist then in a broad effort to engage PCI in rethinking (that is, eradicating) these requirements. I would therefore urge all who care about this issue, but especially those in the vendor community whose applications are subject to PCI and who may not have know they were being asked to tell-all to PCI and put their customers at risk, to do one of the following: • Contact PCI with your concerns• Contact Oracle (we are looking for vendors to sign our statement of concern)• And make sure you tell your customers that you have to rat them out to PCI if there is a breach involving the payment application I like to be charitable and say “PCI meant well” but in as important a public policy issue as what you disclose about vulnerabilities, to whom and when, meaning well isn’t enough. We need to do well. PCI, as regards this particular issue, has not done well, and has compounded the error by thus far being nonresponsive to those of us who have labored mightily to try to explain why they might want to rethink telling the entire planet about security problems with no solutions. By Way of Explanation… Non-related to PCI whatsoever, and the explanation for why I have not been blogging a lot recently, I have been working on Other Writing Venues with my sister Diane (who has also worked in the tech sector, inflicting upgrades on unsuspecting and largely ungrateful end users). I am pleased to note that we have recently (self-)published the first in the Miss Information Technology Murder Mystery series, Outsourcing Murder. The genre might best be described as “chick lit meets geek scene.” Our sisterly nom de plume is Maddi Davidson and (shameless plug follows): you can order the paper version of the book on Amazon, or the Kindle or Nook versions on www.amazon.com or www.bn.com, respectively. From our book jacket: Emma Jones, a 20-something IT consultant, is working on an outsourcing project at Tahiti Tacos, a restaurant chain offering Polynexican cuisine: refried poi, anyone? Emma despises her boss Padmanabh, a brilliant but arrogant partner in GD Consulting. When Emma discovers His-Royal-Padness’s body (verdict: death by cricket bat), she becomes a suspect.With her overprotective family and her best friend Stacey providing endless support and advice, Emma stumbles her way through an investigation of Padmanabh’s murder, bolstered by fusion food feeding frenzies, endless cups of frou-frou coffee and serious surfing sessions. While Stacey knows a PI who owes her a favor, landlady Magda urges Emma to tart up her underwear drawer before the next cute cop with a search warrant arrives. Emma’s mother offers to fix her up with a PhD student at Berkeley and showers her with self-defense gizmos while her old lover Keoni beckons from Hawai’i. And everyone, even Shaun the barista, knows a good lawyer. Book 2, Denial of Service, is coming out this summer. * Given the rate of change in technology, today’s “thou shalts” are easily next year’s “buggy whip guidance.”

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XNA 3D model collision is inaccurate

- by Daniel Lopez

I am creating a classic game in 3d that deals with asteriods and you have to shoot them and avoid being hit from them. I can generate the asteroids just fine and the ship can shoot bullets just fine. But the asteroids always hit the ship even it doesn't look they are even close. I know 2D collision very well but not 3D so can someone please shed some light to my problem. Thanks in advance. Code For ModelRenderer: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media; namespace _3D_Asteroids { class ModelRenderer { private float aspectratio; private Model model; private Vector3 camerapos; private Vector3 modelpos; private Matrix rotationy; float radiansy = 0; private bool isalive; public ModelRenderer(Model m, float AspectRatio, Vector3 initial_pos, Vector3 initialcamerapos) { isalive = true; model = m; if (model.Meshes.Count == 0) { throw new Exception("Invalid model because it contains zero meshes!"); } modelpos = initial_pos; camerapos = initialcamerapos; aspectratio = AspectRatio; return; } public float RadiusOfSphere { get { return model.Meshes[0].BoundingSphere.Radius; } } public BoundingBox BoxBounds { get { return BoundingBox.CreateFromSphere(model.Meshes[0].BoundingSphere); } } public BoundingSphere SphereBounds { get { return model.Meshes[0].BoundingSphere; } } public Vector3 CameraPosition { set { camerapos = value; } get { return camerapos; } } public bool IsAlive { get { return isalive; } } public Vector3 ModelPosition { set { modelpos = value; } get { return modelpos; } } public void RotateY(float radians) { radiansy += radians; rotationy = Matrix.CreateRotationY(radiansy); } public Matrix RotationY { set { rotationy = value; } get { return rotationy; } } public float AspectRatio { set { aspectratio = value; } get { return aspectratio; } } public void Kill() { isalive = false; } public void Draw(float scale) { Matrix world; if (rotationy == new Matrix(0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0)) { world = Matrix.CreateScale(scale) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(modelpos); } else { world = rotationy * Matrix.CreateScale(scale) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(modelpos); } Matrix view = Matrix.CreateLookAt(camerapos, Vector3.Zero, Vector3.Up); Matrix projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.ToRadians(45.0f), this.AspectRatio, 1f, 100000f); foreach (ModelMesh mesh in model.Meshes) { foreach (BasicEffect effect in mesh.Effects) { effect.World = world; effect.View = view; effect.Projection = projection; } mesh.Draw(); } } public void Draw() { Matrix world; if (rotationy == new Matrix(0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0)) { world = Matrix.CreateTranslation(modelpos); } else { world = rotationy * Matrix.CreateTranslation(modelpos); } Matrix view = Matrix.CreateLookAt(camerapos, Vector3.Zero, Vector3.Up); Matrix projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.ToRadians(45.0f), this.AspectRatio, 1f, 100000f); foreach (ModelMesh mesh in model.Meshes) { foreach (BasicEffect effect in mesh.Effects) { effect.World = world; effect.View = view; effect.Projection = projection; } mesh.Draw(); } } } Code For Game1: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media; namespace _3D_Asteroids { /// <summary> /// This is the main type for your game /// </summary> public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { GraphicsDeviceManager graphics; int score = 0, lives = 5; SpriteBatch spriteBatch; GameState gstate = GameState.OnMenuScreen; Menu menu = new Menu(Color.Yellow, Color.White); SpriteFont font; Texture2D background; ModelRenderer ship; Model b, a; List<ModelRenderer> bullets = new List<ModelRenderer>(); List<ModelRenderer> asteriods = new List<ModelRenderer>(); float time = 0.0f; int framecount = 0; SoundEffect effect; public Game1() { graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth = 1280; graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight = 796; graphics.ApplyChanges(); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to perform any initialization it needs to before starting to run. /// This is where it can query for any required services and load any non-graphic /// related content. Calling base.Initialize will enumerate through any components /// and initialize them as well. /// </summary> protected override void Initialize() { // TODO: Add your initialization logic here base.Initialize(); } /// <summary> /// LoadContent will be called once per game and is the place to load /// all of your content. /// </summary> protected override void LoadContent() { // Create a new SpriteBatch, which can be used to draw textures. spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); font = Content.Load<SpriteFont>("Fonts\\Lucida Console"); background = Content.Load<Texture2D>("Textures\\B1_stars"); Model p1 = Content.Load<Model>("Models\\p1_wedge"); b = Content.Load<Model>("Models\\pea_proj"); a = Content.Load<Model>("Models\\asteroid1"); effect = Content.Load<SoundEffect>("Audio\\tx0_fire1"); ship = new ModelRenderer(p1, GraphicsDevice.Viewport.AspectRatio, new Vector3(0, 0, 0), new Vector3(0, 0, 9000)); } /// <summary> /// UnloadContent will be called once per game and is the place to unload /// all content. /// </summary> protected override void UnloadContent() { } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to run logic such as updating the world, /// checking for collisions, gathering input, and playing audio. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { KeyboardState state = Keyboard.GetState(PlayerIndex.One); switch (gstate) { case GameState.OnMenuScreen: { if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Enter)) { switch (menu.SelectedChoice) { case MenuChoices.Play: { gstate = GameState.GameStarted; break; } case MenuChoices.Exit: { this.Exit(); break; } } } if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Down)) { menu.MoveSelectedMenuChoiceDown(gameTime); } else if(state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up)) { menu.MoveSelectedMenuChoiceUp(gameTime); } else { menu.KeysReleased(); } break; } case GameState.GameStarted: { foreach (ModelRenderer bullet in bullets) { if (bullet.ModelPosition.X < (ship.ModelPosition.X + 4000) && bullet.ModelPosition.Z < (ship.ModelPosition.X + 4000) && bullet.ModelPosition.X > (ship.ModelPosition.Z - 4000) && bullet.ModelPosition.Z > (ship.ModelPosition.Z - 4000)) { bullet.ModelPosition += (bullet.RotationY.Forward * 120); } else if (collidedwithasteriod(bullet)) { bullet.Kill(); } else { bullet.Kill(); } } foreach (ModelRenderer asteroid in asteriods) { if (ship.SphereBounds.Intersects(asteroid.BoxBounds)) { lives -= 1; asteroid.Kill(); // This always hits no matter where the ship goes. } else { asteroid.ModelPosition -= (asteroid.RotationY.Forward * 50); } } for (int index = 0; index < asteriods.Count; index++) { if (asteriods[index].IsAlive == false) { asteriods.RemoveAt(index); } } for (int index = 0; index < bullets.Count; index++) { if (bullets[index].IsAlive == false) { bullets.RemoveAt(index); } } if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left)) { ship.RotateY(0.1f); if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Space)) { if (time < 17) { firebullet(); //effect.Play(); } } else { time = 0; } } else if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right)) { ship.RotateY(-0.1f); if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Space)) { if (time < 17) { firebullet(); //effect.Play(); } } else { time = 0; } } else if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up)) { ship.ModelPosition += (ship.RotationY.Forward * 50); if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Space)) { if (time < 17) { firebullet(); //effect.Play(); } } else { time = 0; } } else if (state.IsKeyDown(Keys.Space)) { time += gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.Milliseconds; if (time < 17) { firebullet(); //effect.Play(); } } else { time = 0.0f; } if ((framecount % 60) == 0) { createasteroid(); framecount = 0; } framecount++; break; } } base.Update(gameTime); } void firebullet() { if (bullets.Count < 3) { ModelRenderer bullet = new ModelRenderer(b, GraphicsDevice.Viewport.AspectRatio, ship.ModelPosition, new Vector3(0, 0, 9000)); bullet.RotationY = ship.RotationY; bullets.Add(bullet); } } void createasteroid() { if (asteriods.Count < 2) { Random random = new Random(); float z = random.Next(-13000, -11000); float x = random.Next(-9000, -8000); Random random2 = new Random(); int degrees = random.Next(0, 45); float radians = MathHelper.ToRadians(degrees); ModelRenderer asteroid = new ModelRenderer(a, GraphicsDevice.Viewport.AspectRatio, new Vector3(x, 0, z), new Vector3(0,0, 9000)); asteroid.RotateY(radians); asteriods.Add(asteroid); } } /// <summary> /// This is called when the game should draw itself. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); switch (gstate) { case GameState.OnMenuScreen: { spriteBatch.Begin(); spriteBatch.Draw(background, Vector2.Zero, Color.White); menu.DrawMenu(ref spriteBatch, font, new Vector2(GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Width / 2, GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height / 2) - new Vector2(50f), 100f); spriteBatch.End(); break; } case GameState.GameStarted: { spriteBatch.Begin(); spriteBatch.Draw(background, Vector2.Zero, Color.White); spriteBatch.DrawString(font, "Score: " + score.ToString() + "\nLives: " + lives.ToString(), Vector2.Zero, Color.White); spriteBatch.End(); ship.Draw(); foreach (ModelRenderer bullet in bullets) { bullet.Draw(); } foreach (ModelRenderer asteroid in asteriods) { asteroid.Draw(0.1f); } break; } } base.Draw(gameTime); } bool collidedwithasteriod(ModelRenderer bullet) { foreach (ModelRenderer asteroid in asteriods) { if (bullet.SphereBounds.Intersects(asteroid.BoxBounds)) { score += 10; asteroid.Kill(); return true; } } return false; } } } }

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Clean Code Developer & Certification in IT - MSCC 21.09.2013

It was a very busy weekend this time, and quite some hectic to organise the second meetup on a Saturday for the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community (MSCC) but it was absolutely fun. Following, I'm writing a brief summary about the topics we spoke about and the new impulses I got. "What a meetup... I was positively impressed. At the beginning I thought that noone would actually show up but then by the time the room got filled. Lots of conversation, great dialogues and fantastic networking between fresh students, experienced students, experienced employees, and self-employed attendees. That's what community is all about!" Above quote was my first reaction shortly after the gathering. And despite being busy during the weekend and yesterday, I took my time to reflect a little bit on things happened and statements made before writing it here on my blog. Additionally, I was also very curious about possible reactions and blogs from other attendees. Reactions from other craftsmen Let me quickly give you some links and quotes from others first... "Like Jochen posted on facebook, that was indeed a 5+ hours marathon (maybe 4 hours for me but still) … Wohoo! We’re indeed a bunch of crazy geeks who did not realise how time flew as we dived into the myriad discussions that sprouted. Yet in the end everyone was happy (:" -- Ish on MSCC meetup - The marathon (: "And the 4hours spent @ Talking drums bore its fruit..I was doing something I never did before....reading the borrowed book while walking....and though I was not that familiar with things mentionned in the book...I was skimming,scanning & flipping...reading titles...short paragraphs...and I skipped pages till I reached home." -- Yannick on Mauritius Software Craftsmanship 1st Meet-up "Hi Developers, Just wanted to share with you the meetups i attended last Saturday - [...] - The second meetup is the one hosted by Jochen Kirstätter, the MSCC, where the attendees were Craftsman, no woman, this time - all sharing the same passion of being a developer - even though it is on different platforms(Windows - Windows Phone - Linux - Adobe(yes a designer) - .Net) - but we manage to sit at the same table - sharing developer views and experience in the corporate world - also talking about good practice when coding( where Jochen initiated a discussion on Clean Coding ) i could not stay till the end - but from what i have heard - the longer you stay the more fun you have till 1600. Developers in the Facebook grouping i invite you to stay tuned about the various developer communities popping up - where you can come to share and learn good practices, develop the entrepreneurial spirit, and learn and share your passion about technologies" -- Arnaud on Facebook More feedback has been posted on the event directly. So, should I really write more? Wouldn't that spoil the impressions? Starting the day with a surprise Indeed, I was very pleased to stumble over the existence of Mobile Monday Mauritius on LinkedIn, an association about any kind of mobile app development, mobile gadgets and latest smartphones on the market. Despite the Monday in their name they had scheduled their recent meeting on Saturday between 10:00 and 12:00hrs. Wow, what a coincidence! Let's grap the bull by its horns and pay them an introductory visit. As they chose the Ebene Accelerator at the Orange Tower in Ebene it was a no-brainer to leave home a bit earlier and stop by. It was quite an experience and fun to talk to the geeks over there. Really looking forward to organise something together.... Arriving at the venue As the children got a bit uneasy at the MoMo gathering and I didn't want to disturb them too much, we arrived early at Bagatelle. Well, no problems as we went for a decent breakfast at Food Lover's Market. Shortly afterwards we went to our venue location, Talking Drums, and prepared the room for the meeting. We only had to take off a repro-painting of the wall in order to have a decent area for the projector. All went very smooth and my two little ones were of great help. Just in time, our first craftsman Avinash arrived on the spot. And then the waiting started... Luckily, not too long. Bit by bit more and more IT people came to join our meeting. Meanwhile, I used the time to give a brief introduction about the MSCC in general, what we are (hm, maybe I am) trying to achieve and that the recent phase is completely focused on creating more awareness that a community like the MSCC is active here in Mauritius. As soon as we reached some 'critical mass' of about ten people I asked everyone for a short introduction and bio, just in case... Conversation between participants started to kick in and we were actually more networking than having a focus on our topics of the day. Quick updates on latest news and development around the MSCC Finally, Clean Code Developer No matter how the position is actually called, whether it is Software Engineer, Software Developer, Programmer, Architect, or Craftsman, anyone working in IT is facing almost the same obstacles. As for the process of writing software applications there are re-occurring patterns and principles combined with some common exercise and best practices on how to resolve them. Initiated by the must-read book 'Clean Code' by Robert C. Martin (aka Uncle Bob) the concept of the Clean Code Developer (CCD) was born already some years ago. CCD is much likely to traditional martial arts where you create awareness of certain principles and learn how to apply practices to improve your style. The CCD initiative recommends to indicate your level of knowledge and experience with coloured wrist bands - equivalent to the belt colours - for various reasons. Frankly speaking, I think that the biggest advantage here is provided by the obvious recognition of conceptual understanding. For example, take the situation of a team meeting... A member with a higher grade in CCD, say Green grade, sees that there are mainly Red grades to talk to, and adjusts her way of communication to their level of understanding. The choice of words might change as certain elements of CCD are not yet familiar to all team members. So instead of talking in an abstract way which only Green grades could follow the whole scenario comes down to Red grade level. Different story, better results... Similar to learning martial arts, we only covered two grades during this occasion - black and red. Most interestingly, there was quite some positive feedback and lots of questions about the principles and practices of the red grade. And we gathered real-world examples from various craftsman and discussed them. Following the Clean Code Developer Red Grade and some annotations from our meetup: CCD Red Grade - Principles Don't Repeat Yourself - DRY Keep It Simple, Stupid (and Short) - KISS Beware of Optimisations! Favour Composition over Inheritance - FCoI Interestingly most of the attendees already heard about those key words but couldn't really classify or categorize them. It's very similar to a situation in which you do not the particular for a thing and have to describe it to others... until someone tells you the actual name and suddenly all is very simple. CCD Red Grade - Practices Follow the Boy Scouts Rule Root Cause Analysis - RCA Use a Version Control System Apply Simple Refactoring Pattern Reflect Daily Introduction to the principles and practices of Clean Code Developer - here: Red Grade As for the various ToDo's we commonly agreed that the Boy Scout Rule clearly is not limited to software development or IT administration but applies to daily life in general. Same for the root cause analysis, btw. We really had good stories with surprisingly endings and conclusions. A quick check about who is using a version control system brought more drive into the conversation. Not only that we had people that aren't using any VCS at all, we also had the 'classic' approach of backup folders and naming conventions as well as the VCS 'junkie' that has to use multiple systems at a time. Just for the records: Git and GitHub seem to be in favour of some of the attendees. Regarding the daily reflection at the end of the day we came up with an easy solution: Wrap it up as a blog entry! Certifications in IT This is kind of a controversy in IT in general. Is it interesting to go for certifications or are they completely obsolete? What are the possibilities to get certified? What are the options we have in Mauritius? How would certificates stand compared to other educational tracks like Computer Science or Web Design. The ratio between craftsmen with certifications like MCP, MSTS, CCNA or LPI versus the ones without wasn't in favour for the first group but there was a high interest in the topic itself and some were really surprised to hear that exam preparations are completely free available online including temporarily voucher codes for either discounts or completely free exams. Furthermore, we discussed possible options on forming so-called study groups on a specific certificates and organising more frequent meetups in order to learn together. Taking into consideration that we have sponsored access to the video course material of Pluralsight (and now PeepCode as well as TrainSignal), we might give it a try by the end of the year. Current favourites are LPIC Level 1 and one of the Microsoft exams 40-78x. Feedback and ideas for the MSCC The closing conversations and discussions about how the MSCC is recently doing, what are the possibilities and what's (hopefully) going to happen in the future were really fertile and I made a couple of mental bullet points which I'm looking forward to tackle down together with orher craftsmen. Eventually, it might be a good option to elaborate on some issues during our weekly Code & Coffee sessions one Wednesday morning. Active discussion on various IT topics like certifications (LPI, MCP, CCNA, etc) and sharing experience Finally, we made it till the end of the planned time. Well, actually the talk was still on and we continued even after 16:00hrs. Unfortunately, we (the children and I) had to leave for evening activities. My resume of the day... It was great to have 15 craftsmen in one room. There are hundreds of IT geeks out there in Mauritius, and as Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community we still have a lot of work to do to pass on the message to some more key players and companies. Currently, it seems that we are able to attract a good number of students in Computer Science... but we have a lot more to offer, even or especially for IT people on the job. I'm already looking forward to our next Saturday meetup in the near future. PS: Meetup pictures are courtesy of Nirvan Pagooah. Thanks for sharing...

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Code Reuse is (Damn) Hard

- by James Michael Hare

Being a development team lead, the task of interviewing new candidates was part of my job. Like any typical interview, we started with some easy questions to get them warmed up and help calm their nerves before hitting the hard stuff. One of those easier questions was almost always: “Name some benefits of object-oriented development.” Nearly every time, the candidate would chime in with a plethora of canned answers which typically included: “it helps ease code reuse.” Of course, this is a gross oversimplification. Tools only ease reuse, its developers that ultimately can cause code to be reusable or not, regardless of the language or methodology. But it did get me thinking… we always used to say that as part of our mantra as to why Object-Oriented Programming was so great. With polymorphism, inheritance, encapsulation, etc. we in essence set up the concepts to help facilitate reuse as much as possible. And yes, as a developer now of many years, I unquestionably held that belief for ages before it really struck me how my views on reuse have jaded over the years. In fact, in many ways Agile rightly eschews reuse as taking a backseat to developing what's needed for the here and now. It used to be I was in complete opposition to that view, but more and more I've come to see the logic in it. Too many times I've seen developers (myself included) get lost in design paralysis trying to come up with the perfect abstraction that would stand all time. Nearly without fail, all of these pieces of code become obsolete in a matter of months or years. It’s not that I don’t like reuse – it’s just that reuse is hard. In fact, reuse is DAMN hard. Many times it is just a distraction that eats up architect and developer time, and worse yet can be counter-productive and force wrong decisions. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of reusable code when it makes sense. These are in the few cases where you are designing something that is inherently reusable. The problem is, most business-class code is inherently unfit for reuse! Furthermore, the code that is reusable will often fail to be reused if you don’t have the proper framework in place for effective reuse that includes standardized versioning, building, releasing, and documenting the components. That should always be standard across the board when promoting reusable code. All of this is hard, and it should only be done when you have code that is truly reusable or you will be exerting a large amount of development effort for very little bang for your buck. But my goal here is not to get into how to reuse (that is a topic unto itself) but what should be reused. First, let’s look at an extension method. There’s many times where I want to kick off a thread to handle a task, then when I want to reign that thread in of course I want to do a Join on it. But what if I only want to wait a limited amount of time and then Abort? Well, I could of course write that logic out by hand each time, but it seemed like a great extension method: 1: public static class ThreadExtensions 2: { 3: public static bool JoinOrAbort(this Thread thread, TimeSpan timeToWait) 4: { 5: bool isJoined = false; 6: 7: if (thread != null) 8: { 9: isJoined = thread.Join(timeToWait); 10: 11: if (!isJoined) 12: { 13: thread.Abort(); 14: } 15: } 16: return isJoined; 17: } 18: } 19: When I look at this code, I can immediately see things that jump out at me as reasons why this code is very reusable. Some of them are standard OO principles, and some are kind-of home grown litmus tests: Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) – The only reason this extension method need change is if the Thread class itself changes (one responsibility). Stable Dependencies Principle (SDP) – This method only depends on classes that are more stable than it is (System.Threading.Thread), and in itself is very stable, hence other classes may safely depend on it. It is also not dependent on any business domain, and thus isn't subject to changes as the business itself changes. Open-Closed Principle (OCP) – This class is inherently closed to change. Small and Stable Problem Domain – This method only cares about System.Threading.Thread. All-or-None Usage – A user of a reusable class should want the functionality of that class, not parts of that functionality. That’s not to say they most use every method, but they shouldn’t be using a method just to get half of its result. Cost of Reuse vs. Cost to Recreate – since this class is highly stable and minimally complex, we can offer it up for reuse very cheaply by promoting it as “ready-to-go” and already unit tested (important!) and available through a standard release cycle (very important!). Okay, all seems good there, now lets look at an entity and DAO. I don’t know about you all, but there have been times I’ve been in organizations that get the grand idea that all DAOs and entities should be standardized and shared. While this may work for small or static organizations, it’s near ludicrous for anything large or volatile. 1: namespace Shared.Entities 2: { 3: public class Account 4: { 5: public int Id { get; set; } 6: 7: public string Name { get; set; } 8: 9: public Address HomeAddress { get; set; } 10: 11: public int Age { get; set;} 12: 13: public DateTime LastUsed { get; set; } 14: 15: // etc, etc, etc... 16: } 17: } 18: 19: ... 20: 21: namespace Shared.DataAccess 22: { 23: public class AccountDao 24: { 25: public Account FindAccount(int id) 26: { 27: // dao logic to query and return account 28: } 29: 30: ... 31: 32: } 33: } Now to be fair, I’m not saying there doesn’t exist an organization where some entites may be extremely static and unchanging. But at best such entities and DAOs will be problematic cases of reuse. Let’s examine those same tests: Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) – The reasons to change for these classes will be strongly dependent on what the definition of the account is which can change over time and may have multiple influences depending on the number of systems an account can cover. Stable Dependencies Principle (SDP) – This method depends on the data model beneath itself which also is largely dependent on the business definition of an account which can be very inherently unstable. Open-Closed Principle (OCP) – This class is not really closed for modification. Every time the account definition may change, you’d need to modify this class. Small and Stable Problem Domain – The definition of an account is inherently unstable and in fact may be very large. What if you are designing a system that aggregates account information from several sources? All-or-None Usage – What if your view of the account encompasses data from 3 different sources but you only care about one of those sources or one piece of data? Should you have to take the hit of looking up all the other data? On the other hand, should you have ten different methods returning portions of data in chunks people tend to ask for? Neither is really a great solution. Cost of Reuse vs. Cost to Recreate – DAOs are really trivial to rewrite, and unless your definition of an account is EXTREMELY stable, the cost to promote, support, and release a reusable account entity and DAO are usually far higher than the cost to recreate as needed. It’s no accident that my case for reuse was a utility class and my case for non-reuse was an entity/DAO. In general, the smaller and more stable an abstraction is, the higher its level of reuse. When I became the lead of the Shared Components Committee at my workplace, one of the original goals we looked at satisfying was to find (or create), version, release, and promote a shared library of common utility classes, frameworks, and data access objects. Now, of course, many of you will point to nHibernate and Entity for the latter, but we were looking at larger, macro collections of data that span multiple data sources of varying types (databases, web services, etc). As we got deeper and deeper in the details of how to manage and release these items, it quickly became apparent that while the case for reuse was typically a slam dunk for utilities and frameworks, the data access objects just didn’t “smell” right. We ended up having session after session of design meetings to try and find the right way to share these data access components. When someone asked me why it was taking so long to iron out the shared entities, my response was quite simple, “Reuse is hard...” And that’s when I realized, that while reuse is an awesome goal and we should strive to make code maintainable, often times you end up creating far more work for yourself than necessary by trying to force code to be reusable that inherently isn’t. Think about classes the times you’ve worked in a company where in the design session people fight over the best way to implement a class to make it maximally reusable, extensible, and any other buzzwordable. Then think about how quickly that design became obsolete. Many times I set out to do a project and think, “yes, this is the best design, I can extend it easily!” only to find out the business requirements change COMPLETELY in such a way that the design is rendered invalid. Code, in general, tends to rust and age over time. As such, writing reusable code can often be difficult and many times ends up being a futile exercise and worse yet, sometimes makes the code harder to maintain because it obfuscates the design in the name of extensibility or reusability. So what do I think are reusable components? Generic Utility classes – these tend to be small classes that assist in a task and have no business context whatsoever. Implementation Abstraction Frameworks – home-grown frameworks that try to isolate changes to third party products you may be depending on (like writing a messaging abstraction layer for publishing/subscribing that is independent of whether you use JMS, MSMQ, etc). Simplification and Uniformity Frameworks – To some extent this is similar to an abstraction framework, but there may be one chosen provider but a development shop mandate to perform certain complex items in a certain way. Or, perhaps to simplify and dumb-down a complex task for the average developer (such as implementing a particular development-shop’s method of encryption). And what are less reusable? Application and Business Layers – tend to fluctuate a lot as requirements change and new features are added, so tend to be an unstable dependency. May be reused across applications but also very volatile. Entities and Data Access Layers – these tend to be tuned to the scope of the application, so reusing them can be hard unless the abstract is very stable. So what’s the big lesson? Reuse is hard. In fact it’s damn hard. And much of the time I’m not convinced we should focus too hard on it. If you’re designing a utility or framework, then by all means design it for reuse. But you most also really set down a good versioning, release, and documentation process to maximize your chances. For anything else, design it to be maintainable and extendable, but don’t waste the effort on reusability for something that most likely will be obsolete in a year or two anyway.

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The Return Of __FILE__ And __LINE__ In .NET 4.5

- by Alois Kraus

Good things are hard to kill. One of the most useful predefined compiler macros in C/C++ were __FILE__ and __LINE__ which do expand to the compilation units file name and line number where this value is encountered by the compiler. After 4.5 versions of .NET we are on par with C/C++ again. It is of course not a simple compiler expandable macro it is an attribute but it does serve exactly the same purpose. Now we do get CallerLineNumberAttribute == __LINE__ CallerFilePathAttribute == __FILE__ CallerMemberNameAttribute == __FUNCTION__ (MSVC Extension) The most important one is CallerMemberNameAttribute which is very useful to implement the INotifyPropertyChanged interface without the need to hard code the name of the property anymore. Now you can simply decorate your change method with the new CallerMemberName attribute and you get the property name as string directly inserted by the C# compiler at compile time. public string UserName { get { return _userName; } set { _userName=value; RaisePropertyChanged(); // no more RaisePropertyChanged(“UserName”)! } } protected void RaisePropertyChanged([CallerMemberName] string member = "") { var copy = PropertyChanged; if(copy != null) { copy(new PropertyChangedEventArgs(this, member)); } } Nice and handy. This was obviously the prime reason to implement this feature in the C# 5.0 compiler. You can repurpose this feature for tracing to get your hands on the method name of your caller along other stuff very fast now. All infos are added during compile time which is much faster than other approaches like walking the stack. The example on MSDN shows the usage of this attribute with an example public static void TraceMessage(string message, [CallerMemberName] string memberName = "", [CallerFilePath] string sourceFilePath = "", [CallerLineNumber] int sourceLineNumber = 0) { Console.WriteLine("Hi {0} {1} {2}({3})", message, memberName, sourceFilePath, sourceLineNumber); } When I do think of tracing I do usually want to have a API which allows me to Trace method enter and leave Trace messages with a severity like Info, Warning, Error When I do print a trace message it is very useful to print out method and type name as well. So your API must either be able to pass the method and type name as strings or extract it automatically via walking back one Stackframe and fetch the infos from there. The first glaring deficiency is that there is no CallerTypeAttribute yet because the C# compiler team was not satisfied with its performance. A usable Trace Api might therefore look like enum TraceTypes { None = 0, EnterLeave = 1 << 0, Info = 1 << 1, Warn = 1 << 2, Error = 1 << 3 } class Tracer : IDisposable { string Type; string Method; public Tracer(string type, string method) { Type = type; Method = method; if (IsEnabled(TraceTypes.EnterLeave,Type, Method)) { } } private bool IsEnabled(TraceTypes traceTypes, string Type, string Method) { // Do checking here if tracing is enabled return false; } public void Info(string fmt, params object[] args) { } public void Warn(string fmt, params object[] args) { } public void Error(string fmt, params object[] args) { } public static void Info(string type, string method, string fmt, params object[] args) { } public static void Warn(string type, string method, string fmt, params object[] args) { } public static void Error(string type, string method, string fmt, params object[] args) { } public void Dispose() { // trace method leave } } This minimal trace API is very fast but hard to maintain since you need to pass in the type and method name as hard coded strings which can change from time to time. But now we have at least CallerMemberName to rid of the explicit method parameter right? Not really. Since any acceptable usable trace Api should have a method signature like Tracexxx(… string fmt, params [] object args) we not able to add additional optional parameters after the args array. If we would put it before the format string we would need to make it optional as well which would mean the compiler would need to figure out what our trace message and arguments are (not likely) or we would need to specify everything explicitly just like before . There are ways around this by providing a myriad of overloads which in the end are routed to the very same method but that is ugly. I am not sure if nobody inside MS agrees that the above API is reasonable to have or (more likely) that the whole talk about you can use this feature for diagnostic purposes was not a core feature at all but a simple byproduct of making the life of INotifyPropertyChanged implementers easier. A way around this would be to allow for variable argument arrays after the params keyword another set of optional arguments which are always filled by the compiler but I do not know if this is an easy one. The thing I am missing much more is the not provided CallerType attribute. But not in the way you would think of. In the API above I did add some filtering based on method and type to stay as fast as possible for types where tracing is not enabled at all. It should be no more expensive than an additional method call and a bool variable check if tracing for this type is enabled at all. The data is tightly bound to the calling type and method and should therefore become part of the static type instance. Since extending the CLR type system for tracing is not something I do expect to happen I have come up with an alternative approach which allows me basically to attach run time data to any existing type object in super fast way. The key to success is the usage of generics. class Tracer<T> : IDisposable { string Method; public Tracer(string method) { if (TraceData<T>.Instance.Enabled.HasFlag(TraceTypes.EnterLeave)) { } } public void Dispose() { if (TraceData<T>.Instance.Enabled.HasFlag(TraceTypes.EnterLeave)) { } } public static void Info(string fmt, params object[] args) { } /// <summary> /// Every type gets its own instance with a fresh set of variables to describe the /// current filter status. /// </summary> /// <typeparam name="T"></typeparam> internal class TraceData<UsingType> { internal static TraceData<UsingType> Instance = new TraceData<UsingType>(); public bool IsInitialized = false; // flag if we need to reinit the trace data in case of reconfigured trace settings at runtime public TraceTypes Enabled = TraceTypes.None; // Enabled trace levels for this type } } We do not need to pass the type as string or Type object to the trace Api. Instead we define a generic Api that accepts the using type as generic parameter. Then we can create a TraceData static instance which is due to the nature of generics a fresh instance for every new type parameter. My tests on my home machine have shown that this approach is as fast as a simple bool flag check. If you have an application with many types using tracing you do not want to bring the app down by simply enabling tracing for one special rarely used type. The trace filter performance for the types which are not enabled must be therefore the fasted code path. This approach has the nice side effect that if you store the TraceData instances in one global list you can reconfigure tracing at runtime safely by simply setting the IsInitialized flag to false. A similar effect can be achieved with a global static Dictionary<Type,TraceData> object but big hash tables have random memory access semantics which is bad for cache locality and you always need to pay for the lookup which involves hash code generation, equality check and an indexed array access. The generic version is wicked fast and allows you to add more features to your tracing Api with minimal perf overhead. But it is cumbersome to write the generic type argument always explicitly and worse if you do refactor code and move parts of it to other classes it might be that you cannot configure tracing correctly. I would like therefore to decorate my type with an attribute [CallerType] class Tracer<T> : IDisposable to tell the compiler to fill in the generic type argument automatically. class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { using (var t = new Tracer()) // equivalent to new Tracer<Program>() { That would be really useful and super fast since you do not need to pass any type object around but you do have full type infos at hand. This change would be breaking if another non generic type exists in the same namespace where now the generic counterpart would be preferred. But this is an acceptable risk in my opinion since you can today already get conflicts if two generic types of the same name are defined in different namespaces. This would be only a variation of this issue. When you do think about this further you can add more features like to trace the exception in your Dispose method if the method is left with an exception with that little trick I did write some time ago. You can think of tracing as a super fast and configurable switch to write data to an output destination or to execute alternative actions. With such an infrastructure you can e.g. Reconfigure tracing at run time. Take a memory dump when a specific method is left with a specific exception. Throw an exception when a specific trace statement is hit (useful for testing error conditions). Execute a passed delegate which e.g. dumps additional state when enabled. Write data to an in memory ring buffer and dump it when specific events do occur (e.g. method is left with an exception, triggered from outside). Write data to an output device. …. This stuff is really useful to have when your code is in production on a mission critical server and you need to find the root cause of sporadic crashes of your application. It could be a buggy graphics card driver which throws access violations into your application (ok with .NET 4 not anymore except if you enable a compatibility flag) where you would like to have a minidump or you have reached after two weeks of operation a state where you need a full memory dump at a specific point in time in the middle of an transaction. At my older machine I do get with this super fast approach 50 million traces/s when tracing is disabled. When I do know that tracing is enabled for this type I can walk the stack by using StackFrameHelper.GetStackFramesInternal to check further if a specific action or output device is configured for this method which is about 2-3 times faster than the regular StackTrace class. Even with one String.Format I am down to 3 million traces/s so performance is not so important anymore since I do want to do something now. The CallerMemberName feature of the C# 5 compiler is nice but I would have preferred to get direct access to the MethodHandle and not to the stringified version of it. But I really would like to see a CallerType attribute implemented to fill in the generic type argument of the call site to augment the static CLR type data with run time data.

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Filtering List Data with a jQuery-searchFilter Plugin

- by Rick Strahl

When dealing with list based data on HTML forms, filtering that data down based on a search text expression is an extremely useful feature. We’re used to search boxes on just about anything these days and HTML forms should be no different. In this post I’ll describe how you can easily filter a list down to just the elements that match text typed into a search box. It’s a pretty simple task and it’s super easy to do, but I get a surprising number of comments from developers I work with who are surprised how easy it is to hook up this sort of behavior, that I thought it’s worth a blog post. But Angular does that out of the Box, right? These days it seems everybody is raving about Angular and the rich SPA features it provides. One of the cool features of Angular is the ability to do drop dead simple filters where you can specify a filter expression as part of a looping construct and automatically have that filter applied so that only items that match the filter show. I think Angular has single handedly elevated search filters to first rate, front-row status because it’s so easy. I love using Angular myself, but Angular is not a generic solution to problems like this. For one thing, using Angular requires you to render the list data with Angular – if you have data that is server rendered or static, then Angular doesn’t work. Not all applications are client side rendered SPAs – not by a long shot, and nor do all applications need to become SPAs. Long story short, it’s pretty easy to achieve text filtering effects using jQuery (or plain JavaScript for that matter) with just a little bit of work. Let’s take a look at an example. Why Filter? Client side filtering is a very useful tool that can make it drastically easier to sift through data displayed in client side lists. In my applications I like to display scrollable lists that contain a reasonably large amount of data, rather than the classic paging style displays which tend to be painful to use. So I often display 50 or so items per ‘page’ and it’s extremely useful to be able to filter this list down. Here’s an example in my Time Trakker application where I can quickly glance at various common views of my time entries. I can see Recent Entries, Unbilled Entries, Open Entries etc and filter those down by individual customers and so forth. Each of these lists results tends to be a few pages worth of scrollable content. The following screen shot shows a filtered view of Recent Entries that match the search keyword of CellPage: As you can see in this animated GIF, the filter is applied as you type, displaying only entries that match the text anywhere inside of the text of each of the list items. This is an immediately useful feature for just about any list display and adds significant value. A few lines of jQuery The good news is that this is trivially simple using jQuery. To get an idea what this looks like, here’s the relevant page layout showing only the search box and the list layout:<div id="divItemWrapper"> <div class="time-entry"> <div class="time-entry-right"> May 11, 2014 - 7:20pm<br /> <span style='color:steelblue'>0h:40min</span><br /> <a id="btnDeleteButton" href="#" class="hoverbutton" data-id="16825"> <img src="images/remove.gif" /> </a> </div> <div class="punchedoutimg"></div> <b><a href='/TimeTrakkerWeb/punchout/16825'>Project Housekeeping</a></b><br /> <small><i>Sawgrass</i></small> </div> ... more items here </div> So we have a searchbox txtSearchPage and a bunch of DIV elements with a .time-entry CSS class attached that makes up the list of items displayed. To hook up the search filter with jQuery is merely a matter of a few lines of jQuery code hooked to the .keyup() event handler: <script type="text/javascript"> $("#txtSearchPage").keyup(function() { var search = $(this).val(); $(".time-entry").show(); if (search) $(".time-entry").not(":contains(" + search + ")").hide(); }); </script> The idea here is pretty simple: You capture the keystroke in the search box and capture the search text. Using that search text you first make all items visible and then hide all the items that don’t match. Since DOM changes are applied after a method finishes execution in JavaScript, the show and hide operations are effectively batched up and so the view changes only to the final list rather than flashing the whole list and then removing items on a slow machine. You get the desired effect of the list showing the items in question. Case Insensitive Filtering But there is one problem with the solution above: The jQuery :contains filter is case sensitive, so your search text has to match expressions explicitly which is a bit cumbersome when typing. In the screen capture above I actually cheated – I used a custom filter that provides case insensitive contains behavior. jQuery makes it really easy to create custom query filters, and so I created one called containsNoCase. Here’s the implementation of this custom filter:$.expr[":"].containsNoCase = function(el, i, m) { var search = m[3]; if (!search) return false; return new RegExp(search, "i").test($(el).text()); }; This filter can be added anywhere where page level JavaScript runs – in page script or a seperately loaded .js file. The filter basically extends jQuery with a : expression. Filters get passed a tokenized array that contains the expression. In this case the m[3] contains the search text from inside of the brackets. A filter basically looks at the active element that is passed in and then can return true or false to determine whether the item should be matched. Here I check a regular expression that looks for the search text in the element’s text. So the code for the filter now changes to:$(".time-entry").not(":containsNoCase(" + search + ")").hide(); And voila – you now have a case insensitive search.You can play around with another simpler example using this Plunkr:http://plnkr.co/edit/hDprZ3IlC6uzwFJtgHJh?p=preview Wrapping it up in a jQuery Plug-in To make this even easier to use and so that you can more easily remember how to use this search type filter, we can wrap this logic into a small jQuery plug-in:(function($, undefined) { $.expr[":"].containsNoCase = function(el, i, m) { var search = m[3]; if (!search) return false; return new RegExp(search, "i").test($(el).text()); }; $.fn.searchFilter = function(options) { var opt = $.extend({ // target selector targetSelector: "", // number of characters before search is applied charCount: 1 }, options); return this.each(function() { var $el = $(this); $el.keyup(function() { var search = $(this).val(); var $target = $(opt.targetSelector); $target.show(); if (search && search.length >= opt.charCount) $target.not(":containsNoCase(" + search + ")").hide(); }); }); }; })(jQuery); To use this plug-in now becomes a one liner:$("#txtSearchPagePlugin").searchFilter({ targetSelector: ".time-entry", charCount: 2}) You attach the .searchFilter() plug-in to the text box you are searching and specify a targetSelector that is to be filtered. Optionally you can specify a character count at which the filter kicks in since it’s kind of useless to filter at a single character typically. Summary This is s a very easy solution to a cool user interface feature your users will thank you for. Search filtering is a simple but highly effective user interface feature, and as you’ve seen in this post it’s very simple to create this behavior with just a few lines of jQuery code. While all the cool kids are doing Angular these days, jQuery is still useful in many applications that don’t embrace the ‘everything generated in JavaScript’ paradigm. I hope this jQuery plug-in or just the raw jQuery will be useful to some of you… Resources Example on Plunker© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2014Posted in jQuery HTML5 JavaScript Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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When was sys.dm_os_wait_stats last cleared?

- by SQLOS Team

The sys.dm_os_wait_stats DMV provides essential metrics for diagnosing SQL Server performance problems. Returning incrementally accumulating information about all the completed waits encountered by executing threads it is a useful way to identify bottlenecks such as IO latency issues or waits on locks. The counters are reset each time SQL server is restarted, or when the following command is run: DBCC SQLPERF ('sys.dm_os_wait_stats', CLEAR); To make sense out of these wait values you need to know how they change over time. Suppose you are asked to troubleshoot a system and you don't know when the wait stats were last zeroed. Is there any way to find the elapsed time since this happened? If the wait stats were not cleared using the DBCC SQLPERF command then you can simply correlate the stats with the time SQL Server was started using the sqlserver_start_time column introduced in SQL Server 2008 R2: SELECT sqlserver_start_time from sys.dm_os_sys_info However how do you tell if someone has run DBCC SQLPERF ('sys.dm_os_wait_stats', CLEAR) since the server was started, and if they did, when? Without this information the initial, or historical, wait_stats have less value until you can measure deltas over time. There is a way to at least estimate when the stats were last cleared, by using the wait stats themselves and choosing a thread that spends most of its time sleeping. A good candidate is the SQL Trace incremental flush task, which mostly sleeps (in 4 second intervals) and in between it attempts to flush (if there are new events – which is rare when only default trace is running) – so it pretty much sleeps all the time. Hence the time it has spent waiting is very close to the elapsed time since the counter was reset. Credit goes to Ivan Penkov in the SQLOS dev team for suggesting this. Here's an example (excuse formatting): 144 seconds after the server was started: select top 10 wait_type, wait_time_ms from sys.dm_os_wait_stats order by wait_time_ms desc wait_type wait_time_ms--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- XE_DISPATCHER_WAIT 242273LAZYWRITER_SLEEP 146010LOGMGR_QUEUE 145412DIRTY_PAGE_POLL 145411XE_TIMER_EVENT 145216REQUEST_FOR_DEADLOCK_SEARCH 145194SQLTRACE_INCREMENTAL_FLUSH_SLEEP 144325SLEEP_TASK 73359BROKER_TO_FLUSH 73113PREEMPTIVE_OS_AUTHENTICATIONOPS 143 (10 rows affected) Reset: DBCC SQLPERF('sys.dm_os_wait_stats', CLEAR)" DBCC execution completed. If DBCC printed error messages, contact your system administrator. After 8 seconds: select top 10 wait_type, wait_time_ms from sys.dm_os_wait_stats order by wait_time_ms desc wait_type wait_time_ms--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- REQUEST_FOR_DEADLOCK_SEARCH 10013LAZYWRITER_SLEEP 8124SQLTRACE_INCREMENTAL_FLUSH_SLEEP 8017LOGMGR_QUEUE 7579DIRTY_PAGE_POLL 7532XE_TIMER_EVENT 5007BROKER_TO_FLUSH 4118SLEEP_TASK 3089PREEMPTIVE_OS_AUTHENTICATIONOPS 28SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD 27 (10 rows affected) After 12 seconds: select top 10 wait_type, wait_time_ms from sys.dm_os_wait_stats order by wait_time_ms desc wait_type wait_time_ms------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ REQUEST_FOR_DEADLOCK_SEARCH 15020LAZYWRITER_SLEEP 14206LOGMGR_QUEUE 14036DIRTY_PAGE_POLL 13973SQLTRACE_INCREMENTAL_FLUSH_SLEEP 12026XE_TIMER_EVENT 10014SLEEP_TASK 7207BROKER_TO_FLUSH 7207PREEMPTIVE_OS_AUTHENTICATIONOPS 57SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD 28 (10 rows affected) It may not be accurate to the millisecond, but it can provide a useful data point, and give an indication whether the wait stats were manually cleared after startup, and if so approximately when. - Guy Originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlosteam/

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Segmentation. strcmp [C]

- by FILIaS

Hello, I have a file with format: [name][number][amount] number is taken as a string. and im using it in a strcmp. Problem is that i get a segmentation fault. I know that on most cases when strcmp signs segmentation fault it means that one of the parameters is null or cant find its "end" ('\0'). I checked with gdb and i cant say if this is the problem.Take a look: > (gdb) bt full > #0 0x08048729 in lookup (hashtable=0x804b008, hashval=27, > number=0x804b740 "6900101001") > list = 0xffffffff > #1 0x080487ac in add (hashtable=0x804b008, > number=0x804b740 "9900101001", name=0x804b730 "Smithpolow", > time=6943) > new_elem = 0xffffffff > hashval = 27 > #2 0x08048b25 in main (argc=1, argv=0xbffff4b4) > number = 0x804b740 "9900101001" > name = 0x804b730 "Smithpolow" > time = 6943 > i = 2 Code: clientsList *lookup_on_Clients(clientsHashTable *hashtable,int hashval,char number[10]) { printf("NUMBER:%s\n",number); clientsList *list=hashtable[hashval].head; for(list; list!=NULL; list=list->next){ if (strcmp(number,list->number)==0) //SEGMENTATION! return list; } return NULL; } int add ( HashTable* hashtable,char number[10],char* name,int time) { List *new_elem; int hashval=hash (hashtable,number); new_elem=hashtable[hashval].head; if(hashtable[hashval].length>0) { if ((lookup (hashtable,hashval,number))!=NULL) {return 0;} } //an den uparxei stoixeio sth lista if (!(new_elem=malloc(sizeof(struct clientsList)))){ return -1;} //insert values for the new elem new_elem->number=strdup(number); new_elem->name=strdup(name); new_elem->time=time; hashtable[hashval].head=new_elem; new_elem->next=NULL; hashtable[hashval].length++; /* rehash existing entries if necessary */ if(hashTableSize(hashtable)>= 2*primes[PrimesIndex]) { hashtable = expand(hashtable); if (hashtable ==NULL){ return 0; } PrimesIndex++; } return 1; } and the main: FILE * File2; if ( ( File2=fopen(" File.txt","r")) !=NULL ) { // File.txt format: [name number time] e.g lountemis 6900254565 700651 int li = 0; char *lin = (char *) malloc(MAX_LINE * sizeof(char)); while(fgets(lin, MAX_LINE, clientFile2) != NULL) { token = my_linetok(lin, " "); if(token != NULL) { char* number ; char* name; int time; int i; for(i = 0; token[i] != NULL; i++) { name=strdup(token[0]); number=strdup(token[1]); time=atoi(token[2]); if (i==2) { int insertDone=0; insertDone =add(my_hash_table,number,name,time); } } free(name); free(number); free(token); } else { printf("Error reading line %s\n", lin); exit(1); } } } else { printf("Error opening file \nEXIT!"); exit(0); }

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Faulty to use memcache together with a php web-browser-game in this way?

- by Crowye

Background We are currently working on a strategy web-browser game based on php, html and javascript. The plan is to have 10,000+ users playing within the same world. Currently we are using memcached to: store json static data, language files store changeable serialized php class objects (such as armies, inventorys, unit-containers, buildings, etc) In the back we have a mysql server running and holding all the game data aswell. When a object is loaded through our ObjectLoader it loads in this order: checks a static hashmap in the script for the object checks memcache if it has already been loaded into it otherwise loads from database, and saves it into memcache and the static temp hashmap We have built the whole game using a class-object-oriented approach where functionality is always made between objects. Beause of this we think we have managed to get a nice structure, and with the help of memcached we have received good request times from client-server when interacting with the game. I'm aware that memcache is not synchronized, and also is not commonly used for holding a full game in memory. In the beginning after a server's startup the load times when loading objects into memcache for the first time will be high, but after the server's been online for a while and most loads are from memcache, the loads will be well reduced. Currently we are saving changed objects into memcache and database at the same time. Earlier we had an idea to save objects into db only after a certain time or at intervals, but due to risk inconsistency if the memcache/server went down, we skipped it for now. Client requests to server often return object's status simple json-format without changing the object, which in turn is represented in the browser visually with images and javascript. But from time to time depending on when an object was last updated, it updates them with new information (e.g. a build-queue holding planned buildings time-progress is increased, and/or planned-queue-items-array has changed). Questions: Do you see how this could work or are we walking in blindness here? Do you expect us to have a lot of inconsistency issues if someone loads and updates the a memcache objects while someone else does the same? Is it even doable to do it in the way he have done it? Seems to be working fine atm, but so far we have only been 4 people online at the same time.. Is some other cache program more fit for this class-object approach than memcached? Is there any other tips you have for this situation? UPDATE Since it is simply a "normal webpage" (no applet, flash, etc), we are implementing the game so that the server is the only one holding a "real game-state".. the state of the different javascript-objects on the client is more like a approximative version of the server's game state. From time to time and before you do certain things important things, the client's visual state is updated to the server's state (e.g. the client things he can afford a barracks, asks the server to build a barracks, server updates current resources according to income-data on server and then tries to build a barracks or casts an error-message, and then sends the current server-state on resources, buildings back to the client).. It is not a fast-paced game lika real strategy game. More like a quite slow 3-4 months playtime game, where buildings can take +1 minute up to several days to complete.

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change value upon select

- by Link

what i'm aiming is to show the other div when it selects one of the two options Full time and Part Time and if possible compute a different value for each When the user selects Part time the value of PrcA will change to PrcB this is the code i used <!====================================================================================> <script language="javascript">  </script> <!====================================================================================> <p> <label for="acct" style="margin-right:90px;"><strong>Account Type<strong><font color=red size=3> * </font></strong></label> <select name="acct" style="background-color:white;" class="validate[custom[serv]] select-input" id="acct" value=""> <option value="Full Time">Full-Time</option> <option value="Part Time">Part-Time</option> <option selected="selected" value=""></option> </select></p> <!====================================================================================> <script> $(document).ready(function() { $("input[name$='acct']").select(function() { var test = $(this).val(); $("div.desc").hide(); $("#acct" + test).show(); }); }); </script> <!====================================================================================> <p> <table><tr><td> <lable style="margin-right:91px;"># of Agent(s)<font color=red size=3> * </font></lable> </td><td> <input style="width:25px; margin-left:5px;" type="text" class="validate[custom[agnt]] text-input" name="qtyA" id="qtyA" onchange="calculate()" /> </td><td> <div id="acctFull Time" class="desc"> x 1280 = </div> <div id="acctPart Time" class="desc" style="display:none"> x 640 = </div> </td><td> $<input style="width:80px; margin-left:5px;" type="text" readonly="readonly" name="totalA" id="totalA" onchange="calculate()" /> </p> </td></tr></table> is there any way for me to achieve this?

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This task is currently locked by a running workflow and cannot be edited. Limitation to both Nintex and SPD workflow

- by ybbest

Note, this post is from Nintex Forum here. These limitations apply to both SharePoint designer Workflow and Nintex Workflow as Nintex using the SharePoint workflow engine. The common cause that I experience is that ‘parent’ workflow is generating more than one task at once. This is common as you can have multiple approvers for certain approval process. You could also have workflow running when the task is created, one of the common scenario is you would like to set a custom column value in your approval task. For me this is huge limitation, as Nintex lover I really hope Nintex could solve this problem with Microsoft going forward. Introduction “This task is currently locked by a running workflow and cannot be edited” is a common message that is seen when an error occurs while the SharePoint workflow engine is processing a task item associated with a workflow. When a workflow processes a task normally, the following sequence of events is expected to occur: 1. The process begins. 2. The workflow places a ‘lock’ on the task so nothing else can change the values while the workflow is processing. 3. The workflow processes the task. 4. The lock is released when the task processing is finished. When the message is encountered, it usually indicates that an error occurred between step 2 and 4. As a result, the lock is never released. Therefore, the ‘task locked’ message is not an error itself, rather a symptom of another error – the ‘task locked’ message does not indicate what went wrong. In most cases, once this message is encountered, the workflow cannot be made to continue and must be terminated and started again. The following is a guide that can help troubleshoot the cause of these messages. Some initial observations to narrow down the potential causes are: Is the error consistent or intermittent? When the error is consistent, it will happen every time the workflow is run. When it is intermittent, it may happen regularly, but not every time. Does the error occur the first time the user tries to respond to a task, or do they respond and notice the workflow does not continue, and when they respond again the error occurs? If the message is present when the user first responds to the task, the issue would have occurred when the task was created. Otherwise, it would have occurred when the user attempted to respond to the task. Causes Modifying the task list A cause of this error appearing consistently the first time a user tries to respond to a task is a modification to the default task list schema. For example, changing the ‘Assigned to’ field in a task list to be a multiple selection will cause the behaviour. Deleting the workflow task then restoring it from the Recycle bin If you start a workflow, delete the workflow task then restore it from the Recycle Bin in SharePoint, the workflow will fail with the ‘task locked’ error. This is confirmed behaviour whether using a SharePoint Designer or a Nintex workflow. You will need to terminate the workflow and start it again. Parallel simultaneous responses A cause of this error appearing inconsistently is multiple users responding to tasks in parallel at the same time. In this scenario, one task will complete correctly and the other will not process. When the user tries again, the ‘task locked’ message will display. Nintex included a workaround for this issue in build 11000. In build 11000 and later, one of the users will receive a message on the task form when they attempt to respond, stating that they need to try again in a few moments. Additional processing on the task A cause of this error appearing consistently and inconsistently is having an additional system running on the items in the task list. Some examples include: a workflow running on the task list, an event receiver running on the task list or another automated process querying and updating workflow tasks. Note: This Microsoft help article (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA102376561033.aspx#5) explains creating a workflow that runs on the task list to update a field on the task. Our experience shows that this causes the ‘Task Locked’ issues when the ‘parent’ workflow is generating more than one task at once. Isolated system error If the error is a rare event, or a ‘one off’ event, then an isolated system error may have occurred. For example, if there is a database connectivity issue while the workflow is processing the task response, the task will lock. In this case, the user will respond to a task but the workflow will not continue. When they respond again, the ‘task locked’ message will display. In this case, there will be an error in the SharePoint ULS Logs at the time that the user originally responded. Temporary delay while workflow processes If the workflow is taking a long time to process after a user submits a task, they may notice and try to respond to the task again. They will see the task locked error, but after a number of attempts (or after waiting some time) the task response page eventually indicates the task has been responded to. In this case, nothing actually went wrong, and the error message gives an accurate indication of what is happening – the workflow temporarily locked the task while it was processing. This scenario may occur in a very large workflow, or after the SharePoint application pool has just started. Modifying the task via a web service with an invalid url If the Nintex Workflow web service is used to respond to or delegate a task, the site context part of the url must be a valid alternative access mapping url. For example, if you access the web service via the IP address of the SharePoint server, and the IP address is not a valid AAM, the task can become locked. The workflow has become stuck without any apparent errors This behaviour can occur as a result of a bug in the SharePoint 2010 workflow engine. If you do not have the August 2010 Cumulative Update (or later) for SharePoint, and your workflow uses delays, “Flexi-task”, State machine”, “Task Reminder” actions or variables, you could be affected. Check the SharePoint 2010 Updates site here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ff800847. The October CU is recommended http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2553031. The fix is described as “Consider the following scenario. You add a Delay activity to a workflow. Then, you set the duration for the Delay activity. You deploy the workflow in SharePoint Foundation 2010. In this scenario, the workflow is not resumed after the duration of the Delay activity”. If you find this is occurring in your environment, install the October CU, terminate all the running workflows affected and run them afresh. Investigative steps The first step to isolate the issue is to create a new task list on the site and configure the workflow to use it. Any customizations that were made to the original task list should not be made to the new task list. If the new task list eliminates the issue, then the cause can be attributed to the original task list or a change that was made to it. To change the task list that the workflow uses: In Workflow Designer select Settings -> Startup Options Then configure the task list as required If any of the scenarios above do not help, check the SharePoint logs for any messages with a category of ‘Workflow Infrastructure’. Conclusion The information in this article has been gathered from observations and investigations by Nintex. The sources of these issues are the underlying SharePoint workflow engine. This article will be updated if further causes are discovered. From <http://connect.nintex.com/forums/thread/6503.aspx>

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Adding DTrace Probes to PHP Extensions

- by cj

The powerful DTrace tracing facility has some PHP-specific probes that can be enabled with --enable-dtrace. DTrace for Linux is being created by Oracle and is currently in tech preview. Currently it doesn't support userspace tracing so, in the meantime, Systemtap can be used to monitor the probes implemented in PHP. This was recently outlined in David Soria Parra's post Probing PHP with Systemtap on Linux. My post shows how DTrace probes can be added to PHP extensions and traced on Linux. I was using Oracle Linux 6.3. Not all Linux kernels are built with Systemtap, since this can impact stability. Check whether your running kernel (or others installed) have Systemtap enabled, and reboot with such a kernel: # grep CONFIG_UTRACE /boot/config-`uname -r` # grep CONFIG_UTRACE /boot/config-* When you install Systemtap itself, the package systemtap-sdt-devel is needed since it provides the sdt.h header file: # yum install systemtap-sdt-devel You can now install and build PHP as shown in David's article. Basically the build is with: $ cd ~/php-src $ ./configure --disable-all --enable-dtrace $ make (For me, running 'make' a second time failed with an error. The workaround is to do 'git checkout Zend/zend_dtrace.d' and then rerun 'make'. See PHP Bug 63704) David's article shows how to trace the probes already implemented in PHP. You can also use Systemtap to trace things like userspace PHP function calls. For example, create test.php: <?php $c = oci_connect('hr', 'welcome', 'localhost/orcl'); $s = oci_parse($c, "select dbms_xmlgen.getxml('select * from dual') xml from dual"); $r = oci_execute($s); $row = oci_fetch_array($s, OCI_NUM); $x = $row[0]->load(); $row[0]->free(); echo $x; ?> The normal output of this file is the XML form of Oracle's DUAL table: $ ./sapi/cli/php ~/test.php <?xml version="1.0"?> <ROWSET> <ROW> <DUMMY>X</DUMMY> </ROW> </ROWSET> To trace the PHP function calls, create the tracing file functrace.stp: probe process("sapi/cli/php").function("zif_*") { printf("Started function %s\n", probefunc()); } probe process("sapi/cli/php").function("zif_*").return { printf("Ended function %s\n", probefunc()); } This makes use of the way PHP userspace functions (not builtins) like oci_connect() map to C functions with a "zif_" prefix. Login as root, and run System tap on the PHP script: # cd ~cjones/php-src # stap -c 'sapi/cli/php ~cjones/test.php' ~cjones/functrace.stp Started function zif_oci_connect Ended function zif_oci_connect Started function zif_oci_parse Ended function zif_oci_parse Started function zif_oci_execute Ended function zif_oci_execute Started function zif_oci_fetch_array Ended function zif_oci_fetch_array Started function zif_oci_lob_load <?xml version="1.0"?> <ROWSET> <ROW> <DUMMY>X</DUMMY> </ROW> </ROWSET> Ended function zif_oci_lob_load Started function zif_oci_free_descriptor Ended function zif_oci_free_descriptor Each call and return is logged. The Systemtap scripting language allows complex scripts to be built. There are many examples on the web. To augment this generic capability and the PHP probes in PHP, other extensions can have probes too. Below are the steps I used to add probes to OCI8: I created a provider file ext/oci8/oci8_dtrace.d, enabling three probes. The first one will accept a parameter that runtime tracing can later display: provider php { probe oci8__connect(char *username); probe oci8__nls_start(); probe oci8__nls_done(); }; I updated ext/oci8/config.m4 with the PHP_INIT_DTRACE macro. The patch is at the end of config.m4. The macro takes the provider prototype file, a name of the header file that 'dtrace' will generate, and a list of sources files with probes. When --enable-dtrace is used during PHP configuration, then the outer $PHP_DTRACE check is true and my new probes will be enabled. I've chosen to define an OCI8 specific macro, HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE, which can be used in the OCI8 source code: diff --git a/ext/oci8/config.m4 b/ext/oci8/config.m4 index 34ae76c..f3e583d 100644 --- a/ext/oci8/config.m4 +++ b/ext/oci8/config.m4 @@ -341,4 +341,17 @@ if test "$PHP_OCI8" != "no"; then PHP_SUBST_OLD(OCI8_ORACLE_VERSION) fi + + if test "$PHP_DTRACE" = "yes"; then + AC_CHECK_HEADERS([sys/sdt.h], [ + PHP_INIT_DTRACE([ext/oci8/oci8_dtrace.d], + [ext/oci8/oci8_dtrace_gen.h],[ext/oci8/oci8.c]) + AC_DEFINE(HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE,1, + [Whether to enable DTrace support for OCI8 ]) + ], [ + AC_MSG_ERROR( + [Cannot find sys/sdt.h which is required for DTrace support]) + ]) + fi + fi In ext/oci8/oci8.c, I added the probes at, for this example, semi-arbitrary places: diff --git a/ext/oci8/oci8.c b/ext/oci8/oci8.c index e2241cf..ffa0168 100644 --- a/ext/oci8/oci8.c +++ b/ext/oci8/oci8.c @@ -1811,6 +1811,12 @@ php_oci_connection *php_oci_do_connect_ex(char *username, int username_len, char } } +#ifdef HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE + if (DTRACE_OCI8_CONNECT_ENABLED()) { + DTRACE_OCI8_CONNECT(username); + } +#endif + /* Initialize global handles if they weren't initialized before */ if (OCI_G(env) == NULL) { php_oci_init_global_handles(TSRMLS_C); @@ -1870,11 +1876,22 @@ php_oci_connection *php_oci_do_connect_ex(char *username, int username_len, char size_t rsize = 0; sword result; +#ifdef HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE + if (DTRACE_OCI8_NLS_START_ENABLED()) { + DTRACE_OCI8_NLS_START(); + } +#endif PHP_OCI_CALL_RETURN(result, OCINlsEnvironmentVariableGet, (&charsetid_nls_lang, 0, OCI_NLS_CHARSET_ID, 0, &rsize)); if (result != OCI_SUCCESS) { charsetid_nls_lang = 0; } smart_str_append_unsigned_ex(&hashed_details, charsetid_nls_lang, 0); + +#ifdef HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE + if (DTRACE_OCI8_NLS_DONE_ENABLED()) { + DTRACE_OCI8_NLS_DONE(); + } +#endif } timestamp = time(NULL); The oci_connect(), oci_pconnect() and oci_new_connect() calls all use php_oci_do_connect_ex() internally. The first probe simply records that the PHP application made a connection call. I already showed a way to do this without needing a probe, but adding a specific probe lets me record the username. The other two probes can be used to time how long the globalization initialization takes. The relationships between the oci8_dtrace.d names like oci8__connect, the probe guards like DTRACE_OCI8_CONNECT_ENABLED() and probe names like DTRACE_OCI8_CONNECT() are obvious after seeing the pattern of all three probes. I included the new header that will be automatically created by the dtrace tool when PHP is built. I did this in ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h: diff --git a/ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h b/ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h index b0d6516..c81fc5a 100644 --- a/ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h +++ b/ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h @@ -44,6 +44,10 @@ # endif # endif /* osf alpha */ +#ifdef HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE +#include "oci8_dtrace_gen.h" +#endif + #if defined(min) #undef min #endif Now PHP can be rebuilt: $ cd ~/php-src $ rm configure && ./buildconf --force $ ./configure --disable-all --enable-dtrace \ --with-oci8=instantclient,/home/cjones/instantclient $ make If 'make' fails, do the 'git checkout Zend/zend_dtrace.d' trick I mentioned. The new probes can be seen by logging in as root and running: # stap -l 'process.provider("php").mark("oci8*")' -c 'sapi/cli/php -i' process("sapi/cli/php").provider("php").mark("oci8__connect") process("sapi/cli/php").provider("php").mark("oci8__nls_done") process("sapi/cli/php").provider("php").mark("oci8__nls_start") To test them out, create a new trace file, oci.stp: global numconnects; global start; global numcharlookups = 0; global tottime = 0; probe process.provider("php").mark("oci8-connect") { printf("Connected as %s\n", user_string($arg1)); numconnects += 1; } probe process.provider("php").mark("oci8-nls_start") { start = gettimeofday_us(); numcharlookups++; } probe process.provider("php").mark("oci8-nls_done") { tottime += gettimeofday_us() - start; } probe end { printf("Connects: %d, Charset lookups: %ld\n", numconnects, numcharlookups); printf("Total NLS charset initalization time: %ld usecs/connect\n", (numcharlookups 0 ? tottime/numcharlookups : 0)); } This calculates the average time that the NLS character set lookup takes. It also prints out the username of each connection, as an example of using parameters. Login as root and run Systemtap over the PHP script: # cd ~cjones/php-src # stap -c 'sapi/cli/php ~cjones/test.php' ~cjones/oci.stp Connected as cj <?xml version="1.0"?> <ROWSET> <ROW> <DUMMY>X</DUMMY> </ROW> </ROWSET> Connects: 1, Charset lookups: 1 Total NLS charset initalization time: 164 usecs/connect This shows the time penalty of making OCI8 look up the default character set. This time would be zero if a character set had been passed as the fourth argument to oci_connect() in test.php.

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How do you find local fellow programmers?

- by Pepijn

I'm a self-tought programmer living in a small town. Except for the occasional meetups at the other end of the country, I rarely talk face-to-face with other programmers. I'm well aware of the merits of pair programming, feedback, discussion with other programmers and all... What do you do to get in contact with other local programmers? p.s. If you live near Loenen (gld), Netherlands, I'd like to have contact ;)

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SQLAuthority News – Don’t Be Afraid To Fool The World – Video by John Sonmez

- by Pinal Dave

Sometime some words and statements grabs your attention and it is hard to stop thinking about that after a while. Something similar happened a few days ago when I read the twitter statement of my friend and Pluralsight author John Sonmez. He twitted few days ago very interesting statement. “I don’t know a single successful person, who doesn’t deep down think that have the world fooled. #fooltheworld” by John Sonmez. When I read it, I was extremely intrigued by this statement. I read it many times, I shared with my family and I just could not stop interpreting this statement. It was indeed fun to read it again and again and there are so many different meanings one can take away from the statement. I know John very well, he is a wonderful person and have very positive energy for the life. I just had to request him to build a video around it. Right after 5 days of my request, John created a wonderful video around this subject. I watched it multiple times as it was a wonderful video. I am not going to write about what was in the video much as I suggest you to watch the video itself. Here is one of the personal stories I want to share which is absolutely relevant to this video. I think my story 100% resonant the story of John. A Real Story from My Past Three years ago, I submitted a session in one of the SharePoint conference as a SQL Server session. My session was accepted and I prepared it very well. I put more than 2 month’s time to prepare for the session and I was very excited to present the session. I reached to the event place traveling thousands of the miles and I was very much excited to present the session. However, there was a little mixed up in the session. There were multiple session which were similar to my session title. One of the other speakers also had proposed a database related session and was selected. When the material went to print the printing team got confused and by mistake swapped the sessions. The other speaker got Performance with SQL Server session and I had received Performance with SharePoint session. IT was indeed a big mixed up but now that is how it was in the event guide and it was marketed the same way everything in the event. A Big Mix Up I had to talk with the event organizer and we come to the conclusion that we all had good intention but things just got mixed up and now was the time when “The show must go on“. I had a great amount of hesitation to go and present the session as I had personally never worked with Sharepoint so close in my life and my session abstracted talked about SharePoint tricks in depth. Two hours before the session I took the help of one of my friend and installed the SharePoint on my box. He showed me a few things here and there but it was never a good enough time to learn everything which I wanted to learn. The Moments of Confidence I was very scared and nervous to go on the stage as a SharePoint was not something I felt comfortable. However, I decided to go on stage with confidence as a SharePoint expert. Though I did not know SharePoint at the best, I had confidence that whatever I know is correct and I will not misguide people. I had no intention to fool people but I had no intention to accept that I am a fool and you all wasted your time and money to dedicate your time to attend my session. I decided to be honest but at the same time decided to take the session beyond my expertise. The sixty minutes of the session went very fine and I was able to manage all the difficult question at a satisfactory level. When the session was over my feeling was that I would have not presented or talked any different if I had more knowledge of the SharePoint at that time. I think it was one of my best sessions and it was reflected in the session feedback as well. I was the best speaker across all the track and my session had highest ranking. I was delighted and I learned a very valuable lesson. I must go beyond my limits and knowledge. I must aim higher and work harder. I should not lie but I should have confidence that I have a good heart and I put 100% in my efforts. Lessions Learned Since this incident I have learned a lot about SharePoint and I am now a regular speaker at various SharePoint conferences along with SQL Server sessions. I am motivated and I am not afraid. I know people have lots of expectation from me but I have learned not to judge myself before I do my best. I leave the judgement of my efforts to my audience. I do not take the burden of the feedback on me, even though I know my audience have expected from me. I know what I know and I put my best. I must go out, if I fail, I learn from my mistake but I must keep my progress trajectory very high. As John said in the video, sometime success is not something we can achieve 100% but we can keep on going near to it. As long as we do not lose our focus from our goal and do not deviate from our progress path, we are doing things right. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: About Me, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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A Visual Studio tool eliminating the need to rewrite for web and mobile

- by Visual WebGui

We have already covered the BYOD requirements that an application developer is faced with, in an earlier blog entry ( How to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) to a .NET application ). In that entry we emphasized the fact that application developers will need to prepare their applications for serving multiple types of devices on multiple platforms, ranging from the smallest mobile devices up to and beyond the largest desktop devices. The experts prediction is that in the near future we will see that the...(read more)

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Surface development: it’s just like software development

- by Dennis Vroegop

Surface is magic. Everyone using it seems to think that way. And I have to be honest, after working for almost 2 years with the platform I still get that special feeling the moment I turn on the unit to do some more work. The whole user experience, the rich environment of the SDK, the touch, even the look and feel of the Surface environment is so much different from the stuff I’ve been working on all my career that I am still bewildered by it. But… and this is a big but.. in the end we’re still talking about a computer and that needs software to become useful. Deep down the magic of the Surface unit there is a PC somewhere, running Windows Vista and the .net framework 3.5. When you write that magic software that makes the platform come alive you’re still working with .net, WPF/XNA, C#, VB.Net and all those other tools and technologies you know so well. Sure, the whole user experience is different from what you’ve known. And the way of thinking about users, their interaction and the positioning of screen elements requires a whole new paradigm. And that takes time. It took me about half a year before I had the feeling I got it nailed down. But when that moment came (about 18 months ago…) I realized that everything I had learned so far on software development still is true when it comes to Surface. The last 6 months I have been working with some people with a different background to start a new company. The idea was that the new company would be focussing on Surface and Surface only. These people come from a marketing background and had some good ideas for some applications. And I have to admit: their ideas were good. Very good. Where it all fell down of course is that these ideas need to be implemented in a piece of software. And creating great software takes skilled developers and a lot of time and money. That’s where things went wrong: the marketing guys didn’t realize and didn’t want to realize that software development is a job that takes skill. You can’t just hire a bunch of developers and expect them to deliver the best sort of software, especially not when it comes to Surface. I tried to explain that yes, their User Interface in Photoshop looked great, but no: I couldn’t develop an application like that in a weeks time. Even worse: the while backend of the software (WCF for communications, SQL Server for the database, etc) would take a lot more time than the frontend. They didn’t understand. It took them a couple of days to drawn the UI in Photoshop so in Blend I should be able to build the software in about the same amount of time. Well, you and I know that it doesn’t work that way. Software is hard to write, and even harder to write well, and it takes skill and dedication. It’s not something you can do as fast as you can draw a mock up for a Surface application in Photohop. The same holds true for web applications of course. A lot of designers there fail to appreciate the hard work that goes into writing the plumbing for a good web app that can handle thousands of users. Although the UI is very important, it’s not all there is to it. And in Surface development this is the same. The UI should create the feeling of magic, but the software behind it is what makes it come alive. And that takes time. A lot of time. So brush of you skills and don’t throw them away if you start developing for Surface. Because projects (and colaborations) can fail there as hard as they can in any other area of software development. On a side note: we decided to stop the colaboration (something the other parties involved didn’t appreciate and were very angry about) and decided to hire a designer for the Surface projects. The focus is back where it belongs: on the software development we know so well and have been doing very well for 13 years. UI is just a part of the whole project and not the end product. So my company Detrio is still going strong when it comes to develivering Surface solutions but once again from a technological background, not a marketing background.

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Codeigniter benchmarking, where are these ms coming from?

- by ropstah

I'm in the process of benchmarking my website. class Home extends Controller { function Home() { parent::Controller(); $this->benchmark->mark('Constructor_start'); $this->output->enable_profiler(TRUE); $this->load->library ('MasterPage'); $this->benchmark->mark('Constructor_end'); } function index() { $this->benchmark->mark('Index_start'); $this->masterpage->setMasterPage('master/home'); $this->masterpage->addContent('home/index', 'page'); $this->masterpage->show(); $this->benchmark->mark('Index_start'); } } These are the results: Loading Time Base Classes: 0.0076 Constructor: 0.0007 Index: 0.0440 Controller Execution Time ( Home/ Index ): 0.4467 Total Execution Time: 0.4545` I understand the following: Loading Time Base Classes (0.0076) Constructor (0.0007) Index (0.0440) But where is the rest of the time coming from?

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