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• Digital Storage for Airline Entertainment

  - by Bill Evjen

  by Thomas Coughlin Common flash memory cards The most common flash memory products currently in use are SD cards and derivative products (e.g. mini and micro-SD cards) Some compact flash used for professional applications (such as DSLR cameras) Evolution of leading flash formats Standardization –> market expansion Market expansion –> volume iNAND –> focus is on enabling embedded X3 iSSD –> ideal for thin form factor devices Flash memory applications Phones are the #1 user of flash memory Flash memory is used as embedded and removable storage in many mobile applications Flash memory is being used in computers as USB sticks and SSDs Possible use of flash memory in computer combined with HDDs (hybrid HDDs and paired or dual storage computers) It can be a removable card or an embedded card These devices can only handle a specific number of writes Flash memory reads considerably quicker than hard drives Hybrid and dual storage in computers SSDs can provide fast performance but they are expensive HDDs can provide cheap storage but they are relatively slow Combining some flash memory with a HDD can provide costs close to those of HDDs and performance close to flash memory Seagate Momentus XT hybrid HDD Various dual storage offerings putting flash memory with HDDs Other common flash memory devices USB sticks All forms and colors Used for moving files around Some sold with content on them (Sony Movies on USB sticks) Solid State Drives (SSDs) Floating Gate Flash Memory Cell When a bit is programmed, electrons are stored upon the floating gate This has the effect of offsetting the charge on the control gate of the transistor If there is no charge upon the floating gate, then the control gate’s charge determines whether or not a current flows through the channel A strong charge on the control gate assumes that no current flows. A weak charge will allow a strong current to flow through. Similar to HDDs, flash memory must provide: Bit error correction Bad block management NAND and NOR memories are treated differently when it comes to managing wear In many NOR-based systems no management is used at all, since the NOR is simply used to store code, and data is stored in other devices. In this case, it would take a near-infinite amount of time for wear to become an issue since the only time the chip would see an erase/write cycle is when the code in the system is being upgraded, which rarely if ever happens over the life of a typical system. NAND is usually found in very different application than is NOR Flash memory wears out This is expected to get worse over time Retention: Disappearing data Bits fade away Retention decreases with increasing read/writes Bits may change when adjacent bits are read Time and traffic are concerns Controllers typically groom read disturb errors Like DRAM refresh Increases erase/write frequency Application characteristics Music – reads high / writes very low Video – r high / writes very low Internet Cache – r high / writes low On airplanes Many consumers now have their own content viewing devices – do they need the airlines? Is there a way to offer more to consumers, especially with their own viewers Additional special content tie into airplane network access to electrical power, internet Should there be fixed embedded or removable storage for on-board airline entertainment? Is there a way to leverage personal and airline viewers and content in new and entertaining ways?

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• Not Dead, Just Busy

  - by MOSSLover

  So I didn’t die in a freak smelting accident yet, but I have been dealing with a lot of different things.  I had to take a bit of a break to deal with the cat death issue.  I am not fully recovered, because well it just happened a few months ago.  It kind of sucked.  Plus the apartment feels a lot bigger. Then you have the whole New York Comic Con thing where I had to plan some cosplay costumes.  I have been trying to find time to hang out with friends and have a social life.  That plus I built an entire presentation for iOS development for New York Code Camp.  I am also planning a couple MS Community dinners (namely one a week from Tuesday) plus a give camp.  I am also planning a vacation around SPS UK plus I will be at SPC.  Life is just incredibly hectic and when you factor in dating to the mix it’s gotten insane to the point where some day I just have to go dark.  Hence the lack of blogging.  I am just trying to keep up with everything and everyone without losing myself. If you guys will be at SPC or SPS UK I will be at both places this year.  Stop by the Planet Technologies booth and see me or I’ll be around somewhere.  I am really sorry if I don’t remember you from an event or if you are someone following me on twitter.  I am trying to get better at the mnemonic memory devices, but I think things broke down around the 47th event I attended or spoke at or something to that nature.  If anyone wants to talk to Cathy, Lori, or I about Women in SharePoint definitely find us at the event.  Anyway good night and good luck guys.  I promise to check back at least once before the year ends.  In the meantime twitter stalking is always possible.  Sometimes I even respond back. Technorati Tags: SPC,SPS UK,NYCC,NYC Code Camp,MOSSLover

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• Installing SharePoint 2010 and PowerPivot for SharePoint on Windows 7

  - by smisner

  Many people like me want (or need) to do their business intelligence development work on a laptop. As someone who frequently speaks at various events or teaches classes on all subjects related to the Microsoft business intelligence stack, I need a way to run multiple server products on my laptop with reasonable performance. Once upon a time, that requirement meant only that I had to load the current version of SQL Server and the client tools of choice. In today's post, I'll review my latest experience with trying to make the newly released Microsoft BI products work with a Windows 7 operating system. The entrance of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 into the BI stack complicated matters and I started using Virtual Server to establish a "suitable" environment. As part of the team that delivered a lot of education as part of the Yukon pre-launch activities (that would be SQL Server 2005 for the uninitiated), I was working with four - yes, four - virtual servers. That was a pretty brutal workload for a 2GB laptop, which worked if I was very, very careful. It could also be a finicky and unreliable configuration as I learned to my dismay at one TechEd session several years ago when I had to reboot a very carefully cached set of servers just minutes before my session started. Although it worked, it came back to life very, very slowly much to the displeasure of the audience. They couldn't possibly have been less pleased than me. At that moment, I resolved to get the beefiest environment I could afford and consolidate to a single virtual server. Enter the 4GB 64-bit laptop to preserve my sanity and my livelihood. Likewise, for SQL Server 2008, I managed to keep everything within a single virtual server and I could function reasonably well with this approach. Now we have SQL Server 2008 R2 plus Office SharePoint Server 2010. That means a 64-bit operating system. Period. That means no more Virtual Server. That means I must use Hyper-V or another alternative. I've heard alternatives exist, but my few dabbles in this area did not yield positive results. It might have been just me having issues rather than any failure of those technologies to adequately support the requirements. My first run at working with the new BI stack configuration was to set up a 64-bit 4GB laptop with a dual-boot to run Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V. However, I was generally not happy with running Windows Server 2008 R2 on my laptop. For one, I couldn't put it into sleep mode, which is helpful if I want to prepare for a presentation beforehand and then walk to the podium without the need to hold my laptop in its open state along the way (my strategy at the TechEd session long, long ago). Secondly, it was finicky with projectors. I had issues from time to time and while I always eventually got it to work, I didn't appreciate those nerve-wracking moments wondering whether this would be the time that it wouldn't work. Somewhere along the way, I learned that it was possible to load SharePoint 2010 in a Windows 7 which piqued my interest. I had just acquired a new laptop running Windows 7 64-bit, and thought surely running the BI stack natively on my laptop must be better than running Hyper-V. (I have not tried booting to Hyper-V VHD yet, but that's on my list of things to try so the jury of one is still out on this approach.) Recently, I had to build up a server with the RTM versions of SQL Server 2008 R2 and Sharepoint Server 2010 and decided to follow suit on my Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit laptop. The process is slightly different, but I'm happy to report that it IS possible, although I had some fits and starts along the way. DISCLAIMER: These products are NOT intended to be run in production mode on the Windows 7 operating system. The configuration described in this post is strictly for development or learning purposes and not supported by Microsoft. If you have trouble, you will NOT get help from them. I might be able to help, but I provide no guarantees of my ability or availablity to help. I won't provide the step-by-step instructions in this post as there are other resources that provide these details, but I will provide an overview of my approach, point you to the relevant resources, describe some of the problems I encountered, and explain how I addressed those problems to achieve my desired goal. Because my goal was not simply to set up SharePoint Server 2010 on my laptop, but specifically PowerPivot for SharePoint, I started out by referring to the installation instructions at the PowerPiovt-Info site, but mainly to confirm that I was performing steps in the proper sequence. I didn't perform the steps in Part 1 because those steps are applicable only to a server operating system which I am not running on my laptop. Then, the instructions in Part 2, won't work exactly as written for the same reason. Instead, I followed the instructions on MSDN, Setting Up the Development Environment for SharePoint 2010 on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008. In general, I found the following differences in installation steps from the steps at PowerPivot-Info: You must copy the SharePoint installation media to the local drive so that you can edit the config.xml to allow installation on a Windows client. You also have to manually install the prerequisites. The instructions provides links to each item that you must manually install and provides a command-line instruction to execute which enables required Windows features. I will digress for a moment to save you some grief in the sequence of steps to perform. I discovered later that a missing step in the MSDN instructions is to install the November CTP Reporting Services add-in for SharePoint. When I went to test my SharePoint site (I believe I tested after I had a successful PowerPivot installation), I ran into the following error: Could not load file or assembly 'RSSharePointSoapProxy, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. I was rather surprised that Reporting Services was required. Then I found an article by Alan le Marquand, Working Together: SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Integration in SharePoint 2010,that instructed readers to install the November add-in. My first reaction was, "Really?!?" But I confirmed it in another TechNet article on hardware and software requirements for SharePoint Server 2010. It doesn't refer explicitly to the November CTP but following the link took me there. (Interestingly, I retested today and there's no longer any reference to the November CTP. Here's the link to download the latest and greatest Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint Technologies 2010.) You don't need to download the add-in anymore if you're doing a regular server-based installation of SharePoint because it installs as part of the prerequisites automatically. When it was time to start the installation of SharePoint, I deviated from the MSDN instructions and from the PowerPivot-Info instructions: On the Choose the installation you want page of the installation wizard, I chose Server Farm. On the Server Type page, I chose Complete. At the end of the installation, I did not run the configuration wizard. Returning to the PowerPivot-Info instructions, I tried to follow the instructions in Part 3 which describe installing SQL Server 2008 R2 with the PowerPivot option. These instructions tell you to choose the New Server option on the Setup Role page where you add PowerPivot for SharePoint. However, I ran into problems with this approach and got installation errors at the end. It wasn't until much later as I was investigating an error that I encountered Dave Wickert's post that installing PowerPivot for SharePoint on Windows 7 is unsupported. Uh oh. But he did want to hear about it if anyone succeeded, so I decided to take the plunge. Perseverance paid off, and I can happily inform Dave that it does work so far. I haven't tested absolutely everything with PowerPivot for SharePoint but have successfully deployed a workbook and viewed the PowerPivot Management Dashboard. I have not yet tested the data refresh feature, but I have installed. Continue reading to see how I accomplished my objective. I unintalled SQL Server 2008 R2 and started again. I had different problems which I don't recollect now. However, I uninstalled again and approached installation from a different angle and my next attempt succeeded. The downside of this approach is that you must do all of the things yourself that are done automatically when you install PowerPivot as a new server. Here are the steps that I followed: Install SQL Server 2008 R2 to get a database engine instance installed. Run the SharePoint configuration wizard to set up the SharePoint databases. In Central Administration, create a Web application using classic mode authentication as per a TechNet article on PowerPivot Authentication and Authorization. Then I followed the steps I found at How to: Install PowerPivot for SharePoint on an Existing SharePoint Server. Especially important to note - you must launch setup by using Run as administrator. I did not have to manually deploy the PowerPivot solution as the instructions specify, but it's good to know about this step because it tells you where to look in Central Administration to confirm a successful deployment. I did spot some incorrect steps in the instructions (at the time of this writing) in How To: Configure Stored Credentials for PowerPivot Data Refresh. Specifically, in the section entitled Step 1: Create a target application and set the credentials, both steps 10 and 12 are incorrect. They tell you to provide an actual Windows user name and password on the page where you are simply defining the prompts for your application in the Secure Store Service. To add the Windows user name and password that you want to associate with the application - after you have successfully created the target application - you select the target application and then click Set credentials in the ribbon. Lastly, I followed the instructions at How to: Install Office Data Connectivity Components on a PowerPivot server. However, I have yet to test this in my current environment. I did have several stops and starts throughout this process and edited those out to spare you from reading non-essential information. I believe the explanation I have provided here accurately reflect the steps I followed to produce a working configuration. If you follow these steps and get a different result, please let me know so that together we can work through the issue and correct these instructions. I'm sure there are many other folks in the Microsoft BI community that will appreciate the ability to set up the BI stack in a Windows 7 environment for development or learning purposes. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Where to draw the line between development-led security and administration-led security?

  - by haylem

  There are cases where you have the opportunity, as a developer, to enforce stricter security features and protections on a software, though they could very well be managed at an environmental level (ie, the operating system would take care of it). Where would you say you draw the line, and what elements do you factor in your decision? Concrete Examples User Management is the OS's responsibility Not exactly meant as a security feature, but in a similar case Google Chrome used to not allow separate profiles. The invoked reason (though it now supports multiple profiles for a same OS user) used to be that user management was the operating system's responsibility. Disabling Web-Form Fields A recurrent request I see addressed online is to have auto-completion be disabled on form fields. Auto-completion didn't exist in old browsers, and was a welcome feature at the time it was introduced for people who needed to fill in forms often. But it also brought in some security concerns, and so some browsers started to implement, on top of the (obviously needed) setting in their own preference/customization panel, an autocomplete attribute for form or input fields. And this has now been introduced into the upcoming HTML5 standard. For browsers who do not listen to this attribute, strange hacks *\ are offered, like generating unique IDs and names for fields to avoid them from being suggested in future forms (which comes with another herd of issues, like polluting your local auto-fill cache and not preventing a password from being stored in it, but instead probably duplicating its occurences). In this particular case, and others, I'd argue that this is a user setting and that it's the user's desire and the user's responsibility to enable or disable auto-fill (by disabling the feature altogether). And if it is based on an internal policy and security requirement in a corporate environment, then substitute the user for the administrator in the above. I assume it could be counter-argued that the user may want to access non-critical applications (or sites) with this handy feature enabled, and critical applications with this feature disabled. But then I'd think that's what security zones are for (in some browsers), or the sign that you need a more secure (and dedicated) environment / account to use these applications. * I obviously don't deny the ingenuity of the people who were forced to find workarounds, just the necessity of said workarounds. Questions That was a tad long-winded, so I guess my questions are: Would you in general consider it to be the application's (hence, the developer's) responsiblity? Where do you draw the line, if not in the "general" case?

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• Towards Database Continuous Delivery – What Next after Continuous Integration? A Checklist

  - by Ben Rees

  .dbd-banner p{ font-size:0.75em; padding:0 0 10px; margin:0 } .dbd-banner p span{ color:#675C6D; } .dbd-banner p:last-child{ padding:0; } @media ALL and (max-width:640px){ .dbd-banner{ background:#f0f0f0; padding:5px; color:#333; margin-top: 5px; } } -- Database delivery patterns & practices STAGE 4 AUTOMATED DEPLOYMENT If you’ve been fortunate enough to get to the stage where you’ve implemented some sort of continuous integration process for your database updates, then hopefully you’re seeing the benefits of that investment – constant feedback on changes your devs are making, advanced warning of data loss (prior to the production release on Saturday night!), a nice suite of automated tests to check business logic, so you know it’s going to work when it goes live, and so on. But what next? What can you do to improve your delivery process further, moving towards a full continuous delivery process for your database? In this article I describe some of the issues you might need to tackle on the next stage of this journey, and how to plan to overcome those obstacles before they appear. Our Database Delivery Learning Program consists of four stages, really three – source controlling a database, running continuous integration processes, then how to set up automated deployment (the middle stage is split in two – basic and advanced continuous integration, making four stages in total). If you’ve managed to work through the first three of these stages – source control, basic, then advanced CI, then you should have a solid change management process set up where, every time one of your team checks in a change to your database (whether schema or static reference data), this change gets fully tested automatically by your CI server. But this is only part of the story. Great, we know that our updates work, that the upgrade process works, that the upgrade isn’t going to wipe our 4Tb of production data with a single DROP TABLE. But – how do you get this (fully tested) release live? Continuous delivery means being always ready to release your software at any point in time. There’s a significant gap between your latest version being tested, and it being easily releasable. Just a quick note on terminology – there’s a nice piece here from Atlassian on the difference between continuous integration, continuous delivery and continuous deployment. This piece also gives a nice description of the benefits of continuous delivery. These benefits have been summed up by Jez Humble at Thoughtworks as: “Continuous delivery is a set of principles and practices to reduce the cost, time, and risk of delivering incremental changes to users” There’s another really useful piece here on Simple-Talk about the need for continuous delivery and how it applies to the database written by Phil Factor – specifically the extra needs and complexities of implementing a full CD solution for the database (compared to just implementing CD for, say, a web app). So, hopefully you’re convinced of moving on the the next stage! The next step after CI is to get some sort of automated deployment (or “release management”) process set up. But what should I do next? What do I need to plan and think about for getting my automated database deployment process set up? Can’t I just install one of the many release management tools available and hey presto, I’m ready! If only it were that simple. Below I list some of the areas that it’s worth spending a little time on, where a little planning and prep could go a long way. It’s also worth pointing out, that this should really be an evolving process. Depending on your starting point of course, it can be a long journey from your current setup to a full continuous delivery pipeline. If you’ve got a CI mechanism in place, you’re certainly a long way down that path. Nevertheless, we’d recommend evolving your process incrementally. Pages 157 and 129-141 of the book on Continuous Delivery (by Jez Humble and Dave Farley) have some great guidance on building up a pipeline incrementally: http://www.amazon.com/Continuous-Delivery-Deployment-Automation-Addison-Wesley/dp/0321601912 For now, in this post, we’ll look at the following areas for your checklist: You and Your Team Environments The Deployment Process Rollback and Recovery Development Practices You and Your Team It’s a cliché in the DevOps community that “It’s not all about processes and tools, really it’s all about a culture”. As stated in this DevOps report from Puppet Labs: “DevOps processes and tooling contribute to high performance, but these practices alone aren’t enough to achieve organizational success. The most common barriers to DevOps adoption are cultural: lack of manager or team buy-in, or the value of DevOps isn’t understood outside of a specific group”. Like most clichés, there’s truth in there – if you want to set up a database continuous delivery process, you need to get your boss, your department, your company (if relevant) onside. Why? Because it’s an investment with the benefits coming way down the line. But the benefits are huge – for HP, in the book A Practical Approach to Large-Scale Agile Development: How HP Transformed LaserJet FutureSmart Firmware, these are summarized as: -2008 to present: overall development costs reduced by 40% -Number of programs under development increased by 140% -Development costs per program down 78% -Firmware resources now driving innovation increased by a factor of 8 (from 5% working on new features to 40% But what does this mean? It means that, when moving to the next stage, to make that extra investment in automating your deployment process, it helps a lot if everyone is convinced that this is a good thing. That they understand the benefits of automated deployment and are willing to make the effort to transform to a new way of working. Incidentally, if you’re ever struggling to convince someone of the value I’d strongly recommend just buying them a copy of this book – a great read, and a very practical guide to how it can really work at a large org. I’ve spoken to many customers who have implemented database CI who describe their deployment process as “The point where automation breaks down. Up to that point, the CI process runs, untouched by human hand, but as soon as that’s finished we revert to manual.” This deployment process can involve, for example, a DBA manually comparing an environment (say, QA) to production, creating the upgrade scripts, reading through them, checking them against an Excel document emailed to him/her the night before, turning to page 29 in his/her notebook to double-check how replication is switched off and on for deployments, and so on and so on. Painful, error-prone and lengthy. But the point is, if this is something like your deployment process, telling your DBA “We’re changing everything you do and your toolset next week, to automate most of your role – that’s okay isn’t it?” isn’t likely to go down well. There’s some work here to bring him/her onside – to explain what you’re doing, why there will still be control of the deployment process and so on. Or of course, if you’re the DBA looking after this process, you have to do a similar job in reverse. You may have researched and worked out how you’d like to change your methodology to start automating your painful release process, but do the dev team know this? What if they have to start producing different artifacts for you? Will they be happy with this? Worth talking to them, to find out. As well as talking to your DBA/dev team, the other group to get involved before implementation is your manager. And possibly your manager’s manager too. As mentioned, unless there’s buy-in “from the top”, you’re going to hit problems when the implementation starts to get rocky (and what tool/process implementations don’t get rocky?!). You need to have support from someone senior in your organisation – someone you can turn to when you need help with a delayed implementation, lack of resources or lack of progress. Actions: Get your DBA involved (or whoever looks after live deployments) and discuss what you’re planning to do or, if you’re the DBA yourself, get the dev team up-to-speed with your plans, Get your boss involved too and make sure he/she is bought in to the investment. Environments Where are you going to deploy to? And really this question is – what environments do you want set up for your deployment pipeline? Assume everyone has “Production”, but do you have a QA environment? Dedicated development environments for each dev? Proper pre-production? I’ve seen every setup under the sun, and there is often a big difference between “What we want, to do continuous delivery properly” and “What we’re currently stuck with”. Some of these differences are: What we want What we’ve got Each developer with their own dedicated database environment A single shared “development” environment, used by everyone at once An Integration box used to test the integration of all check-ins via the CI process, along with a full suite of unit-tests running on that machine In fact if you have a CI process running, you’re likely to have some sort of integration server running (even if you don’t call it that!). Whether you have a full suite of unit tests running is a different question… Separate QA environment used explicitly for manual testing prior to release “We just test on the dev environments, or maybe pre-production” A proper pre-production (or “staging”) box that matches production as closely as possible Hopefully a pre-production box of some sort. But does it match production closely!? A production environment reproducible from source control A production box which has drifted significantly from anything in source control The big question is – how much time and effort are you going to invest in fixing these issues? In reality this just involves figuring out which new databases you’re going to create and where they’ll be hosted – VMs? Cloud-based? What about size/data issues – what data are you going to include on dev environments? Does it need to be masked to protect access to production data? And often the amount of work here really depends on whether you’re working on a new, greenfield project, or trying to update an existing, brownfield application. There’s a world if difference between starting from scratch with 4 or 5 clean environments (reproducible from source control of course!), and trying to re-purpose and tweak a set of existing databases, with all of their surrounding processes and quirks. But for a proper release management process, ideally you have: Dedicated development databases, An Integration server used for testing continuous integration and running unit tests. [NB: This is the point at which deployments are automatic, without human intervention. Each deployment after this point is a one-click (but human) action], QA – QA engineers use a one-click deployment process to automatically* deploy chosen releases to QA for testing, Pre-production. The environment you use to test the production release process, Production. * A note on the use of the word “automatic” – when carrying out automated deployments this does not mean that the deployment is happening without human intervention (i.e. that something is just deploying over and over again). It means that the process of carrying out the deployment is automatic in that it’s not a person manually running through a checklist or set of actions. The deployment still requires a single-click from a user. Actions: Get your environments set up and ready, Set access permissions appropriately, Make sure everyone understands what the environments will be used for (it’s not a “free-for-all” with all environments to be accessed, played with and changed by development). The Deployment Process As described earlier, most existing database deployment processes are pretty manual. The following is a description of a process we hear very often when we ask customers “How do your database changes get live? How does your manual process work?” Check pre-production matches production (use a schema compare tool, like SQL Compare). Sometimes done by taking a backup from production and restoring in to pre-prod, Again, use a schema compare tool to find the differences between the latest version of the database ready to go live (i.e. what the team have been developing). This generates a script, User (generally, the DBA), reviews the script. This often involves manually checking updates against a spreadsheet or similar, Run the script on pre-production, and check there are no errors (i.e. it upgrades pre-production to what you hoped), If all working, run the script on production.* * this assumes there’s no problem with production drifting away from pre-production in the interim time period (i.e. someone has hacked something in to the production box without going through the proper change management process). This difference could undermine the validity of your pre-production deployment test. Red Gate is currently working on a free tool to detect this problem – sign up here at www.sqllighthouse.com, if you’re interested in testing early versions. There are several variations on this process – some better, some much worse! How do you automate this? In particular, step 3 – surely you can’t automate a DBA checking through a script, that everything is in order!? The key point here is to plan what you want in your new deployment process. There are so many options. At one extreme, pure continuous deployment – whenever a dev checks something in to source control, the CI process runs (including extensive and thorough testing!), before the deployment process keys in and automatically deploys that change to the live box. Not for the faint hearted – and really not something we recommend. At the other extreme, you might be more comfortable with a semi-automated process – the pre-production/production matching process is automated (with an error thrown if these environments don’t match), followed by a manual intervention, allowing for script approval by the DBA. One he/she clicks “Okay, I’m happy for that to go live”, the latter stages automatically take the script through to live. And anything in between of course – and other variations. But we’d strongly recommended sitting down with a whiteboard and your team, and spending a couple of hours mapping out “What do we do now?”, “What do we actually want?”, “What will satisfy our needs for continuous delivery, but still maintaining some sort of continuous control over the process?” NB: Most of what we’re discussing here is about production deployments. It’s important to note that you will also need to map out a deployment process for earlier environments (for example QA). However, these are likely to be less onerous, and many customers opt for a much more automated process for these boxes. Actions: Sit down with your team and a whiteboard, and draw out the answers to the questions above for your production deployments – “What do we do now?”, “What do we actually want?”, “What will satisfy our needs for continuous delivery, but still maintaining some sort of continuous control over the process?” Repeat for earlier environments (QA and so on). Rollback and Recovery If only every deployment went according to plan! Unfortunately they don’t – and when things go wrong, you need a rollback or recovery plan for what you’re going to do in that situation. Once you move in to a more automated database deployment process, you’re far more likely to be deploying more frequently than before. No longer once every 6 months, maybe now once per week, or even daily. Hence the need for a quick rollback or recovery process becomes paramount, and should be planned for. NB: These are mainly scenarios for handling rollbacks after the transaction has been committed. If a failure is detected during the transaction, the whole transaction can just be rolled back, no problem. There are various options, which we’ll explore in subsequent articles, things like: Immediately restore from backup, Have a pre-tested rollback script (remembering that really this is a “roll-forward” script – there’s not really such a thing as a rollback script for a database!) Have fallback environments – for example, using a blue-green deployment pattern. Different options have pros and cons – some are easier to set up, some require more investment in infrastructure; and of course some work better than others (the key issue with using backups, is loss of the interim transaction data that has been added between the failed deployment and the restore). The best mechanism will be primarily dependent on how your application works and how much you need a cast-iron failsafe mechanism. Actions: Work out an appropriate rollback strategy based on how your application and business works, your appetite for investment and requirements for a completely failsafe process. Development Practices This is perhaps the more difficult area for people to tackle. The process by which you can deploy database updates is actually intrinsically linked with the patterns and practices used to develop that database and linked application. So you need to decide whether you want to implement some changes to the way your developers actually develop the database (particularly schema changes) to make the deployment process easier. A good example is the pattern “Branch by abstraction”. Explained nicely here, by Martin Fowler, this is a process that can be used to make significant database changes (e.g. splitting a table) in a step-wise manner so that you can always roll back, without data loss – by making incremental updates to the database backward compatible. Slides 103-108 of the following slidedeck, from Niek Bartholomeus explain the process: https://speakerdeck.com/niekbartho/orchestration-in-meatspace As these slides show, by making a significant schema change in multiple steps – where each step can be rolled back without any loss of new data – this affords the release team the opportunity to have zero-downtime deployments with considerably less stress (because if an increment goes wrong, they can roll back easily). There are plenty more great patterns that can be implemented – the book Refactoring Databases, by Scott Ambler and Pramod Sadalage is a great read, if this is a direction you want to go in: http://www.amazon.com/Refactoring-Databases-Evolutionary-paperback-Addison-Wesley/dp/0321774515 But the question is – how much of this investment are you willing to make? How often are you making significant schema changes that would require these best practices? Again, there’s a difference here between migrating old projects and starting afresh – with the latter it’s much easier to instigate best practice from the start. Actions: For your business, work out how far down the path you want to go, amending your database development patterns to “best practice”. It’s a trade-off between implementing quality processes, and the necessity to do so (depending on how often you make complex changes). Socialise these changes with your development group. No-one likes having “best practice” changes imposed on them, so good to introduce these ideas and the rationale behind them early.   Summary The next stages of implementing a continuous delivery pipeline for your database changes (once you have CI up and running) require a little pre-planning, if you want to get the most out of the work, and for the implementation to go smoothly. We’ve covered some of the checklist of areas to consider – mainly in the areas of “Getting the team ready for the changes that are coming” and “Planning our your pipeline, environments, patterns and practices for development”, though there will be more detail, depending on where you’re coming from – and where you want to get to. This article is part of our database delivery patterns & practices series on Simple Talk. Find more articles for version control, automated testing, continuous integration & deployment.

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• The Red Gate Guide to SQL Server Team based Development Free e-book

  - by Mladen Prajdic

  After about 6 months of work, the new book I've coauthored with Grant Fritchey (Blog|Twitter), Phil Factor (Blog|Twitter) and Alex Kuznetsov (Blog|Twitter) is out. They're all smart folks I talk to online and this book is packed with good ideas backed by years of experience. The book contains a good deal of information about things you need to think of when doing any kind of multi person database development. Although it's meant for SQL Server, the principles can be applied to any database platform out there. In the book you will find information on: writing readable code, documenting code, source control and change management, deploying code between environments, unit testing, reusing code, searching and refactoring your code base. I've written chapter 5 about Database testing and chapter 11 about SQL Refactoring. In the database testing chapter (chapter 5) I cover why you should test your database, why it is a good idea to have a database access interface composed of stored procedures, views and user defined functions, what and how to test. I talk about how there are many testing methods like black and white box testing, unit and integration testing, error and stress testing and why and how you should do all those. Sometimes you have to convince management to go for testing in the development lifecycle so I give some pointers and tips how to do that. Testing databases is a bit different from testing object oriented code in a way that to have independent unit tests you need to rollback your code after each test. The chapter shows you ways to do this and also how to avoid it. At the end I show how to test various database objects and how to test access to them. In the SQL Refactoring chapter (chapter 11) I cover why refactor and where to even begin refactoring. I also who you a way to achieve a set based mindset to solve SQL problems which is crucial to good SQL set based programming and a few commonly seen problems to refactor. These problems include: using functions on columns in the where clause, SELECT * problems, long stored procedure with many input parameters, one subquery per condition in the select statement, cursors are good for anything problem, using too large data types everywhere and using your data in code for business logic anti-pattern. You can read more about it and download it here: The Red Gate Guide to SQL Server Team-based Development Hope you like it and send me feedback if you wish too.

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• The Social Business Thought Leaders - Ray Wang

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  It seems both consumers and businesses are at the peak of the social hype. Overwhelmed by social media channels, platforms, and processes both in their private and professional life, many early adopters are starting to feel the social fatigue. Mirroring what happened with email and web sites during the late 1990's - early 2000's, more and more managers are looking to move from ubiquitous social media tactics to the most appropriate business use case and processes. This step becomes even more important considering the year over year contraction in IT budgets and the consequent need to maximize return on every dollar spent in new technologies. Ray Wang, CEO and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, suggests engagement through collaborative technologies both as a conceptual model and a transformational tool for enterprises to reap business value. Without participation - the reasoning goes - there is no value and good technology alone is not enough to guarantee employee and customer adoption. Enterprise gamification is a new lever to succeed with Social Business by directing a critical mass of participation towards desired outcomes. What kind of outcomes? A recent study from Constellation Research (see 2012 Q1 Gamification Early Adopters Best Practices) highlights how Marketing, Customer Service and HR are leading the pack with gamification in processes such as: Sustaining long term customer loyalty (76.4%) Improving response in campaign to lead (74.5%) Right channeling incidents for resolution in social media (67.3%) Growing the number service and support incidents resolved by the community (63.6%) Improving employee referral rates and effective recruiting (43.6%) Driving on-boarding success with new hires (20%) More than simply adding badges, points and leaderboards to existing processes, enterprise gamification should be holistically embedded into employee and customer experience to stimulate specific behaviors. According to Ray Wang this can be done at three core levels: Measurable actions. The behaviors we want to facilitate consist of granular actions (i.e likes, comments, posts, recommendations, etc) and more complex actions (i.e projects, initiatives, programmes) attributed to individuals, groups and/or external actors  Reputation. The reputation an individual has earned through his actions is a key factor in building motivation among others and it is determined by its identity, social standing status and competitiveness Incentives or the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards that motivate behaviors and drive actions Listen to Ray Wang's video-interview to learn more about the dynamics that are shaping the future of collaboration and how gamification can help organizations attain new levels of engagement.

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• Building a better mouse-trap &ndash; Improving the creation of XML Message Requests using Reflection, XML &amp; XSLT

  - by paulschapman

  Introduction The way I previously created messages to send to the GovTalk service I used the XMLDocument to create the request. While this worked it left a number of problems; not least that for every message a special function would need to created. This is OK for the short term but the biggest cost in any software project is maintenance and this would be a headache to maintain. So the following is a somewhat better way of achieving the same thing. For the purposes of this article I am going to be using the CompanyNumberSearch request of the GovTalk service – although this technique would work for any service that accepted XML. The C# functions which send and receive the messages remain the same. The magic sauce in this is the XSLT which defines the structure of the request, and the use of objects in conjunction with reflection to provide the content. It is a bit like Sweet Chilli Sauce added to Chicken on a bed of rice. So on to the Sweet Chilli Sauce The Sweet Chilli Sauce The request to search for a company based on it’s number is as follows; <GovTalkMessage xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema/Egov_ch-v2-0.xsd" xmlns="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope" xmlns:dsig="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#" xmlns:gt="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemas/govtalk/core" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" > <EnvelopeVersion>1.0</EnvelopeVersion> <Header> <MessageDetails> <Class>NumberSearch</Class> <Qualifier>request</Qualifier> <TransactionID>1</TransactionID> </MessageDetails> <SenderDetails> <IDAuthentication> <SenderID>????????????????????????????????</SenderID> <Authentication> <Method>CHMD5</Method> <Value>????????????????????????????????</Value> </Authentication> </IDAuthentication> </SenderDetails> </Header> <GovTalkDetails> <Keys/> </GovTalkDetails> <Body> <NumberSearchRequest xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema/NumberSearch.xsd"> <PartialCompanyNumber>99999999</PartialCompanyNumber> <DataSet>LIVE</DataSet> <SearchRows>1</SearchRows> </NumberSearchRequest> </Body> </GovTalkMessage> This is the XML that we send to the GovTalk Service and we get back a list of companies that match the criteria passed A message is structured in two parts; The envelope which identifies the person sending the request, with the name of the request, and the body which gives the detail of the company we are looking for. The Chilli What makes it possible is the use of XSLT to define the message – and serialization to convert each request object into XML. To start we need to create an object which will represent the contents of the message we are sending. However there is a common properties in all the messages that we send to Companies House. These properties are as follows SenderId – the id of the person sending the message SenderPassword – the password associated with Id TransactionId – Unique identifier for the message AuthenticationValue – authenticates the request Because these properties are unique to the Companies House message, and because they are shared with all messages they are perfect candidates for a base class. The class is as follows; using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Web; using System.Security.Cryptography; using System.Text; using System.Text.RegularExpressions; using Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ServiceRuntime; namespace CompanyHub.Services { public class GovTalkRequest { public GovTalkRequest() { try { SenderID = RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("SenderId"); SenderPassword = RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("SenderPassword"); TransactionId = DateTime.Now.Ticks.ToString(); AuthenticationValue = EncodePassword(String.Format("{0}{1}{2}", SenderID, SenderPassword, TransactionId)); } catch (System.Exception ex) { throw ex; } } /// <summary> /// returns the Sender ID to be used when communicating with the GovTalk Service /// </summary> public String SenderID { get; set; } /// <summary> /// return the password to be used when communicating with the GovTalk Service /// </summary> public String SenderPassword { get; set; } // end SenderPassword /// <summary> /// Transaction Id - uses the Time and Date converted to Ticks /// </summary> public String TransactionId { get; set; } // end TransactionId /// <summary> /// calculate the authentication value that will be used when /// communicating with /// </summary> public String AuthenticationValue { get; set; } // end AuthenticationValue property /// <summary> /// encodes password(s) using MD5 /// </summary> /// <param name="clearPassword"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static String EncodePassword(String clearPassword) { MD5CryptoServiceProvider md5Hasher = new MD5CryptoServiceProvider(); byte[] hashedBytes; UTF32Encoding encoder = new UTF32Encoding(); hashedBytes = md5Hasher.ComputeHash(ASCIIEncoding.Default.GetBytes(clearPassword)); String result = Regex.Replace(BitConverter.ToString(hashedBytes), "-", "").ToLower(); return result; } } } There is nothing particularly clever here, except for the EncodePassword method which hashes the value made up of the SenderId, Password and Transaction id. Each message inherits from this object. So for the Company Number Search in addition to the properties above we need a partial number, which dataset to search – for the purposes of the project we only need to search the LIVE set so this can be set in the constructor and the SearchRows. Again all are set as properties. With the SearchRows and DataSet initialized in the constructor. public class CompanyNumberSearchRequest : GovTalkRequest, IDisposable { /// <summary> /// /// </summary> public CompanyNumberSearchRequest() : base() { DataSet = "LIVE"; SearchRows = 1; } /// <summary> /// Company Number to search against /// </summary> public String PartialCompanyNumber { get; set; } /// <summary> /// What DataSet should be searched for the company /// </summary> public String DataSet { get; set; } /// <summary> /// How many rows should be returned /// </summary> public int SearchRows { get; set; } public void Dispose() { DataSet = String.Empty; PartialCompanyNumber = String.Empty; DataSet = "LIVE"; SearchRows = 1; } } As well as inheriting from our base class, I have also inherited from IDisposable – not just because it is just plain good practice to dispose of objects when coding, but it gives also gives us more versatility when using the object. There are four stages in making a request and this is reflected in the four methods we execute in making a call to the Companies House service; Create a request Send a request Check the status If OK then get the results of the request I’ve implemented each of these stages within a static class called Toolbox – which also means I don’t need to create an instance of the class to use it. When making a request there are three stages; Get the template for the message Serialize the object representing the message Transform the serialized object using a predefined XSLT file. Each of my templates I have defined as an embedded resource. When retrieving a resource of this kind we have to include the full namespace to the resource. In making the code re-usable as much as possible I defined the full ‘path’ within the GetRequest method. requestFile = String.Format("CompanyHub.Services.Schemas.{0}", RequestFile); So we now have the full path of the file within the assembly. Now all we need do is retrieve the assembly and get the resource. asm = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly(); sr = asm.GetManifestResourceStream(requestFile); Once retrieved  So this can be returned to the calling function and we now have a stream of XSLT to define the message. Time now to serialize the request to create the other side of this message. // Serialize object containing Request, Load into XML Document t = Obj.GetType(); ms = new MemoryStream(); serializer = new XmlSerializer(t); xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(ms, Encoding.ASCII); serializer.Serialize(xmlTextWriter, Obj); ms = (MemoryStream)xmlTextWriter.BaseStream; GovTalkRequest = Toolbox.ConvertByteArrayToString(ms.ToArray()); First off we need the type of the object so we make a call to the GetType method of the object containing the Message properties. Next we need a MemoryStream, XmlSerializer and an XMLTextWriter so these can be initialized. The object is serialized by making the call to the Serialize method of the serializer object. The result of that is then converted into a MemoryStream. That MemoryStream is then converted into a string. ConvertByteArrayToString This is a fairly simple function which uses an ASCIIEncoding object found within the System.Text namespace to convert an array of bytes into a string. public static String ConvertByteArrayToString(byte[] bytes) { System.Text.ASCIIEncoding enc = new System.Text.ASCIIEncoding(); return enc.GetString(bytes); } I only put it into a function because I will be using this in various places. The Sauce When adding support for other messages outside of creating a new object to store the properties of the message, the C# components do not need to change. It is in the XSLT file that the versatility of the technique lies. The XSLT file determines the format of the message. For the CompanyNumberSearch the XSLT file is as follows; <?xml version="1.0"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:template match="/"> <GovTalkMessage xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema/Egov_ch-v2-0.xsd" xmlns="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope" xmlns:dsig="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#" xmlns:gt="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemas/govtalk/core" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" > <EnvelopeVersion>1.0</EnvelopeVersion> <Header> <MessageDetails> <Class>NumberSearch</Class> <Qualifier>request</Qualifier> <TransactionID> <xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/TransactionId"/> </TransactionID> </MessageDetails> <SenderDetails> <IDAuthentication> <SenderID><xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/SenderID"/></SenderID> <Authentication> <Method>CHMD5</Method> <Value> <xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/AuthenticationValue"/> </Value> </Authentication> </IDAuthentication> </SenderDetails> </Header> <GovTalkDetails> <Keys/> </GovTalkDetails> <Body> <NumberSearchRequest xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema/NumberSearch.xsd"> <PartialCompanyNumber> <xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/PartialCompanyNumber"/> </PartialCompanyNumber> <DataSet> <xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/DataSet"/> </DataSet> <SearchRows> <xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/SearchRows"/> </SearchRows> </NumberSearchRequest> </Body> </GovTalkMessage> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> The outer two tags define that this is a XSLT stylesheet and the root tag from which the nodes are searched for. The GovTalkMessage is the format of the message that will be sent to Companies House. We first set up the XslCompiledTransform object which will transform the XSLT template and the serialized object into the request to Companies House. xslt = new XslCompiledTransform(); resultStream = new MemoryStream(); writer = new XmlTextWriter(resultStream, Encoding.ASCII); doc = new XmlDocument(); The Serialize method require XmlTextWriter to write the XML (writer) and a stream to place the transferred object into (writer). The XML will be loaded into an XMLDocument object (doc) prior to the transformation. // create XSLT Template xslTemplate = Toolbox.GetRequest(Template); xslTemplate.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin); templateReader = XmlReader.Create(xslTemplate); xslt.Load(templateReader); I have stored all the templates as a series of Embedded Resources and the GetRequestCall takes the name of the template and extracts the relevent XSLT file. /// <summary> /// Gets the framwork XML which makes the request /// </summary> /// <param name="RequestFile"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static Stream GetRequest(String RequestFile) { String requestFile = String.Empty; Stream sr = null; Assembly asm = null; try { requestFile = String.Format("CompanyHub.Services.Schemas.{0}", RequestFile); asm = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly(); sr = asm.GetManifestResourceStream(requestFile); } catch (Exception) { throw; } finally { asm = null; } return sr; } // end private static stream GetRequest We first take the template name and expand it to include the full namespace to the Embedded Resource I like to keep all my schemas in the same directory and so the namespace reflects this. The rest is the default namespace for the project. Then we get the currently executing assembly (which will contain the resources with the call to GetExecutingAssembly() ) Finally we get a stream which contains the XSLT file. We use this stream and then load an XmlReader with the contents of the template, and that is in turn loaded into the XslCompiledTransform object. We convert the object containing the message properties into Xml by serializing it; calling the Serialize() method of the XmlSerializer object. To set up the object we do the following; t = Obj.GetType(); ms = new MemoryStream(); serializer = new XmlSerializer(t); xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(ms, Encoding.ASCII); We first determine the type of the object being transferred by calling GetType() We create an XmlSerializer object by passing the type of the object being serialized. The serializer writes to a memory stream and that is linked to an XmlTextWriter. Next job is to serialize the object and load it into an XmlDocument. serializer.Serialize(xmlTextWriter, Obj); ms = (MemoryStream)xmlTextWriter.BaseStream; xmlRequest = new XmlTextReader(ms); GovTalkRequest = Toolbox.ConvertByteArrayToString(ms.ToArray()); doc.LoadXml(GovTalkRequest); Time to transform the XML to construct the full request. xslt.Transform(doc, writer); resultStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin); request = Toolbox.ConvertByteArrayToString(resultStream.ToArray()); So that creates the full request to be sent  to Companies House. Sending the request So far we have a string with a request for the Companies House service. Now we need to send the request to the Companies House Service. Configuration within an Azure project There are entire blog entries written about configuration within an Azure project – most of this is out of scope for this article but the following is a summary. Configuration is defined in two files within the parent project *.csdef which contains the definition of configuration setting. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceDefinition name="OnlineCompanyHub" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition"> <WebRole name="CompanyHub.Host"> <InputEndpoints> <InputEndpoint name="HttpIn" protocol="http" port="80" /> </InputEndpoints> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" /> <Setting name="DataConnectionString" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </WebRole> <WebRole name="CompanyHub.Services"> <InputEndpoints> <InputEndpoint name="HttpIn" protocol="http" port="8080" /> </InputEndpoints> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" /> <Setting name="SenderId"/> <Setting name="SenderPassword" /> <Setting name="GovTalkUrl"/> </ConfigurationSettings> </WebRole> <WorkerRole name="CompanyHub.Worker"> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </WorkerRole> </ServiceDefinition>   Above is the configuration definition from the project. What we are interested in however is the ConfigurationSettings tag of the CompanyHub.Services WebRole. There are four configuration settings here, but at the moment we are interested in the second to forth settings; SenderId, SenderPassword and GovTalkUrl The value of these settings are defined in the ServiceDefinition.cscfg file; <?xml version="1.0"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="OnlineCompanyHub" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration"> <Role name="CompanyHub.Host"> <Instances count="2" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="DataConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> <Role name="CompanyHub.Services"> <Instances count="2" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="SenderId" value="UserID"/> <Setting name="SenderPassword" value="Password"/> <Setting name="GovTalkUrl" value="http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/xmlgw/Gateway"/> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> <Role name="CompanyHub.Worker"> <Instances count="2" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration>   Look for the Role tag that contains our project name (CompanyHub.Services). Having configured the parameters we can now transmit the request. This is done by ‘POST’ing a stream of XML to the Companies House servers. govTalkUrl = RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("GovTalkUrl"); request = WebRequest.Create(govTalkUrl); request.Method = "POST"; request.ContentType = "text/xml"; writer = new StreamWriter(request.GetRequestStream()); writer.WriteLine(RequestMessage); writer.Close(); We use the WebRequest object to send the object. Set the method of sending to ‘POST’ and the type of data as text/xml. Once set up all we do is write the request to the writer – this sends the request to Companies House. Did the Request Work Part I – Getting the response Having sent a request – we now need the result of that request. response = request.GetResponse(); reader = response.GetResponseStream(); result = Toolbox.ConvertByteArrayToString(Toolbox.ReadFully(reader));   The WebRequest object has a GetResponse() method which allows us to get the response sent back. Like many of these calls the results come in the form of a stream which we convert into a string. Did the Request Work Part II – Translating the Response Much like XSLT and XML were used to create the original request, so it can be used to extract the response and by deserializing the result we create an object that contains the response. Did it work? It would be really great if everything worked all the time. Of course if it did then I don’t suppose people would pay me and others the big bucks so that our programmes do not a) Collapse in a heap (this is an area of memory) b) Blow every fuse in the place in a shower of sparks (this will probably not happen this being real life and not a Hollywood movie, but it was possible to blow the sound system of a BBC Model B with a poorly coded setting) c) Go nuts and trap everyone outside the airlock (this was from a movie, and unless NASA get a manned moon/mars mission set up unlikely to happen) d) Go nuts and take over the world (this was also from a movie, but please note life has a habit of being of exceeding the wildest imaginations of Hollywood writers (note writers – Hollywood executives have no imagination and judging by recent output of that town have turned plagiarism into an art form). e) Freeze in total confusion because the cleaner pulled the plug to the internet router (this has happened) So anyway – we need to check to see if our request actually worked. Within the GovTalk response there is a section that details the status of the message and a description of what went wrong (if anything did). I have defined an XSLT template which will extract these into an XML document. <?xml version="1.0"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:ev="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope" xmlns:gt="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemas/govtalk/core" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <xsl:template match="/"> <GovTalkStatus xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <Status> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:Header/ev:MessageDetails/ev:Qualifier"/> </Status> <Text> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:GovTalkDetails/ev:GovTalkErrors/ev:Error/ev:Text"/> </Text> <Location> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:GovTalkDetails/ev:GovTalkErrors/ev:Error/ev:Location"/> </Location> <Number> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:GovTalkDetails/ev:GovTalkErrors/ev:Error/ev:Number"/> </Number> <Type> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:GovTalkDetails/ev:GovTalkErrors/ev:Error/ev:Type"/> </Type> </GovTalkStatus> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet>   Only thing different about previous XSL files is the references to two namespaces ev & gt. These are defined in the GovTalk response at the top of the response; xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema/Egov_ch-v2-0.xsd" xmlns="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope" xmlns:dsig="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#" xmlns:gt="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemas/govtalk/core" If we do not put these references into the XSLT template then  the XslCompiledTransform object will not be able to find the relevant tags. Deserialization is a fairly simple activity. encoder = new ASCIIEncoding(); ms = new MemoryStream(encoder.GetBytes(statusXML)); serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(GovTalkStatus)); xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(ms, Encoding.ASCII); messageStatus = (GovTalkStatus)serializer.Deserialize(ms);   We set up a serialization object using the object type containing the error state and pass to it the results of a transformation between the XSLT above and the GovTalk response. Now we have an object containing any error state, and the error message. All we need to do is check the status. If there is an error then we can flag an error. If not then  we extract the results and pass that as an object back to the calling function. We go this by guess what – defining an XSLT template for the result and using that to create an Xml Stream which can be deserialized into a .Net object. In this instance the XSLT to create the result of a Company Number Search is; <?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:ev="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope" xmlns:sch="http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema" exclude-result-prefixes="ev"> <xsl:template match="/"> <CompanySearchResult xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <CompanyNumber> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:Body/sch:NumberSearch/sch:CoSearchItem/sch:CompanyNumber"/> </CompanyNumber> <CompanyName> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:Body/sch:NumberSearch/sch:CoSearchItem/sch:CompanyName"/> </CompanyName> </CompanySearchResult> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> and the object definition is; using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Web; namespace CompanyHub.Services { public class CompanySearchResult { public CompanySearchResult() { CompanyNumber = String.Empty; CompanyName = String.Empty; } public String CompanyNumber { get; set; } public String CompanyName { get; set; } } } Our entire code to make calls to send a request, and interpret the results are; String request = String.Empty; String response = String.Empty; GovTalkStatus status = null; fault = null; try { using (CompanyNumberSearchRequest requestObj = new CompanyNumberSearchRequest()) { requestObj.PartialCompanyNumber = CompanyNumber; request = Toolbox.CreateRequest(requestObj, "CompanyNumberSearch.xsl"); response = Toolbox.SendGovTalkRequest(request); status = Toolbox.GetMessageStatus(response); if (status.Status.ToLower() == "error") { fault = new HubFault() { Message = status.Text }; } else { Object obj = Toolbox.GetGovTalkResponse(response, "CompanyNumberSearchResult.xsl", typeof(CompanySearchResult)); } } } catch (FaultException<ArgumentException> ex) { fault = new HubFault() { FaultType = ex.Detail.GetType().FullName, Message = ex.Detail.Message }; } catch (System.Exception ex) { fault = new HubFault() { FaultType = ex.GetType().FullName, Message = ex.Message }; } finally { } Wrap up So there we have it – a reusable set of functions to send and interpret XML results from an internet based service. The code is reusable with a little change with any service which uses XML as a transport mechanism – and as for the Companies House GovTalk service all I need to do is create various objects for the result and message sent and the relevent XSLT files. I might need minor changes for other services but something like 70-90% will be exactly the same.

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• Game timings and formats

  - by topright

  There are more or less standardized TV-show/movie formats and recommended timings: 1. By the early 1960s, television companies commonly presented half-hour long "comedy" series, or one hour long "dramas." Half-hour series were mostly restricted to situation comedy or family comedy, and were usually aired with either a live or artificial laugh track. One hour dramas included genre series such as police and detective series, westerns, science fiction, and, later, serialized prime time soap operas. Programs today still overwhelmingly conform to these half-hour and one hour guidelines. Source 2. In the United States, most medical dramas are one hour long. Source 3. Traditionally serials were broadcast as fifteen minute installments each weekday in daytime slots. In 1956 As the World Turns debuted as the first half-hour soap opera. All soap operas broadcast half-hour episodes by the end of the 1960s. With increased popularity in the 1970s most soap operas expanded to an hour (Another World even expanded to ninety minutes for a short time). More than half of the serials had expanded to one hour episodes by 1980. As of 2010, six of the seven US serials air one hour episodes each weekday. Source Interesting. Are there any standards of timing in game development? Well, 5-20 minutes casual games, of course. There is even a "5-minutes-game" site. And 1-hour-gamer site. Are there 1-week, 1-year, 1-eternity game formats? Chess and Go - deep games that you can study all your life; but they are played in hour or several days (pro games). Addictive long-term online role-playing games (without win-condition) are played in monthes and, possibly, years. Replayability is an important factor to consider. It's good when game design document contains a line: "A game is designed for solving in X hours". How can it be measured before there is any prototype or demo? When you know your game format, you know your audience (and vice versa). It is practical question. Are there psychological researches about dynamic of gaming interest and involvement? And is there a correlation between game format and game genre?

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• How to improve performance of map that loads new overlay images

  - by anthonysomerset

  I have inherited a website to maintain that uses a html map overlaying a real map to link specific countries to specific pages. previously it loaded the default map image, then with some javascript it would change the image src to an image with that particular country in a different colour on mouseover and reset the image source back to the original image on mouse out to make maintenance (adding new countries) easier i made the initial map a background image by utilising some CSS for the div tag, and then created new images for each country which only had that countries hightlight so that the images remain fairly small. this works great but theres one issue which is particularly noticeable on slower internet connections when you hover over a country if you dont have the image file in your browser cache or downloaded it wont load the image unless you hover over another country and then back onto the first country - i guess this is due to the image having to manually be downloaded on first hover. My question: is it possible to force the load of these extra images AFTER the page and all the other assets have finished loading so that this behaviour is all but eliminated? the html code for the MAP is as follows: <div class="gtmap"><img id="Image-Maps_6200909211657061" src="<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-blank.png" usemap="#Image-Maps_6200909211657061" alt="We offer Guided Motorcycle Tours all around the world" width="615" height="296" /> <map id="_Image-Maps_6200909211657061" name="Image-Maps_6200909211657061"> <area shape="poly" coords="511,134,532,107,542,113,520,141" href="/guided-motorcycle-tours-japan/" alt="Guided Japan Motorcycle Tours" title="Japan" onmouseover="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-japan.png';" onmouseout="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-blank.png';" /> <area shape="poly" coords="252,61,266,58,275,64,262,68" href="/guided-motorcycle-tour.php?iceland-motorcycle-adventure-39" alt="Guided Iceland Motorcycle Tours" title="Iceland" onmouseover="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-iceland.png';" onmouseout="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-blank.png';" /> <area shape="poly" coords="587,246,597,256,577,279,568,270" href="/guided-motorcycle-tour.php?new-zealand-south-island-adventure-10" alt="New Zealand Guided Motorcycle Tours" title="New Zealand" onmouseover="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-nz.png';" onmouseout="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-blank.png';" /> <area shape="poly" coords="418,133,412,145,412,154,421,178,430,180,430,166,443,154,443,145,438,144,433,142,430,138,431,130,430,129,425,128" href="/guided-motorcycle-tours-india/" alt="India Guided Motorcycle Tours" title="India" onmouseover="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-india.png';" onmouseout="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-blank.png';" /> <area shape="poly" coords="460,152,466,149,474,165,470,171,466,161" href="/guided-motorcycle-tours-laos/" alt="Laos Guided Motorcycle Tours" title="Laos" onmouseover="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-laos.png';" onmouseout="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-blank.png';" /> <area shape="poly" coords="468,179,475,166,468,152,475,152,482,169" href="/guided-motorcycle-tour.php?indochina-motorcycle-adventure-tour-32" onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/internal-links/guided-tours/map/vietnam');" alt="Vietnam Guided Motorcycle Tours" title="Vietnam" onmouseover="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-viet.png';" onmouseout="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-blank.png';" /> <area shape="poly" coords="330,239,337,235,347,226,352,233,351,243,344,250,335,253,327,255,323,249,322,242,323,241" href="/guided-motorcycle-tours-southafrica/" alt="South Africa Guided Motorcycle Tours" title="South Africa" onmouseover="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-sa.png';" onmouseout="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-blank.png';" /> <area shape="poly" coords="290,77,293,86,298,96,286,102,285,97,285,89,282,84,282,79" href="/guided-motorcycle-tour.php?great-britain-isle-of-man-scotland-wales-uk-18" alt="United Kingdom" title="United Kingdom Guided Motorcycle Tours" onmouseover="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-uk.png';" onmouseout="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-blank.png';" /> <area shape="poly" coords="357,118,368,118,369,126,345,129,338,125,338,117,342,115,348,116" href="/guided-motorcycle-tour.php?explore-turkey-adventure-45" alt="Turkey" title="Turkey Guided Motorcycle Tours" onmouseover="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-turkey.png';" onmouseout="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-blank.png';" /> <area shape="poly" coords="206,95,193,101,185,101,178,106,165,111,157,109,147,105,134,103,121,103,107,103,96,103,86,104,81,99,77,91,70,83,62,79,60,72,61,64,59,57,60,51,71,50,83,49,95,50,107,54,117,53,129,47,137,36,148,37,163,38,177,44,187,54,195,60,184,72,191,80,200,87" href="/guided-motorcycle-tours-canada/" alt="Guided Canada Motorcycle Tours" title="Canada" onmouseover="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-canada.png';" onmouseout="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-blank.png';" /> <area shape="poly" coords="61,75,60,62,60,55,59,44,51,44,43,43,36,42,28,43,23,48,17,51,15,62,19,74,27,79,19,83,16,93,35,83,43,77,50,75,55,75" href="/guided-motorcycle-tours-alaska/" alt="Guided Alaska Motorcycle Tours" title="Alaska" onmouseover="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-alaska.png';" onmouseout="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-blank.png';" /> <area shape="poly" coords="82,101,99,101,133,101,148,105,161,110,172,106,187,100,180,113,171,122,165,131,159,149,147,141,137,140,129,147,120,141,112,138,103,137,93,132,86,122,86,112,86,106" href="/guided-motorcycle-tours-usa/" alt="USA Guided Motorcycle Tours" title="USA" onmouseover="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-usa.png';" onmouseout="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-blank.png';" /> <area shape="poly" coords="178,225,180,214,175,208,174,204,178,198,174,193,167,192,157,199,158,204,164,211,167,218" href="/guided-motorcycle-tour.php?peru-machu-picchu-adventure-25" alt="Peru Guided Motorcycle Tours" title="Peru" onmouseover="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-peru.png';" onmouseout="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-blank.png';" /> <area shape="poly" coords="172,226,169,239,166,256,166,267,164,279,171,277,174,262,175,250,179,234,180,225,176,224" href="/guided-motorcycle-tours-chile/" alt="Guided Chile Motorcycle Tours" title="Chile" onmouseover="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-chile.png';" onmouseout="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-blank.png';" /> <area shape="poly" coords="199,260,194,261,187,265,184,276,183,296,170,292,168,282,174,270,174,257,177,245,180,230,190,228,205,237,199,245" href="/guided-motorcycle-tours-argentina/" alt="Guided Argentina Motorcycle Tours" title="Argentina" onmouseover="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-arg.png';" onmouseout="if(document.images) document.getElementById('Image-Maps_6200909211657061').src='<?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?>assets/wmap/a-guided-tours-map-blank.png';" /> </map> </div> The <?php echo cdnhttpsCheck(); ?> is just a site specific function that gets the correct web domain/url from a config file to load resources from CDN where possible (eg all non HTTPS requests) We are loading Jquery at the bottom of the HTML if anybody wonders why it is missing from the code snippet for reference, the page with the map in question is found here: http://www.motoquest.com/guided-motorcycle-tours/

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• Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Configuration Best Practices (Part 3 of 3)

  - by Bethany Lapaglia

  <span id="XinhaEditingPostion"></span>&amp;lt;span id=&amp;quot;XinhaEditingPostion&amp;quot;&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/span&amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span id=&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;XinhaEditingPostion&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; This is part 3 of a three-part blog series that summarizes the most commonly implemented configuration changes to improve performance and operation of a large Enterprise Manager 12c environment. A “large” environment is categorized by the number of agents, targets and users. See the Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Advanced Installation and Configuration Guide chapter on Sizing for more details on sizing your environment properly. Part 1 of this series covered recommended configuration changes for the OMS and Repository Part 2 covered recommended changes for the Weblogic server Part 3 covers general configuration recommendations and a few known issues The entire series can be found in the My Oracle Support note titled Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Configuration Best Practices [1553342.1]. Configuration Recommendations Configure E-Mail Notifications for EM related Alerts In some environments, the notifications for events for different target types may be sent to different support teams (i.e. notifications on host targets may be sent to a platform support team). However, the EM application administrators should be well informed of any alerts or problems seen on the EM infrastructure components. Recommendation: Create a new Incident rule for monitoring all EM components and setup the notifications to be sent to the EM administrator(s). The notification methods available can create or update an incident, send an email or forward to an event connector. To setup the incident rule set follow the steps below. Note that each individual rule in the rule set can have different actions configured. 1.  To create an incident rule for monitoring the EM components, click on Setup / Incidents / Incident Rules. On the All Enterprise Rules page, click on the out-of-box rule called “Incident management Ruleset for all targets” and then click on the Actions drop down list and select “Create Like Rule Set…” 2. For the rule set name, enter a name such as MTM Ruleset. Under the Targets tab, select “All targets of types” and select “OMS and Repository” from the drop down list. This target type contains all of the key EM components (OMS servers, repository, domains, etc.) 3. Click on the Rules tab. To edit a rule, click on the rule name and click on Edit as seen below 4. Modify the following rules: a. Incident creation Rule for metric alerts i. Leave the Type set as is but change the Severity to add Warning by clicking on the drop down list and selecting “Warning”. Click Next. ii.  Add or modify the actions as required (i.e. add email notifications). Click Continue and then click Next. iii. Leave the Name and description the same and click Next. iv. Click Continue on the Review page. b. Incident creation Rule for target unreachable. i.   Leave the Type set as is but change the Target type to add OMS and Repository by clicking on the drop down list selecting “OMS and Repository”. Click Next. ii.  Add or modify the actions as required (i.e. add email notifications) Click Continue and then click Next. iii. Leave the Name and description the same and click Next. iv. Click Continue on the Review page. 5.  Modify the actions for any other rule as required and be sure to click the “Save” push button to save the rule set or all changes will be lost. Configure Out-of-Band Notifications for EM Agent Out-of-Band notifications act as a backup when there’s a complete EM outage or a repository database issue. This is configured on the agent of the OMS server and can be used to send emails or execute another script that would create a trouble ticket. It will send notifications about the following issues: • Repository Database down • All OMS are down • Repository side collection job that is broken or has an invalid schedule • Notification job that is broken or has an invalid schedule Recommendation: To setup Out-of-Band Notifications, refer to the MOS note “How To Setup Out Of Bound Email Notification In 12c” (Doc ID 1472854.1) Modify the Performance Test for the EM Console Service The EM Console Service has an out-of-box defined performance test that will be run to determine the status of this service. The test issues a request via an HTTP method to a specific URL. By default, the HTTP method used for this test is a GET but for performance reasons, should be changed to HEAD. The URL used for this request is set to point to a specific OMS server by default. If a multi-OMS system has been implemented and the OMS servers are behind a load balancer, then the URL in this section must be modified to point to the load balancer name instead of a specific server name. If this is not done and a portion of the infrastructure is down then the EM Console Service will show down as this test will fail. Recommendation: Modify the HTTP Method for the EM Console Service test and the URL if required following the detailed steps below. 1.  To create an incident rule for monitoring the EM components, click on Targets / Services. From the list of services, click on the EM Console Service. 2. On the EM Console Service page, click on the Test Performance tab. 3.  At the bottom of the page, click on the Web Transaction test called EM Console Service Test 4.  Click on the Service Tests and Beacons breadcrumb near the top of the page. 5.  Under the Service Tests section, make sure the EM Console Service Test is selected and click on the Edit push button. 6.  Under the Transaction section, make sure the Access Logout page transaction is selected and click on the Edit push button 7) Under the Request section, change the HTTP Method from the default of GET to the recommended value of HEAD. The URL in this section must be modified to point to the load balancer name instead of a specific server name if multi-OMSes have been implemented. Check for Known Issues Job Purge Repository Job is Shown as Down This issue is caused after upgrading EM from 12c to 12cR2. On the Repository page under Setup ? Manage Cloud Control ? Repository, the job called “Job Purge” is shown as down and the Next Scheduled Run is blank. Also, repvfy reports that this is a missing DBMS_SCHEDULER job. Recommendation: In EM 12cR2, the apply_purge_policies have been moved from the MGMT_JOB_ENGINE package to the EM_JOB_PURGE package. To remove this error, execute the commands below: $ repvfy verify core -test 2 -fix To confirm that the issue resolved, execute $ repvfy verify core -test 2 It can also be verified by refreshing the Job Service page in EM and check the status of the job, it should now be Up. Configure the Listener Targets in EM with the Listener Password (where required) EM will report this error every time it is encountered in the listener log file. In a RAC environment, typically the grid home and rdbms homes are owned by different OS users. The listener always runs from the grid home. Only the listener process owner can query or change the listener properties. The listener uses a password to allow other OS users (ex. the agent user) to query the listener process for parameters. EM has a default listener target metric that will query these properties. If the agent is not permitted to do this, the TNS incident (TNS-1190) will be logged in the listener’s log file. This means that the listener targets in EM also need to have this password set. Not doing so will cause many TNS incidents (TNS-1190). Below is a sample of this error from the listener log file: Recommendation: Set a listener password and include it in the configuration of the listener targets in EM For steps on setting the listener passwords, see MOS notes: 260986.1 , 427422.1

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• Hype and LINQ

  - by Tony Davis

  "Tired of querying in antiquated SQL?" I blinked in astonishment when I saw this headline on the LinqPad site. Warming to its theme, the site suggests that what we need is to "kiss goodbye to SSMS", and instead use LINQ, a modern query language! Elsewhere, there is an article entitled "Why LINQ beats SQL". The designers of LINQ, along with many DBAs, would, I'm sure, cringe with embarrassment at the suggestion that LINQ and SQL are, in any sense, competitive ways of doing the same thing. In fact what LINQ really is, at last, is an efficient, declarative language for C# and VB programmers to access or manipulate data in objects, local data stores, ORMs, web services, data repositories, and, yes, even relational databases. The fact is that LINQ is essentially declarative programming in a .NET language, and so in many ways encourages developers into a "SQL-like" mindset, even though they are not directly writing SQL. In place of imperative logic and loops, it uses various expressions, operators and declarative logic to build up an "expression tree" describing only what data is required, not the operations to be performed to get it. This expression tree is then parsed by the language compiler, and the result, when used against a relational database, is a SQL string that, while perhaps not always perfect, is often correctly parameterized and certainly no less "optimal" than what is achieved when a developer applies blunt, imperative logic to the SQL language. From a developer standpoint, it is a mistake to consider LINQ simply as a substitute means of querying SQL Server. The strength of LINQ is that that can be used to access any data source, for which a LINQ provider exists. Microsoft supplies built-in providers to access not just SQL Server, but also XML documents, .NET objects, ADO.NET datasets, and Entity Framework elements. LINQ-to-Objects is particularly interesting in that it allows a declarative means to access and manipulate arrays, collections and so on. Furthermore, as Michael Sorens points out in his excellent article on LINQ, there a whole host of third-party LINQ providers, that offers a simple way to get at data in Excel, Google, Flickr and much more, without having to learn a new interface or language. Of course, the need to be generic enough to deal with a range of data sources, from something as mundane as a text file to as esoteric as a relational database, means that LINQ is a compromise and so has inherent limitations. However, it is a powerful and beautifully compact language and one that, at least in its "query syntax" guise, is accessible to developers and DBAs alike. Perhaps there is still hope that LINQ can fulfill Phil Factor's lobster-induced fantasy of a language that will allow us to "treat all data objects, whether Word files, Excel files, XML, relational databases, text files, HTML files, registry files, LDAPs, Outlook and so on, in the same logical way, as linked databases, and extract the metadata, create the entities and relationships in the same way, and use the same SQL syntax to interrogate, create, read, write and update them." Cheers, Tony.

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• WinMo&rsquo;s Demise: Notifying Next of &ldquo;Kin&rdquo;

  - by andrewbrust

  This past Monday, April 12th, Visual Studio 2010 was launched.  And on that same day, Microsoft also launched a new line of  mobile phone handsets, called Kin.  The two product launches are actually connected, but only by what they do not have in common, and what they commonly lack. On the former point: VS 2010 had released to manufacturing a couple weeks prior to its launch.  The Kin phones, meanwhile are not yet available.  We don’t even know what they will cost.  (And I think cost will be a major factor in Kin’s success…I told ChannelWeb’s Yara Souza so in this article). What do the two products both lack? Simple: Windows Mobile 6.x. For example, Kin seems to be based on the same platform as Windows Phone 7 (albeit a subset).  And VS 2010 does not support .NET Compact Framework development, which means no .NET development support for WinMo 6.x and earlier. So I guess April 12th marks Windows Phone “clean slate day.”  If you want to develop for the old phone platform, you will need to use the old version of Visual Studio (i.e. 2008).  Luckily VS 2010 and 2008 can be installed side-by-side.  But I doubt that’s much consolation to developers who still target WinMo 6.5 and earlier. Remember, WinMo isn’t just about the phone.  There are all sorts of non-telephony mobile devices, including ruggedized Pocket PC-style instruments, bar code readers and shop-floor-deployed units that don’t run Windows Phone 7 and couldn’t, even if they wanted to. Where will developers in these markets go?  I would guess some will stick with WinMo 6.x and earlier, until Windows Phone 7 can handle their workloads, assuming that does indeed happen.  Others will likely go to Google’s Android platform. For OEMs and developers who need a customizable mobile software stack, Android is turning out to be out-WinMo-ing WinMo.  As I wrote in this post, Google took Microsoft’s model (minus the licensing fees) and combined it with a modern SmartPhone feature set (rather than a late 90s/early oughts PDA paradigm), to great success.  You might say Google embraced and extended. You might also say Microsoft shunned and withdrew.

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• A Community Cure for a String Splitting Headache

  - by Tony Davis

  A heartwarming tale of dogged perseverance and Community collaboration to solve some SQL Server string-related headaches. Michael J Swart posted a blog this week that had me smiling in recognition and agreement, describing how an inquisitive Developer or DBA deals with a problem. It's a three-step process, starting with discomfort and anxiety; a feeling that one doesn't know as much about one's chosen specialized subject as previously thought. It progresses through a phase of intense research and learning until finally one achieves breakthrough, blessed relief and renewed optimism. In this case, the discomfort was provoked by the mystery of massively high CPU when searching Unicode strings in SQL Server. Michael explored the problem via Stack Overflow, Google and Twitter #sqlhelp, finally leading to resolution and a blog post that shared what he learned. Perfect; except that sometimes you have to be prepared to share what you've learned so far, while still mired in the phase of nagging discomfort. A good recent example of this recently can be found on our own blogs. Despite being a loud advocate of the lightning fast T-SQL-based string splitting techniques, honed to near perfection over many years by Jeff Moden and others, Phil Factor retained a dogged conviction that, in theory, shredding element-based XML using XQuery ought to be even more efficient for splitting a string to create a table. After some careful testing, he found instead that the XML way performed and scaled miserably by comparison. Somewhat subdued, and with a nagging feeling that perhaps he was still missing "something", he posted his findings. What happened next was a joy to behold; the community jumped in to suggest subtle changes in approach, using an attribute-based rather than element-based XML list, and tweaking the XQuery shredding. The result was performance and scalability that surpassed all other techniques. I asked Phil how quickly he would have arrived at the real breakthrough on his own. His candid answer was "never". Both are great examples of the power of Community learning and the latter in particular the importance of being brave enough to parade one's ignorance. Perhaps Jeff Moden will accept the string-splitting gauntlet one more time. To quote the great man: you've just got to love this community! If you've an interesting tale to tell about being helped to a significant breakthrough for a problem by the community, I'd love to hear about it. Cheers, Tony.

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for July 3, 2013

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Industrial SOA Chapter 5: Enterprise Service Bus Enterprise Service Bus, the fifth and latest addition to the Industrial SOA article series, answers some of the most important questions surrounding the use of an ESB. Industrial SOA Chapter 4: SOA Maturity The fourth article in the Industrial SOA series, SOA Maturity offers "an exploration of the fundamentals of applying a factory approach to modern service-oriented software development." Using the Exalytics Summary Advisor and Oracle BI Apps 7.9.6.4 | Mark Rittman Oracle ACE Director Mark Rittman's post revisits "the use of the Summary Advisor, with my BI Apps installation bumped-up to version 7.9.6.4, and the Exalytics environment patched up to 11.1.1.6.9, the latest patch release we’ve applied to that environment." Part 1 - 12c Database and WLS - Overview | Steve Felts Steve Felts shares a handy table that "maps the Oracle 12c Database features supported with various combinations of currently available WLS releases, 11g and 12c Drivers, and 11g and 12c Databases." Developers WebCast: Deploy Highly-Available Custom Services on Your Data Grid Products - July 11 Oracle Coherence Sr. Architect Brian Oliver hosts this free July 11 webcast for developers to show you how to "create and deploy customized, highly-available services for your data grid, and how real-time data processing will allow you to provide unmatched end-user experiences." A checklist for OIM go live | Daniel Gralewski FMW A-Team solution architect Daniel Gralewski's list is intended to complement Oracle Identity Manager. His post "provides tips on a few topics that are not part of the documentation." How Many ODI Master Repositories Should We Have? | Christophe Dupupet FMW solution architect Christophe Dupupet provides a simple along with best practices for the architecture of ODI repositories in a corporate environment. Distinguish EA from enterprise wide solution architecture | John Wu My buddy Tony Meyer, who did a great presentation recently at the Cleveland-area Enterprise Architect / Solution Architect Meet-up, recommends this Toolbox article by John Wu. YouTube: Oracle Fusion Applications Developer Tips If you work with Fusion Applications you'll want to check out the tips and tricks for building extensions, customizations, and integrations now available on the new Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer Relations YouTube channel. The CX Factor: Wooing and wowing customers in the digital age "There was a time when 'customer experience' was limited to what happened to you when you walked into a store, restaurant, or other place of business or when you called a business on the telephone. But that was back when you could still smoke on airplanes." Thought for the Day "If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.' " — Dave Barry (Born July 3, 1947) Source: brainyquote.com

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, October 24, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, October 24, 2011Popular ReleasesPeople's Note: People's Note 0.31: Added note tag editing. Changed note edit conflict resolution to keep the latest version. To install: copy the appropriate CAB file onto your WM device and run it.Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone: Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone v1.3.1: Upgraded Windows Azure projects to Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 1.5 – September 2011 Upgraded the tools tools to support the Windows Phone Developer Tools RTW Update SQL Azure only scenarios to use ASP.NET Universal Providers (through the System.Web.Providers v1.0.1 NuGet package) Changed Shared Access Signature service interface to support more operations Refactored Blobs API to have a similar interface and usage to that provided by the Windows Azure SDK Stor...Workflow Automation (for Dynamics CRM 2011): Release 1.0: Initial release version 1.0.Window Manipulation with the Microsoft Touch Mouse: Window Touch v1.0: This is the initial release of the Window Touch software, which may have bugs and incomplete interactions. Please be patient with us as we work out all of the kinks, and feel free to send comments. To install and run the program download and double click the .msi file below. Make sure you already have a Microsoft Touch Mouse and can use it before installing.xUnit.net Contrib: xunitcontrib-resharper 0.4.4 (dotCover): xunitcontrib release 0.4.4 (ReSharper runner) This release provides a test runner plugin for Resharper 6.0 RTM, targetting all versions of xUnit.net. (See the xUnit.net project to download xUnit.net itself.) This release addresses the following issues:Support for dotCover code coverage 4132 Note that this build work against ALL VERSIONS of xunit. The files are compiled against xunit.dll 1.8 - DO NOT REPLACE THIS FILE. Thanks to xunit's version independent runner system, this package can r...BookShop: BookShop: BookShop WP7 clientRibbon Editor for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: Ribbon Editor (0.1.2122.266): Added CodePlex and PayPal links New icon Bug fix: can't connect to an IFD deployment when the discovery service url has been customizedSiteMap Editor for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: SiteMap Editor (1.0.921.340): Added CodePlex and PayPal links New iconMVCQuick: MVCQuick 0.3.1: Features??NHibernate 3.2??Repository（ORuM） ??Spring.Net 1.3.2??Container（IoC） ??Common.Logging 1.2??Logging ASP.NET Security Provider?? ??MVCQuick.Framework??MusicStoreDotNet.Framework.Common: DotNet.Framework.Common 4.0: ??????????，????????????XML Explorer: XML Explorer 4.0.5: Changes in 4.0.5: Added 'Copy Attribute XPath to Address Bar' feature. Added methods for decoding node text and value from Base64 encoded strings, and copying them to the clipboard. Added 'ChildNodeDefinitions' to the options, which allows for easier navigation of parent-child and ID-IDREF relationships. Discovery happens on-demand, as nodes are expanded and child nodes are added. Nodes can now have 'virtual' child nodes, defined by an xpath to select an identifier (usually relative to ...Media Companion: MC 3.419b Weekly: A couple of minor bug fixes, but the important fix in this release is to tackle the extremely long load times for users with large TV collections (issue #130). A note has been provided by developer Playos: "One final note, you will have to suffer one final long load and then it should be fixed... alternatively you can delete the TvCache.xml and rebuild your library... The fix was to include the file extension so it doesn't have to look for the video file (checking to see if a file exists is a...CODE Framework: 4.0.11021.0: This build adds a lot of our WPF components, including our MVVC and MVC components as well as a "Metro" and "Battleship" style.GridLibre para Visual FoxPro: GridLibre para Visual FoxPro v3.5: GridLibre Para Visual FoxPro: esta herramienta ayudara a los usuarios y programadores en los manejos de los datos, como Filtrar, multiseleccion y el autoformato a las columnas como la asignacion del controlsource.Umbraco CMS: Umbraco 5.0 CMS Alpha 3: Umbraco 5 Alpha 3Umbraco 5 (aka Jupiter) will be the next version of everyone's favourite, friendly ASP.NET CMS that already powers over 100,000 websites worldwide. Try out the Alpha of v5 today! If you're new to Umbraco and would like to get a low-down on our popular and easy-to-learn approach to content management, check out our intro video. What's Alpha 3?This is our third Alpha release. It's intended for developers looking to become familiar with the codebase & architecture, or for thos...Vkontakte WP: Vkontakte: source codeWay2Sms Applications for Android, Desktop/Laptop & Java enabled phones: Way2SMS Desktop App v2.0: 1. Fixed issue with sending messages due to changes to Way2Sms site 2. Updated the character limit to 160 from 140GART - Geo Augmented Reality Toolkit: 1.0.1: About Release 1.0.1 Release 1.0.1 is a service release that addresses several issues and improves performance. As always, check the Documentation tab for instructions on how to get started. If you don't have the Windows Phone SDK yet, grab it here. Breaking Change Please note: There is a breaking change in this release. As noted below, the WorldCalculationMode property of ARItem has been replaced by a user-definable function. ARItem is now automatically wired up with a function that perform...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.32: Fix for issue #16710 - string literals in "constant literal operations" which contain ASP.NET substitutions should not be considered "constant." Move the JS1284 error (Misplaced Function Declaration) so it only fires when in strict mode. I got a couple complaints that people didn't like that error popping up in their existing code when they could verify that the location of that function, although not strict JS, still functions as expected cross-browser.Naked Objects: Naked Objects Release 4.0.110.0: Corresponds to the packaged version 4.0.110.0 available via NuGet. Please note that the easiest way to install and run the Naked Objects Framework is via the NuGet package manager: just search the Official NuGet Package Source for 'nakedobjects'. It is only necessary to download the source code (from here) if you wish to modify or re-build the framework yourself. If you do wish to re-build the framework, consul the file HowToBuild.txt in the release. Documentation Please note that after ...New Projects360zebra4en: 360zebra???AG: Web Framework that can leverage silverlight, but fall back on native html if silverlight is not available.BookShop: BookShop ????? ???? ? ????????????? ?????????.CompendiumImport: Import data from Dungeons & Dragons Compendium to Masterplan librariesCS 6235 Arbiter Server: CS 6235 Arbiter ServerDual numbers for automatic differentiation: Dual numbers can be used to automatically calculate numerically stable derivatives of functions.Effort - Entity Framework Unit Testing Tool: Effort is a powerful unit testing tool that brings an easy way to create unit tests for Entity Framework based applications. It can manipulate the behavior of EntityConnection or ObjectContext objects, so that the data operations are executed by a fake in-process database, while omitting the real database completely. This mechanism makes possible to remove the dependency between your unit test and the real database.FlexiCache for ASP.NET applications: This library provides extended cache capabilities to the ASP.NET applications. It includes the MongoDB and SQL Server output cache providers extending ASP.NET Output Cache capabilities by allowing to store cached data outside of the application process that is especially important in web-farm scenario. This library provides "Session-On-Demand" functionality - ability to separate ASP.NET Session data to subsets that can be stored outside of the main ASP.NET session and loaded on demand w...HtmlAgilityPackContrib - Logical extension to HtmlAgilityPack: HtmlAgilityPackContrib - A logical extension to HtmlAgilityPack to parse HTML using jQuery like methods inspired by jSoupjsonhttphandler: The JsonHttpHandler is a simple JSON oriented Http handler to easily integrate JSON GET, POST, and JSONP web services into your application.My Recent Documents: This Webpart for Sharepoint 2010 is developed for users that need help finding the last number of documents they have been working on. The target user have trouble location where he/she placed their documents. This Webpart gives the following features... 1. Locate your last edited documents.. 2. Customize how many documents the webpart should find. 3. Should it look in subsites also? 4. Show the structure in where the documents are located and click easy link to either document lib...Option pricing for arbitrary distributions: European option pricing with arbitrary distributions using dual numbers to calculate greeks.Project Tracy: ????????？ ????????？ ????????10??????？ ???????????????????????。。。。。 ???！Tracy?????????????！（?RegSharp: RegSharp provides server functionality for Sencha Extjs (http://www.sencha.com/products/extjs/) paging grid. RegSharp implements sorting, filtering and paging logic on the server side that is required for using the paging grid. Is't developed in C#SharePoint/TFS Continuous Integration Starter Pack: Provides a customized TFS Build workflow and PowerShell scripts to get started with Continuous Integration (automated builds) in SharePoint 2010/TFS 2010. This pack will allow you to automatically build and deploy WSPs using TFS, and optionally also include automated testing as part of the build such as Visual Studio 2010's Coded UI Tests. Sharp Investor: Sharp Investor pools various online sources as well as preforms a couple local calculation to return recommended stocks. The program is easy to use, and requires very little work to find profitable stocks online. It's developed in C#.SharpXML: Aims to be a simpler library for interacting with XML files that exposes attributes and children elements as properties and objects respectively.Splash: Splash is an interactive MediaCenter-style YouTube client written in WPF.TomCdc: TomCdc is a solution which makes tracking of sql databse changes easy. Quick and simple installation process allows to start using the solution in just a few minutes. It supports all versions of Microsoft Sql server. You'll no longer have to write triggers manually to find out what process is changing data in a table.Track your work: Another work-time tracker TumblePower: TumblePower is a simplified API library for Tumblr. Use it in your application to post Text, Photos, Quotes, Links, Chats, Audio and Videos as well as set functions such as tags, dates and choose whether the post should be private or not.VisualBASH: This project aims to extends Visual Studio's language support to include bash scripting. This includes syntax highlighting, code completion, and syntax error checking.Window Manipulation with the Microsoft Touch Mouse: Window Manipulation for the Microsoft Touch Mouse provides a set of simple gestures for moving and resizing windows.Workflow Automation (for Dynamics CRM 2011): Workflow Automation for Dynamics CRM 2011 allows user to automate or schedule workflow execution via Windows Task Scheduler. XNA Model Viewer: The XNA Model Viewer allows you to load FBX files and view them. It allows you to test that models will work in XNA, determine the effect of modifying bone transforms, and view animation clips. You can examine the bones and meshes and see the complete hierarchy.

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• Hello From South Florida

  - by Sam Abraham

  Fellow Blog Readers: I figured I use my first blog post on GeeksWithBlogs to introduce myself.   I recently relocated from Long Island, NY to South Florida where I joined a local company as Software Engineer specializing in technologies such as C#, ASP.Net 3.5, WCF, Silverlight, SQL Server 2008 and LINQ, to name a few. I am an MCP and MCTS ASP.Net 3.5, looking to get my .Net 4.0 certification soon.   Having been in industry for a few years so far, I figured I would share with you my take on the importance of being involved(at least attending) in local user groups.   I am a firm believer that besides using a certain technology, the best way to expand one’s knowledge is by sharing it with others and being equally open to learn from others just as much as you are willing to share what you know.   In my opinion, an important factor that makes a good developer stand-out is his/her ability to keep abreast with the latest and greatest even in areas outside his/her direct expertise.   Additionally, having spoken to various recruiters, technical user group attendees are always favorably looked upon as genuinely interested in their field and willing to take the initiative to expand their knowledge which offers job candidates good leverage when competing for jobs.   I believe I am very blessed to be in an area with a very strong and vibrant developer community. I found in the local .Net community leadership a genuine interest in constantly extending the opportunity to all developers to get more involved and encouraging those who are willing to take that initiative achieve their goal: Speak in meetings, volunteer at events or write and publish articles/blogs about latest and greatest technologies.   With Vishal Shukla (Site director for the West Palm Beach .Net User Group) traveling overseas, I have been extended the opportunity to come on board as site coordinator for FladotNet's WPB .Net User Group along with Venkata Subramanian, an opportunity which I gratefully accepted.   Being involved in running a .Net User Group will surely help me personally and professionally, but my real hope is to use this opportunity to assist in delivering the ultimate common-goal: spread the word about new .Net Technologies, help everybody get more involved and simply have fun learning new things.   With my introduction out of the way, in the next few days I will be posting some notes on an upcoming talk I will be giving about MVC2 and VS2010 in mid-April.   Environment.Exit(0); --Sam

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• Secret of SQL Trace Duration Column

  - by Dan Guzman

  Why would a trace of long-running queries not show all queries that exceeded the specified duration filter?  We have a server-side SQL Trace that includes RPC:Completed and SQL:BatchCompleted events with a filter on Duration >= 100000.  Nearly all of the queries on this busy OLTP server run in under this 100 millisecond threshold so any that appear in the trace are candidates for root cause analysis and/or performance tuning opportunities. After an application experienced query timeouts, the DBA looked at the trace data to corroborate the problem.  Surprisingly, he found no long-running queries in the trace from the application that experienced the timeouts even though the application’s error log clearly showed detail of the problem (query text, duration, start time, etc.).  The trace did show, however, that there were hundreds of other long-running queries from different applications during the problem timeframe.  We later determined those queries were blocked by a large UPDATE query against a critical table that was inadvertently run during this busy period. So why didn’t the trace include all of the long-running queries?  The reason is because the SQL Trace event duration doesn’t include the time a request was queued while awaiting a worker thread.  Remember that the server was under considerable stress at the time due to the severe blocking episode.  Most of the worker threads were in use by blocked queries and new requests were queued awaiting a worker to free up (a DMV query on the DAC connection will show this queuing: “SELECT scheduler_id, work_queue_count FROM sys.dm_os_schedulers;”).  Technically, those queued requests had not started.  As worker threads became available, queries were dequeued and completed quickly.  These weren’t included in the trace because the duration was under the 100ms duration filter.  The duration reflected the time it took to actually run the query but didn’t include the time queued waiting for a worker thread. The important point here is that duration is not end-to-end response time.  Duration of RPC:Completed and SQL:BatchCompleted events doesn’t include time before a worker thread is assigned nor does it include the time required to return the last result buffer to the client.  In other words, duration only includes time after the worker thread is assigned until the last buffer is filled.  But be aware that duration does include the time need to return intermediate result set buffers back to the client, which is a factor when large query results are returned.  Clients that are slow in consuming results sets can increase the duration value reported by the trace “completed” events.

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• Development-led security vs administration-led security in a software product?

  - by haylem

  There are cases where you have the opportunity, as a developer, to enforce stricter security features and protections on a software, though they could very well be managed at an environmental level (ie, the operating system would take care of it). Where would you say you draw the line, and what elements do you factor in your decision? Concrete Examples User Management is the OS's responsibility Not exactly meant as a security feature, but in a similar case Google Chrome used to not allow separate profiles. The invoked reason (though it now supports multiple profiles for a same OS user) used to be that user management was the operating system's responsibility. Disabling Web-Form Fields A recurrent request I see addressed online is to have auto-completion be disabled on form fields. Auto-completion didn't exist in old browsers, and was a welcome feature at the time it was introduced for people who needed to fill in forms often. But it also brought in some security concerns, and so some browsers started to implement, on top of the (obviously needed) setting in their own preference/customization panel, an autocomplete attribute for form or input fields. And this has now been introduced into the upcoming HTML5 standard. For browsers that do not listen to this attribute, strange hacks* are offered, like generating unique IDs and names for fields to avoid them from being suggested in future forms (which comes with another herd of issues, like polluting your local auto-fill cache and not preventing a password from being stored in it, but instead probably duplicating its occurences). In this particular case, and others, I'd argue that this is a user setting and that it's the user's desire and the user's responsibility to enable or disable auto-fill (by disabling the feature altogether). And if it is based on an internal policy and security requirement in a corporate environment, then substitute the user for the administrator in the above. I assume it could be counter-argued that the user may want to access non-critical applications (or sites) with this handy feature enabled, and critical applications with this feature disabled. But then I'd think that's what security zones are for (in some browsers), or the sign that you need a more secure (and dedicated) environment / account to use these applications. * I obviously don't deny the ingeniosity of the people who were forced to find workarounds, just the necessity of said workarounds. Questions That was a tad long-winded, so I guess my questions are: Would you in general consider it to be the application's (hence, the developer's) responsiblity? Where do you draw the line, if not in the "general" case?

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• ray collision with rectangle and floating point accuracy

  - by phq

  I'm trying to solve a problem with a ray bouncing on a box. Actually it is a sphere but for simplicity the box dimensions are expanded by the sphere radius when doing the collision test making the sphere a single ray. It is done by projecting the ray onto all faces of the box and pick the one that is closest. However because I'm using floating point variables I fear that the projected point onto the surface might be interpreted as being below in the next iteration, also I will later allow the sphere to move which might make that scenario more likely. Also the bounce coefficient might be as low as zero, making the sphere continue along the surface. So my naive solution is to project not only forwards but backwards to catch those cases. That is where I got into problems shown in the figure: In the first iteration the first black arrow is calculated and we end up at a point on the surface of the box. In the second iteration the "back projection" hits the other surface making the second black arrow bounce on the wrong surface. If there are several boxes close to each other this has further consequences making the sphere fall through them all. So my main question is how to handle possible floating point accuracy when placing the sphere on the box surface so it does not fall through. In writing this question I got the idea to have a threshold to only accept back projections a certain amount much smaller than the box but larger than the possible accuracy limitation, this would only cause the "false" back projection when the sphere hit the box on an edge which would appear naturally. To clarify my original approach, the arrows shown in the image is not only the path the sphere travels but is also representing a single time step in the simulation. In reality the time step is much smaller about 0.05 of the box size. The path traveled is projected onto possible sides to avoid traveling past a thinner object at higher speeds. In normal situations the floating point accuracy is not an issue but there are two situations where I have the concern. When the new position at the end of the time step is located very close to the surface, very unlikely though. When using a bounce factor of 0, here it happens every time the sphere hit a box. To add some loss of accuracy, the motivation for my concern, is that the sphere and box are in different coordinate systems and thus the sphere location is transformed for every test. This last one is why I'm not willing to stand on luck that one floating point value lying on top of the box always will be interpreted the same. I did not know voronoi regions by name, but looking at it I'm not sure how it would be used in a projection scenario that I'm using here.

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• Creating a thematic map

  - by jsharma

  This post describes how to create a simple thematic map, just a state population layer, with no underlying map tile layer. The map shows states color-coded by total population. The map is interactive with info-windows and can be panned and zoomed. The sample code demonstrates the following: Displaying an interactive vector layer with no background map tile layer (i.e. purpose and use of the Universe object) Using a dynamic (i.e. defined via the javascript client API) color bucket style Dynamically changing a layer's rendering style Specifying which attribute value to use in determining the bucket, and hence style, for a feature (FoI) The result is shown in the screenshot below. The states layer was defined, and stored in the user_sdo_themes view of the mvdemo schema, using MapBuilder. The underlying table is defined as SQL> desc states_32775  Name                                      Null?    Type ----------------------------------------- -------- ----------------------------  STATE                                              VARCHAR2(26)  STATE_ABRV                                         VARCHAR2(2) FIPSST                                             VARCHAR2(2) TOTPOP                                             NUMBER PCTSMPLD                                           NUMBER LANDSQMI                                           NUMBER POPPSQMI                                           NUMBER ... MEDHHINC NUMBER AVGHHINC NUMBER GEOM32775 MDSYS.SDO_GEOMETRY We'll use the TOTPOP column value in the advanced (color bucket) style for rendering the states layers. The predefined theme (US_STATES_BI) is defined as follows. SQL> select styling_rules from user_sdo_themes where name='US_STATES_BI'; STYLING_RULES -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?> <styling_rules highlight_style="C.CB_QUAL_8_CLASS_DARK2_1"> <hidden_info> <field column="STATE" name="Name"/> <field column="POPPSQMI" name="POPPSQMI"/> <field column="TOTPOP" name="TOTPOP"/> </hidden_info> <rule column="TOTPOP"> <features style="states_totpop"> </features> <label column="STATE_ABRV" style="T.BLUE_SERIF_10"> 1 </label> </rule> </styling_rules> SQL> The theme definition specifies that the state, poppsqmi, totpop, state_abrv, and geom columns will be queried from the states_32775 table. The state_abrv value will be used to label the state while the totpop value will be used to determine the color-fill from those defined in the states_totpop advanced style. The states_totpop style, which we will not use in our demo, is defined as shown below. SQL> select definition from user_sdo_styles where name='STATES_TOTPOP'; DEFINITION -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <?xml version="1.0" ?> <AdvancedStyle> <BucketStyle> <Buckets default_style="C.S02_COUNTRY_AREA"> <RangedBucket seq="0" label="10K - 5M" low="10000" high="5000000" style="C.SEQ6_01" /> <RangedBucket seq="1" label="5M - 12M" low="5000001" high="1.2E7" style="C.SEQ6_02" /> <RangedBucket seq="2" label="12M - 20M" low="1.2000001E7" high="2.0E7" style="C.SEQ6_04" /> <RangedBucket seq="3" label="&gt; 20M" low="2.0000001E7" high="5.0E7" style="C.SEQ6_05" /> </Buckets> </BucketStyle> </AdvancedStyle> SQL> The demo defines additional advanced styles via the OM.style object and methods and uses those instead when rendering the states layer.   Now let's look at relevant snippets of code that defines the map extent and zoom levels (i.e. the OM.universe),  loads the states predefined vector layer (OM.layer), and sets up the advanced (color bucket) style. Defining the map extent and zoom levels. function initMap() {   //alert("Initialize map view");     // define the map extent and number of zoom levels.   // The Universe object is similar to the map tile layer configuration   // It defines the map extent, number of zoom levels, and spatial reference system   // well-known ones (like web mercator/google/bing or maps.oracle/elocation are predefined   // The Universe must be defined when there is no underlying map tile layer.   // When there is a map tile layer then that defines the map extent, srid, and zoom levels.      var uni= new OM.universe.Universe(     {         srid : 32775,         bounds : new OM.geometry.Rectangle(                         -3280000, 170000, 2300000, 3200000, 32775),         numberOfZoomLevels: 8     }); The srid specifies the spatial reference system which is Equal-Area Projection (United States). SQL> select cs_name from cs_srs where srid=32775 ; CS_NAME --------------------------------------------------- Equal-Area Projection (United States) The bounds defines the map extent. It is a Rectangle defined using the lower-left and upper-right coordinates and srid. Loading and displaying the states layer This is done in the states() function. The full code is at the end of this post, however here's the snippet which defines the states VectorLayer.     // States is a predefined layer in user_sdo_themes     var  layer2 = new OM.layer.VectorLayer("vLayer2",     {         def:         {             type:OM.layer.VectorLayer.TYPE_PREDEFINED,             dataSource:"mvdemo",             theme:"us_states_bi",             url: baseURL,             loadOnDemand: false         },         boundingTheme:true      }); The first parameter is a layer name, the second is an object literal for a layer config. The config object has two attributes: the first is the layer definition, the second specifies whether the layer is a bounding one (i.e. used to determine the current map zoom and center such that the whole layer is displayed within the map window) or not. The layer config has the following attributes: type - specifies whether is a predefined one, a defined via a SQL query (JDBC), or in a json-format file (DATAPACK) theme - is the predefined theme's name url - is the location of the mapviewer server loadOnDemand - specifies whether to load all the features or just those that lie within the current map window and load additional ones as needed on a pan or zoom The code snippet below dynamically defines an advanced style and then uses it, instead of the 'states_totpop' style, when rendering the states layer. // override predefined rendering style with programmatic one    var theRenderingStyle =      createBucketColorStyle('YlBr5', colorSeries, 'States5', true);   // specify which attribute is used in determining the bucket (i.e. color) to use for the state   // It can be an array because the style could be a chart type (pie/bar)   // which requires multiple attribute columns     // Use the STATE.TOTPOP column (aka attribute) value here    layer2.setRenderingStyle(theRenderingStyle, ["TOTPOP"]); The style itself is defined in the createBucketColorStyle() function. Dynamically defining an advanced style The advanced style used here is a bucket color style, i.e. a color style is associated with each bucket. So first we define the colors and then the buckets.     numClasses = colorSeries[colorName].classes;    // create Color Styles    for (var i=0; i < numClasses; i++)    {         theStyles[i] = new OM.style.Color(                      {fill: colorSeries[colorName].fill[i],                        stroke:colorSeries[colorName].stroke[i],                       strokeOpacity: useGradient? 0.25 : 1                      });    }; numClasses is the number of buckets. The colorSeries array contains the color fill and stroke definitions and is: var colorSeries = { //multi-hue color scheme #10 YlBl. "YlBl3": {   classes:3,                  fill: [0xEDF8B1, 0x7FCDBB, 0x2C7FB8],                  stroke:[0xB5DF9F, 0x72B8A8, 0x2872A6]   }, "YlBl5": {   classes:5,                  fill:[0xFFFFCC, 0xA1DAB4, 0x41B6C4, 0x2C7FB8, 0x253494],                  stroke:[0xE6E6B8, 0x91BCA2, 0x3AA4B0, 0x2872A6, 0x212F85]   }, //multi-hue color scheme #11 YlBr.  "YlBr3": {classes:3,                  fill:[0xFFF7BC, 0xFEC44F, 0xD95F0E],                  stroke:[0xE6DEA9, 0xE5B047, 0xC5360D]   }, "YlBr5": {classes:5,                  fill:[0xFFFFD4, 0xFED98E, 0xFE9929, 0xD95F0E, 0x993404],                  stroke:[0xE6E6BF, 0xE5C380, 0xE58A25, 0xC35663, 0x8A2F04]     }, etc. Next we create the bucket style.    bucketStyleDef = {       numClasses : colorSeries[colorName].classes, //      classification: 'custom',  //since we are supplying all the buckets //      buckets: theBuckets,       classification: 'logarithmic',  // use a logarithmic scale       styles: theStyles,       gradient:  useGradient? 'linear' : 'off' //      gradient:  useGradient? 'radial' : 'off'     };    theBucketStyle = new OM.style.BucketStyle(bucketStyleDef);    return theBucketStyle; A BucketStyle constructor takes a style definition as input. The style definition specifies the number of buckets (numClasses), a classification scheme (which can be equal-ranged, logarithmic scale, or custom), the styles for each bucket, whether to use a gradient effect, and optionally the buckets (required when using a custom classification scheme). The full source for the demo <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> <title>Oracle Maps V2 Thematic Map Demo</title> <script src="http://localhost:8080/mapviewer/jslib/v2/oraclemapsv2.js" type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript"> //var $j = jQuery.noConflict(); var baseURL="http://localhost:8080/mapviewer"; // location of mapviewer OM.gv.proxyEnabled =false; // no mvproxy needed OM.gv.setResourcePath(baseURL+"/jslib/v2/images/"); // location of resources for UI elements like nav panel buttons var map = null; // the client mapviewer object var statesLayer = null, stateCountyLayer = null; // The vector layers for states and counties in a state var layerName="States"; // initial map center and zoom var mapCenterLon = -20000; var mapCenterLat = 1750000; var mapZoom = 2; var mpoint = new OM.geometry.Point(mapCenterLon,mapCenterLat,32775); var currentPalette = null, currentStyle=null; // set an onchange listener for the color palette select list // initialize the map // load and display the states layer $(document).ready( function() { $("#demo-htmlselect").change(function() { var theColorScheme = $(this).val(); useSelectedColorScheme(theColorScheme); }); initMap(); states(); } ); /** * color series from ColorBrewer site (http://colorbrewer2.org/). */ var colorSeries = { //multi-hue color scheme #10 YlBl. "YlBl3": { classes:3, fill: [0xEDF8B1, 0x7FCDBB, 0x2C7FB8], stroke:[0xB5DF9F, 0x72B8A8, 0x2872A6] }, "YlBl5": { classes:5, fill:[0xFFFFCC, 0xA1DAB4, 0x41B6C4, 0x2C7FB8, 0x253494], stroke:[0xE6E6B8, 0x91BCA2, 0x3AA4B0, 0x2872A6, 0x212F85] }, //multi-hue color scheme #11 YlBr. "YlBr3": {classes:3, fill:[0xFFF7BC, 0xFEC44F, 0xD95F0E], stroke:[0xE6DEA9, 0xE5B047, 0xC5360D] }, "YlBr5": {classes:5, fill:[0xFFFFD4, 0xFED98E, 0xFE9929, 0xD95F0E, 0x993404], stroke:[0xE6E6BF, 0xE5C380, 0xE58A25, 0xC35663, 0x8A2F04] }, // single-hue color schemes (blues, greens, greys, oranges, reds, purples) "Purples5": {classes:5, fill:[0xf2f0f7, 0xcbc9e2, 0x9e9ac8, 0x756bb1, 0x54278f], stroke:[0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3] }, "Blues5": {classes:5, fill:[0xEFF3FF, 0xbdd7e7, 0x68aed6, 0x3182bd, 0x18519C], stroke:[0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3] }, "Greens5": {classes:5, fill:[0xedf8e9, 0xbae4b3, 0x74c476, 0x31a354, 0x116d2c], stroke:[0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3] }, "Greys5": {classes:5, fill:[0xf7f7f7, 0xcccccc, 0x969696, 0x636363, 0x454545], stroke:[0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3] }, "Oranges5": {classes:5, fill:[0xfeedde, 0xfdb385, 0xfd8d3c, 0xe6550d, 0xa63603], stroke:[0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3] }, "Reds5": {classes:5, fill:[0xfee5d9, 0xfcae91, 0xfb6a4a, 0xde2d26, 0xa50f15], stroke:[0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3] } }; function createBucketColorStyle( colorName, colorSeries, rangeName, useGradient) { var theBucketStyle; var bucketStyleDef; var theStyles = []; var theColors = []; var aBucket, aStyle, aColor, aRange; var numClasses ; numClasses = colorSeries[colorName].classes; // create Color Styles for (var i=0; i < numClasses; i++) { theStyles[i] = new OM.style.Color( {fill: colorSeries[colorName].fill[i], stroke:colorSeries[colorName].stroke[i], strokeOpacity: useGradient? 0.25 : 1 }); }; bucketStyleDef = { numClasses : colorSeries[colorName].classes, // classification: 'custom', //since we are supplying all the buckets // buckets: theBuckets, classification: 'logarithmic', // use a logarithmic scale styles: theStyles, gradient: useGradient? 'linear' : 'off' // gradient: useGradient? 'radial' : 'off' }; theBucketStyle = new OM.style.BucketStyle(bucketStyleDef); return theBucketStyle; } function initMap() { //alert("Initialize map view"); // define the map extent and number of zoom levels. // The Universe object is similar to the map tile layer configuration // It defines the map extent, number of zoom levels, and spatial reference system // well-known ones (like web mercator/google/bing or maps.oracle/elocation are predefined // The Universe must be defined when there is no underlying map tile layer. // When there is a map tile layer then that defines the map extent, srid, and zoom levels. var uni= new OM.universe.Universe( { srid : 32775, bounds : new OM.geometry.Rectangle( -3280000, 170000, 2300000, 3200000, 32775), numberOfZoomLevels: 8 }); map = new OM.Map( document.getElementById('map'), { mapviewerURL: baseURL, universe:uni }) ; var navigationPanelBar = new OM.control.NavigationPanelBar(); map.addMapDecoration(navigationPanelBar); } // end initMap function states() { //alert("Load and display states"); layerName = "States"; if(statesLayer) { // states were already visible but the style may have changed // so set the style to the currently selected one var theData = $('#demo-htmlselect').val(); setStyle(theData); } else { // States is a predefined layer in user_sdo_themes var layer2 = new OM.layer.VectorLayer("vLayer2", { def: { type:OM.layer.VectorLayer.TYPE_PREDEFINED, dataSource:"mvdemo", theme:"us_states_bi", url: baseURL, loadOnDemand: false }, boundingTheme:true }); // add drop shadow effect and hover style var shadowFilter = new OM.visualfilter.DropShadow({opacity:0.5, color:"#000000", offset:6, radius:10}); var hoverStyle = new OM.style.Color( {stroke:"#838383", strokeThickness:2}); layer2.setHoverStyle(hoverStyle); layer2.setHoverVisualFilter(shadowFilter); layer2.enableFeatureHover(true); layer2.enableFeatureSelection(false); layer2.setLabelsVisible(true); // override predefined rendering style with programmatic one var theRenderingStyle = createBucketColorStyle('YlBr5', colorSeries, 'States5', true); // specify which attribute is used in determining the bucket (i.e. color) to use for the state // It can be an array because the style could be a chart type (pie/bar) // which requires multiple attribute columns // Use the STATE.TOTPOP column (aka attribute) value here layer2.setRenderingStyle(theRenderingStyle, ["TOTPOP"]); currentPalette = "YlBr5"; var stLayerIdx = map.addLayer(layer2); //alert('State Layer Idx = ' + stLayerIdx); map.setMapCenter(mpoint); map.setMapZoomLevel(mapZoom) ; // display the map map.init() ; statesLayer=layer2; // add rt-click event listener to show counties for the state layer2.addListener(OM.event.MouseEvent.MOUSE_RIGHT_CLICK,stateRtClick); } // end if } // end states function setStyle(styleName) { // alert("Selected Style = " + styleName); // there may be a counties layer also displayed. // that wll have different bucket ranges so create // one style for states and one for counties var newRenderingStyle = null; if (layerName === "States") { if(/3/.test(styleName)) { newRenderingStyle = createBucketColorStyle(styleName, colorSeries, 'States3', false); currentStyle = createBucketColorStyle(styleName, colorSeries, 'Counties3', false); } else { newRenderingStyle = createBucketColorStyle(styleName, colorSeries, 'States5', false); currentStyle = createBucketColorStyle(styleName, colorSeries, 'Counties5', false); } statesLayer.setRenderingStyle(newRenderingStyle, ["TOTPOP"]); if (stateCountyLayer) stateCountyLayer.setRenderingStyle(currentStyle, ["TOTPOP"]); } } // end setStyle function stateRtClick(evt){ var foi = evt.feature; //alert('Rt-Click on State: ' + foi.attributes['_label_'] + // ' with pop ' + foi.attributes['TOTPOP']); // display another layer with counties info // layer may change on each rt-click so create and add each time. var countyByState = null ; // the _label_ attribute of a feature in this case is the state abbreviation // we will use that to query and get the counties for a state var sqlText = "select totpop,geom32775 from counties_32775_moved where state_abrv="+ "'"+foi.getAttributeValue('_label_')+"'"; // alert(sqlText); if (currentStyle === null) currentStyle = createBucketColorStyle('YlBr5', colorSeries, 'Counties5', false); /* try a simple style instead new OM.style.ColorStyle( { stroke: "#B8F4FF", fill: "#18E5F4", fillOpacity:0 } ); */ // remove existing layer if any if(stateCountyLayer) map.removeLayer(stateCountyLayer); countyByState = new OM.layer.VectorLayer("stCountyLayer", {def:{type:OM.layer.VectorLayer.TYPE_JDBC, dataSource:"mvdemo", sql:sqlText, url:baseURL}}); // url:baseURL}, // renderingStyle:currentStyle}); countyByState.setVisible(true); // specify which attribute is used in determining the bucket (i.e. color) to use for the state countyByState.setRenderingStyle(currentStyle, ["TOTPOP"]); var ctLayerIdx = map.addLayer(countyByState); // alert('County Layer Idx = ' + ctLayerIdx); //map.addLayer(countyByState); stateCountyLayer = countyByState; } // end stateRtClick function useSelectedColorScheme(theColorScheme) { if(map) { // code to update renderStyle goes here //alert('will try to change render style'); setStyle(theColorScheme); } else { // do nothing } } </script> </head> <body bgcolor="#b4c5cc" style="height:100%;font-family:Arial,Helvetica,Verdana"> <h3 align="center">State population thematic map </h3> <div id="demo" style="position:absolute; left:68%; top:44px; width:28%; height:100%"> <HR/> <p/> Choose Color Scheme: <select id="demo-htmlselect"> <option value="YlBl3"> YellowBlue3</option> <option value="YlBr3"> YellowBrown3</option> <option value="YlBl5"> YellowBlue5</option> <option value="YlBr5" selected="selected"> YellowBrown5</option> <option value="Blues5"> Blues</option> <option value="Greens5"> Greens</option> <option value="Greys5"> Greys</option> <option value="Oranges5"> Oranges</option> <option value="Purples5"> Purples</option> <option value="Reds5"> Reds</option> </select> <p/> </div> <div id="map" style="position:absolute; left:10px; top:50px; width:65%; height:75%; background-color:#778f99"></div> <div style="position:absolute;top:85%; left:10px;width:98%" class="noprint"> <HR/> <p> Note: This demo uses HTML5 Canvas and requires IE9+, Firefox 10+, or Chrome. No map will show up in IE8 or earlier. </p> </div> </body> </html>

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-06-14

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Duke's Choice Award Nominations Close Friday! | The Java Source The Duke's Choice Awards celebrate extreme innovation in the world of Java technology. Nominate an individual, a group or company who show the best in Java innovation. Nominate at Java.net/dukeschoice. Nominations are open until this Friday, June 15. Whole Lotta Virtualization Goin' On | Rick Ramsey The OTN Garage's Rick Ramsey shares a list of recent Virtualization articles available on OTN, along with a link to a video by The Killer, Mr Jerry Lee Lewis. A Pragmatic Path to Navigating your Infrastructure to the Cloud | The WebLogic Server Blog Ruma Sanyal offers an overview of a recent Oracle webcast featuring Gartner VP and Distinguished Analyst Andy Butler and Vice President and Gartner Fellow Massimo Pezzini. Migrating C/C++ embedded SQL code | Tom Laszewski Cloud migration expert Tom Laszewski explains the how-to in 5 easy steps. Aetna Dumps Its Siloed Enterprise Architecture for SOA | CIO.com CIO writer Stephanie Overby tells the story of how one major health insurance provider put the "Enterprise" back in Enterprise Architecture. (H/T to Joe McKendrick for this story.) Downloading specific video renditions in WebCenter Content | Kyle Hatlestad How-to from Oracle WebCenter & ADF A-Team blogger Kyle Hatlestad. Eclipse DemoCamp - June 2012 - Redwood Shores, CA Location: Oracle HQ - 10 Twin Dolphin Drive, Redwood Shores, CA (Map) Date and Time: Wednesday, June 13, 2012. From 6pm - 9pm Agenda: The evolution of Java persistence, Doug Clarke, EclipseLink Project Lead, Oracle Integrating BIRT into Applications, Ashwini Verma, Actuate Corporation Leveraging OSGi In The Enterprise, Kamal Muralidharan, Lead Engineer, eBay Developing Rich ADF Applications with Java EE, Greg Stachnick, Oracle NVIDIA® NsightTM Eclipse Edition, Goodwin (Tech lead - Visual tools), Eugene Ostroukhov (Senior engineer – Visual tools) 2012 Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation Awards - Win a FREE Pass to Oracle OpenWorld 2012 in San Francisco Share your use of Oracle Fusion Middleware solutions and how they help your organization drive business innovation. You just might win a free pass to Oracle Openworld 2012 in San Francisco. Deadline for submissions in July 17, 2012. BI Architecture Master Class for Partners – Oracle Architecture Unplugged Date: June 21, 2012 No slides, no fluff. This workshop will be highly interactive and is aimed at Oracle OPN member partners who are IT Architects and BI+W specialists. The focus will be on architectural issues and considerations. DevOps: Evolving to Handle Disruption | JP Morgenthal The subject of DevOps came up this week during an OTN ArchBeat podcast interview with Ron Batra and James Baty on the role of the cloud architect (that program will be available in a few weeks). Morgenthal's article for InfoQ offers a good overview of what DevOps is and how it works. Thought for the Day "Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure." — Edsger Dijkstra Source: softwarequotes.com

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• Ubuntu 12.04 OpenCL with Intel and Radeon?

  - by Steve

  I want to setup my Ubuntu 12.04 with OpenCL(Open Computing Language) support for i7 2600k and Radeon HD5870. My Monitor is connected to the integrated Graphics of the i7. Intel OpenCL SDK is installed and working. Iteration of avaliable OpenCL devices shows 2 entries for Intel. As recommended I installed AMD APP SDK 2.6 first and then the fglrx driver. I installed fglrx from Ubuntu repositories. This works fine till here. When I run aticonfig --inital -f and restart the system I get into trouble. Xorg starts only in low-graphics mode. cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log [ 21.201] X.Org X Server 1.12.2 Release Date: 2012-05-29 [ 21.201] X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0 [ 21.201] Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.24-29-xen x86_64 Ubuntu [ 21.201] Current Operating System: Linux chimera 3.2.0-24-generic #39-Ubuntu SMP Mon May 21 16:52:17 UTC 2012 x86_ [ 21.201] Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-24-generic root=UUID=c137757b-486b-4514-9dfe-00c97662 [ 21.201] Build Date: 05 June 2012 08:35:55AM [ 21.201] xorg-server 2:1.12.2+git20120605+server-1.12-branch.aaf48906-0ubuntu0ricotz~precise (For technical suppor [ 21.201] Current version of pixman: 0.26.0 [ 21.201] Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org to make sure that you have the latest version. [ 21.201] Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting, (++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational, (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown. [ 21.201] (==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Fri Jun 8 14:22:36 2012 [ 21.247] (==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" [ 21.247] (==) Using system config directory "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d" [ 21.450] (==) ServerLayout "aticonfig Layout" [ 21.450] (**) |-->Screen "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" (0) [ 21.450] (**) | |-->Monitor "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0" [ 21.451] (**) | |-->Device "aticonfig-Device[0]-0" [ 21.451] (==) Automatically adding devices [ 21.451] (==) Automatically enabling devices [ 21.466] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic" does not exist. [ 21.466] Entry deleted from font path. [ 21.466] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/" does not exist. [ 21.466] Entry deleted from font path. [ 21.466] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/" does not exist. [ 21.466] Entry deleted from font path. [ 21.473] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi" does not exist. [ 21.473] Entry deleted from font path. [ 21.473] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi" does not exist. [ 21.473] Entry deleted from font path. [ 21.473] (WW) The directory "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType" does not exist. [ 21.473] Entry deleted from font path. [ 21.473] (==) FontPath set to: /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc, /usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1, built-ins [ 21.473] (==) ModulePath set to "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xorg/extra-modules,/usr/lib/xorg/extra-modules,/usr/lib [ 21.473] (II) The server relies on udev to provide the list of input devices. If no devices become available, reconfigure udev or disable AutoAddDevices. [ 21.473] (II) Loader magic: 0x7f0ad3b9ab00 [ 21.473] (II) Module ABI versions: [ 21.473] X.Org ANSI C Emulation: 0.4 [ 21.473] X.Org Video Driver: 12.0 [ 21.473] X.Org XInput driver : 16.0 [ 21.473] X.Org Server Extension : 6.0 [ 21.473] (--) PCI:*(0:0:2:0) 8086:0122:1458:d000 rev 9, Mem @ 0xfb800000/4194304, 0xe0000000/268435456, I/O @ 0x00 [ 21.473] (--) PCI: (0:1:0:0) 1002:6898:1787:2289 rev 0, Mem @ 0xd0000000/268435456, 0xfbdc0000/131072, I/O @ 0x000 [ 21.473] (II) Open ACPI successful (/var/run/acpid.socket) [ 21.473] (II) "extmod" will be loaded by default. [ 21.473] (II) "dbe" will be loaded by default. [ 21.473] (II) "glx" will be loaded. This was enabled by default and also specified in the config file. [ 21.473] (II) "record" will be loaded by default. [ 21.473] (II) "dri" will be loaded by default. [ 21.473] (II) "dri2" will be loaded by default. [ 21.473] (II) LoadModule: "glx" [ 21.732] (II) Loading /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xorg/extra-modules/extra-modules.dpkg-tmp/modules/extensions/libgl [ 21.934] (II) Module glx: vendor="Advanced Micro Devices, Inc." [ 21.934] compiled for 6.9.0, module version = 1.0.0 [ 21.934] (II) Loading extension GLX [ 21.934] (II) LoadModule: "extmod" [ 22.028] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libextmod.so [ 22.041] (II) Module extmod: vendor="X.Org Foundation" [ 22.041] compiled for 1.12.2, module version = 1.0.0 [ 22.041] Module class: X.Org Server Extension [ 22.041] ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 6.0 [ 22.041] (II) Loading extension MIT-SCREEN-SAVER [ 22.041] (II) Loading extension XFree86-VidModeExtension [ 22.041] (II) Loading extension XFree86-DGA [ 22.041] (II) Loading extension DPMS [ 22.041] (II) Loading extension XVideo [ 22.041] (II) Loading extension XVideo-MotionCompensation [ 22.041] (II) Loading extension X-Resource [ 22.041] (II) LoadModule: "dbe" [ 22.041] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libdbe.so [ 22.066] (II) Module dbe: vendor="X.Org Foundation" [ 22.066] compiled for 1.12.2, module version = 1.0.0 [ 22.066] Module class: X.Org Server Extension [ 22.066] ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 6.0 [ 22.066] (II) Loading extension DOUBLE-BUFFER [ 22.066] (II) LoadModule: "record" [ 22.066] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/librecord.so [ 22.077] (II) Module record: vendor="X.Org Foundation" [ 22.077] compiled for 1.12.2, module version = 1.13.0 [ 22.077] Module class: X.Org Server Extension [ 22.077] ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 6.0 [ 22.077] (II) Loading extension RECORD [ 22.077] (II) LoadModule: "dri" [ 22.077] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libdri.so [ 22.082] (II) Module dri: vendor="X.Org Foundation" [ 22.082] compiled for 1.12.2, module version = 1.0.0 [ 22.082] ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 6.0 [ 22.082] (II) Loading extension XFree86-DRI [ 22.082] (II) LoadModule: "dri2" [ 22.082] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libdri2.so [ 22.083] (II) Module dri2: vendor="X.Org Foundation" [ 22.083] compiled for 1.12.2, module version = 1.2.0 [ 22.083] ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 6.0 [ 22.083] (II) Loading extension DRI2 [ 22.083] (II) LoadModule: "fglrx" [ 22.083] (II) Loading /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xorg/extra-modules/extra-modules.dpkg-tmp/modules/drivers/fglrx_dr [ 22.399] (II) Module fglrx: vendor="FireGL - ATI Technologies Inc." [ 22.399] compiled for 1.4.99.906, module version = 8.96.4 [ 22.399] Module class: X.Org Video Driver [ 22.399] (II) Loading sub module "fglrxdrm" [ 22.399] (II) LoadModule: "fglrxdrm" [ 22.399] (II) Loading /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xorg/extra-modules/extra-modules.dpkg-tmp/modules/linux/libfglrxdr [ 22.445] (II) Module fglrxdrm: vendor="FireGL - ATI Technologies Inc." [ 22.445] compiled for 1.4.99.906, module version = 8.96.4 [ 22.445] (II) ATI Proprietary Linux Driver Version Identifier:8.96.4 [ 22.445] (II) ATI Proprietary Linux Driver Release Identifier: 8.96.7 [ 22.445] (II) ATI Proprietary Linux Driver Build Date: Mar 12 2012 13:06:50 [ 22.445] (++) using VT number 7 [ 22.445] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fglrx [ 23.043] (II) Loading PCS database from /etc/ati/amdpcsdb [ 23.082] (--) Chipset Supported AMD Graphics Processor (0x6898) found [ 23.107] (WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@1:0:1) found [ 23.107] (II) fglrx: intel VGA device detected, load intel driver. [ 23.107] (II) LoadModule: "intel" [ 23.211] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/intel_drv.so [ 23.475] (II) Module intel: vendor="X.Org Foundation" [ 23.475] compiled for 1.12.2, module version = 2.19.0 [ 23.475] Module class: X.Org Video Driver [ 23.475] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 12.0 [ 23.476] ukiDynamicMajor: found major device number 249 [ 23.476] ukiDynamicMajor: found major device number 249 [ 23.476] ukiOpenByBusid: Searching for BusID PCI:1:0:0 [ 23.476] ukiOpenDevice: node name is /dev/ati/card0 [ 23.476] ukiOpenDevice: open result is 8, (OK) [ 23.476] ukiOpenByBusid: ukiOpenMinor returns 8 [ 23.476] ukiOpenByBusid: ukiGetBusid reports PCI:1:0:0 [ 23.540] (WW) PowerXpress feature is not supported [ 23.540] (EE) No devices detected. [ 23.540] (==) Matched intel as autoconfigured driver 0 [ 23.540] (==) Matched vesa as autoconfigured driver 1 [ 23.540] (==) Matched fbdev as autoconfigured driver 2 [ 23.540] (==) Assigned the driver to the xf86ConfigLayout [ 23.540] (II) LoadModule: "intel" [ 23.540] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/intel_drv.so [ 23.540] (II) Module intel: vendor="X.Org Foundation" [ 23.540] compiled for 1.12.2, module version = 2.19.0 [ 23.540] Module class: X.Org Video Driver [ 23.540] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 12.0 [ 23.540] (II) UnloadModule: "intel" [ 23.540] (II) Unloading intel [ 23.540] (II) Failed to load module "intel" (already loaded, 32522) [ 23.540] (II) LoadModule: "vesa" [ 23.583] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/vesa_drv.so [ 23.620] (II) Module vesa: vendor="X.Org Foundation" [ 23.620] compiled for 1.12.2, module version = 2.3.1 [ 23.620] Module class: X.Org Video Driver [ 23.620] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 12.0 [ 23.620] (II) LoadModule: "fbdev" [ 23.620] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/fbdev_drv.so [ 23.661] (II) Module fbdev: vendor="X.Org Foundation" [ 23.661] compiled for 1.12.2, module version = 0.4.2 [ 23.661] Module class: X.Org Video Driver [ 23.661] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 12.0 [ 23.661] (II) ATI Proprietary Linux Driver Version Identifier:8.96.4 [ 23.661] (II) ATI Proprietary Linux Driver Release Identifier: 8.96.7 [ 23.661] (II) ATI Proprietary Linux Driver Build Date: Mar 12 2012 13:06:50 [ 23.661] (II) intel: Driver for Intel Integrated Graphics Chipsets: i810, i810-dc100, i810e, i815, i830M, 845G, 854, 852GM/855GM, 865G, 915G, E7221 (i915), 915GM, 945G, 945GM, 945GME, Pineview GM, Pineview G, 965G, G35, 965Q, 946GZ, 965GM, 965GME/GLE, G33, Q35, Q33, GM45, 4 Series, G45/G43, Q45/Q43, G41, B43, B43, Clarkdale, Arrandale, Sandybridge Desktop (GT1), Sandybridge Desktop (GT2), Sandybridge Desktop (GT2+), Sandybridge Mobile (GT1), Sandybridge Mobile (GT2), Sandybridge Mobile (GT2+), Sandybridge Server, Ivybridge Mobile (GT1), Ivybridge Mobile (GT2), Ivybridge Desktop (GT1), Ivybridge Desktop (GT2), Ivybridge Server, Ivybridge Server (GT2) [ 23.661] (II) VESA: driver for VESA chipsets: vesa [ 23.661] (II) FBDEV: driver for framebuffer: fbdev [ 23.661] (++) using VT number 7 [ 23.661] (WW) xf86OpenConsole: setpgid failed: Operation not permitted [ 23.661] (WW) xf86OpenConsole: setsid failed: Operation not permitted [ 23.661] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fglrx [ 23.661] (II) Loading PCS database from /etc/ati/amdpcsdb [ 23.661] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for vesa [ 23.661] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fbdev [ 23.661] (EE) No devices detected. [ 23.661] Fatal server error: [ 23.661] no screens found [ 23.661] Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support at http://wiki.x.org for help. [ 23.661] Please also check the log file at "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" for additional information. [ 23.661] xorg.conf: cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "aticonfig Layout" Screen 0 "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0 EndSection Section "Module" Load "glx" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0" Option "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver" Option "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor" Option "DPMS" "true" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "aticonfig-Device[0]-0" Driver "fglrx" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" Device "aticonfig-Device[0]-0" Monitor "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Viewport 0 0 Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Is there a way to get the Radeon to work in a hybrid configuration or to use the Radeon as an OpenCL only device?

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• Book review: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams

  - by DigiMortal

     Peopleware by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister is golden classic book that can be considered as mandatory reading for software project managers, team leads, higher level management and board members of software companies. If you make decisions about people then you cannot miss this book. If you are already good on managing developers then this book can make you even better – you will learn new stuff about successful development teams for sure. Why peopleware? Peopleware gives you very good hints about how to build up working environment for project teams where people can really do their work. Book also covers team building topics that are also important reading. As software developer I found practically all points in this book to be accurate and valid. Many times I have found my self thinking about same things and Peopleware made me more confident about my opinions. Peopleware covers also time management and planning topics that help you do way better job on using developers time effectively by minimizing the amount of interruptions by phone calls, pointless meetings and i-want-to-know-what-are-you-doing-right-now questions by managers who doesn’t write code anyway. I think if you follow suggestions given by Peopleware your developers are very happy. I suggest you to also read another great book – Death March by Edward Yourdon. Death March describes you effectively what happens when good advices given by Peopleware are totally ignored or worse yet – people are treated exactly opposite way. I consider also Death March as golden classics and I strongly recommend you to read this book too. Table of Contents Acknowledgments Preface to the Second Edition Preface to the First Edition Part 1: Managing the Human Resource Chapter 1: Somewhere Today, a Project Is Failing Chapter 2: Make a Cheeseburger, Sell a Cheeseburger Chapter 3: Vienna Waits for You Chapter 4: Quality-If Time Permits Chapter 5: Parkinson's Law Revisited Chapter 6: Laetrile Part II: The Office Environment Chapter 7: The Furniture Police Chapter 8: "You Never Get Anything Done Around Here Between 9 and 5" Chapter 9: Saving Money on Space Intermezzo: Productivity Measurement and Unidentified Flying Objects Chapter 10: Brain Time Versus Body Time Chapter 11: The Telephone Chapter 12: Bring Back the Door Chapter 13: Taking Umbrella Steps Part III: The Right People Chapter 14: The Hornblower Factor Chapter 15: Hiring a Juggler Chapter 16: Happy to Be Here Chapter 17: The Self-Healing System Part IV: Growing Productive Teams Chapter 18: The Whole Is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts Chapter 19: The Black Team Chapter 20: Teamicide Chapter 21: A Spaghetti Dinner Chapter 22: Open Kimono Chapter 23: Chemistry for Team Formation Part V: It't Supposed to Be Fun to Work Here Chapter 24: Chaos and Order Chapter 25: Free Electrons Chapter 26: Holgar Dansk Part VI: Son of Peopleware Chapter 27: Teamicide, Revisited Chapter 28: Competition Chapter 29: Process Improvement Programs Chapter 30: Making Change Possible Chapter 31: Human Capital Chapter 32:Organizational Learning Chapter 33: The Ultimate Management Sin Is Chapter 34: The Making of Community Notes Bibliography Index About the Authors

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• Microsoft Virtual Academy

  Carpe Diem It's been since a while that I could write an article for this blog but alas, I was (and still am) very busy with customer's work. Which is actually good. So, what is this article going to tell you? Well, in general, just what I already tweeted, that life is constant process of learning - especially as software craftsman. Due to an upcoming new customer project in ASP.NET I had to seize the opportunity to get my head deeper into latest available technologies, like Windows Azure and SQL Azure. I know... cloud computing and so on is not a recent development and already available since quite a while but I never any means to get myself into this since roughly two weeks ago. Microsoft Virtual Academy I can't remember exactly what guided me towards the Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA), oh wait... Yes, it was a posting on Facebook from an old CLIP community friend. He posted a shortened URL with #MVA tag that caught my attention. Thanks for that Thomas Kuberek. After the usual sign in or registration via Live ID I was a little bit surprised that Mauritius is not an available country option... Quick mail exchange with the MVA Decan, and yeah, apologies for the missing entry. So, currently I'm learning about Microsoft products and services, and collecting points under "Not Listed Country" until Mauritius is going to be added. Hopefully soon, as MVA honors your effort with different knowledge ranks that are compared to other students with public profiles. I think it's a nice move to add some game and competition factor into the learning game. The tracks and their different modules are mainly references to publicly available material online, namely on either MSDN, TechNet, Channel9, or other Microsoft based sites. The course material therefore also varies in different media and formats, ranging from simple online articles over downloadable documents (.docx or .pdf) to Silverlight / Windows Media streams with download options. Self-assessment and students ranking Each module in a track can be finished by taking part in a self-assessment. Up to now, the assessment I did (and passed) were limited to 10 minutes available time, and consisted of six to seven questions on the module training material. Nothing too serious but it gives you a glimpse idea how Microsoft certification exams are structured. Conclusion Nothing really new but nicely gathered, assembled and presented to the MVA students. At the moment, I wouldn't dare to compare the richness and quality of those courses with professional training offers, like Pluralsight .NET Training, LearnDevNow, VTC, etc. at all, but I think that MVA has potential. Give it a try, and let me know about your opinions.

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