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• Failure Sucks, But Does It Have To?

  - by steve.diamond

  Hey Folks--It's "elephant in the room" time. Imagine a representative from a CRM VENDOR discussing CRM FAILURES. Well. I recently saw this blog post from Michael Krigsman on "six ways CRM projects go wrong." Now, I know this may come off defensive, but my comments apply to ALL CRM vendors, not just Oracle. As I perused the list, I couldn't find any failures related to technology. They all seemed related to people or process. Now, this isn't about finger pointing, or impugning customers. I love customers! And when they fail, WE fail. Although I sit in the cheap seats, i.e., I haven't funded any multi-million dollar CRM initiatives lately, I kept wondering how to convert the perception of failure as something that ends and is never to be mentioned again (see Michael's reason #4), to something that one learns from and builds upon. So to continue my tradition of speaking in platitudes, let me propose the following three tenets: 1) Try and get ahead of your failures while they're very very small. 2) Immediately assess what you can learn from those failures. 3) With more than 15 years of CRM deployments, seek out those vendors that have a track record both in learning from "misses" and in supporting MANY THOUSANDS of CRM successes at companies of all types and sizes. Now let me digress briefly with an unpleasant (for me, anyway) analogy. I really don't like flying. Call it 'fear of dying' or 'fear of no control.' Whatever! I've spoken with quite a few commercial pilots over the years, and they reassure me that there are multiple failures on most every flight. We as passengers just don't know about them. Most of them are too miniscule to make a difference, and most of them are "caught" before they become LARGER failures. It's typically the mid-sized to colossal failures we hear about, and a significant percentage of those are due to human error. What's the point? I'd propose that organizations consider the topic of FAILURE in five grades. On one end, FAILURE Grade 1 is a minor/miniscule failure. On the other end, FAILURE Grade 5 is a colossal failure A Grade 1 CRM FAILURE could be that a particular interim milestone was missed. Why? What can we learn from that? How can we prevent that from happening as we proceed through the project? Individual organizations will need to define their own Grade 2 and Grade 3 failures. The opportunity is to keep those Grade 3 failures from escalating any further. Because honestly, a GRADE 5 failure may not be recoverable. It could result in a project being pulled, countless amounts of hours and dollars lost, and jobs lost. We don't want to go there. In closing, I want to thank Michael for opening my eyes up to the world of "color," versus thinking of failure as both "black and white" and a dead end road that organizations can't learn from and avoid discussing like the plague.

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• SQL SERVER – ASYNC_IO_COMPLETION – Wait Type – Day 11 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  For any good system three things are vital: CPU, Memory and IO (disk). Among these three, IO is the most crucial factor of SQL Server. Looking at real-world cases, I do not see IT people upgrading CPU and Memory frequently. However, the disk is often upgraded for either improving the space, speed or throughput. Today we will look at another IO-related wait type. From Book On-Line: Occurs when a task is waiting for I/Os to finish. ASYNC_IO_COMPLETION Explanation: Any tasks are waiting for I/O to finish. If by any means your application that’s connected to SQL Server is processing the data very slowly, this type of wait can occur. Several long-running database operations like BACKUP, CREATE DATABASE, ALTER DATABASE or other operations can also create this wait type. Reducing ASYNC_IO_COMPLETION wait: When it is an issue related to IO, one should check for the following things associated to IO subsystem: Look at the programming and see if there is any application code which processes the data slowly (like inefficient loop, etc.). Note that it should be re-written to avoid this  wait type. Proper placing of the files is very important. We should check the file system for proper placement of the files – LDF and MDF on separate drive, TempDB on another separate drive, hot spot tables on separate filegroup (and on separate disk), etc. Check the File Statistics and see if there is a higher IO Read and IO Write Stall SQL SERVER – Get File Statistics Using fn_virtualfilestats. Check event log and error log for any errors or warnings related to IO. If you are using SAN (Storage Area Network), check the throughput of the SAN system as well as configuration of the HBA Queue Depth. In one of my recent projects, the SAN was performing really badly and so the SAN administrator did not accept it. After some investigations, he agreed to change the HBA Queue Depth on the development setup (test environment). As soon as we changed the HBA Queue Depth to quite a higher value, there was a sudden big improvement in the performance. It is very likely to happen that there are no proper indexes on the system and yet there are lots of table scans and heap scans. Creating proper index can reduce the IO bandwidth considerably. If SQL Server can use appropriate cover index instead of clustered index, it can effectively reduce lots of CPU, Memory and IO (considering cover index has lesser columns than cluster table and all other; it depends upon the situation). You can refer to the following two articles I wrote that talk about how to optimize indexes: Create Missing Indexes Drop Unused Indexes Checking Memory Related Perfmon Counters SQLServer: Memory Manager\Memory Grants Pending (Consistent higher value than 0-2) SQLServer: Memory Manager\Memory Grants Outstanding (Consistent higher value, Benchmark) SQLServer: Buffer Manager\Buffer Hit Cache Ratio (Higher is better, greater than 90% for usually smooth running system) SQLServer: Buffer Manager\Page Life Expectancy (Consistent lower value than 300 seconds) Memory: Available Mbytes (Information only) Memory: Page Faults/sec (Benchmark only) Memory: Pages/sec (Benchmark only) Checking Disk Related Perfmon Counters Average Disk sec/Read (Consistent higher value than 4-8 millisecond is not good) Average Disk sec/Write (Consistent higher value than 4-8 millisecond is not good) Average Disk Read/Write Queue Length (Consistent higher value than benchmark is not good) Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Note: The information presented here is from my experience and there is no way that I claim it to be accurate. I suggest reading Book OnLine for further clarification. All the discussions of Wait Stats in this blog are generic and vary from system to system. It is recommended that you test this on a development server before implementing it to a production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• Validating Petabytes of Data with Regularity and Thoroughness

  - by rickramsey

  by Brian Zents When former Intel CEO Andy Grove said “only the paranoid survive,” he wasn’t necessarily talking about tape storage administrators, but it’s a lesson they’ve learned well. After all, tape storage is the last line of defense to prevent data loss, so tape administrators are extra cautious in making sure their data is secure. Not surprisingly, we are often asked for ways to validate tape media and the files on them. In the past, an administrator could validate the media, but doing so was often tedious or disruptive or both. The debut of the Data Integrity Validation (DIV) and Library Media Validation (LMV) features in the Oracle T10000C drive helped eliminate many of these pains. Also available with the Oracle T10000D drive, these features use hardware-assisted CRC checks that not only ensure the data is written correctly the first time, but also do so much more efficiently. Traditionally, a CRC check takes at least 25 seconds per 4GB file with a 2:1 compression ratio, but the T10000C/D drives can reduce the check to a maximum of nine seconds because the entire check is contained within the drive. No data needs to be sent to a host application. A time savings of at least 64 percent is extremely beneficial over the course of checking an entire 8.5TB T10000D tape. While the DIV and LMV features are better than anything else out there, what storage administrators really need is a way to check petabytes of data with regularity and thoroughness. With the launch of Oracle StorageTek Tape Analytics (STA) 2.0 in April, there is finally a solution that addresses this longstanding need. STA bundles these features into one interface to automate all media validation activities across all Oracle SL3000 and SL8500 tape libraries in an environment. And best of all, the validation process can be associated with the health checks an administrator would be doing already through STA. In fact, STA validates the media based on any of the following policies: Random Selection – Randomly selects media for validation whenever a validation drive in the standalone library or library complex is available. Media Health = Action – Selects media that have had a specified number of successive exchanges resulting in an Exchange Media Health of “Action.” You can specify from one to five exchanges. Media Health = Evaluate – Selects media that have had a specified number of successive exchanges resulting in an Exchange Media Health of “Evaluate.” You can specify from one to five exchanges. Media Health = Monitor – Selects media that have had a specified number of successive exchanges resulting in an Exchange Media Health of “Monitor.” You can specify from one to five exchanges. Extended Period of Non-Use – Selects media that have not had an exchange for a specified number of days. You can specify from 365 to 1,095 days (one to three years). Newly Entered – Selects media that have recently been entered into the library. Bad MIR Detected – Selects media with an exchange resulting in a “Bad MIR Detected” error. A bad media information record (MIR) indicates degraded high-speed access on the media. To avoid disrupting host operations, an administrator designates certain drives for media validation operations. If a host requests a file from media currently being validated, the host’s request takes priority. To ensure that the administrator really knows it is the media that is bad, as opposed to the drive, STA includes drive calibration and qualification features. In addition, validation requests can be re-prioritized or cancelled as needed. To ensure that a specific tape isn’t validated too often, STA prevents a tape from being validated twice within 24 hours via one of the policies described above. A tape can be validated more often if the administrator manually initiates the validation. When the validations are complete, STA reports the results. STA does not report simply a “good” or “bad” status. It also reports if media is even degraded so the administrator can migrate the data before there is a true failure. From that point, the administrators’ paranoia is relieved, as they have the necessary information to make a sound decision about the health of the tapes in their environment. About the Photograph Photograph taken by Rick Ramsey in Death Valley, California, May 2014 - Brian Follow OTN Garage on: Web | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

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• Measuring ASP.NET and SharePoint output cache

  - by DigiMortal

  During ASP.NET output caching week in my local blog I wrote about how to measure ASP.NET output cache. As my posting was based on real work and real-life results then I thought that this posting is maybe interesting to you too. So here you can read what I did, how I did and what was the result. Introduction Caching is not effective without measuring it. As MVP Henn Sarv said in one of his sessions then you will get what you measure. And right he is. Lately I measured caching on local Microsoft community portal to make sure that our caching strategy is good enough in environment where this system lives. In this posting I will show you how to start measuring the cache of your web applications. Although the application measured is built on SharePoint Server publishing infrastructure, all those counters have same meaning as similar counters under pure ASP.NET applications. Measured counters I used Performance Monitor and the following performance counters (their names are similar on ASP.NET and SharePoint WCMS): Total number of objects added – how much objects were added to output cache. Total object discards – how much objects were deleted from output cache. Cache hit count – how many times requests were served by cache. Cache hit ratio – percent of requests served from cache. The first three counters are cumulative while last one is coefficient. You can use also other counters to measure the full effect of caching (memory, processor, disk I/O, network load etc before and after caching). Measuring process The measuring I describe here started from freshly restarted web server. I measured application during 12 hours that covered also time ranges when users are most active. The time range does not include late evening hours and night because there is nothing to measure during these hours. During measuring we performed no maintenance or administrative tasks on server. All tasks performed were related to usual daily content management and content monitoring. Also we had no advertisement campaigns or other promotions running at same time. The results You can see the results on following graphic.   Total number of objects added   Total object discards   Cache hit count   Cache hit ratio You can see that adds and discards are growing in same tempo. It is good because cache expires and not so popular items are not kept in memory. If there are more popular content then the these lines may have bigger distance between them. Cache hit count grows faster and this shows that more and more content is served from cache. In current case it shows that cache is filled optimally and we can do even better if we tune caches more. The site contains also pages that are discarded when some subsite changes (page was added/modified/deleted) and one modification may affect about four or five pages. This may also decrease cache hit count because during day the site gets about 5-10 new pages. Cache hit ratio is currently extremely good. The suggested minimum is about 85% but after some tuning and measuring I achieved 98.7% as a result. This is due to the fact that new pages are most often requested and after new pages are added the older ones are requested only sometimes. So they get discarded from cache and only some of these will return sometimes back to cache. Although this may also indicate the need for additional SEO work the result is very well in technical means. Conclusion Measuring ASP.NET output cache is not complex thing to do and you can start by measuring performance of cache as a start. Later you can move on and measure caching effect to other counters such as disk I/O, network, processors etc. What you have to achieve is optimal cache that is not full of items asked only couple of times per day (you can avoid this by not using too long cache durations). After some tuning you should be able to boost cache hit ratio up to at least 85%.

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• Knowledge Pathways Designer - Recommended Settings

  - by ted.henson

  The General page of the Options dialog box contains the application preferences for Knowledge Pathways Designer. It is recommended that you leave certain settings as they are, unless you have a specific reason for changing them. The following are a few of the settings on the General page with an explanation of the recommended setting. They are in the order they appear on the page: Allow version 2.0 style links: This option should remain disabled unless you were using content that was created using version 2.0 of Knowledge Pathways and you want the same linking functionality that existed in that version 2.0. This feature enables you to reuse parts of titles that contain no AUs. However, keep in mind that this type of link is not a true link, but a cross between a copy and a link. To create a 2.0 style link, you drag and drop sections between titles. You can only create 2.0 style links to sections that belong to the Title AU. When creating a version 2.0 style link, your mouse pointer will change to indicate a 2.0 link is being created. Confirm deletion of outline items and Confirm deletion of titles: It is recommended that these options remain enabled to avoid deleting something by accident. Display tracking data loss warning when opening a published title: It recommended that this option be enabled so you will receive the warning message when you open the development copy of a title, reminding you of the implications of your changes. ulCopy files when converting a Section to an Assignable Unit: This option should remain enabled unless you have a specific reason for not copying the files. If this is disabled, you will (in effect) lose your content files upon converting because they will not be copied to the new AU directory on the content root. In this case, you would need to use Windows Explorer to copy your files manually. Working with Spelling Options All of the spelling options are enabled by default. Your design team can review these options to determine if you want to make changes, depending upon your specific needs. Understanding Dictionary Options You should leave the dictionary options as they are, unless you have a specific reason for changing them. While you can delete the user (customizable) dictionary, doing so is not recommended. Setting Check In/Check Out Options The ability to check in and check out titles and AUs will impact the efficiency of your design team. Decide what your check in and check out processes are before you start developing titles. The Check In/Check Out page of the Options dialog box contains two options that affect what happens when you open a title using the Open Title dialog box. Both of these options are enabled by default and are described below: Check Out for editing enabled: This option ensures that the Check Out for editing option will be selected when you open the development copy of a title from the Open Title dialog box. If this option is disabled, you must select the Check Out for editing option every time you want to check out a title for editing. Attempt to Check Out for entire branch: When this option is enabled, Designer checks out the selected title and all AUs and sections that are part of that title, provided they are available for check out. If this option is disabled, you will only check out the Title AU and anything that belongs to that Title AU (e.g., sections, questions, etc.), but not other AUs. The Check In/Check Out page of the Options dialog box also contains options that control what happens when you close a title. You can choose one option in the Check In when Closing a Title area. The option selected is a matter of preference and you should determine which option is most appropriate for your design team.

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• How to mix textures in DirectX?

  - by tobsen

  I am new to DirectX development and I am wondering if I am taking the wrong route to achieve the following: I would like to mix three textures which contain transparent areas and some solid areas (Red, Blue, Green). The three textures should blend like shown in this example: How can I achieve that in DirectX (preferably in directx9)? A link or example code would be nice. Update: My rendering method looks like this and I still think I am doing it wrong, because the sprite only shows the last texture (nothing is rendered transparent or blended): void D3DTester::render() { d3ddevice->Clear(0, NULL, D3DCLEAR_TARGET, D3DCOLOR_XRGB(0,0,0), 1.0f, 0); d3ddevice->BeginScene(); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_ALPHABLENDENABLE, TRUE); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_SRCBLEND, D3DBLEND_ONE); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_DESTBLEND, D3DBLEND_ONE); LPD3DXSPRITE sprite=NULL; HRESULT hres = D3DXCreateSprite(d3ddevice, &sprite); if(hres != S_OK) { throw std::exception(); } sprite->Begin(D3DXSPRITE_ALPHABLEND); std::vector<LPDIRECT3DTEXTURE9>::iterator it; for ( it=textures.begin() ; it < textures.end(); it++ ) { sprite->Draw(*it, NULL, NULL, NULL, 0xFFFFFFFF); } sprite->End(); d3ddevice->EndScene(); d3ddevice->Present(NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL); } The resulting image looks like this: But I need it to look like this instead: Update2: I figured out that I have to SetRenderState after I use sprite->Begin(D3DXSPRITE_ALPHABLEND); thanks to the hint by Josh Petrie. However, by using this: sprite->Begin(D3DXSPRITE_ALPHABLEND); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_ALPHABLENDENABLE, TRUE); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_SRCBLEND, D3DBLEND_ONE); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_DESTBLEND, D3DBLEND_ONE); std::vector<LPDIRECT3DTEXTURE9>::iterator it; for ( it=textures.begin() ; it < textures.end(); it++ ) { sprite->Draw(*it, NULL, NULL, NULL, 0xFFFFFFFF); } sprite->End(); The sprites colors are becoming transparent towards the background scene e.g.: if I use d3ddevice->Clear(0, NULL, D3DCLEAR_TARGET, D3DCOLOR_XRGB(0,100,21), 1.0f, 0); the result looks like: Is there any way to avoid that? I would like the sprites be transparent to each other but to be still solid to the background. Update3: After having sombody explained to me, how to do what @LaurentCouvidou and @JoshPetrie suggested, I have a working solution and therfore accept the answer: d3ddevice->BeginScene(); D3DCOLOR white = D3DCOLOR_RGBA((UINT)255, (UINT)255, (UINT)255, 255); D3DCOLOR black = D3DCOLOR_RGBA((UINT)0, (UINT)0, (UINT)0, 255); sprite->Begin(D3DXSPRITE_ALPHABLEND); sprite->Draw(pTextureRed, NULL, NULL, NULL, black); sprite->Draw(pTextureGreen, NULL, NULL, NULL, black); sprite->Draw(pTextureBlue, NULL, NULL, NULL, black); sprite->End(); sprite->Begin(D3DXSPRITE_ALPHABLEND); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_ALPHATESTENABLE, TRUE); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_BLENDOP, D3DBLENDOP_ADD); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_SRCBLEND, D3DBLEND_ONE); d3ddevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_DESTBLEND, D3DBLEND_ONE); sprite->Draw(pTextureRed, NULL, NULL, NULL, white); sprite->Draw(pTextureGreen, NULL, NULL, NULL, white); sprite->Draw(pTextureBlue, NULL, NULL, NULL, white); sprite->End(); d3ddevice->EndScene(); d3ddevice->Present(NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL);

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• Who Makes a Good Product Owner

  - by Robert May

  In general, the best product owners are those that care passionately about the customer of the product.  Note that I didn’t say about the product itself.  Actually, people that only care about the product, generally do not make good product owners.  Products only matter in relationship to their customers.  If a product doesn’t provide value to the customer, then the product has no value, no matter what a person might think of the product, and no matter what cool technologies exist inside of the product. A good product owner is also a good negotiator.  They recognize that many different priorities exist inside of a corporation, but that there can be only one list that developers work from.  A good product owner recognizes that its their job to help others around them prioritize (perhaps with a Product Council), but also understand that they alone have the final say about priorities and are willing to make the tough decisions required.  Deciding the priority between two perfectly valid stories is very difficult, especially when the stories are from two different departments! A good product owner is deeply interested in helping the team be successful.  They don’t seek to control the team, but instead seek to understand what the team can do and then work with the team to get the best product possible for the Customer.  A good product owner is never denigrating to team members, ever.  They recognize that such behavior would damage the trust that needs to be present between team members and product owners and will avoid it at all costs. In general, technical people (i.e. former or current developers) make poor product owners.  In their minds, they can’t separate implementation details from user functionality, so their stories end up sounding like implementation details.  For example, “The user enters their username on the password screen” is something that a technical product owner would write.  The proper wording for that story is “A user supplies the system with their credentials.”  Because technical people think different from the rest of the population, they are generally not a good fit. A good product owner is also a good writer.  Writing good stories demands good writing.  The art of persuasion, descriptiveness and just general good grammar are all required.  A good Product Owner must also be well spoken, since most of what will be conveyed will be conveyed with the spoken word, not just written word. A good product owner is a “People Person.”  They like talking to people and are very patient.  They don’t mind having questions repeated or fielding many questions, because they want to make sure that the ideas they’re conveying are properly understood so the customer gets the best product possible.  They are happy to answer any questions a team member may have and invite feedback and criticism of designs and stories, since they want a good product.  They really have little ego that gets in the way of building a great product. All of these qualities can be hard to find, but if you look close enough, you’ll find the right person in your organization.  Product owners can be found anywhere, not just in upper management.  Some of the best product owners are those that are very close to the customer.  In fact, check your customer support staff.  I’d bet that several great product owners are lurking there. Final note about what makes a good product owner.  You’re probably NOT going to find a good product owner in a manager, especially if they consider themselves a “Manager.”  Product owners don’t manage anything but the backlog, so be especially careful if the person you’re selecting for Product Owner is a manager. Up Next, “Messing with the Team.” Technorati Tags: Scrum,Product Owner

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• PASS Summit 2011 &ndash; Part IV

  - by Tara Kizer

  This is the final blog for my PASS Summit 2011 series.  Well okay, a mini-series, I guess. On the last day of the conference, I attended Keith Elmore’ and Boris Baryshnikov’s (both from Microsoft) “Introducing the Microsoft SQL Server Code Named “Denali” Performance Dashboard Reports, Jeremiah Peschka’s (blog|twitter) “Rewrite your T-SQL for Great Good!”, and Kimberly Tripp’s (blog|twitter) “Isolated Disasters in VLDBs”. Keith and Boris talked about the lifecycle of a session, figuring out the running time and the waiting time.  They pointed out the transient nature of the reports.  You could be drilling into it to uncover a problem, but the session may have ended by the time you’ve drilled all of the way down.  Also, the reports are for troubleshooting live problems and not historical ones.  You can use Management Data Warehouse for historical troubleshooting.  The reports provide similar benefits to the Activity Monitor, however Activity Monitor doesn’t provide context sensitive drill through. One thing I learned in Keith’s and Boris’ session was that the buffer cache hit ratio should really never be below 87% due to the read-ahead mechanism in SQL Server.  When a page is read, it will read the entire extent.  So for every page read, you get 7 more read.  If you need any of those 7 extra pages, well they are already in cache.  I had a lot of fun in Jeremiah’s session about refactoring code plus I learned a lot.  His slides were visually presented in a fun way, which just made for a more upbeat presentation.  Jeremiah says that before you start refactoring, you should look at your system.  Investigate missing or too many indexes, out-of-date statistics, and other areas that could be leading to your code running slow.  He talked about code standards.  He suggested using common abbreviations for aliases instead of one-letter aliases.  I’m a big offender of one-letter aliases, but he makes a good point.  He said that join order does not matter to the optimizer, but it does matter to those who have to read your code.  Now let’s get into refactoring! Eliminate useless things – useless/unneeded joins and columns.  If you don’t need it, get rid of it! Instead of using DISTINCT/JOIN, replace with EXISTS Simplify your conditions; use UNION or better yet UNION ALL instead of OR to avoid a scan and use indexes for each union query Branching logic – instead of IF this, IF that, and on and on…use dynamic SQL (sp_executesql, please!) or use a parameterized query in the application Correlated subqueries – YUCK! Replace with a join Eliminate repeated patterns Last, but certainly not least, was Kimberly’s session.  Kimberly is my favorite speaker.  I attended her two-day pre-conference seminar at PASS Summit 2005 as well as a SQL Immersion Event last December.  Did I mention she’s my favorite speaker?  Okay, enough of that. Kimberly’s session was packed with demos.  I had seen some of it in the SQL Immersion Event, but it was very nice to get a refresher on these, especially since I’ve got a VLDB with some growing pains.  One key takeaway from her session is the idea to use a log shipping solution with a load delay, such as 6, 8, or 24 hours behind the primary.  In the case of say an accidentally dropped table in a VLDB, we could retrieve it from the secondary database rather than waiting an eternity for a restore to complete.  Kimberly let us know that in SQL Server 2012 (it finally has a name!), online rebuilds are supported even if there are LOB columns in your table.  This will simplify custom code that intelligently figures out if an online rebuild is possible. There was actually one last time slot for sessions that day, but I had an airplane to catch and my kids to see!

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• Chrome Web Browser Messages: Some Observations

  - by ultan o'broin

  I'm always on the lookout for how different apps handle errors and what kind of messages are shown (I probably need to get out more), I use this 'research' to reflect on our own application error messages patterns and guidelines and how we might make things better for our users in future. Users are influenced by all sorts of things, but their everyday experiences of technology, and especially what they encounter on the internet, increasingly sets their expectations for the enterprise user experience too. I recently came across a couple of examples from Google's Chrome web browser that got me thinking. In the first case, we have a Chrome error about not being able to find a web page. I like how simple, straightforward messaging language is used along with an optional ability to explore things a bit further--for those users who want to. The 'more information' option shows the error encountered by the browser (or 'original' error) in technical terms, along with an error number. Contrasting the two messages about essentially the same problem reveals what's useful to users and what's not. Everyone can use the first message, but the technical version of the message has to be explicitly disclosed for any more advanced user to pursue further. More technical users might search for a resolution, using that Error 324 number, but I imagine most users who see the message will try again later or check their URL again. Seems reasonable that such an approach be adopted in the enterprise space too, right? Maybe. Generally, end users don't go searching for solutions based on those error numbers, and help desk folks generally prefer they don't do so. That's because of the more critical nature of enterprise data or the fact that end users may not have the necessary privileges to make any fixes anyway. What might be more useful here is a link to a trusted source of additional help provided by the help desk or reputable community instead. This takes me on to the second case, this time more closely related to the language used in messaging situations. Here, I first noticed by the using of the (s) approach to convey possibilities of there being one or more pages at the heart of the problem. This approach is a no-no in Oracle style terms (the plural would be used) and it can create translation issues (though it is not a show-stopper). I think Google could have gone with the plural too. However, of more interest is the use of the verb "kill", shown in the message text and as an action button label. For many writers, words like "kill" and "abort" are to be avoided as they can give offense. I am not so sure about that judgment, as really their use cannot be separated from the context. Certainly, for more technical users, they're fine and have been in use for years, so I see no reason to avoid these terms if the audience has accepted them. Most end users too, I think would find the idea of "kill" usable and may even use the term in every day speech. Others might disagree--Apple uses a concept of Force Quit, for example. Ultimately, the only way to really know how to proceed is to research these matter by asking users of differing roles and expertise to perform some tasks, encounter these messages and then make recommendations based on those findings for our designs. Something to do in 2011!

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• Beginner Geek: Scan Files for Viruses Before Using Them

  - by Mysticgeek

  To help avoid getting your computer infected by malicious software, it’s a good idea to scan files before executing them. Today we take a look at a couple of options that will let you scan files easily from your desktop. Scan File with Your Antivirus Software Most Antivirus software will put an option in the context menu so you can scan individual files. After downloading a file or email attachment, simply right-click the file and select the option to scan with your Antivirus software. If you want to scan more than one at a time, hold down the Ctrl key while you clicking each file you want to scan. Then right-click and select to scan with your Antivirus software. Here is our favorite Antivirus app, Microsoft Security Essentials scanning a couple of files. If a virus is found, your Antivirus app will delete it or put it in Quarantine so it cannot infect your system. Using VirusTotal Uploader To be very thorough and want a second opinion (actually 41), then you might want to check out the VirusTotal Uploader. This handy app will scan your files with 41 different Antivirus apps online. After installing VirusTotal Uploader, right-click the file, go to Send To, then VirusTotal. Alternately you can launch VirusTotal Uploader and Get and upload the file. It will send the file to VirusTotal.com and scan it with 41 different Antivirus apps and show you the results.   If you don’t want to install the Uploader, you can go to the VirusTotal site and upload a file from there to scan. We’ve noticed that occasionally there will be a false positive detected on files we know are clean. Sometimes the definition database of an Anti-malware app isn’t current, or an obscure Antivirus App will find something questionable. If that is the case, use your best judgment when viewing the results. Conclusion Most Antivirus apps today have real-time scanning and should be able to detect possible infections before you’re able to execute them. However, if they don’t or when in doubt, following these tips can save you a lot of headaches in the long run. If you use a lot of different flash drives throughout the day, check out our article on how to scan a thumb drive for viruses from the AutoPlay Dialog. Download Microsoft Security Essentials Download VirusTotal Uploader VirusTotal Website Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Scan Files for Viruses Before You Download With Dr.WebMake Microsoft Security Essentials Scan Faster by Excluding Certain File TypesBeginner Geek: Delete User Accounts in Windows 7Scan Your Thumb Drive for Viruses from the AutoPlay DialogSecure Computing: Free Anti-Virus Protection With AVG Free Edition TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials 21 Cursor Packs for XP, Vista & 7 Map the Stars with Stellarium Use ILovePDF To Split and Merge PDF Files TimeToMeet is a Simple Online Meeting Planning Tool Easily Create More Bookmark Toolbars in Firefox

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• Speeding up procedural texture generation

  - by FalconNL

  Recently I've begun working on a game that takes place in a procedurally generated solar system. After a bit of a learning curve (having neither worked with Scala, OpenGL 2 ES or Libgdx before), I have a basic tech demo going where you spin around a single procedurally textured planet: The problem I'm running into is the performance of the texture generation. A quick overview of what I'm doing: a planet is a cube that has been deformed to a sphere. To each side, a n x n (e.g. 256 x 256) texture is applied, which are bundled in one 8n x n texture that is sent to the fragment shader. The last two spaces are not used, they're only there to make sure the width is a power of 2. The texture is currently generated on the CPU, using the updated 2012 version of the simplex noise algorithm linked to in the paper 'Simplex noise demystified'. The scene I'm using to test the algorithm contains two spheres: the planet and the background. Both use a greyscale texture consisting of six octaves of 3D simplex noise, so for example if we choose 128x128 as the texture size there are 128 x 128 x 6 x 2 x 6 = about 1.2 million calls to the noise function. The closest you will get to the planet is about what's shown in the screenshot and since the game's target resolution is 1280x720 that means I'd prefer to use 512x512 textures. Combine that with the fact the actual textures will of course be more complicated than basic noise (There will be a day and night texture, blended in the fragment shader based on sunlight, and a specular mask. I need noise for continents, terrain color variation, clouds, city lights, etc.) and we're looking at something like 512 x 512 x 6 x 3 x 15 = 70 million noise calls for the planet alone. In the final game, there will be activities when traveling between planets, so a wait of 5 or 10 seconds, possibly 20, would be acceptable since I can calculate the texture in the background while traveling, though obviously the faster the better. Getting back to our test scene, performance on my PC isn't too terrible, though still too slow considering the final result is going to be about 60 times worse: 128x128 : 0.1s 256x256 : 0.4s 512x512 : 1.7s This is after I moved all performance-critical code to Java, since trying to do so in Scala was a lot worse. Running this on my phone (a Samsung Galaxy S3), however, produces a more problematic result: 128x128 : 2s 256x256 : 7s 512x512 : 29s Already far too long, and that's not even factoring in the fact that it'll be minutes instead of seconds in the final version. Clearly something needs to be done. Personally, I see a few potential avenues, though I'm not particularly keen on any of them yet: Don't precalculate the textures, but let the fragment shader calculate everything. Probably not feasible, because at one point I had the background as a fullscreen quad with a pixel shader and I got about 1 fps on my phone. Use the GPU to render the texture once, store it and use the stored texture from then on. Upside: might be faster than doing it on the CPU since the GPU is supposed to be faster at floating point calculations. Downside: effects that cannot (easily) be expressed as functions of simplex noise (e.g. gas planet vortices, moon craters, etc.) are a lot more difficult to code in GLSL than in Scala/Java. Calculate a large amount of noise textures and ship them with the application. I'd like to avoid this if at all possible. Lower the resolution. Buys me a 4x performance gain, which isn't really enough plus I lose a lot of quality. Find a faster noise algorithm. If anyone has one I'm all ears, but simplex is already supposed to be faster than perlin. Adopt a pixel art style, allowing for lower resolution textures and fewer noise octaves. While I originally envisioned the game in this style, I've come to prefer the realistic approach. I'm doing something wrong and the performance should already be one or two orders of magnitude better. If this is the case, please let me know. If anyone has any suggestions, tips, workarounds, or other comments regarding this problem I'd love to hear them.

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• SQL SERVER – Read Only Files and SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)

  - by pinaldave

  Just like any other Developer or DBA SQL Server Management Studio is my favorite application. Any any moment of the time I have multiple instances of the same application are open and I am working on it. Recently, I have come across a very interesting feature in SSMS related to “Read Only” files. I believe it is a little unknown feature as well so decided to write a blog about the same. First create a read only SQL file. You can make any file read by Right Click >> Properties >> Select Attribute Read Only. Now open the same file in SQL Server Management Studio. You will find that besides the file name there is a small ‘lock’ icon. This small icon indicates that the file is read only. Now let us attempt to edit the read only file. It will let us edit the file any way we want, however when we attempt to save it, it gives following pop-up value. The options in the pop-up are self explanatory and I liked it. The goal of the read only file is to prevent users to make un-intended changes. However, when a user should have complete control over the user file. User should be aware that the file is read only but if he wants to edit the file or save as a new file the choices should be present in front of it and the pop-up menu precisely captures the same. Now let us check option related to this feature in SSMS. Go to Menu >> Options >> Environment >> Documents You will find the third option which is “Allow editing of read-only files; warn when attempt to save”. In the above scenario it was already checked. Let us uncheck the same and do the same exercise which we have done earlier. I closed all the earlier window to avoid confusion. With the new option selected when I attempt to even modify the Read Only file, it gives me totally different pop up screen. It gives me an option like “Edit In-Memory”, “Make Writeable” etc. When you select “Edit In-Memory” it allows you to edit the file and later you can save as new file – just like the earlier scenario which we have discussed. . If clicked on the Make Writeable it will remove the restriction of the Read Only and file can be edited as pleased. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• T-SQL Tuesday #005 : SSRS Parameters and MDX Data Sets

  - by blakmk

  Well it this weeks  T-SQL Tuesday #005  topic seems quite fitting. Having spent the past few weeks creating reports and dashboards in SSRS and SSAS 2008, I was frustrated by how difficult it is to use custom datasets to generate parameter drill downs. It also seems Reporting Services can be quite unforgiving when it comes to renaming things like datasets, so I want to share a couple of techniques that I found useful. One of the things I regularly do is to add parameters to the querys. However doing this causes Reporting Services to generate a hidden dataset and parameter name for you. One of the things I like to do is tweak these hidden datasets removing the ‘ALL’ level which is a tip I picked up from Devin Knight in his blog: There are some rules i’ve developed for myself since working with SSRS and MDX, they may not be the best or only way but they work for me. Rule 1 – Never trust the automatically generated hidden datasets Or even ANY, automatically generated MDX queries for that matter.... I’ve previously blogged about this here.   If you examine the MDX generated in the hidden dataset you will see that it generates the MDX in the context of the originiating query by building a subcube, this mean it may NOT be appropriate to use this in a subsequent query which has a different context. Make sure you always understand what is going on. Often when i’m developing a dashboard or a report there are several parameter oriented datasets that I like to manually create. It can be that I have different datasets using the same dimension but in a different context. One example of this, is that I often use a dataset for last month and a dataset for the last 6 months. Both use the same date hierarchy. However Reporting Services seems not to be too smart when it comes to generating unique datasets when working with and renaming parameters and datasets. Very often I have come across this error when it comes to refactoring parameter names and default datasets. "an item with the same key has already been added" The only way I’ve found to reliably avoid this is to obey to rule 2. Rule 2 – Follow this sequence when it comes to working with Parameters and DataSets: 1.    Create Lookup and Default Datasets in advance 2.    Create parameters (set the datasets for available and default values) 3.    Go into query and tick parameter check box 4.    On dataset properties screen, select the parameter defined earlier from the parameter value defined earlier. Rule 3 – Dont tear your hair out when you have just renamed objects and your report doesn’t build Just use XML notepad on the original report file. I found I gained a good understanding of the structure of the underlying XML document just by using XML notepad. From this you can do a search and find references of the missing object. You can also just do a wholesale search and replace (after taking a backup copy of course ;-) So I hope the above help to save the sanity of anyone who regularly works with SSRS and MDX.   @Blakmk

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• Whether to use UNION or OR in SQL Server Queries

  - by Dinesh Asanka

  Recently I came across with an article on DB2 about using Union instead of OR. So I thought of carrying out a research on SQL Server on what scenarios UNION is optimal in and which scenarios OR would be best. I will analyze this with a few scenarios using samples taken  from the AdventureWorks database Sales.SalesOrderDetail table. Scenario 1: Selecting all columns So we are going to select all columns and you have a non-clustered index on the ProductID column. --Query 1 : OR SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 714 OR ProductID =709 OR ProductID =998 OR ProductID =875 OR ProductID =976 OR ProductID =874 --Query 2 : UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 714 UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 709 UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 998 UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 875 UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 976 UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 874 So query 1 is using OR and the later is using UNION. Let us analyze the execution plans for these queries. Query 1 Query 2 As expected Query 1 will use Clustered Index Scan but Query 2, uses all sorts of things. In this case, since it is using multiple CPUs you might have CX_PACKET waits as well. Let’s look at the profiler results for these two queries: CPU Reads Duration Row Counts OR 78 1252 389 3854 UNION 250 7495 660 3854 You can see from the above table the UNION query is not performing well as the  OR query though both are retuning same no of rows (3854).These results indicate that, for the above scenario UNION should be used. Scenario 2: Non-Clustered and Clustered Index Columns only --Query 1 : OR SELECT ProductID,SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 714 OR ProductID =709 OR ProductID =998 OR ProductID =875 OR ProductID =976 OR ProductID =874 GO --Query 2 : UNION SELECT ProductID,SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 714 UNION SELECT ProductID,SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 709 UNION SELECT ProductID,SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 998 UNION SELECT ProductID,SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 875 UNION SELECT ProductID,SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 976 UNION SELECT ProductID,SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 874 GO So this time, we will be selecting only index columns, which means these queries will avoid a data page lookup. As in the previous case we will analyze the execution plans: Query 1 Query 2 Again, Query 2 is more complex than Query 1. Let us look at the profile analysis: CPU Reads Duration Row Counts OR 0 24 208 3854 UNION 0 38 193 3854 In this analyzis, there is only slight difference between OR and UNION. Scenario 3: Selecting all columns for different fields Up to now, we were using only one column (ProductID) in the where clause.  What if we have two columns for where clauses and let us assume both are covered by non-clustered indexes? --Query 1 : OR SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 714 OR CarrierTrackingNumber LIKE 'D0B8%' --Query 2 : UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 714 UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE CarrierTrackingNumber  LIKE 'D0B8%' Query 1 Query 2: As we can see, the query plan for the second query has improved. Let us see the profiler results. CPU Reads Duration Row Counts OR 47 1278 443 1228 UNION 31 1334 400 1228 So in this case too, there is little difference between OR and UNION. Scenario 4: Selecting Clustered index columns for different fields Now let us go only with clustered indexes: --Query 1 : OR SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 714 OR CarrierTrackingNumber LIKE 'D0B8%' --Query 2 : UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 714 UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE CarrierTrackingNumber  LIKE 'D0B8%' Query 1 Query 2 Now both execution plans are almost identical except is an additional Stream Aggregate is used in the first query. This means UNION has advantage over OR in this scenario. Let us see profiler results for these queries again. CPU Reads Duration Row Counts OR 0 319 366 1228 UNION 0 50 193 1228 Now see the differences, in this scenario UNION has somewhat of an advantage over OR. Conclusion Using UNION or OR depends on the scenario you are faced with. So you need to do your analyzing before selecting the appropriate method. Also, above the four scenarios are not all an exhaustive list of scenarios, I selected those for the broad description purposes only.

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• Issues printing through ssh tunnel and port forwarding

  - by simogasp

  I'm having some problems trying to print through a ssh tunnel. I'd like to print from my laptop to a network printer (Toshiba es453, for what matters) which is in a local network. I can reach the local network using a gateway. So far I did the following: ssh -N -L19100:<Printer_IP>:9100 <username>@<ssh_gateway> Basically i just mapped the port 19100 of my laptop directly to the input port of the printer, passing through the gateway. So far, so good. Then, i tried to install on my laptop a new printer with the GUI config tool of ubuntu, so that the new printer is on localhost at port 19100 (as APP Socket/HP Jet Direct) , then I provided the proper driver of the printer. In theory, once the tunnel is open I should be able to print from any program just selecting this printer. Of course, it does not work. :-) The document hangs in the queue with status Processing while in the shell where I set up the tunnel I get these errors on failing opening channels debug1: Local forwarding listening on ::1 port 19100. debug1: channel 0: new [port listener] debug1: Local forwarding listening on 127.0.0.1 port 19100. debug1: channel 1: new [port listener] debug1: Requesting [email protected] debug1: Entering interactive session. debug1: Connection to port 19100 forwarding to 195.220.21.227 port 9100 requested. debug1: channel 2: new [direct-tcpip] debug1: Connection to port 19100 forwarding to 195.220.21.227 port 9100 requested. debug1: channel 3: new [direct-tcpip] channel 2: open failed: connect failed: Connection timed out debug1: channel 2: free: direct-tcpip: listening port 19100 for 195.220.21.227 port 9100, connect from ::1 port 44434, nchannels 4 debug1: Connection to port 19100 forwarding to 195.220.21.227 port 9100 requested. debug1: channel 2: new [direct-tcpip] channel 3: open failed: connect failed: Connection timed out debug1: channel 3: free: direct-tcpip: listening port 19100 for 195.220.21.227 port 9100, connect from ::1 port 44443, nchannels 4 channel 2: open failed: connect failed: Connection timed out debug1: channel 2: free: direct-tcpip: listening port 19100 for 195.220.21.227 port 9100, connect from ::1 port 44493, nchannels 3 debug1: Connection to port 19100 forwarding to 195.220.21.227 port 9100 requested. debug1: channel 2: new [direct-tcpip] As a further debugging test I tried the following. From a machine inside the local network I did a telnet <IP_printer> 9100, got access, wrote some random thing, closed the connection and correctly I got a print of what I had written. So the port and the ip of the printer should be correct. I tried the same from my laptop with the tunnel opened, the telnet succeeded but, again, the printer didn't print anything, getting the usual channel x: open failed: errors. I'm not a great expert on the matter, I just thought that in theory it was possible to do something like that, but maybe there is something that I didn't consider or I did wrong. Any clue? Thanks! Simone [update] As further debugging test, I tried to replicate the procedure from a machine in the local network. From that machine, I did ssh -N -L19100:<IP_printer>:9100 <username>@<ssh_gateway> (note that now the machine, the gateway and the printer are in the same local network) then I tried again the telnet test with telnet localhost 19100, I got access and everything, but I didn't get the print but the usual error channel 2: open failed: connect failed: Connection timed out Maybe I am missing some other connection to be forwarded or maybe this is not allowed by the administrators. Of course, if I connect via ssh tunneling to the local machine from my laptop through the gateway, I can successfully print using the lpr command (from the local machine). But this is what I would like to avoid (yes, I'm lazy...:-), I would like to have a more 'elegant' and transparent way to do that.

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• Rules and advice for logging?

  - by Nick Rosencrantz

  In my organization we've put together some rules / guildelines about logging that I would like to know if you can add to or comment. We use Java but you may comment in general about loggin - rules and advice Use the correct logging level ERROR: Something has gone very wrong and need fixing immediately WARNING: The process can continue without fixing. The application should tolerate this level but the warning should always get investigated. INFO: Information that an important process is finished DEBUG. Is only used during development Make sure that you know what you're logging. Avoid that the logging influences the behavior of the application The function of the logging should be to write messages in the log. Log messages should be descriptive, clear, short and concise. There is not much use of a nonsense message when troubleshooting. Put the right properties in log4j Put in that the right method and class is written automatically. Example: Datedfile -web log4j.rootLogger=ERROR, DATEDFILE log4j.logger.org.springframework=INFO log4j.logger.waffle=ERROR log4j.logger.se.prv=INFO log4j.logger.se.prv.common.mvc=INFO log4j.logger.se.prv.omklassning=DEBUG log4j.appender.DATEDFILE=biz.minaret.log4j.DatedFileAppender log4j.appender.DATEDFILE.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout log4j.appender.DATEDFILE.layout.ConversionPattern=%d{HH:mm:ss,SSS} %-5p [%C{1}.%M] - %m%n log4j.appender.DATEDFILE.Prefix=omklassning. log4j.appender.DATEDFILE.Suffix=.log log4j.appender.DATEDFILE.Directory=//localhost/WebSphereLog/omklassning/ Log value. Please log values from the application. Log prefix. State which part of the application it is that the logging is written from, preferably with something for the project agreed prefix e.g. PANDORA_DB The amount of text. Be careful so that there is not too much logging text. It can influence the performance of the app. Loggning format: -There are several variants and methods to use with log4j but we would like a uniform use of the following format, when we log at exceptions: logger.error("PANDORA_DB2: Fel vid hämtning av frist i TP210_RAPPORTFRIST", e); In the example above it is assumed that we have set log4j properties so that it automatically write the class and the method. Always use logger and not the following: System.out.println(), System.err.println(), e.printStackTrace() If the web app uses our framework you can get very detailed error information from EJB, if using try-catch in the handler and logging according to the model above: In our project we use this conversion pattern with which method and class names are written out automatically . Here we use two different pattents for console and for datedfileappender: log4j.appender.CONSOLE.layout.ConversionPattern=%d{ABSOLUTE} %5p %c{1}:%L - %m%n log4j.appender.DATEDFILE.layout.ConversionPattern=%d [%t] %-5p %c - %m%n In both the examples above method and class wioll be written out. In the console row number will also be written our. toString() Please have a toString() for every object. EX: @Override public String toString() { StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); sb.append(" DwfInformation [ "); sb.append("cc: ").append(cc); sb.append("pn: ").append(pn); sb.append("kc: ").append(kc); sb.append("numberOfPages: ").append(numberOfPages); sb.append("publicationDate: ").append(publicationDate); sb.append("version: ").append(version); sb.append(" ]"); return sb.toString(); } instead of special method which make these outputs public void printAll() { logger.info("inbet: " + getInbetInput()); logger.info("betdat: " + betdat); logger.info("betid: " + betid); logger.info("send: " + send); logger.info("appr: " + appr); logger.info("rereg: " + rereg); logger.info("NY: " + ny); logger.info("CNT: " + cnt); } So is there anything you can add, comment or find questionable with these ways of using the logging? Feel free to answer or comment even if it is not related to Java, Java and log4j is just an implementation of how this is reasoned.

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• LINQ to Twitter Queries with LINQPad

  - by Joe Mayo

  LINQPad is a popular utility for .NET developers who use LINQ a lot.  In addition to standard SQL queries, LINQPad also supports other types of LINQ providers, including LINQ to Twitter.  The following sections explain how to set up LINQPad for making queries with LINQ to Twitter. LINQPad comes in a couple versions and this example uses LINQPad4, which runs on the .NET Framework 4.0. 1. The first thing you'll need to do is set up a reference to the LinqToTwitter.dll. From the Query menu, select query properties. Click the Browse button and find the LinqToTwitter.dll binary. You should see something similar to the Query Properties window below. 2. While you have the query properties window open, add the namespace for the LINQ to Twitter types.  Click the Additional Namespace Imports tab and type in LinqToTwitter. The results are shown below: 3. The default query type, when you first start LINQPad, is C# Expression, but you'll need to change this to support multiple statements.  Change the Language dropdown, on the Main window, to C# Statements. 4. To query LINQ to Twitter, instantiate a TwitterContext, by typing the following into the LINQPad Query window: var ctx = new TwitterContext(); Note: If you're getting syntax errors, go back and make sure you did steps #2 and #3 properly. 5. Next, add a query, but don't materialize it, like this: var tweets = from tweet in ctx.Status where tweet.Type == StatusType.Public select new { tweet.Text, tweet.Geo, tweet.User }; 6. Next, you want the output to be displayed in the LINQPad grid, so do a Dump, like this: tweets.Dump(); The following image shows the final results:   That was an unauthenticated query, but you can also perform authenticated queries with LINQ to Twitter's support of OAuth.  Here's an example that uses the PinAuthorizer (type this into the LINQPad Query window): var auth = new PinAuthorizer { Credentials = new InMemoryCredentials { ConsumerKey = "", ConsumerSecret = "" }, UseCompression = true, GoToTwitterAuthorization = pageLink => Process.Start(pageLink), GetPin = () => { // this executes after user authorizes, which begins with the call to auth.Authorize() below. Console.WriteLine("\nAfter you authorize this application, Twitter will give you a 7-digit PIN Number.\n"); Console.Write("Enter the PIN number here: "); return Console.ReadLine(); } }; // start the authorization process (launches Twitter authorization page). auth.Authorize(); var ctx = new TwitterContext(auth, "https://api.twitter.com/1/", "https://search.twitter.com/"); var tweets = from tweet in ctx.Status where tweet.Type == StatusType.Public select new { tweet.Text, tweet.Geo, tweet.User }; tweets.Dump(); This code is very similar to what you'll find in the LINQ to Twitter downloadable source code solution, in the LinqToTwitterDemo project.  For obvious reasons, I changed the value assigned to ConsumerKey and ConsumerSecret, which you'll have to obtain by visiting http://dev.twitter.com and registering your application. One tip, you'll probably want to make this easier on yourself by creating your own DLL that encapsulates all of the OAuth logic and then call a method or property on you custom class that returns a fully functioning TwitterContext.  This will help avoid adding all this code every time you want to make a query. Now, you know how to set up LINQPad for LINQ to Twitter, perform unauthenticated queries, and perform queries with OAuth. Joe

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• SSRS Parameters and MDX Data Sets

  - by blakmk

  Having spent the past few weeks creating reports and dashboards in SSRS and SSAS 2008, I was frustrated by how difficult it is to use custom datasets to generate parameter drill downs. It also seems Reporting Services can be quite unforgiving when it comes to renaming things like datasets, so I want to share a couple of techniques that I found useful. One of the things I regularly do is to add parameters to the querys. However doing this causes Reporting Services to generate a hidden dataset and parameter name for you. One of the things I like to do is tweak these hidden datasets removing the ‘ALL’ level which is a tip I picked up from Devin Knight in his blog: There are some rules i’ve developed for myself since working with SSRS and MDX, they may not be the best or only way but they work for me. Rule 1 – Never trust the automatically generated hidden datasets Or even ANY, automatically generated MDX queries for that matter.... I’ve previously blogged about this here.   If you examine the MDX generated in the hidden dataset you will see that it generates the MDX in the context of the originiating query by building a subcube, this mean it may NOT be appropriate to use this in a subsequent query which has a different context. Make sure you always understand what is going on. Often when i’m developing a dashboard or a report there are several parameter oriented datasets that I like to manually create. It can be that I have different datasets using the same dimension but in a different context. One example of this, is that I often use a dataset for last month and a dataset for the last 6 months. Both use the same date hierarchy. However Reporting Services seems not to be too smart when it comes to generating unique datasets when working with and renaming parameters and datasets. Very often I have come across this error when it comes to refactoring parameter names and default datasets. "an item with the same key has already been added" The only way I’ve found to reliably avoid this is to obey to rule 2. Rule 2 – Follow this sequence when it comes to working with Parameters and DataSets: 1.    Create Lookup and Default Datasets in advance 2.    Create parameters (set the datasets for available and default values) 3.    Go into query and tick parameter check box 4.    On dataset properties screen, select the parameter defined earlier from the parameter value defined earlier. Rule 3 – Dont tear your hair out when you have just renamed objects and your report doesn’t build Just use XML notepad on the original report file. I found I gained a good understanding of the structure of the underlying XML document just by using XML notepad. From this you can do a search and find references of the missing object. You can also just do a wholesale search and replace (after taking a backup copy of course ;-) So I hope the above help to save the sanity of anyone who regularly works with SSRS and MDX.

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• Use Your Favorite Wallpapers in Windows 7 Starter Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  If you have Windows 7 Starter Edition installed on your netbook, the default wallpaper can get old. If you are tired of looking at the default wallpaper, then join us today as we look at changing it with Oceanis Change Background Windows 7. Special Notes This information is quoted directly from the website and needs to be kept in mind when using Oceanis Change Background Windows 7: If the Oceanis Change Background Windows 7 program no longer works properly after installing some Windows Updates, then uninstall and reinstall the Oceanis Change Background Windows 7 program to have it run properly again. If you ever do an in-place upgrade to another higher level edition of Windows 7 in the future, then be sure to uninstall this Oceanis Change Background Windows 7 program first to avoid incompatibility issues with it in the new edition of Windows 7. It was designed to only work in Windows 7 Starter edition. Before There it is…the default wallpaper everyone with the Starter Edition gets stuck with. Some people may not mind it, but if you are one of the people who really wants something different then get ready to rejoice. After The install file for Oceanis is contained in a zip file so you will need to unzip it to get started. The install process is quick and simple but you will need to do a system restart afterwards. Once you have restarted your computer this is what your screen will look like…do not panic and think that this is all there is to it. This is just the Starter Screen and can be easily changed… Note: Oceanis will auto-start with Windows each time. Using either the Desktop Icon or the Start Menu Entry, open up the Oceanis Main Window. You will see the set of four default wallpapers shown here. At this point the best thing to do is browse for the appropriate folder where you have all of those wonderful new wallpapers just waiting to be used. Note: We found Stretch to be the best Picture Position setting on our system. For our example we had three ready and waiting. We decided to try out the Wallpaper Slideshow feature first. We chose a time frame and saved our changes. Here are our three wallpapers as they switched through. This can be much more interesting than the default wallpaper. There was only one quirk that we encountered while using the Slideshow Setting. On occasion if we minimized a non-maximized window there would be a leftover partial image in place of the window. Our suggestion? Go with one wallpaper at a time and the settings shown below. These are the settings that we had terrific luck with…Only one picture selected, Picture Position = Stretch, & Change Picture Every = Every Day. Using these settings, the Starter Edition acted just like any of the other editions with regard to wallpaper management. Conclusion If you have grown tired of looking at the default wallpaper in Windows 7 Starter Edition then you will certainly appreciate what Oceanis Change Background Windows 7 can do to fix that problem. For more ways to customize your Windows 7 Started Edition, be sure to to check out how to personalize Windows 7 Starter. Links Download Oceanis Change Background Windows 7 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Windows 7 Welcome Screen Taking Forever? Here’s the Fix (Maybe)Awesome Desktop Wallpapers: The Windows 7 EditionHow To Customize Wallpaper in Windows 7 Starter EditionDesktop Fun: Starship Theme WallpapersDesktop Fun: Underwater Theme Wallpapers TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Vista style sidebar for Windows 7 Create Nice Charts With These Web Based Tools Track Daily Goals With 42Goals Video Toolbox is a Superb Online Video Editor Fun with 47 charts and graphs Tomorrow is Mother’s Day

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• What Counts For a DBA – Decisions

  - by Louis Davidson

  It’s Friday afternoon, and the lead DBA, a very talented guy, is getting ready to head out for two well-earned weeks of vacation, with his family, when this error message pops up in his inbox: Msg 211, Level 23, State 51, Line 1. Possible schema corruption. Run DBCC CHECKCATALOG. His heart sinks. It’s ten…no eight…minutes till it’s time to walk out the door. He glances around at his coworkers, competent to handle many problems, but probably not up to the challenge of fixing possible database corruption. What does he do? After a few agonizing moments of indecision, he clicks shut his laptop. He’ll just wait and see. It was unlikely to come to anything; after all, it did say “possible” schema corruption, not definite. In that moment, his fate was sealed. The start of the solution to the problem (run DBCC CHECKCATALOG) had been right there in the error message. Had he done this, or at least took two of those eight minutes to delegate the task to a coworker, then he wouldn’t have ended up spending two-thirds of an idyllic vacation (for the rest of the family, at least) dealing with a problem that got consistently worse as the weekend progressed until the entire system was down. When I told this story to a friend of mine, an opera fan, he smiled and said it described the basic plotline of almost every opera or ‘Greek Tragedy’ ever written. The particular joy in opera, he told me, isn’t the warbly voiced leading ladies, or the plump middle-aged romantic leads, or even the music. No, what packs the opera houses in Italy is the drama of characters who, by the very nature of their life-experiences and emotional baggage, make all sorts of bad choices when faced with ordinary decisions, and so move inexorably to their fate. The audience is gripped by the spectacle of exotic characters doomed by their inability to see the obvious. I confess, my personal experience with opera is limited to Bugs Bunny in “What’s Opera, Doc?” (Elmer Fudd is a great example of a bad decision maker, if ever one existed), but I was struck by my friend’s analogy. If all the DBA cubicles were a stage, I think we would hear many similarly tragic tales, played out to music: “Error handling? We write our code to never experience errors, so nah…“ “Backups failed today, but it’s okay, we’ll back up tomorrow (we’ll back up tomorrow)“ And similarly, they would leave their audience gasping, not necessarily at the beauty of the music, or poetry of the lyrics, but at the inevitable, grisly fate of the protagonists. If you choose not to use proper error handling, or if you choose to skip a backup because, hey, you haven’t had a server crash in 10 years, then inevitably, in that moment you expected to be enjoying a vacation, or a football game, with your family and friends, you will instead be sitting in front of a computer screen, paying for your poor choices. Tragedies are very much part of IT. Most of a DBA’s day to day work has limited potential to wreak havoc; paperwork, timesheets, random anonymous threats to developers, routine maintenance and whatnot. However, just occasionally, you, as a DBA, will face one of those decisions that really matter, and which has the possibility to greatly affect your future and the future of your user’s data. Make those decisions count, and you’ll avoid the tragic fate of many an operatic hero or villain.

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• New JavaScript Editor

  - by Petr

  I did not write a blog post here for a few weeks. I think the last my post was  about releasing NetBeans 7.1 in the beginning of January. The reason is not that I would change the job:), but that I have concentrated on new JavaScript support/editor. The new JavaScript editor is written basically from scratch. The answer for the question "Why from beginning again, why do you just improve the old one?" is not easy and the decision has more aspects. One of the main reasons is that the old support was written 4 years ago and the architecture is limited. Also during the time, the APIs were changed and it was very hard to keep the editor up to date. Also there is a license issue etc. In short, it is time to rewrite the old JS editor.  We build up strong community about the PHP support in NetBeans and because many PHP developers also write JavaScript code I would like to ask you for a help. There is a continual PHP build with the new JavaScript support. You can download the result of the builds here. It's a zip file. You can unzip the file anywhere, where you want. I recommend to run the build with the new userdir, to avoid damaging your current userdir. It shouldn't happened, but just to be sure:). You can achieve this through the switch --userdir. So start the unzipped file from command line from the folder, where you unzipped it, can be done with this command on unix: bin/netbeans.sh --userdir /path/to/new/userdir and on windows: bin\netbeans.exe --userdir D:\path\to\new\userdir For the developers who use continual php build already, it's well known. There is also full IDE build with the new JavaScript support for people, who need more than only PHP support.  Because the builds with the new JavaScript editor is created from a branch, there are not nightly builds available. They will be, when we merge the branch to the trunk, but so far we have to work only with the mentioned continual build. We will merge our branch after branching NetBeans 7.2 from trunk. This is also answer for the question, what release of NetBeans will contain the new JS support. It should be the release after NetBeans 7.2. I'm asking you whether you could play with the builds or better, could work in the builds with new JavaScript support and tell us every issue that you run in. It can be everything what doesn't fit you, something doesn't work as you expected, something is slow, you want change the behaviour of a feature etc. Your input / comments are very important for us and it will help us to achieve the new JavaScript support that you need.  The best way how to communicate issues is through our Bugzilla, because it is simple to track them. Sure you can write comment here:), but still I prefer Bugzilla for any issue. You can click here (you should be already log in Bugzilla), a form for the new JavaScript issue is opened, with pre-filled component Editor and NO72 keyword. I will write about the single features later, but now I will mentioned a few features that should work in better way than in the old support.  Syntactic and semantic colouring Navigator Mark Occurrences and GoTo Declaration  Code Completion Code Completion is invoked through keyboard shortcut CTRL+SPACE. The first invocation offers items that are found through a source model. Almost all editor features are based on the model, that is build from source code. There is a lot of work on the model yet, but it should offer better results. When the pop up window with code completion items is open and you press CTRL+SPACE again, then the code completion offers all elements that are in the project. In the pictures all elements that starts with letter 't'. Formatter with many options and more :) A few features are not still implemented that are supported in the old JavaScript support (for example jQuery support), but we are adding this features ASAP.

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• Adding Output Caching and Expire Header in IIS7 to improve performance

  - by Renso

  The problem: Images and other static files will not be cached unless you tell it to. In IIS7 it is remarkably easy to do this. Web pages are becoming increasingly complex with more scripts, style sheets, images, and Flash on them. A first-time visit to a page may require several HTTP requests to load all the components. By using Expires headers these components become cacheable, which avoids unnecessary HTTP requests on subsequent page views. Expires headers are most often associated with images, but they can and should be used on all page components including scripts, style sheets, and Flash. Every time a page is loaded, every image and other static content like JavaScript files and CSS files will be reloaded on every page request. If the content does not change frequently why not cache it and avoid the network traffic?! The solution: In IIS7 there are two ways to cache content, using the web.config file to set caching for all static content, and in IIS7 itself setting aching by file extension that gives you that extra level of granularity. Web.config: In IIS7, Expires Headers can be enabled in the system.webServer section of the web.config file:   <staticContent>     <clientCache cacheControlMode="UseMaxAge" cacheControlMaxAge="1.00:00:00" />   </staticContent> In the above example a cache expiration of 1 day was added. It will be a full day before the content is downloaded from the web server again. To expire the content on a specific date:   <staticContent>     <clientCache cacheControlMode="UseExpires" httpExpires="Sun, 31 Dec 2011 23:59:59 UTC" />   </staticContent> This will expire the content on December 31st 2011 one second before midnight. Issues/Challenges: Once the file has been set to be cached it wont be updated on the user's browser for the set cache expiration. So be careful here with content that may change frequently, like during development. Typically in development you don't want to cache at all for testing purposes. You could also suffix files with timestamp or versions to force a reload into the user's browser cache. IIS7 Expire Web Content Open up your web app in IIS. Open up the sub-folders until you find the folder or file you want to ad an expiration date to. In IIS6 you used to right-click and select properties, no such luck in IIS7, double click HTTP Response. Once the window loads for the HTTP Response Headers, look to the Actions navigation bar to the right, all the way at the top select SET COMMON HEADERS. The Enable HTTP keep-alive will already be pre-selected. Go ahead and add the appropriate expiration header to the file or folder. Note that if you selected a folder, it will apply that setting to all images inside that folder and all nested content, even subfolders. So, two approaches, depending on what level or granularity you need.

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• Inspiring a co-worker to adopt better coding practices?

  - by Aaronaught

  In the Handling my antiquated coworker question, various people discussed strategies for dealing with coworkers who are unwilling to integrate their workflow with the team's. I'd like, if possible, to learn some strategies for "teaching" a coworker who is merely ignorant of modern techniques and tools, and possibly a little apathetic. I've started working with a programmer who until recently has been working in relative isolation, in a different part of the company. He has extensive domain knowledge and most importantly he has demonstrated good problem-solving skills, something which many candidates seem to lack. However, the actual (C#) code I've seen is a throwback to the VB6 days. Procedural structure, Hungarian notation, global variables (abuse of static), no interfaces, no tests, non-use of Generics, throwing System.Exception... you get the idea. This programmer is a fair bit older than I am and, by first impressions at least, doesn't actively seek positive change. I'm not going to say resistant to change, because I think that is largely an issue of how the topic gets broached, and I want to be prepared. Programmers tend to be stubborn people, and going in with guns blazing and instituting rip-it-to-shreds code reviews and strictly-enforced policies is very likely not going to produce the end result that I want. If this were a new hire, a junior programmer, I wouldn't think twice about taking a "mentor" stance, but I'm extremely wary of treating an experienced employee as a clueless newbie (which he's not - he just hasn't kept pace with certain advancements in the field). How might I go about raising this developer's code quality standard the Dale Carnegie way, through gentle persuasion and non-material incentives? What would be the best strategy for effecting subtle, gradual changes, without creating an adversarial situation? Have other people - especially lead developers - been in this type of situation before? Which strategies were successful at stimulating interest and creating a positive group dynamic? Which strategies weren't successful and would be better to avoid? Clarifications: I really feel that several people are answering based on personal feelings without actually reading all of the details of the question. Please note the following, which should have been implied but I am now making explicit: This coworker is only my "senior" by virtue of age. I never said that his title, sphere of influence, or years at the organization exceed mine, and in fact, none of those things are true. He's a LOB programmer who's been absorbed into the main development shop. That's it. I am not a new hire, junior programmer, or other naïve idiot with grand plans to transform the company overnight. I am basically in charge of the software process, but as many who've worked as "leads" will know, responsibilities don't always correlate precisely with the org chart. I'm not asking people how to get my way, come hell or high water. I could do that if I wanted to, with the net result being that this person would become resentful and/or quit. Please try to understand that I am looking for a social, cooperative method of driving change. The mention of "...global variables... no tests... throwing System.Exception" was intended to demonstrate that the problems are not just superficial or aesthetic. Practices that may work for relatively small CRUD apps do not necessarily work for large enterprise apps, and in fact, none of the code so far has actually passed the integration tests. Please, try to take the question at face value, accept that I actually know what I'm talking about, and either answer the question that I actually asked or move on. P.S. My sincerest gratitude to those who -did- offer constructive advice rather than arguing with the premise. I'm going to leave this open for a while longer as I'm hoping to hear more in the way of real-world experiences.

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• So You Want to Be a Social Media Director

  - by Mike Stiles

  Do you want to be a Social Media Director? Some say the title is already losing its relevance; that social should be a basic skill that is required and used no matter what your position is inside the enterprise. I suppose that’s visionary, and a fun thing for thought leaders to say. But in the vast majority of business organizations, we’re so far away from that reality that the thought of not having someone driving social’s implementation and guiding its proper usage conjures up images of anarchy. That said, social media has become so broad, so catch-all, and so extended across business functions, that today’s Social Media Director, depending on the size of their staff, must make jacks-of-all-trades look like one-trick-ponies. Just as the purview of the CMO has grown all-encompassing, the disciplines required of their heads of social are stacking up. Master of Content Every social pipeline you build must stay filled, with quantity and quality. Content takes time, and the job never stops. Never. And no, it’s not true that anybody can write. Master of Customer Experience You must have a passion for hearing from customers and making them really happy. Master of PR You must know how to communicate and leverage the trust you’ve built when crises strike. Couldn’t hurt to be a Master of Politics. Master of Social Technology So many social management tools on the market. You have to know what social tech ecosystem makes sense and avoid piecemeal point solutions. Master of Business Development Social for selling and prospecting is hot, and you have to know how to use social to do it. Master of Analytics Nothing else matters if you can’t prove social is helping the brand. That’s right, creative content guy has to also be a math and stats geek. Good luck with that. Master of Paid Media You’ve got to learn the language, learn the tactics, learn the vendors and learn how to measure results. Master of Education Guess who gets to teach everyone who has no clue how to use social for business. Master of Personal Likability You’ll be leading the voice, tone, image and personality of the brand. If you don’t instinctively know how to be liked by actual people, the brand will be starting from a deficit. How deep must you go in this parade of masteries? Again, that depends on your employer’s maturity level in social. Serious players recognize these as distinct disciplines requiring true experts for maximum effect. Less serious players will need you to execute personally in many of these areas. Do the best you can, and try to grow quickly at each. If you’re the sole person executing all social…well…you’re in the game of managing expectations and trying to socially educate your employer. The good news is, you should be making a certifiable killing. If you’re alone and your salary is modest, time to understand how many brands out there crave what you’ve mastered. Not to push back against thought leaders, but the need for brand social leadership has not gone away…not even a little bit. @mikestiles @oraclesocialPhoto: Stefan Wagner, freeimages.com

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• JDK 7u25: Solutions to Issues caused by changes to Runtime.exec

  - by Devika Gollapudi

  The following examples were prepared by Java engineering for the benefit of Java developers who may have faced issues with Runtime.exec on the Windows platform. Background In JDK 7u21, the decoding of command strings specified to Runtime.exec(String), Runtime.exec(String,String[]) and Runtime.exec(String,String[],File) methods, has been made more strict. See JDK 7u21 Release Notes for more information. This caused several issues for applications. The following section describes some of the problems faced by developers and their solutions. Note: In JDK 7u25, the system property jdk.lang.Process.allowAmbigousCommands can be used to relax the checking process and helps as a workaround for some applications that cannot be changed. The workaround is only effective for applications that are run without a SecurityManager. See JDK 7u25 Release Notes for more information. Note: To understand the details of the Windows API CreateProcess call, see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms682425%28v=vs.85%29.aspx There are two forms of Runtime.exec calls: with the command as string: "Runtime.exec(String command[, ...])" with the command as string array: "Runtime.exec(String[] cmdarray [, ...] )" The issues described in this section relate to the first form of call. With the first call form, developers expect the command to be passed "as is" to Windows where the command needs be split into its executable name and arguments parts first. But, in accordance with Java API, the command argument is split into executable name and arguments by spaces. Problem 1: "The file path for the command includes spaces" In the call: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("c:\\Program Files\\do.exe") the argument is split by spaces to an array of strings as: c:\\Program, Files\\do.exe The first element of parsed array is interpreted as the executable name, verified by SecurityManager (if present) and surrounded by quotations to avoid ambiguity in executable path. This results in the wrong command: "c:\\Program" "Files\\do.exe" which will fail. Solution: Use the ProcessBuilder class, or the Runtime.exec(String[] cmdarray [, ...] ) call, or quote the executable path. Where it is not possible to change the application code and where a SecurityManager is not used, the Java property jdk.lang.Process.allowAmbigousCommands could be used by setting its value to "true" from the command line: -Djdk.lang.Process.allowAmbigousCommands=true This will relax the checking process to allow ambiguous input. Examples: new ProcessBuilder("c:\\Program Files\\do.exe").start() Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"c:\\Program Files\\do.exe"}) Runtime.getRuntime().exec("\"c:\\Program Files\\do.exe\"") Problem 2: "Shell command/.bat/.cmd IO redirection" The following implicit cmd.exe calls: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("dir temp.txt") new ProcessBuilder("foo.bat", "", "temp.txt").start() Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"foo.cmd", "", "temp.txt"}) lead to the wrong command: "XXXX" "" temp.txt Solution: To specify the command correctly, use the following options: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cmd /C \"dir temp.txt\"") new ProcessBuilder("cmd", "/C", "foo.bat temp.txt").start() Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"cmd", "/C", "foo.cmd temp.txt"}) or Process p = new ProcessBuilder("cmd", "/C" "XXX").redirectOutput(new File("temp.txt")).start(); Problem 3: "Group execution of shell command and/or .bat/.cmd files" Due to enforced verification procedure, arguments in the following calls create the wrong commands.: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("first.bat && second.bat") new ProcessBuilder("dir", "&&", "second.bat").start() Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"dir", "|", "more"}) Solution: To specify the command correctly, use the following options: Runtime.exec("cmd /C \"first.bat && second.bat\"") new ProcessBuilder("cmd", "/C", "dir && second.bat").start() Runtime.exec(new String[]{"cmd", "/C", "dir | more"}) The same scenario also works for the "&", "||", "^" operators of the cmd.exe shell. Problem 4: ".bat/.cmd with special DOS chars in quoted params” Due to enforced verification, arguments in the following calls will cause exceptions to be thrown.: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("log.bat \"error new ProcessBuilder("log.bat", "error Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"log.bat", "error Solution: To specify the command correctly, use the following options: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cmd /C log.bat \"error new ProcessBuilder("cmd", "/C", "log.bat", "error Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"cmd", "/C", "log.bat", "error Examples: Complicated redirection for shell construction: cmd /c dir /b C:\ "my lovely spaces.txt" becomes Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"cmd", "/C", "dir \b \"my lovely spaces.txt\"" }); The Golden Rule: In most cases, cmd.exe has two arguments: "/C" and the command for interpretation.

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