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  • Oracle Announces Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity 9.4

    - by helen.pitts(at)oracle.com
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Today's global insurers require the ability to provide higher levels of service and quickly bring to market life insurance and annuity products that not only help them stand out from the competition, but also stay current with local legislation. To succeed, they require agile and flexible core systems that enable them to meet the unique localization requirements of the markets in which they operate, whether in North America, Asia Pacific or the Pan-European Region. The release of Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity 9.4, announced today, helps insurers meet this need with expanded international market capabilities that enable them to reduce risk and profitably compete wherever their business takes them. It offers expanded multi-language along with unit-linked product and fund processing capabilities that enable regional and global insurers to rapidly configure and deliver localized products – along with providing better service for end users through a single policy admin solution. Key enhancements include: Kanji/Kana language support, pre-defined content, and imperial date processing for the Japanese market New localization flexibility for configuring and managing international mailing addresses along with regional variations for client information Enhanced capability to calculate unit-linked pricing and valuation, in addition to market-based processing and pre-configured unit linked content Expanded role-based security and masking capability to further protect sensitive customer data Enhanced capability to restrict processing specified activities based on time of day and user role, reducing exposure to market timing risks Further capability to eliminate duplicate client records, helping to reduce underwriting risks and enhance servicing through a single view of the client "The ability to leverage a single, rules-driven policy administration system for multiple global operation centers can help insurers realize significant improvements in speed to market, customer service, compliance with regional regulations, and consolidation efforts,” noted Celent's Craig Weber, senior vice president, Insurance. “We believe such initiatives are necessary to help the industry address service and distribution imperatives." Helping our customers meet these mission-critical business imperatives is a key objective for Oracle Insurance. Active, ongoing dialogue with our customers is an important part of the process to help understand how our solutions are and can continue to help them achieve success in the marketplace. I had the opportunity to meet with several of our insurance customers at the Oracle Insurance Policy Administration Client Advisory Board meeting last week in Philadelphia, Penn. (View photos on the Oracle Insurance Facebook page.)   It was a great forum for Oracle Insurance and our clients. Discussion centered on the latest business and IT trends, with opportunities to learn more about the latest release of Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity and other Oracle Insurance solutions such as data warehousing / business intelligence, while exchanging best practices for product innovation and servicing customers and sales channels. Helen Pitts is senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance's life and annuities solutions.

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

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

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  • The busy developers guide to the Kinect SDK Beta

    - by mbcrump
    The Kinect is awesome. From day one, I’ve said this thing has got potential. After playing with several open-source Kinect projects, I am please to announce that Microsoft has released the official SDK beta on 6/16/2011. I’ve created this quick start guide to get you up to speed in no time flat. Let’s begin: What is it? The Kinect for Windows SDK beta is a starter kit for applications developers that includes APIs, sample code, and drivers. This SDK enables the academic research and enthusiast communities to create rich experiences by using Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect sensor technology on computers running Windows 7. (defined by Microsoft) Links worth checking out: Download Kinect for Windows SDK beta – You can either download a 32 or 64 bit SDK depending on your OS. Readme for Kinect for Windows SDK Beta from Microsoft Research  Programming Guide: Getting Started with the Kinect for Windows SDK Beta Code Walkthroughs of the samples that ship with the Kinect for Windows SDK beta (Found in \Samples Folder) Coding4Fun Kinect Toolkit – Lots of extension methods and controls for WPF and WinForms. Kinect Mouse Cursor – Use your hands to control things like a mouse created by Brian Peek. Kinect Paint – Basically MS Paint but use your hands! Kinect for Windows SDK Quickstarts Installing and Using the Kinect Sensor Getting it installed: After downloading the Kinect SDK Beta, double click the installer to get the ball rolling. Hit the next button a few times and it should complete installing. Once you have everything installed then simply plug in your Kinect device into the USB Port on your computer and hopefully you will get the following screen: Once installed, you are going to want to check out the following folders: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Research KinectSDK – This contains the actual Kinect Sample Executables along with the documentation as a CHM file. Also check out the C:\Users\Public\Documents\Microsoft Research KinectSDK Samples directory: The main thing to note here is that these folders contain the source code to the applications where you can compile/build them yourself. Audio NUI DEMO Time Let’s get started with some demos. Navigate to the C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Research KinectSDK folder and double click on ShapeGame.exe. Next up is SkeletalViewer.exe (image taken from http://www.i-programmer.info/news/91-hardware/2619-microsoft-launch-kinect-sdk-beta.html as I could not get a good image using SnagIt) At this point, you will have to download Kinect Mouse Cursor – This is really cool because you can use your hands to control the mouse cursor. I actually used this to resize itself. Last up is Kinect Paint – This is very cool, just make sure you read the instructions! MS Paint on steroids! A few tips for getting started building Kinect Applications. It appears WPF is the way to go with building Kinect Applications. You must also use a version of Visual Studio 2010.  Your going to need to reference Microsoft.Research.Kinect.dll when building a Kinect Application. Right click on References and then goto Browse and navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Research KinectSDK and select Microsoft.Research.Kinect.dll. You are going to want to make sure your project has the Platform target set to x86. The Coding4Fun Kinect Toolkit really makes things easier with extension methods and controls. Just note that this is for WinForms or WPF. Conclusion It looks like we have a lot of fun in store with the Kinect SDK. I’m very excited about the release and have already been thinking about all the applications that I can begin building. It seems that development will be easier now that we have an official SDK and the great work from Coding4Fun. Please subscribe to my blog or follow me on twitter for more information about Kinect, Silverlight and other great technology.  Subscribe to my feed

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  • Copy TFS Build Definitions between Projects and Collections

    - by Jakob Ehn
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/jakob/archive/2014/06/05/copy-tfs-build-definitions-between-projects-and-collections.aspxThe last couple of years it has become apparent that using multiple team projects in TFS is generally a bad idea. There are of course exceptions to this, but there are a lot ot things that becomes much easier to do when you put all of your projects and team in the same team project. Fellow ALM MVP Martin Hinshelwood has blogged about this several times, as well as other people in the community. In particular, using the backlog and portfolio management tools makes much more sense when everything is located in the same team project. Consolidating multiple team projects into one is not that easy unfortunately, it involves migrating source code, work items, reports etc.  Another thing that also need to be migrated is build definitions. It is possible to clone build definitions within the same team project using the TFS power tools. The Community TFS Build Manager also lets you clone build definitions to other team projects. But there is no tool that allows you to clone/copy a build definition to another collection. So, I whipped up a simple console application that let you do this. The tool can be downloaded from https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=EE034C9F620CD58D!8162&authkey=!ACTr56v1QVowzuE&ithint=file%2c.zip   Using CopyTFSBuildDefinitions You use the tool like this: CopyTFSBuildDefinitions  SourceCollectionUrl  SourceTeamProject  BuildDefinitionName  DestinationCollectionUrl  DestinationTeamProject [NewDefinitionName] Arguments SourceCollectionUrl The URL to the TFS collection that contains the team project with the build definition that you want to copy SourceTeamProject The name of the team project that contains the build definition BuildDefinitionName Name of the build definition DestinationCollectionUrl The URL to the TFS collection that contains the team project that you want to copy your build definition to DestinationTeamProject The name of the team project in the destination collection NewDefinitionName (Optional) Use this to override the name of the new build definition. If you don’t specify this, the name will the same as the original one Example: CopyTFSBuildDefinitions  https://jakob.visualstudio.com DemoProject  WebApplication.CI https://anotheraccount.visualstudio.com     Notes Since we are (potentially) create a build definition in a new collection, there is no guarantee that the various paths that are defined in the build definition exist in the new collection. For example, a build definition refers to server paths in TFVC or repos + branches in TFGit. It also refers to build controllers that definitely don’t exist in the new collection. So there will be some cleanup to do after you copy your build definitions. You can fix some of these using the Community TFS Build Manager, for example it is very easy to apply the correct build controller to a set of build definitions The problem stated above also applies to build process templates. However, the tool tries to find a build process template in the new team project with the same file name as the one that existed in the old team project. If it finds one, it will be used for the new build definition. Otherwise is will use the default build template If you want to run the tool for many build definitions, you can use this SQL scripts, compliments of Mr. Scrum/ALM MVP Richard Hundhausen to generate the necessary commands: USE Tfs_Collection GO SELECT 'CopyTFSBuildDefinitions.exe http://SERVER:8080/tfs/collection "' + P.ProjectName + '" "' + REPLACE(BD.DefinitionName,'\','') + '" http://NEWSERVER:8080/tfs/COLLECTION TEAMPROJECT'   FROM tbl_Project P        INNER JOIN tbl_BuildGroup BG on BG.TeamProject = P.ProjectUri        INNER JOIN tbl_BuildDefinition BD on BD.GroupId = BG.GroupId   ORDER BY P.ProjectName, BD.DefinitionName   Hope that helps, let me know if you have any problems with the tool or if you find it useful

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  • 2D Rendering with OpenGL ES 2.0 on Android (matrices not working)

    - by TranquilMarmot
    So I'm trying to render two moving quads, each at different locations. My shaders are as simple as possible (vertices are only transformed by the modelview-projection matrix, there's only one color). Whenever I try and render something, I only end up with slivers of color! I've only done work with 3D rendering in OpenGL before so I'm having issues with 2D stuff. Here's my basic rendering loop, simplified a bit (I'm using the Matrix manipulation methods provided by android.opengl.Matrix and program is a custom class I created that just calls GLES20.glUniformMatrix4fv()): Matrix.orthoM(projection, 0, 0, windowWidth, 0, windowHeight, -1, 1); program.setUniformMatrix4f("Projection", projection); At this point, I render the quads (this is repeated for each quad): Matrix.setIdentityM(modelview, 0); Matrix.translateM(modelview, 0, quadX, quadY, 0); program.setUniformMatrix4f("ModelView", modelview); quad.render(); // calls glDrawArrays and all I see is a sliver of the color each quad is! I'm at my wits end here, I've tried everything I can think of and I'm at the point where I'm screaming at my computer and tossing phones across the room. Anybody got any pointers? Am I using ortho wrong? I'm 100% sure I'm rendering everything at a Z value of 0. I tried using frustumM instead of orthoM, which made it so that I could see the quads but they would get totally skewed whenever they got moved, which makes sense if I correctly understand the way frustum works (it's more for 3D rendering, anyway). If it makes any difference, I defined my viewport with GLES20.glViewport(0, 0, windowWidth, windowHeight); Where windowWidth and windowHeight are the same values that are pased to orthoM It might be worth noting that the android.opengl.Matrix methods take in an offset as the second parameter so that multiple matrices can be shoved into one array, so that'w what the first 0 is for For reference, here's my vertex shader code: uniform mat4 ModelView; uniform mat4 Projection; attribute vec4 vPosition; void main() { mat4 mvp = Projection * ModelView; gl_Position = vPosition * mvp; } I tried swapping Projection * ModelView with ModelView * Projection but now I just get some really funky looking shapes... EDIT Okay, I finally figured it out! (Note: Since I'm new here (longtime lurker!) I can't answer my own question for a few hours, so as soon as I can I'll move this into an actual answer to the question) I changed Matrix.orthoM(projection, 0, 0, windowWidth, 0, windowHeight, -1, 1); to float ratio = windowWwidth / windowHeight; Matrix.orthoM(projection, 0, 0, ratio, 0, 1, -1, 1); I then had to scale my projection matrix to make it a lot smaller with Matrix.scaleM(projection, 0, 0.05f, 0.05f, 1.0f);. I then added an offset to the modelview translations to simulate a camera so that I could center on my action (so Matrix.translateM(modelview, 0, quadX, quadY, 0); was changed to Matrix.translateM(modelview, 0, quadX + camX, quadY + camY, 0);) Thanks for the help, all!

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  • How the "migrations" approach makes database continuous integration possible

    - by David Atkinson
    Testing a database upgrade script as part of a continuous integration process will only work if there is an easy way to automate the generation of the upgrade scripts. There are two common approaches to managing upgrade scripts. The first is to maintain a set of scripts as-you-go-along. Many SQL developers I've encountered will store these in a folder prefixed numerically to ensure they are ordered as they are intended to be run. Occasionally there is an accompanying document or a batch file that ensures that the scripts are run in the defined order. Writing these scripts during the course of development requires discipline. It's all too easy to load up the table designer and to make a change directly to the development database, rather than to save off the ALTER statement that is required when the same change is made to production. This discipline can add considerable overhead to the development process. However, come the end of the project, everything is ready for final testing and deployment. The second development paradigm is to not do the above. Changes are made to the development database without considering the incremental update scripts required to effect the changes. At the end of the project, the SQL developer or DBA, is tasked to work out what changes have been made, and to hand-craft the upgrade scripts retrospectively. The end of the project is the wrong time to be doing this, as the pressure is mounting to ship the product. And where data deployment is involved, it is prudent not to feel rushed. Schema comparison tools such as SQL Compare have made this latter technique more bearable. These tools work by analyzing the before and after states of a database schema, and calculating the SQL required to transition the database. Problem solved? Not entirely. Schema comparison tools are huge time savers, but they have their limitations. There are certain changes that can be made to a database that can't be determined purely from observing the static schema states. If a column is split, how do we determine the algorithm required to copy the data into the new columns? If a NOT NULL column is added without a default, how do we populate the new field for existing records in the target? If we rename a table, how do we know we've done a rename, as we could equally have dropped a table and created a new one? All the above are examples of situations where developer intent is required to supplement the script generation engine. SQL Source Control 3 and SQL Compare 10 introduced a new feature, migration scripts, allowing developers to add custom scripts to replace the default script generation behavior. These scripts are committed to source control alongside the schema changes, and are associated with one or more changesets. Before this capability was introduced, any schema change that required additional developer intent would break any attempt at auto-generation of the upgrade script, rendering deployment testing as part of continuous integration useless. SQL Compare will now generate upgrade scripts not only using its diffing engine, but also using the knowledge supplied by developers in the guise of migration scripts. In future posts I will describe the necessary command line syntax to leverage this feature as part of an automated build process such as continuous integration.

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  • MEB Support to NetBackup MMS

    - by Hema Sridharan
    In MySQL Enterprise Backup 3.6, new option was introduced to support backup to tapes via SBT interface. SBT stands for System Backup to Tape, an Oracle API that helps to perform backup and restore jobs via media management software such as Oracle's Secure Backup (OSB). There are other storage managers like IBM's Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) and Symantec's Netbackup (NB) which are also supported by MEB but we don't guarantee that it will function as expected for every release. MEB supports SBT API version 2.0 In this blog, I am primarily going to focus the interface of MEB and Symantec's NB. If we are using tapes for backup, ensure that tape library and tape drives are compatible. Test Setup 1. Install NB 7.5 master and media servers in Linux OS. ( NB 7.1 can also be used but for testing purpose I used NB 7.5)2. Install MEB 3.8 also in Linux OS.3. Install NB admin console in your windows desktop and configure the NB master server from there. Note: Ensure that you have root user permission to install NetBackup. Configuration Steps for MEB and NB Once MEB and NB are installed, Ensure that NB is linked to MEB by specifying the library /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/libobk.so64 in the mysqlbackup command line using --sbt-lib-path. Configure the NB master server from windows console. That is configure the storage units by specifying the Storage unit name, Disk type, Media Server name etc.  Create NetBackup policies that are user selectable. But please make sure that policy type is "Oracle".  Define the clients where MEB will be executed. Some times this will be different host where MEB is run or some times in same Media server where NB and tapes are attached. Now once the installation and configuration steps are performed for MEB and NB, the next part is the actual execution.MEB should be run as single file backup using --backup-image option with prefix sbt:(it is a tag which tells MEB that it should stream the backup image through the SBT interface) which is sent to NB client via SBT interface . The resulting backup image is stored where NB stores the images that it backs up. The following diagram shows how MEB interacts with MMS through SBT interface. Backup The following parameters should also be ready for the execution,    --sbt-lib-path : Path to SBT library specific to NetBackup MMS. SBT lib for NetBackup  is in /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/libobk.so64    --sbt-environment: Environment variables must be defined specific to NetBackup. In our example below, we use     NB_ORA_SERV=myserver.com,    NB_ORA_CLIENT=myserver.com,    NB_ORA_POLICY=NBU-MEB    ORACLE_HOME = /export/home2/tmp/hema/mysql-server/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ./mysqlbackup --port=13000 --protocol=tcp --user=root --backup-image=sbt:bkpsbtNB --sbt-lib-path=/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/libobk.so64 --sbt-environment="NB_ORA_SERV=myserver.com, NB_ORA_CLIENT=myserver.com, NB_ORA_POLICY=NBU-MEB, ORACLE_HOME=/export/home2/tmp/hema/mysql-server/” --backup-dir=/export/home2/tmp/hema/MEB_bkdir/ backup-to-image ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Once backup is completed successfully, this should appear in Activity Monitor in NetBackup Console.For restore,  image contents has to be extracted using image-to-backup-dir command and then apply-log and copy-back steps are applied. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ./mysqlbackup --sbt-lib-path=/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/libobk.so64  --backup-dir=/export/home2/tmp/hema/NBMEB/ --backup-image=sbt:bkpsbtNB image-to-backup-dir-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Now apply logs as usual, shutdown the server and perform restore, restart the server and check the data contents. ./mysqlbackup   ---backup-dir=/export/home2/tmp/hema/NBMEB/  apply-log ./mysqlbackup --datadir=/export/home2/tmp/hema/mysql-server/mysql-5.5-meb-repo/mysql-test/var/mysqld.1/data/  --backup-dir=/export/home2/tmp/hema/MEB_bkpdir/ innodb_log_files_in_group=2 --innodb_log_file_size=5M --user=root --port=13000 --protocol=tcp copy-back The NB console should show 'Restore" job as done. If you don't see that there is something wrong with MEB or NetBackup.You can also refer to more detailed steps of MEB and NB integration in whitepaper here

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  • Where is the value of OEA

    - by [email protected]
    In a room full of architects, if you were to ask for the definition of enterprise architecture, or the importance thereof,  you are likely to get a number of varying view points ranging from,  a complete analysis of the digital assets of an organization,  to, a strategic alignment of business goals/objectives to IT initiatives.  Similiarily in a room full of senior business executives,  if you asked them how they see their IT groups and their effectiveness to align to business strategy,  you would get a myriad of responses,  ranging from, “a huge drain on our bottom line”, “always more expensive than budgeted”, “lack of agility,  by the time IT is ready,  my business strategy has changed”, and on the rare occurrence, “ a leader of innovation,  that is lock step with my business strategy”. However does this necessarily demonstrate the overall value of enterprise architecture.  Having a framework, and process is of critical importance to help produce a number of the artefacts that ultimately align technology goals and initiatives to business strategy,  however,  is that really where the value is?  I believe that first we need to understand the concept of value.  Value typically is a measure of sorts,  when we purchase a product it’s value is equivalent to the maximum amount that someone is willing to pay for the product,  however,  is the same equation valid in terms of the business value of enterprise architecture? Is the library of artefacts generated through a process/framework, inclusive of a strategic roadmap to realize the enterprise architecture where the value is? If we agree that enterprise architecture is the alignment of IT and IT assets to support business strategy, and by achieving our business strategy, we have we have increased the business value of the enterprise then;  it seems that, in order to really identify the true value of an enterprise architecture,  we need to understand how we measure business value .  A number of formal measurement methodologies exist for this purpose, business models, balanced scorecards, etc   After we have an understanding on how to measure the business value of each of the organizational units within an enterprise, then we understand how the enterprise architecture contributes to the success of business strategy,  and EXECUTE on the roadmap to implement, and deliver the IT initiatives that provide MEASUREABLE returns, As we analyse the value chain of each of the individual organizational units within the enterprise we may identify how that unit has performed by quantitatively measuring it proximity to achieving the goals defined by the business for each unit. However, It would appear that true business value (the aggregate of all of the business units in the value chain), is to some degree subjectively measured  as for public companies this lies in shareholder value,  as the true value, or be it, the maximum amount that someone would pay for shares of an organization.

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  • How to create managed properties at site collection level in SharePoint2013

    - by ybbest
    In SharePoint2013, you can create managed properties at site collection. Today, I’d like to show you how to do so through PowerShell. 1. Define your managed properties and crawled properties and managed property Type in an external csv file. PowerShell script will read this file and create the managed and the mapping. 2. As you can see I also defined variant Type, this is because you need the variant type to create the crawled property. In order to have the crawled properties, you need to do a full crawl and also make sure you have data populated for your custom column. However, if you do not want to a full crawl to create those crawled properties, you can create them yourself by using the PowerShell; however you need to make sure the crawled properties you created have the same name if created by a full crawl. Managed properties type: Text = 1 Integer = 2 Decimal = 3 DateTime = 4 YesNo = 5 Binary = 6 Variant Type: Text = 31 Integer = 20 Decimal = 5 DateTime = 64 YesNo = 11 3. You can use the following script to create your managed properties at site collection level, the differences for creating managed property at site collection level is to pass in the site collection id. param( [string] $siteUrl="http://SP2013/", [string] $searchAppName = "Search Service Application", $ManagedPropertiesList=(IMPORT-CSV ".\ManagedProperties.csv") ) Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue $searchapp = $null function AppendLog { param ([string] $msg, [string] $msgColor) $currentDateTime = Get-Date $msg = $msg + " --- " + $currentDateTime if (!($logOnly -eq $True)) { # write to console Write-Host -f $msgColor $msg } # write to log file Add-Content $logFilePath $msg } $scriptPath = Split-Path $myInvocation.MyCommand.Path $logFilePath = $scriptPath + "\CreateManagedProperties_Log.txt" function CreateRefiner {param ([string] $crawledName, [string] $managedPropertyName, [Int32] $variantType, [Int32] $managedPropertyType,[System.GUID] $siteID) $cat = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchMetadataCategory –Identity SharePoint -SearchApplication $searchapp $crawledproperty = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchMetadataCrawledProperty -Name $crawledName -SearchApplication $searchapp -SiteCollection $siteID if($crawledproperty -eq $null) { Write-Host AppendLog "Creating Crawled Property for $managedPropertyName" Yellow $crawledproperty = New-SPEnterpriseSearchMetadataCrawledProperty -SearchApplication $searchapp -VariantType $variantType -SiteCollection $siteID -Category $cat -PropSet "00130329-0000-0130-c000-000000131346" -Name $crawledName -IsNameEnum $false } $managedproperty = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchMetadataManagedProperty -Identity $managedPropertyName -SearchApplication $searchapp -SiteCollection $siteID -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue if($managedproperty -eq $null) { Write-Host AppendLog "Creating Managed Property for $managedPropertyName" Yellow $managedproperty = New-SPEnterpriseSearchMetadataManagedProperty -Name $managedPropertyName -Type $managedPropertyType -SiteCollection $siteID -SearchApplication $searchapp -Queryable:$true -Retrievable:$true -FullTextQueriable:$true -RemoveDuplicates:$false -RespectPriority:$true -IncludeInMd5:$true } $mappedProperty = $crawledproperty.GetMappedManagedProperties() | ?{$_.Name -eq $managedProperty.Name } if($mappedProperty -eq $null) { Write-Host AppendLog "Creating Crawled -> Managed Property mapping for $managedPropertyName" Yellow New-SPEnterpriseSearchMetadataMapping -CrawledProperty $crawledproperty -ManagedProperty $managedproperty -SearchApplication $searchapp -SiteCollection $siteID } $mappedProperty = $crawledproperty.GetMappedManagedProperties() | ?{$_.Name -eq $managedProperty.Name } #Get-FASTSearchMetadataCrawledPropertyMapping -ManagedProperty $managedproperty } $searchapp = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication $searchAppName $site= Get-SPSite $siteUrl $siteId=$site.id Write-Host "Start creating Managed properties" $i = 1 FOREACH ($property in $ManagedPropertiesList) { $propertyName=$property.managedPropertyName $crawledName=$property.crawledName $managedPropertyType=$property.managedPropertyType $variantType=$property.variantType Write-Host $managedPropertyType Write-Host "Processing managed property $propertyName $($i)..." $i++ CreateRefiner $crawledName $propertyName $variantType $managedPropertyType $siteId Write-Host "Managed property created " $propertyName } Key Concepts Crawled Properties: Crawled properties are discovered by the search index service component when crawling content. Managed Properties: Properties that are part of the Search user experience, which means they are available for search results, advanced search, and so on, are managed properties. Mapping Crawled Properties to Managed Properties: To make a crawled property available for the Search experience—to make it available for Search queries and display it in Advanced Search and search results—you must map it to a managed property. References Administer search in SharePoint 2013 Preview Managing Metadata

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  • MySQL Cluster 7.3: On-Demand Webinar and Q&A Available

    - by Mat Keep
    The on-demand webinar for the MySQL Cluster 7.3 Development Release is now available. You can learn more about the design, implementation and getting started with all of the new MySQL Cluster 7.3 features from the comfort and convenience of your own device, including: - Foreign Key constraints in MySQL Cluster - Node.js NoSQL API  - Auto-installation of higher performance distributed, clusters We received some great questions over the course of the webinar, and I wanted to share those for the benefit of a broader audience. Q. What Foreign Key actions are supported: A. The core referential actions defined in the SQL:2003 standard are implemented: CASCADE RESTRICT NO ACTION SET NULL Q. Where are Foreign Keys implemented, ie data nodes or SQL nodes? A. They are implemented in the data nodes, therefore can be enforced for both the SQL and NoSQL APIs Q. Are they compatible with the InnoDB Foreign Key implementation? A. Yes, with the following exceptions: - InnoDB doesn’t support “No Action” constraints, MySQL Cluster does - You can choose to suspend FK constraint enforcement with InnoDB using the FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS parameter; at the moment, MySQL Cluster ignores that parameter. - You cannot set up FKs between 2 tables where one is stored using MySQL Cluster and the other InnoDB. - You cannot change primary keys through the NDB API which means that the MySQL Server actually has to simulate such operations by deleting and re-adding the row. If the PK in the parent table has a FK constraint on it then this causes non-ideal behaviour. With Restrict or No Action constraints, the change will result in an error. With Cascaded constraints, you’d want the rows in the child table to be updated with the new FK value but, the implicit delete of the row from the parent table would remove the associated rows from the child table and the subsequent implicit insert into the parent wouldn’t reinstate the child rows. For this reason, an attempt to add an ON UPDATE CASCADE where the parent column is a primary key will be rejected. Q. Does adding or dropping Foreign Keys cause downtime due to a schema change? A. Nope, this is an online operation. MySQL Cluster supports a number of on-line schema changes, ie adding and dropping indexes, adding columns, etc. Q. Where can I see an example of node.js with MySQL Cluster? A. Check out the tutorial and download the code from GitHub Q. Can I use the auto-installer to support remote deployments? How about setting up MySQL Cluster 7.2? A. Yes to both! Q. Can I get a demo Check out the tutorial. You can download the code from http://labs.mysql.com/ Go to Select Build drop-down box Q. What is be minimum internet speen required for Geo distributed cluster with synchronous replication? A. if you're splitting you cluster between sites then we recommend a network latency of 20ms or less. Alternatively, use MySQL asynchronous replication where the latency of your WAN doesn't impact the latency of your reads/writes. Q. Where you can one learn more about the PayPal project with MySQL Cluster? A. Take a look at the following - you'll find press coverage, a video and slides from their keynote presentation  So, if you want to learn more, listen to the new MySQL Cluster 7.3 on-demand webinar  MySQL Cluster 7.3 is still in the development phase, so it would be great to get your feedback on these new features, and things you want to see!

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  • Silverlight Cream for March 10, 2011 -- #1058

    - by Dave Campbell
    In this Issue: Ian T. Lackey, Peter Kuhn, WindowsPhoneGeek(-2-), Jesse Liberty(-2-), Martin Krüger, John Papa, Jeremy Likness, Karl Shifflett, and Colin Eberhardt. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Silverlight TV 65: 3D Graphics" John Papa WP7: "Developing a Windows Phone 7 Jump List Control" Colin Eberhardt Shoutouts: Telerik announced a special sale on their RadControls for WP7... check it out: RadControls for Windows Phone 7 - on Sale from March 16th at a Special Promo Price! From SilverlightCream.com: Prism BootStrapper Load ModuleCatalog Ansyc Ian T. Lackey has a post up about reading the module catalog for Prism from an XML file asynchronously... fun stuff... this is how we kick-started our app... XNA for Silverlight developers: Part 6 - Input (accelerometer) Peter Kuhn has Part 6 of his XNA for Silverlight devs up at SilverlightShow. This post is on the use of the accelerometer... some great diagrams and explanations of it's use along with some code to play with... including a 'problems and pitfalls' section, and some good external links. Getting Started with Unit Testing in Silverlight for WP7 WindowsPhoneGeek has an introduction to Unit Testing in general, and then moves into Unit Testing in Silverlight for WP7, providing 3 options with links to the materials and code demonstrating the concepts. Using DockPanel in WP7 Responding to reader's questions, WindowsPhoneGeek's next post is on the DockPanel from the Silverlight Toolkit, and using it in WP7... defined declaratively and in code. Reactive Extensions–More About Chaining Jesse Liberty has post number 10 on Rx up and is a follow-on to the last one on Chaining. This time he exercises the chaining aspect of SelectMany. Yet Another Podcast #26–Walt Ritscher In his next post, Jesse Liberty has his 26th 'Yet Another Podcast' up and is chatting with my friend Walt Ritscher. If you don't know who Walt is, check out the links Jesse has on the post... I'm sure you've crossed paths. How to: Create A half square from a regular polygon (triangle) Martin Krüger demonstrates the exact placement of a half-square (isosceles right triangle), formed with a regular polygon in Blend... this is much more involved than I've made it sound... check out his post. Silverlight TV 65: 3D Graphics John Papa has Silverlight TV number 65 up and it's all about the 3D graphics stuff we saw at the Firestarter. John is talking with Danny Riddel, the CEO of Archetype, the company that built the awesome 3D demo we all gushed over. Jounce Part 12: Providing History-Based Back Navigation Jeremy Likness has part 12 of his Jounce exploration up... and discussing the stack of navigated pages that Jounce retains and providing a 'go back' functionality... and provides a good example of using it all. Prism 4 Region Navigation with Silverlight Frame Navigation and Unity Karl Shifflett has a post for all us Prism afficianados... Prism, Unity, and the Silverlight Frame Navigation framework. Some great external links for 'required reading' too. Developing a Windows Phone 7 Jump List Control Colin Eberhardt has an awesome tutorial up for creating a JumpList control for WP7... what a bunch of effort... this is a step-by-step description of designing the control he built and blogged about a while back... and it's still cool! Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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  • HPCM 11.1.2.x - Outline Optimisation for Calculation Performance

    - by Jane Story
    When an HPCM application is first created, it is likely that you will want to carry out some optimisation on the HPCM application’s Essbase outline in order to improve calculation execution times. There are several things that you may wish to consider. Because at least one dense dimension for an application is required to deploy from HPCM to Essbase, “Measures” and “AllocationType”, as the only required dimensions in an HPCM application, are created dense by default. However, for optimisation reasons, you may wish to consider changing this default dense/sparse configuration. In general, calculation scripts in HPCM execute best when they are targeting destinations with one or more dense dimensions. Therefore, consider your largest target stage i.e. the stage with the most assignment destinations and choose that as a dense dimension. When optimising an outline in this way, it is not possible to have a dense dimension in every target stage and so testing with the dense/sparse settings in every stage is the key to finding the best configuration for each individual application. It is not possible to change the dense/sparse setting of individual cloned dimensions from EPMA. When a dimension that is to be repeated in multiple stages, and therefore cloned, is defined in EPMA, every instance of that dimension has the same storage setting. However, such manual changes may not be preserved in all cases. Please see below for full explanation. However, once the application has been deployed from EPMA to HPCM and from HPCM to Essbase, it is possible to make the dense/sparse changes to a cloned dimension directly in Essbase. This can be done by editing the properties of the outline in Essbase Administration Services (EAS) and manually changing the dense/sparse settings of individual dimensions. There are two methods of deployment from HPCM to Essbase from 11.1.2.1. There is a “replace” deploy method and an “update” deploy method: “Replace” will delete the Essbase application and replace it. If this method is chosen, then any changes made directly on the Essbase outline will be lost. If you use the update deploy method (with or without archiving and reloading data), then the Essbase outline, including any manual changes you have made (i.e. changes to dense/sparse settings of the cloned dimensions), will be preserved. Notes If you are using the calculation optimisation technique mentioned in a previous blog to calculate multiple POVs (https://blogs.oracle.com/pa/entry/hpcm_11_1_2_optimising) and you are calculating all members of that POV dimension (e.g. all months in the Period dimension) then you could consider making that dimension dense. Always review Block sizes after all changes! The maximum block size recommended in the Essbase Database Administrator’s Guide is 100k for 32 bit Essbase and 200k for 64 bit Essbase. However, calculations may perform better with a larger than recommended block size provided that sufficient memory is available on the Essbase server. Test different configurations to determine the most optimal solution for your HPCM application. Please note that this blog article covers HPCM outline optimisation only. Additional performance tuning can be achieved by methodically testing database settings i.e data cache, index cache and/or commit block settings. For more information on Essbase tuning best practices, please review these items in the Essbase Database Administrators Guide. For additional information on the commit block setting, please see the previous PA blog article https://blogs.oracle.com/pa/entry/essbase_11_1_2_commit

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  • Creating shapes on the fly

    - by Bertrand Le Roy
    Most Orchard shapes get created from part drivers, but they are a lot more versatile than that. They can actually be created from pretty much anywhere, including from templates. One example can be found in the Layout.cshtml file of the ThemeMachine theme: WorkContext.Layout.Footer .Add(New.BadgeOfHonor(), "5"); .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } What this is really doing is create a new shape called BadgeOfHonor and injecting it into the Footer global zone (that has not yet been defined, which in itself is quite awesome) with an ordering rank of "5". We can actually come up with something simpler, if we want to render the shape inline instead of sending it into a zone: @Display(New.BadgeOfHonor()) Now let's try something a little more elaborate and create a new shape for displaying a date and time: @Display(New.DateTime(date: DateTime.Now, format: "d/M/yyyy")) For the moment, this throws a "Shape type DateTime not found" exception because the system has no clue how to render a shape called "DateTime" yet. The BadgeOfHonor shape above was rendering something because there is a template for it in the theme: Themes/ThethemeMachine/Views/BadgeOfHonor.cshtml. We need to provide a template for our new shape to get rendered. Let's add a DateTime.cshtml file into our theme's Views folder in order to make the exception go away: Hi, I'm a date time shape. Now we're just missing one thing. Instead of displaying some static text, which is not very interesting, we can display the actual time that got passed into the shape's dynamic constructor. Those parameters will get added to the template's Model, so they are easy to retrieve: @(((DateTime)Model.date).ToString(Model.format)) Now that may remind you a little of WebForm's user controls. That's a fair comparison, except that these shapes are much more flexible (you can add properties on the fly as necessary), and that the actual rendering is decoupled from the "control". For example, any theme can override the template for a shape, you can use alternates, wrappers, etc. Most importantly, there is no lifecycle and protocol abstraction like there was in WebForms. I think this is a real improvement over previous attempts at similar things.

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  • Oracle Fusion CRM Implementation Bootcamp for EMEA Systems Integrators - Paris July 24-26th

    - by Richard Lefebvre
    To support partner success and increase win potential with Fusion CRM, we are organizing a unique bootcamp on Fusion CRM intended for Oracle EMEA partners on July 24th to 26th. Join us for this outstanding Bootcamp and learn from Oracle Corporation in-depth know-how on Fusion CRM. The official announcement will be forthcoming, yet we wanted you to determine the appropriate candidate to attend this workshop. Further to this we will send the actual invitation to the selected candidate. Due to the limited number of seats, we will be limiting the number of registrations per SI company and will be selecting the participants. If you are interested to have one or more representatives of your company to attend this bootcamp, please send an email to [email protected] by June 18th indicating the name and email address of the participants you would like to nominate, ranked by priority. What will we cover: This Bootcamp presents the fundamental concepts of the Oracle Fusion CRM applications. It introduces you to each functional area of the product, how it is used, and what you need to consider when implementing it for an organization. While we do examine implementation considerations, we do not address the detailed steps of implementation. Instead, we direct you to the relevant resources to learn more. Topics covered: Fusion CRM Introduction Fusion CRM Security Introduction Fusion Functional Setup Manager Introduction Customer Model Introduction Customer Center Introduction Customer Data Management Introduction Marketing & Campaigns Introduction Lead Management Introduction Territory Management Introduction Territory Modeling Introduction with Exercise Opportunity Management Introduction Forecasting Introduction Analytics Introduction CRM For Microsoft Outlook Introduction Customizing with Composers Introduction Roundtable Discussions, and time for hands-on labs (day 2, 3, 4) Next Steps, available resources, ongoing learning path, partner environments, keeping in touch and feedback Bootcamp Goals: Enable a new Fusion CRM implementation team member to: Describe the scope of Oracle Fusion CRM applications Describe the basic security model Describe the customer model Perform common sales and marketing user transactions Access and navigate the Functional Setup Manager Model territories in Fusion CRM using sample business requirements Do necessary planning before implementing the offerings and options Describe the analytics available with the Fusion CRM product Describe the basic page customizations that can be done to meet business requirements Find documentation and other courses to assist in performing setup tasks Expectations: This Bootcamp program should prime the SI organization implementation consultants to attain the basic skills necessary to support a consulting practice in the delivery, scoping, pricing, and planning of your Fusion CRM Implementations. Oracle University will begin to offer additional deep skill training, starting this summer, designed to follow the Introduction Bootcamp. Participants will be expected to participate in labs, exercises, workshops and roundtable discussions with the Oracle Product Managers. Who should attend: This class is designed for your lead CRM Implementation consultants, those who will support your Fusion CRM consulting practice as it grows. These individuals may be members of a centre of excellence, or skills leadership office. The individual who is attending the bootcamp must have prior experience implementing a CRM solution. Intended Audience: Oracle Diamond, Platinum and Gold Level SIs (Top SIs) with specialization in Oracle Applications CRM implementations, with a commitment to achieving Fusion CRM Implementation Specialization. Commitment expressed through an investment in a Center of Excellence/Innovation Center for Fusion CRM Applications. Individuals who will support the implementation practice as it is forming and will deliver Fusion CRM On Premise and Cloud Services implementations. Functional practice leaders, the future Fusion Application Wizards within the SI's organization. This Bootcamp is designed for people who: Will deliver Fusion CRM implementations Have had little or no exposure to Fusion CRM applications Are familiar with at least one other CRM application Have a business analyst level of technical background Prerequisites: Please note, that participants will be asked to take self-service-trainings (video format) and pass the related assessments prior to joining the Bootcamp. Fees: This event is FREE of charge for Oracle partners. When: 24 July – 26 July, 2012 (8:30 - 18:00 each day, including the last day; with recommended but optional evening events on all three days from 18:00 - 20:00 hrs) Where: Paris, France (Location to be defined) Travel: To make your travel hassel free, we kindly suggest you to plan your arrival to Paris on July 23rd and your departure on the 27th. Agenda: The final agenda and registration details will be issued closer to the event date.  

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  • C# 4 Named Parameters for Overload Resolution

    - by Steve Michelotti
    C# 4 is getting a new feature called named parameters. Although this is a stand-alone feature, it is often used in conjunction with optional parameters. Last week when I was giving a presentation on C# 4, I got a question on a scenario regarding overload resolution that I had not considered before which yielded interesting results. Before I describe the scenario, a little background first. Named parameters is a well documented feature that works like this: suppose you have a method defined like this: 1: void DoWork(int num, string message = "Hello") 2: { 3: Console.WriteLine("Inside DoWork() - num: {0}, message: {1}", num, message); 4: } This enables you to call the method with any of these: 1: DoWork(21); 2: DoWork(num: 21); 3: DoWork(21, "abc"); 4: DoWork(num: 21, message: "abc"); and the corresponding results will be: Inside DoWork() - num: 21, message: Hello Inside DoWork() - num: 21, message: Hello Inside DoWork() - num: 21, message: abc Inside DoWork() - num: 21, message: abc This is all pretty straight forward and well-documented. What is slightly more interesting is how resolution is handled with method overloads. Suppose we had a second overload for DoWork() that looked like this: 1: void DoWork(object num) 2: { 3: Console.WriteLine("Inside second overload: " + num); 4: } The first rule applied for method overload resolution in this case is that it looks for the most strongly-type match first.  Hence, since the second overload has System.Object as the parameter rather than Int32, this second overload will never be called for any of the 4 method calls above.  But suppose the method overload looked like this: 1: void DoWork(int num) 2: { 3: Console.WriteLine("Inside second overload: " + num); 4: } In this case, both overloads have the first parameter as Int32 so they both fulfill the first rule equally.  In this case the overload with the optional parameters will be ignored if the parameters are not specified. Therefore, the same 4 method calls from above would result in: Inside second overload: 21 Inside second overload: 21 Inside DoWork() - num: 21, message: abc Inside DoWork() - num: 21, message: abc Even all this is pretty well documented. However, we can now consider the very interesting scenario I was presented with. The question was what happens if you change the parameter name in one of the overloads.  For example, what happens if you change the parameter *name* for the second overload like this: 1: void DoWork(int num2) 2: { 3: Console.WriteLine("Inside second overload: " + num2); 4: } In this case, the first 2 method calls will yield *different* results: 1: DoWork(21); 2: DoWork(num: 21); results in: Inside second overload: 21 Inside DoWork() - num: 21, message: Hello We know the first method call will go to the second overload because of normal method overload resolution rules which ignore the optional parameters.  But for the second call, even though all the same rules apply, the compiler will allow you to specify a named parameter which, in effect, overrides the typical rules and directs the call to the first overload. Keep in mind this would only work if the method overloads had different parameter names for the same types (which in itself is weird). But it is a situation I had not considered before and it is one in which you should be aware of the rules that the C# 4 compiler applies.

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  • Required Parameters [SSIS Denali]

    - by jamiet
    SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) in its 2005 and 2008 incarnations expects you to set a property values within your package at runtime using Configurations. SSIS developers tend to have rather a lot of issues with SSIS configurations; in this blog post I am going to highlight one of those problems and how it has been alleviated in SQL Server code-named Denali.   A configuration is a property path/value pair that exists outside of a package, typically within SQL Server or in a collection of one or more configurations in a file called a .dtsConfig file. Within the package one defines a pointer to a configuration that says to the package “When you execute, go and get a configuration value from this location” and if all goes well the package will fetch that configuration value as it starts to execute and you will see something like the following in your output log: Information: 0x40016041 at Package: The package is attempting to configure from the XML file "C:\Configs\MyConfig.dtsConfig". Unfortunately things DON’T always go well, perhaps the .dtsConfig file is unreachable or the name of the SQL Sever holding the configuration value has been defined incorrectly – any one of a number of things can go wrong. In this circumstance you might see something like the following in your log output instead: Warning: 0x80012014 at Package: The configuration file "C:\Configs\MyConfig.dtsConfig" cannot be found. Check the directory and file name. The problem that I want to draw attention to here though is that your package will ignore the fact it can’t find the configuration and executes anyway. This is really really bad because the package will not be doing what it is supposed to do and worse, if you have not isolated your environments you might not even know about it. Can you imagine a package executing for months and all the while inserting data into the wrong server? Sounds ridiculous but I have absolutely seen this happen and the root cause was that no-one picked up on configuration warnings like the one above. Happily in SSIS code-named Denali this problem has gone away as configurations have been replaced with parameters. Each parameter has a property called ‘Required’: Any parameter with Required=True must have a value passed to it when the package executes. Any attempt to execute the package will result in an error. Here we see that error when attempting to execute using the SSMS UI: and similarly when executing using T-SQL: Error is: Msg 27184, Level 16, State 1, Procedure prepare_execution, Line 112 In order to execute this package, you need to specify values for the required parameters.   As you can see, SSIS code-named Denali has mechanisms built-in to prevent the problem I described at the top of this blog post. Specifying a Parameter required means that any packages in that project cannot execute until a value for the parameter has been supplied. This is a very good thing. I am loathe to make recommendations so early in the development cycle but right now I’m thinking that all Project Parameters should have Required=True, certainly any that are used to define external locations should be anyway. @Jamiet

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  • Introducing MySQL for Excel

    - by Javier Treviño
    As part of the new product initiatives of the MySQL on Windows group we released a tool that makes the task of getting data in and out of a MySQL Database very friendly and intuitive, and we paired it with one of the preferred applications for data analysis and manipulation in Windows platforms, MS Excel. Welcome to MySQL for Excel, an add-in that is installed and accessed from within the MS Excel’s Data tab offering a wizard-like interface arranged in an elegant yet simple way to help users browse MySQL Schemas, Tables, Views and Procedures and perform data operations against them using MS Excel as the vehicle to drive the data in and out MySQL Databases. One of the coolest features we had in mind designing MySQL for Excel is simplicity. MS Excel is simple and easy to work with, thus liked by many Windows users because they don’t have to be software gurus to use it.  We applied the same principle by targeting MySQL for Excel to any kind of user, so if you are already familiarized with Excel’s interface you will find yourself working with MySQL data in no time. MySQL for Excel is shipped within the MySQL Installer as one of the tools in the suite; if prerequisites are already installed (.NET Framework 4.0, Visual Studio Tools for Office 4.0 and of course MS Office), installing the add-in involves a very few clicks and no further setup to use it. Being an Excel Add-In there is no executable file involved after the installation, running MS Excel and opening the add-in from its Data tab is all that is required. MySQL for Excel automatically integrates with MySQL Workbench (if installed) to share the same connections to MySQL Server installations, that way connections are defined just once in either product saving time.  Opening the Add-In brings the Welcome Panel at the right side of the Excel main window from which connections to MySQL Servers are shown grouped by Local VS Remote connections; then users can open any of those connections by double-clicking it and entering the password of the used account.  Additionally a user can create a connection by clicking on the New Connection action label or edit connections through MySQL Workbench (if installed) by clicking on the Manage Connections action label. Once a connection is opened, the Schema Selection panel is shown, at the top of it the selected connection (connection name, hostname/IP and username). Just below, a list of schemas is displayed where User Schemas are grouped first followed by System Schemas; users can double-click any selected schema to go to the next panel or select a schema and clicking the Next > button. Users can alternatively click on the < Back button to go back to the Welcome Panel to close the current connection and open a new one; also by clicking the Create New Schema action label they can create an empty new schema. Once a schema is opened the DB Object Selection panel is shown, this is actually the place where the fun stuff happens; from here users are able to perform actions against MySQL Tables, Views and Procedures. ">The actions available here are about importing data from a MySQL Table, View or Procedure to Excel, exporting Excel data to a new MySQL Table, appending Excel data to an existing MySQL Table or editing a MySQL Table’s data by using an Excel Worksheet as a user interface to update data in any row/column, insert new rows or delete existing rows in a very easy and friendly way. More blog posts will follow describing all of these actions, so stay tuned! Remember that your feedback is very important for us, so drop us a message: · MySQL on Windows (this) Blog - https://blogs.oracle.com/MySqlOnWindows/ · Forum - http://forums.mysql.com/list.php?172 · Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/mysql Cheers!

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  • How to Use Sparklines in Excel 2010

    - by DigitalGeekery
    One of the cool features of Excel 2010 is the addition of Sparklines. A Sparkline is basically a little chart displayed in a cell representing your selected data set that allows you to quickly and easily spot trends at a glance. Inserting Sparklines on your Spreadsheet You will find the Sparklines group located on the Insert tab.   Select the cell or cells where you wish to display your Sparklines. Select the type of Sparkline you’d like to add to your spreadsheet. You’ll notice there are three types of Sparklines, Line, Column, and Win/Loss. We’ll select Line for our example. A Create Sparklines pops up and will prompt you to enter a Data Range you are using to create the Sparklines. You’ll notice that the location range (the range where the Sparklines will appear) is already filled in. You can type in the data range manually, or click and drag with your mouse across to select the data range. This will auto-fill the data range for you. Click OK when you are finished.   You will see your Sparklines appear in the desired cells.   Customizing Sparklines Select the one of more of the Sparklines to reveal the Design tab. You can display certain value points like high and low points, negative points, and first and last points by selecting the corresponding options from the Show group. You can also mark all value points by selecting  Markers. Select your desired Sparklines and click one of the included styles from the Style group on the Design tab. Click the down arrow on the lower right corner of the box to display additional pre-defined styles…   or select Sparkline Color or Marker Color options to fully customize your Sparklines. The Axis options allow additional options such as Date Axis Type, Plotting Data Left to Right, and displaying an axis point to represent the zero line in your data with Show Axis. Column Sparklines Column Sparklines display your data in individual columns as opposed to the Line view we’ve been using for our examples. Win/Loss Sparklines Win/Loss shows a basic positive or negative representation of your data set.   You can easily switch between different Sparkline types by simply selecting the current cells (individually or the entire group), and then clicking the desired type on the Design tab. For those that may be more visually oriented, Sparklines can be a wonderful addition to any spreadsheet. Are you just getting started with Office 2010? Check out some of our other great Excel posts such as how to copy worksheets, print only selected areas of a spreadsheet, and how to share data with Excel in Office 2010. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Convert a Row to a Column in Excel the Easy WayShare Access Data with Excel in Office 2010Make Excel 2007 Print Gridlines In Workbook FileMake Excel 2007 Always Save in Excel 2003 FormatConvert Older Excel Documents to Excel 2007 Format TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Office 2010 reviewed in depth by Ed Bott FoxClocks adds World Times in your Statusbar (Firefox) Have Fun Editing Photo Editing with Citrify Outlook Connector Upgrade Error Gadfly is a cool Twitter/Silverlight app Enable DreamScene in Windows 7

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  • SQL SERVER – Introduction to Big Data – Guest Post

    - by pinaldave
    BIG Data – such a big word – everybody talks about this now a days. It is the word in the database world. In one of the conversation I asked my friend Jasjeet Sigh the same question – what is Big Data? He instantly came up with a very effective write-up.  Jasjeet is working as a Technical Manager with Koenig Solutions. He leads the SQL domain, and holds rich IT industry experience. Talking about Koenig, it is a 19 year old IT training company that offers several certification choices. Some of its courses include SharePoint Training, Project Management certifications, Microsoft Trainings, Business Intelligence programs, Web Design and Development courses etc. Big Data, as the name suggests, is about data that is BIG in nature. The data is BIG in terms of size, and it is difficult to manage such enormous data with relational database management systems that are quite popular these days. Big Data is not just about being large in size, it is also about the variety of the data that differs in form or type. Some examples of Big Data are given below : Scientific data related to weather and atmosphere, Genetics etc Data collected by various medical procedures, such as Radiology, CT scan, MRI etc Data related to Global Positioning System Pictures and Videos Radio Frequency Data Data that may vary very rapidly like stock exchange information Apart from difficulties in managing and storing such data, it is difficult to query, analyze and visualize it. The characteristics of Big Data can be defined by four Vs: Volume: It simply means a large volume of data that may span Petabyte, Exabyte and so on. However it also depends organization to organization that what volume of data they consider as Big Data. Variety: As discussed above, Big Data is not limited to relational information or structured Data. It can also include unstructured data like pictures, videos, text, audio etc. Velocity:  Velocity means the speed by which data changes. The higher is the velocity, the more efficient should be the system to capture and analyze the data. Missing any important point may lead to wrong analysis or may even result in loss. Veracity: It has been recently added as the fourth V, and generally means truthfulness or adherence to the truth. In terms of Big Data, it is more of a challenge than a characteristic. It is difficult to ascertain the truth out of the enormous amount of data and the one that has high velocity. There are always chances of having un-precise and uncertain data. It is a challenging task to clean such data before it is analyzed. Big Data can be considered as the next big thing in the IT sector in terms of innovation and development. If appropriate technologies are developed to analyze and use the information, it can be the driving force for almost all industrial segments. These include Retail, Manufacturing, Service, Finance, Healthcare etc. This will help them to automate business decisions, increase productivity, and innovate and develop new products. Thanks Jasjeet Singh for an excellent write up.  Jasjeet Sign is working as a Technical Manager with Koenig Solutions. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Database, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Big Data

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  • How to detect UTF-8-based encoded strings [closed]

    - by Diego Sendra
    A customer of asked us to build him a multi-language based support VB6 scraper, for which we had the need to detect UTF-8 based encoded strings to decode it later for proper displaying in application UI. It's necessary to point out that this need arises based on VB6 limitations to natively support UTF-8 in its controls, contrary to what it happens in .NET where you can tell a control that it should expect UTF-8 encoding. VB6 natively supports ISO 8859-1 and/or Windows-1252 encodings only, for which textboxes, dropdowns, listview controls, others can't be defined to natively support/expect UTF-8 as you can do in .NET considering what we just explained; so we would see weird symbols such as é, è among others, making it a whole mess at the time of displaying. So, next function contains whole UTF-8 encoded punctuation marks and symbols from languages like Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, French and others, based on an excellent UTF-8 based list we got from this link - Ref. http://home.telfort.nl/~t876506/utf8tbl.html Basically, the function compares if each and one of the listed UTF-8 encoded sentences, separated by | (pipe) are found in our passed string making a substring search first. Whether it's not found, it makes an alternative ASCII value based search to get a match. Say, a string like "Societé" (Society in english) would return FALSE through calling isUTF8("Societé") while it would return TRUE when calling isUTF8("SocietÈ") since È is the UTF-8 encoded representation of é. Once you got it TRUE or FALSE, you can decode the string through DecodeUTF8() function for properly displaying it, a function we found somewhere else time ago and also included in this post. Function isUTF8(ByVal ptstr As String) Dim tUTFencoded As String Dim tUTFencodedaux Dim tUTFencodedASCII As String Dim ptstrASCII As String Dim iaux, iaux2 As Integer Dim ffound As Boolean ffound = False ptstrASCII = "" For iaux = 1 To Len(ptstr) ptstrASCII = ptstrASCII & Asc(Mid(ptstr, iaux, 1)) & "|" Next tUTFencoded = "Ä|Ã…|Ç|É|Ñ|Ö|ÃŒ|á|Ã|â|ä|ã|Ã¥|ç|é|è|ê|ë|í|ì|î|ï|ñ|ó|ò|ô|ö|õ|ú|ù|û|ü|â€|°|¢|£|§|•|¶|ß|®|©|â„¢|´|¨|â‰|Æ|Ø|∞|±|≤|≥|Â¥|µ|∂|∑|âˆ|Ï€|∫|ª|º|Ω|æ|ø|¿|¡|¬|√|Æ’|≈|∆|«|»|…|Â|À|Ã|Õ|Å’|Å“|–|—|“|â€|‘|’|÷|â—Š|ÿ|Ÿ|â„|€|‹|›|ï¬|fl|‡|·|‚|„|‰|Â|Ú|Ã|Ë|È|Ã|ÃŽ|Ã|ÃŒ|Ó|Ô||Ã’|Ú|Û|Ù|ı|ˆ|Ëœ|¯|˘|Ë™|Ëš|¸|Ë|Ë›|ˇ" & _ "Å|Å¡|¦|²|³|¹|¼|½|¾|Ã|×|Ã|Þ|ð|ý|þ" & _ "â‰|∞|≤|≥|∂|∑|âˆ|Ï€|∫|Ω|√|≈|∆|â—Š|â„|ï¬|fl||ı|˘|Ë™|Ëš|Ë|Ë›|ˇ" tUTFencodedaux = Split(tUTFencoded, "|") If UBound(tUTFencodedaux) > 0 Then iaux = 0 Do While Not ffound And Not iaux > UBound(tUTFencodedaux) If InStr(1, ptstr, tUTFencodedaux(iaux), vbTextCompare) > 0 Then ffound = True End If If Not ffound Then 'ASCII numeric search tUTFencodedASCII = "" For iaux2 = 1 To Len(tUTFencodedaux(iaux)) 'gets ASCII numeric sequence tUTFencodedASCII = tUTFencodedASCII & Asc(Mid(tUTFencodedaux(iaux), iaux2, 1)) & "|" Next 'tUTFencodedASCII = Left(tUTFencodedASCII, Len(tUTFencodedASCII) - 1) 'compares numeric sequences If InStr(1, ptstrASCII, tUTFencodedASCII) > 0 Then ffound = True End If End If iaux = iaux + 1 Loop End If isUTF8 = ffound End Function Function DecodeUTF8(s) Dim i Dim c Dim n s = s & " " i = 1 Do While i <= Len(s) c = Asc(Mid(s, i, 1)) If c And &H80 Then n = 1 Do While i + n < Len(s) If (Asc(Mid(s, i + n, 1)) And &HC0) <> &H80 Then Exit Do End If n = n + 1 Loop If n = 2 And ((c And &HE0) = &HC0) Then c = Asc(Mid(s, i + 1, 1)) + &H40 * (c And &H1) Else c = 191 End If s = Left(s, i - 1) + Chr(c) + Mid(s, i + n) End If i = i + 1 Loop DecodeUTF8 = s End Function

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  • Do we still have a case against the goto statement? [closed]

    - by FredOverflow
    Possible Duplicate: Is it ever worthwhile using goto? In a recent article, Andrew Koenig writes: When asked why goto statements are harmful, most programmers will say something like "because they make programs hard to understand." Press harder, and you may well hear something like "I don't really know, but that's what I was taught." For that reason, I'd like to summarize Dijkstra's arguments. He then shows two program fragments, one without a goto and and one with a goto: if (n < 0) n = 0; Assuming that n is a variable of a built-in numeric type, we know that after this code, n is nonnegative. Suppose we rewrite this fragment: if (n >= 0) goto nonneg; n = 0; nonneg: ; In theory, this rewrite should have the same effect as the original. However, rewriting has changed something important: It has opened the possibility of transferring control to nonneg from anywhere else in the program. I emphasized the part that I don't agree with. Modern languages like C++ do not allow goto to transfer control arbitrarily. Here are two examples: You cannot jump to a label that is defined in a different function. You cannot jump over a variable initialization. Now consider composing your code of tiny functions that adhere to the single responsibility principle: int clamp_to_zero(int n) { if (n >= 0) goto n_is_not_negative: n = 0; n_is_not_negative: return n; } The classic argument against the goto statement is that control could have transferred from anywhere inside your program to the label n_is_not_negative, but this simply is not (and was never) true in C++. If you try it, you will get a compiler error, because labels are scoped. The rest of the program doesn't even see the name n_is_not_negative, so it's just not possible to jump there. This is a static guarantee! Now, I'm not saying that this version is better then the one without the goto, but to make the latter as expressive as the first one, we would at least have to insert a comment, or even better yet, an assertion: int clamp_to_zero(int n) { if (n < 0) n = 0; // n is not negative at this point assert(n >= 0); return n; } Note that you basically get the assertion for free in the goto version, because the condition n >= 0 is already written in line 1, and n = 0; satisfies the condition trivially. But that's just a random observation. It seems to me that "don't use gotos!" is one of those dogmas like "don't use multiple returns!" that stem from a time where the real problem were functions of hundreds or even thousand of lines of code. So, do we still have a case against the goto statement, other than that it is not particularly useful? I haven't written a goto in at least a decade, but it's not like I was running away in terror whenever I encountered one. 1 Ideally, I would like to see a strong and valid argument against gotos that still holds when you adhere to established programming principles for clean code like the SRP. "You can jump anywhere" is not (and has never been) a valid argument in C++, and somehow I don't like teaching stuff that is not true. 1: Also, I have never been able to resurrect even a single velociraptor, no matter how many gotos I tried :(

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  • Use Case Actors - Primary versus Secondary

    - by Dave Burke
    The Unified Modeling Language (UML1) defines an Actor (from UseCases) as: An actor specifies a role played by a user or any other system that interacts with the subject. In Alistair Cockburn’s book “Writing Effective Use Cases” (2) Actors are further defined as follows: Primary Actor: The primary actor of a use case is the stakeholder that calls on the system to deliver one of its services. It has a goal with respect to the system – one that can be satisfied by its operation. The primary actor is often, but not always, the actor who triggers the use case. Supporting Actors: A supporting actor in a use case in an external actor that provides a service to the system under design. It might be a high-speed printer, a web service, or humans that have to do some research and get back to us. In a 2006 article (3) Cockburn refined the definitions slightly to read: Primary Actors: The Actor(s) using the system to achieve a goal. The Use Case documents the interactions between the system and the actors to achieve the goal of the primary actor. Secondary Actors: Actors that the system needs assistance from to achieve the primary actor’s goal. Finally, the Oracle Unified Method (OUM) concurs with the UML definition of Actors, along with Cockburn’s refinement, but OUM also includes the following: Secondary actors may or may not have goals that they expect to be satisfied by the use case, the primary actor always has a goal, and the use case exists to satisfy the primary actor. Now that we are on the same “page”, let’s consider two examples: A bank loan officer wants to review a loan application from a customer, and part of the process involves a real-time credit rating check. Use Case Name: Review Loan Application Primary Actor: Loan Officer Secondary Actors: Credit Rating System A Human Resources manager wants to change the job code of an employee, and as part of the process, automatically notify several other departments within the company of the change. Use Case Name: Maintain Job Code Primary Actor: Human Resources Manager Secondary Actors: None The first example is quite straight forward; we need to define the Secondary Actor because without the “Credit Rating System” we cannot successfully complete the Use Case. In other words, the goal of the Primary Actor is to successfully complete the Loan Application, but they need the explicit “help” of the Secondary Actor (Credit Rating System) to achieve this goal. The second example is where people sometimes get confused. Within OUM we would not include the “other departments” as Secondary Actors and therefore not include them on the Use Case diagram for the following reasons: The other departments are not required for the successful completion of the Use Case We are not expecting any response from the other departments (at least within the bounds of the Use Case under discussion) Having said that, within the detail of the Use Case Specification Main Success Scenario, we would include something like: “The system sends a notification to the related department heads (ref. Business Rule BR101)” Now let’s consider one final example. A Procurement Manager wants to place a “bid” for some goods using an On-Line Trading Community (B2B version of eBay) Use Case Name: Create Bid Primary Actor: Procurement Manager Secondary Actors: On-Line Trading Community You might wonder why the Trading Community is listed as a Secondary Actor, i.e. if all we are going to do is place a bid for a specific quantity of goods at a given price and send that off to the Trading Community, then why would the Trading Community need to “assist” in that Use Case? Well, once again, it comes back to the “User Experience” and how we want to optimize that when we think about our Use Case, and ultimately, when the developer comes to assembling some code. In this final example, the Procurement Manager cannot successfully complete the “Create Bid” Use Case until they receive an affirmative confirmation back from the Trading Community that the Bid has been accepted. Therefore, the Trading Community must become a Secondary Actor and be referenced both on the Use Case diagram and Use Case Specification. Any astute readers who are wondering about the “single sitting” rule will have to wait for a follow-up Blog entry to find out how that consideration can be factored in!!! Happy Use Case writing! (1) OMG Unified Modeling LanguageTM (OMG UML), Superstructure Version 2.4.1 (2) Cockburn, A, 2000, Writing Effective Use Case, Addison-Wesley Professional; Edition 1 (3) Cockburn, A, 2006 “Use Case fundamentals” viewed 20th March 2012, http://alistair.cockburn.us/Use+case+fundamentals

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  • Logging connection strings

    If you some of the dynamic features of SSIS such as package configurations or property expressions then sometimes trying to work out were your connections are pointing can be a bit confusing. You will work out in the end but it can be useful to explicitly log this information so that when things go wrong you can just review the logs. You may wish to develop this idea further and encapsulate such logging into a custom task, but for now lets keep it simple and use the Script Task. The Script Task code below will raise an Information event showing the name and connection string for a connection. Imports System Imports Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime Public Class ScriptMain Public Sub Main() Dim fireAgain As Boolean ' Get the connection string, we need to know the name of the connection Dim connectionName As String = "My OLE-DB Connection" Dim connectionString As String = Dts.Connections(connectionName).ConnectionString ' Format the message and log it via an information event Dim message As String = String.Format("Connection ""{0}"" has a connection string of ""{1}"".", _ connectionName, connectionString) Dts.Events.FireInformation(0, "Information", message, Nothing, 0, fireAgain) Dts.TaskResult = Dts.Results.Success End Sub End Class Building on that example it is probably more flexible to log all connections in a package as shown in the next example. Imports System Imports Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime Public Class ScriptMain Public Sub Main() Dim fireAgain As Boolean ' Loop through all connections in the package For Each connection As ConnectionManager In Dts.Connections ' Get the connection string and log it via an information event Dim message As String = String.Format("Connection ""{0}"" has a connection string of ""{1}"".", _ connection.Name, connection.ConnectionString) Dts.Events.FireInformation(0, "Information", message, Nothing, 0, fireAgain) Next Dts.TaskResult = Dts.Results.Success End Sub End Class By using the Information event it makes it readily available in the designer, for example the Visual Studio Output window (Ctrl+Alt+O) or the package designer Execution Results tab, and also allows you to readily control the logging by choosing which events to log in the normal way. Now before somebody starts commenting that this is a security risk, I would like to highlight good practice for building connection managers. Firstly the Password property, or any other similar sensitive property is always defined as write-only, and secondly the connection string property only uses the public properties to assemble the connection string value when requested. In other words the connection string will never contain the password. I have seen a couple of cases where this is not true, but that was just bad development by third-parties, you won’t find anything like that in the box from Microsoft.   Whilst writing this code it made me wish that there was a custom log entry that you could just turn on that did this for you, but alas connection managers do not even seem to support custom events. It did however remind me of a very useful event that is often overlooked and fits rather well alongside connection string logging, the Execute SQL Task’s custom ExecuteSQLExecutingQuery event. To quote the help reference Custom Messages for Logging - Provides information about the execution phases of the SQL statement. Log entries are written when the task acquires connection to the database, when the task starts to prepare the SQL statement, and after the execution of the SQL statement is completed. The log entry for the prepare phase includes the SQL statement that the task uses. It is the last part that is so useful, how often have you used an expression to derive a SQL statement and you want to log that to make sure the correct SQL is being returned? You need to turn it one, by default no custom log events are captured, but I’ll refer you to a walkthrough on setting up the logging for ExecuteSQLExecutingQuery by Jamie.

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  • Taking Your Business Scorecard Golfing

    - by tobyehatch
    Our workplace world is definitely changing. Not only are we taking work home, but we are working during odd hours in some very strange places.  I had the pleasure of interviewing Jacques Vigeant, Product Strategy Manager for Oracle Business Intelligence and Enterprise Performance Management, on a Podcast, and he enlightened me about how our mobile devices and business scorecards are enabling us to be more accountable and keep a watchful eye on business – even while on the golf course.Business scorecards have been around for many years - so I asked Jacques if he felt they had changed significantly due to technology. His answer was, “Yes, and no.”  Jacques agreed that scorecard enthusiasts are still passionate about executing the company strategy and monitoring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), but scorecards and Business Intelligence (BI) as a whole have changed.  He explained that five to six years ago, people did BI work at the office and, for the most part, disconnected from their computer and workplace when they went home – with the exception of checking email and making a phone call or two. But now, that is no longer the case. People are virtually always connected with work and, more importantly, expect their BI and scorecards to be ‘always on,’ regardless of whether they are at their desk or somewhere else.Basically, the BI paradigm has changed from a 'pull' model, where employees are at their desks querying or pulling information from the system, to a 'push' model where employees expect their BI and scorecard systems to reach out (or push information) to them when there is something of note to learn or something on which they need to take action. I found this very interesting. However mobile devices do have their limitations with respect to screen sizes – does it really make sense to look at your strategy/scorecard on tiny devices? What kind of scorecard activities can you really expect to be able to do? Jacques’ answer was very logical. “When you think of a scorecard, it is really comprised of an organization of KPIs that are aligned with the strategic objectives of your company. KPIs are the heart of how you will execute your strategy. So, if you decompose that a little more, each KPI is well defined with the thresholds that you should keep an eye on and who is responsible for them. When we talk about scorecarding on a phone, we aren’t talking about surfing the strategy and exploring the strategy map like we do on the desktop. In a scorecarding context, we use the phone more as an alerting mechanism or simple monitoring device for your KPIs.”Jacques gave a great example of an inventory manager who took part of an afternoon off to go golfing before winter finally hit, and while on the front nine holes, his phone vibrated. His scorecard was alerting him that the inventory levels for one of the products was below some threshold that he had set.  From his phone, he had set up three options within Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management (OSSM) for this type of situation:  1. Contact the warehouse manager directly by phone and work it out (standard phone function)  2. Tap/hold the KPI and add an annotation to the KPI in OSSM using the dictation capabilities of the phone and deal with it more fully when he gets back to the office  3. Tap/hold the KPI and invoke a business process from OSSM to transfer product from another warehouse with higher stock levels to the one that needs it  Being on a phone should still give you options to quickly deal with situations as needed, but mobile phones are not designed for nor should try to replicate the full desktop experience. We covered other interesting subjects in the interview, including how Oracle is keeping pace with mobile innovation and new devices such as Google Glasses, Galaxy Gear, Pebble Watches and more, and how Oracle is handling mobile security– which is great news for our mobile workforce. To listen to the entire Podcast, click here.To learn more about Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management, click here.

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  • Handling null values and missing object properties in Silverlight 4

    - by PeterTweed
    Before Silverlight 4 to bind a data object to the UI and display a message associated with either a null value or if the binding path was wrong, you would need to write a Converter.  In Silverlight 4 we find the addition of the markup extensions TargetNullValue and FallbackValue that allows us to display a value when a null value is found in the bound to property and display a value when the property being bound to is not found. This post will show you how to use both markup extensions. Steps: 1. Create a new Silverlight 4 application 2. In the body of the MainPage.xaml.cs file replace the MainPage class with the following code:     public partial class MainPage : UserControl     {         public MainPage()         {             InitializeComponent();             this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(MainPage_Loaded);         }           void MainPage_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)         {             person p = new person() { NameValue = "Peter Tweed" };             this.DataContext = p;         }     }       public class person     {         public string NameValue { get; set; }         public string TitleValue { get; set; }     } This code defines a class called person with two properties.  A new instance of the class is created, only defining the value for one of the properties and bound to the DataContext of the page. 3.  In the MainPage.xaml file copy the following XAML into the LayoutRoot grid:         <Grid.RowDefinitions>             <RowDefinition Height="60*" />             <RowDefinition Height="28*" />             <RowDefinition Height="28*" />             <RowDefinition Height="30*" />             <RowDefinition Height="154*" />         </Grid.RowDefinitions>         <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>             <ColumnDefinition Width="86*" />             <ColumnDefinition Width="314*" />         </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>         <TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="32,0,0,0" Name="textBlock1" Text="Name Value:" VerticalAlignment="Top" />         <TextBlock Grid.Row="2" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="32,0,0,0" Name="textBlock2" Text="Title Value:" VerticalAlignment="Top" />         <TextBlock Grid.Row="3" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="32,0,0,0" Name="textBlock3" Text="Non Existant Value:" VerticalAlignment="Top" />         <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="1" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Name="textBlock4" Text="{Binding NameValue, TargetNullValue='No Name!!!!!!!'}" VerticalAlignment="Top" Margin="6,0,0,0" />         <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="2" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Name="textBlock5" Text="{Binding TitleValue, TargetNullValue='No Title!!!!!!!'}" VerticalAlignment="Top" Margin="6,0,0,0" />         <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="3" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="6,0,0,0" Name="textBlock6" Text="{Binding AgeValue, FallbackValue='No such property!'}" VerticalAlignment="Top" />    This XAML defines three textblocks – two of which use the TargetNull and one that uses the FallbackValue markup extensions.  4. Run the application and see the person name displayed as defined for the person object, the expected string displayed for the TargetNullValue when no value exists for the boudn property and the expected string displayed for the FallbackValue when the property bound to is not found on the bound object. It's that easy!

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