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• BI&EPM in Focus June 2014

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  Applications Webcast Centre – A Library of Discussion and Research for Best Practice: Achieving Reliable Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting Talent Analytics and Big Data – Is HR ready for the challenge Enterprise Data – The cost of non-quality Customers Josephine Niemiec from ADP talks about Oracle Hyperion Workforce Planning at Collaborate 2014 (link) Video Chris Nelms from Ameren talks about Oracle BI Spend and Procurement Analytics at Collaborate 2014 (link) Video Leggett & Platt Leverages Oracle Hyperion EPM and Demantra (link) Video Pella Corporation Accelerates Close Cycle by Cutting Time for Financial Consolidation from Three Days to Less Than One Day (link) Secretaría General de Administración de Justicia en España Enhances Citizen Services with Near-Real-Time Business Intelligence Gleaned from 500 Databases  (link) Bellco Credit Union Speeds Budget Development by 30%—Gains Insight into Specific Branch and Financial Product Profitability  (link)  Video QDQ media Speeds up Financial Reporting by 24x, Gains Business Agility, and Integrates Seamlessly into Corporate Accounting System  (link) Westfield Group Maximizes Shopping Mall Revenue, Shortens Year-End Financial Consolidation by 75%  (link)  IL&FS Transportation Networks Shortens Financial Consolidation and Reporting Cycle by Eight Days, Gains In-Depth Insight into Business Performance   (link) Angel Trains Optimizes Rail Operations for Purchasing, Sourcing, and Project Management to Meet Challenges of Evolving Rail Industry  (link) Enterprise Performance Management June 11, at Oracle Utrecht, NL: Morning session: Explore Planning and Budgeting in the Cloud (link) June 12, London: PureApps Presents: Best Practice Financial Consolidation and Reporting Workshop (link) July 3, Koln: Oracle Hyperion Business Analytics Roundtable (link) Blog: What's Your Tax Strategy? Automate the Operational Transfer Pricing Process (link) YouTube Video: Automate Tax Reporting with Oracle Hyperion Tax Provision (link) YouTube Video: Introducing Oracle Hyperion Planning’s Tablet Optimized Interface (link) OracleEPMWebcasts @ YouTube (link) Partner webcasts: Wednesday, 4 June, 5.00 GMT - Case Study:  Lessons Learned from Edgewater Ranzal's Internal Implementation of Oracle Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) - Learn more and register here! Thursday, 5 June, 4.00 GMT - Achieving Accountable Care Using Oracle Technology - Learn more and register here! Tuesday, 17 June, 4.00 GMT - Optimizing Performance for Oracle EPM Systems - Learn more and register here! Oracle University Blog: The Coolest Features Available with Oracle Hyperion 11.1.2.3 – Training from OU to help you to best use them (link) Support: Proactive Support: EPM Hyperion Planning 11.1.2.3.500 Using RMI Service [Blog] Proactive Support: Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service Videos (link) Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) 11.1.2.3.410 Patch Bundle [Doc ID 1670981.1] Hyperion Analytic Provider Services 11.1.2.2.106 Patch Set Update [Doc ID 1667350.1] Hyperion Essbase 11.1.2.2.106 Patch Set Update [Doc ID 1667346.1] Hyperion Essbase Administration Services 11.1.2.2.106 Patch Set Update [Doc ID 1667348.1] Hyperion Essbase Studio 11.1.2.2.106 Patch Set Update [Doc ID 1667329.1] Hyperion Smart View 11.1.2.5.210 Patch Set Update [Doc ID 1669427.1] Using HPCM, HSF or DRM Communities (link) Business Intelligence June 12, Birmingham, UK: Oracle Big Data at Work - Use Cases and Architecture (link) June 17, London: Oracle at Cloud & Big Data World Forums (link) June 17, Partner Webcast: Transform your Planning Capabilities with Peloton's CloudAccelerator for Oracle PBCS (link) June 19, London: Oracle at the Whitehall Media Big Data Analytics Conference and Exhibition (link) June 19, London: Partner Event - Agile BI Conference by Peak Indicators [link] June 25, Munich: Oracle Special Day auf der TDWI 2014 Konferenz (link) July 15, London: Oracle Endeca Information Discovery Workshop (link) July 16, London: BI Applications Workshop – Financial Analytics & Procurement Analytics (link) July 17, London: BI Applications Workshop – HR Analytics (link) Milan, Italy: L’Osservatorio Big Data Analytics & Business Intelligence with Politecnico di Milano (link) OBIA 11.1.1.8.1 - Now Available [Blog] What’s New in OBIA 11.1.1.8.1 [Blog] BI Blog: A closer look at Oracle BI Applications 11.1.1.8.1 release (link) Press Release: BI Applications Deliver Greater Insight into Talent and Procurement (link) Support Blog: OBIA 11.1.1.8.1 Upgrade Guide & Documentation (link) YouTube Video: Glenn Hoormann of Ludus talks to us about Oracle Business Intelligence and ERP at Collaborate 2014 (Link) YouTube Video: Performance Architects talks about key BI and Mobile trends, including Endeca at Collaborate 2014 (link) Big Data Blog: 3 Keys for Using Big Data Effectively for Enhanced Customer Experience (link) Big Data Lite Demo VM 3.0 Now Available on OTN BI Blog: Data Relationship Governance - Workflow in a Bottle (link) MDM Blog: Register for Product Data Management Weekly Cloudcasts (link) MDM Blog: Improve your Customer Experience with High Quality Information (link) MDM Blog: Big Data Challenges & Considerations (link) Oracle University: Oracle BI Applications 11g: Implementation using ODI (link) Proactive Support: Monthly Index [Blog] My Oracle Support: Partner Accreditation for Business Analytics Support [Blog] OBIEE 11g Test-to-Production (T2P) / Clone Procedures Guide [Blog] Normal 0 false false false EN-GB 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; 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-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• An MCM exam, Rob? Really?

  - by Rob Farley

  I took the SQL 2008 MCM Knowledge exam while in Seattle for the PASS Summit ten days ago. I wasn’t planning to do it, but I got persuaded to try. I was meaning to write this post to explain myself before the result came out, but it seems I didn’t get typing quickly enough. Those of you who know me will know I’m a big fan of certification, to a point. I’ve been involved with Microsoft Learning to help create exams. I’ve kept my certifications current since I first took an exam back in 1998, sitting many in beta, across quite a variety of topics. I’ve probably become quite good at them – I know I’ve definitely passed some that I really should’ve failed. I’ve also written that I don’t think exams are worth studying for. (That’s probably not entirely true, but it depends on your motivation. If you’re doing learning, I would encourage you to focus on what you need to know to do your job better. That will help you pass an exam – but the two skills are very different. I can coach someone on how to pass an exam, but that’s a different kind of teaching when compared to coaching someone about how to do a job. For example, the real world includes a lot of “it depends”, where you develop a feel for what the influencing factors might be. In an exam, its better to be able to know some of the “Don’t use this technology if XYZ is true” concepts better.) As for the Microsoft Certified Master certification… I’m not opposed to the idea of having the MCM (or in the future, MCSM) cert. But the barrier to entry feels quite high for me. When it was first introduced, the nearest testing centres to me were in Kuala Lumpur and Manila. Now there’s one in Perth, but that’s still a big effort. I know there are options in the US – such as one about an hour’s drive away from downtown Seattle, but it all just seems too hard. Plus, these exams are more expensive, and all up – I wasn’t sure I wanted to try them, particularly with the fact that I don’t like to study. I used to study for exams. It would drive my wife crazy. I’d have some exam scheduled for some time in the future (like the time I had two booked for two consecutive days at TechEd Australia 2005), and I’d make sure I was ready. Every waking moment would be spent pouring over exam material, and it wasn’t healthy. I got shaken out of that, though, when I ended up taking four exams in those two days in 2005 and passed them all. I also worked out that if I had a Second Shot available, then failing wasn’t a bad thing at all. Even without Second Shot, I’m much more okay about failing. But even just trying an MCM exam is a big effort. I wouldn’t want to fail one of them. Plus there’s the illusion to maintain. People have told me for a long time that I should just take the MCM exams – that I’d pass no problem. I’ve never been so sure. It was almost becoming a pride-point. Perhaps I should fail just to demonstrate that I can fail these things. Anyway – boB Taylor (@sqlboBT) persuaded me to try the SQL 2008 MCM Knowledge exam at the PASS Summit. They set up a testing centre in one of the room there, so it wasn’t out of my way at all. I had to squeeze it in between other commitments, and I certainly didn’t have time to even see what was on the syllabus, let alone study. In fact, I was so exhausted from the week that I fell asleep at least once (just for a moment though) during the actual exam. Perhaps the questions need more jokes, I’m not sure. I knew if I failed, then I might disappoint some people, but that I wouldn’t’ve spent a great deal of effort in trying to pass. On the other hand, if I did pass I’d then be under pressure to investigate the MCM Lab exam, which can be taken remotely (therefore, a much smaller amount of effort to make happen). In some ways, passing could end up just putting a bunch more pressure on me. Oh, and I did.

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• Big Data – What is Big Data – 3 Vs of Big Data – Volume, Velocity and Variety – Day 2 of 21

  - by Pinal Dave

  Data is forever. Think about it – it is indeed true. Are you using any application as it is which was built 10 years ago? Are you using any piece of hardware which was built 10 years ago? The answer is most certainly No. However, if I ask you – are you using any data which were captured 50 years ago, the answer is most certainly Yes. For example, look at the history of our nation. I am from India and we have documented history which goes back as over 1000s of year. Well, just look at our birthday data – atleast we are using it till today. Data never gets old and it is going to stay there forever.  Application which interprets and analysis data got changed but the data remained in its purest format in most cases. As organizations have grown the data associated with them also grew exponentially and today there are lots of complexity to their data. Most of the big organizations have data in multiple applications and in different formats. The data is also spread out so much that it is hard to categorize with a single algorithm or logic. The mobile revolution which we are experimenting right now has completely changed how we capture the data and build intelligent systems.  Big organizations are indeed facing challenges to keep all the data on a platform which give them a  single consistent view of their data. This unique challenge to make sense of all the data coming in from different sources and deriving the useful actionable information out of is the revolution Big Data world is facing. Defining Big Data The 3Vs that define Big Data are Variety, Velocity and Volume. Volume We currently see the exponential growth in the data storage as the data is now more than text data. We can find data in the format of videos, musics and large images on our social media channels. It is very common to have Terabytes and Petabytes of the storage system for enterprises. As the database grows the applications and architecture built to support the data needs to be reevaluated quite often. Sometimes the same data is re-evaluated with multiple angles and even though the original data is the same the new found intelligence creates explosion of the data. The big volume indeed represents Big Data. Velocity The data growth and social media explosion have changed how we look at the data. There was a time when we used to believe that data of yesterday is recent. The matter of the fact newspapers is still following that logic. However, news channels and radios have changed how fast we receive the news. Today, people reply on social media to update them with the latest happening. On social media sometimes a few seconds old messages (a tweet, status updates etc.) is not something interests users. They often discard old messages and pay attention to recent updates. The data movement is now almost real time and the update window has reduced to fractions of the seconds. This high velocity data represent Big Data. Variety Data can be stored in multiple format. For example database, excel, csv, access or for the matter of the fact, it can be stored in a simple text file. Sometimes the data is not even in the traditional format as we assume, it may be in the form of video, SMS, pdf or something we might have not thought about it. It is the need of the organization to arrange it and make it meaningful. It will be easy to do so if we have data in the same format, however it is not the case most of the time. The real world have data in many different formats and that is the challenge we need to overcome with the Big Data. This variety of the data represent  represent Big Data. Big Data in Simple Words Big Data is not just about lots of data, it is actually a concept providing an opportunity to find new insight into your existing data as well guidelines to capture and analysis your future data. It makes any business more agile and robust so it can adapt and overcome business challenges. Tomorrow In tomorrow’s blog post we will try to answer discuss Evolution of Big Data. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• Simple Excel Export with EPPlus

  - by Jesse Taber

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GruffCode/archive/2013/10/30/simple-excel-export-with-epplus.aspxAnyone I’ve ever met who works with an application that sits in front of a lot of data loves it when they can get that data exported to an Excel file for them to mess around with offline. As both developer and end user of a little website project that I’ve been working on, I found myself wanting to be able to get a bunch of the data that the application was collecting into an Excel file. The great thing about being both an end user and a developer on a project is that you can build the features that you really want! While putting this feature together I came across the fantastic EPPlus library. This library is certainly very well known and popular, but I was so impressed with it that I thought it was worth a quick blog post. This library is extremely powerful; it lets you create and manipulate Excel 2007/2010 spreadsheets in .NET code with a high degree of flexibility. My only gripe with the project is that they are not touting how insanely easy it is to build a basic Excel workbook from a simple data source. If I were running this project the approach I’m about to demonstrate in this post would be front and center on the landing page for the project because it shows how easy it really is to get started and serves as a good way to ease yourself in to some of the more advanced features. The website in question uses RavenDB, which means that we’re dealing with POCOs to model the data throughout all layers of the application. I love working like this so when it came time to figure out how to export some of this data to an Excel spreadsheet I wanted to find a way to take an IEnumerable<T> and just have it dumped to Excel with each item in the collection being modeled as a single row in the Excel worksheet. Consider the following class: public class Employee { public int Id { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public decimal HourlyRate { get; set; } public DateTime HireDate { get; set; } } Now let’s say we have a collection of these represented as an IEnumerable<Employee> and we want to be able to output it to an Excel file for offline querying/manipulation. As it turns out, this is dead simple to do with EPPlus. Have a look: public void ExportToExcel(IEnumerable<Employee> employees, FileInfo targetFile) { using (var excelFile = new ExcelPackage(targetFile)) { var worksheet = excelFile.Workbook.Worksheets.Add("Sheet1"); worksheet.Cells["A1"].LoadFromCollection(Collection: employees, PrintHeaders: true); excelFile.Save(); } } That’s it. Let’s break down what’s going on here: Create a ExcelPackage to model the workbook (Excel file). Note that the ‘targetFile’ value here is a FileInfo object representing the location on disk where I want the file to be saved. Create a worksheet within the workbook. Get a reference to the top-leftmost cell (addressed as A1) and invoke the ‘LoadFromCollection’ method, passing it our collection of Employee objects. Behind the scenes this is reflecting over the properties of the type provided and pulling out any public members to become columns in the resulting Excel output. The ‘PrintHeaders’ parameter tells EPPlus to grab the name of the property and put it in the first row. Save the Excel file All of the heavy lifting here is being done by the ‘LoadFromCollection’ method, and that’s a good thing. Now, this was really easy to do, but it has some limitations. Using this approach you get a very plain, un-styled Excel worksheet. The column widths are all set to the default. The number format for all cells is ‘General’ (which proves particularly interesting if you have a DateTime property in your data source). I’m a “no frills” guy, so I wasn’t bothered at all by trading off simplicity for style and formatting. That said, EPPlus has tons of samples that you can download that illustrate how to apply styles and formatting to cells and a ton of other advanced features that are way beyond the scope of this post.

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• Measuring Usability with Common Industry Format (CIF) Usability Tests

  - by Applications User Experience

  Sean Rice, Manager, Applications User Experience A User-centered Research and Design Process The Oracle Fusion Applications user experience was five years in the making. The development of this suite included an extensive and comprehensive user experience design process: ethnographic research, low-fidelity workflow prototyping, high fidelity user interface (UI) prototyping, iterative formative usability testing, development feedback and iteration, and sales and customer evaluation throughout the design cycle. However, this process does not stop when our products are released. We conduct summative usability testing using the ISO 25062 Common Industry Format (CIF) for usability test reports as an organizational framework. CIF tests allow us to measure the overall usability of our released products.  These studies provide benchmarks that allow for comparisons of a specific product release against previous versions of our product and against other products in the marketplace. What Is a CIF Usability Test? CIF refers to the internationally standardized method for reporting usability test findings used by the software industry. The CIF is based on a formal, lab-based test that is used to benchmark the usability of a product in terms of human performance and subjective data. The CIF was developed and is endorsed by more than 375 software customer and vendor organizations led by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), a US government entity. NIST sponsored the CIF through the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards-making processes. Oracle played a key role in developing the CIF. The CIF report format and metrics are consistent with the ISO 9241-11 definition of usability: “The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.” Our goal in conducting CIF tests is to measure performance and satisfaction of a representative sample of users on a set of core tasks and to help predict how usable a product will be with the larger population of customers. Why Do We Perform CIF Testing? The overarching purpose of the CIF for usability test reports is to promote incorporation of usability as part of the procurement decision-making process for interactive products. CIF provides a common format for vendors to report the methods and results of usability tests to customer organizations, and enables customers to compare the usability of our software to that of other suppliers. CIF also enables us to compare our current software with previous versions of our software. CIF Testing for Fusion Applications Oracle Fusion Applications comprises more than 100 modules in seven different product families. These modules encompass more than 400 task flows and 400 user roles. Due to resource constraints, we cannot perform comprehensive CIF testing across the entire product suite. Therefore, we had to develop meaningful inclusion criteria and work with other stakeholders across the applications development organization to prioritize product areas for testing. Ultimately, we want to test the product areas for which customers might be most interested in seeing CIF data. We also want to build credibility with customers; we need to be able to make the case to current and prospective customers that the product areas tested are representative of the product suite as a whole. Our goal is to test the top use cases for each product. The primary activity in the scoping process was to work with the individual product teams to identify the key products and business process task flows in each product to test. We prioritized these products and flows through a series of negotiations among the user experience managers, product strategy, and product management directors for each of the primary product families within the Oracle Fusion Applications suite (Human Capital Management, Supply Chain Management, Customer Relationship Management, Financials, Projects, and Procurement). The end result of the scoping exercise was a list of 47 proposed CIF tests for the Fusion Applications product suite.  Figure 1. A participant completes tasks during a usability test in Oracle’s Usability Labs Fusion Supplier Portal CIF Test The first Fusion CIF test was completed on the Supplier Portal application in July of 2011.  Fusion Supplier Portal is part of an integrated suite of Procurement applications that helps supplier companies manage orders, schedules, shipments, invoices, negotiations and payments. The user roles targeted for the usability study were Supplier Account Receivables Specialists and Supplier Sales Representatives, including both experienced and inexperienced users across a wide demographic range.  The test specifically focused on the following functionality and features: Manage payments – view payments Manage invoices – view invoice status and create invoices Manage account information – create new contact, review bank account information Manage agreements – find and view agreement, upload agreement lines, confirm status of agreement lines upload Manage purchase orders (PO) – view history of PO, request change to PO, find orders Manage negotiations – respond to request for a quote, check the status of a negotiation response These product areas were selected to represent the most important subset of features and functionality of the flow, in terms of frequency and criticality of use by customers. A total of 20 users participated in the usability study. The results of the Supplier Portal evaluation were favorable and exceeded our expectations. Figure 2. Fusion Supplier Portal Next Studies We plan to conduct two Fusion CIF usability studies per product family over the next nine months. The next product to be tested will be Self-service Procurement. End users are currently being recruited to participate in this usability study, and the test sessions are scheduled to begin during the last week of November.

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• SQL SERVER – CXPACKET – Parallelism – Usual Solution – Wait Type – Day 6 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  CXPACKET has to be most popular one of all wait stats. I have commonly seen this wait stat as one of the top 5 wait stats in most of the systems with more than one CPU. Books On-Line: Occurs when trying to synchronize the query processor exchange iterator. You may consider lowering the degree of parallelism if contention on this wait type becomes a problem. CXPACKET Explanation: When a parallel operation is created for SQL Query, there are multiple threads for a single query. Each query deals with a different set of the data (or rows). Due to some reasons, one or more of the threads lag behind, creating the CXPACKET Wait Stat. There is an organizer/coordinator thread (thread 0), which takes waits for all the threads to complete and gathers result together to present on the client’s side. The organizer thread has to wait for the all the threads to finish before it can move ahead. The Wait by this organizer thread for slow threads to complete is called CXPACKET wait. Note that not all the CXPACKET wait types are bad. You might experience a case when it totally makes sense. There might also be cases when this is unavoidable. If you remove this particular wait type for any query, then that query may run slower because the parallel operations are disabled for the query. Reducing CXPACKET wait: We cannot discuss about reducing the CXPACKET wait without talking about the server workload type. OLTP: On Pure OLTP system, where the transactions are smaller and queries are not long but very quick usually, set the “Maximum Degree of Parallelism” to 1 (one). This way it makes sure that the query never goes for parallelism and does not incur more engine overhead. EXEC sys.sp_configure N'cost threshold for parallelism', N'1' GO RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE GO Data-warehousing / Reporting server: As queries will be running for long time, it is advised to set the “Maximum Degree of Parallelism” to 0 (zero). This way most of the queries will utilize the parallel processor, and long running queries get a boost in their performance due to multiple processors. EXEC sys.sp_configure N'cost threshold for parallelism', N'0' GO RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE GO Mixed System (OLTP & OLAP): Here is the challenge. The right balance has to be found. I have taken a very simple approach. I set the “Maximum Degree of Parallelism” to 2, which means the query still uses parallelism but only on 2 CPUs. However, I keep the “Cost Threshold for Parallelism” very high. This way, not all the queries will qualify for parallelism but only the query with higher cost will go for parallelism. I have found this to work best for a system that has OLTP queries and also where the reporting server is set up. Here, I am setting ‘Cost Threshold for Parallelism’ to 25 values (which is just for illustration); you can choose any value, and you can find it out by experimenting with the system only. In the following script, I am setting the ‘Max Degree of Parallelism’ to 2, which indicates that the query that will have a higher cost (here, more than 25) will qualify for parallel query to run on 2 CPUs. This implies that regardless of the number of CPUs, the query will select any two CPUs to execute itself. EXEC sys.sp_configure N'cost threshold for parallelism', N'25' GO EXEC sys.sp_configure N'max degree of parallelism', N'2' GO RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE GO Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Additionally a must read comment of Jonathan Kehayias. Note: The information presented here is from my experience and I no way claim it to be accurate. I suggest you all to read the online book for further clarification. All the discussion of Wait Stats over here is generic and it varies from system to system. It is recommended that you test this on the development server before implementing on the production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: DMV, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• Wireless cuts out on Toshiba Satellite S7208

  - by alecRN

  I recently got a Toshiba Satellite L875-S7208 with Windows 7 preinstalled. I installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS dual boot to the same Windows partition. However, usually 15 minutes or less after booting, the wifi connection dies. Here's some hopefully relevant information: lspci -knn 00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller [8086:0104] (rev 09) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device [1179:fb41] Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0116] (rev 09) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device [1179:fb40] Kernel driver in use: i915 Kernel modules: i915 00:14.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation Panther Point USB xHCI Host Controller [8086:1e31] (rev 04) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device [1179:fb41] Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd 00:16.0 Communication controller [0780]: Intel Corporation Panther Point MEI Controller #1 [8086:1e3a] (rev 04) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device [1179:fb41] Kernel driver in use: mei Kernel modules: mei 00:1a.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation Panther Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 [8086:1e2d] (rev 04) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device [1179:fb41] Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd 00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation Panther Point High Definition Audio Controller [8086:1e20] (rev 04) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device [1179:fb40] Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel 00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root Port 1 [8086:1e10] (rev c4) Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:1c.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root Port 2 [8086:1e12] (rev c4) Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:1c.2 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root Port 3 [8086:1e14] (rev c4) Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:1d.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation Panther Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 [8086:1e26] (rev 04) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device [1179:fb41] Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd 00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation Panther Point LPC Controller [8086:1e59] (rev 04) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device [1179:fb41] Kernel modules: iTCO_wdt 00:1f.2 SATA controller [0106]: Intel Corporation Panther Point 6 port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] [8086:1e03] (rev 04) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device [1179:fb41] Kernel driver in use: ahci 00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation Panther Point SMBus Controller [8086:1e22] (rev 04) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device [1179:fb41] Kernel modules: i2c-i801 02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter [10ec:8176] (rev 01) Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device [10ec:8211] Kernel driver in use: rtl8192ce Kernel modules: rtl8192ce 03:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller [10ec:8136] (rev 05) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device [1179:fb37] Kernel driver in use: r8169 Kernel modules: r8169 lsmod Module Size Used by snd_hda_codec_hdmi 32474 1 snd_hda_codec_realtek 224066 1 joydev 17693 0 rfcomm 47604 0 bnep 18281 2 bluetooth 180104 10 rfcomm,bnep parport_pc 32866 0 ppdev 17113 0 arc4 12529 2 snd_hda_intel 33773 3 snd_hda_codec 127706 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel snd_hwdep 13668 1 snd_hda_codec snd_pcm 97188 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec snd_seq_midi 13324 0 snd_rawmidi 30748 1 snd_seq_midi snd_seq_midi_event 14899 1 snd_seq_midi snd_seq 61896 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event snd_timer 29990 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq snd_seq_device 14540 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq psmouse 87692 0 serio_raw 13211 0 rtl8192ce 84826 0 rtl8192c_common 75767 1 rtl8192ce rtlwifi 111202 1 rtl8192ce mac80211 506816 3 rtl8192ce,rtl8192c_common,rtlwifi snd 78855 16 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device sparse_keymap 13890 0 uvcvideo 72627 0 videodev 98259 1 uvcvideo v4l2_compat_ioctl32 17128 1 videodev mac_hid 13253 0 mei 41616 0 wmi 19256 0 soundcore 15091 1 snd i915 472941 3 snd_page_alloc 18529 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm drm_kms_helper 46978 1 i915 cfg80211 205544 2 rtlwifi,mac80211 drm 242038 4 i915,drm_kms_helper i2c_algo_bit 13423 1 i915 video 19596 1 i915 lp 17799 0 parport 46562 3 parport_pc,ppdev,lp r8169 62099 0 ums_realtek 18248 0 uas 18180 0 usb_storage 49198 1 ums_realtek dmesg | grep firmware [ 15.692951] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 16.240881] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 452.419288] rtl8192c_common:rtl92c_firmware_selfreset(): 8051 reset fail. [ 458.572211] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 465.440640] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 472.337617] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 479.175471] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 485.978582] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 492.764893] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 499.579348] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 506.386934] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 513.209545] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 519.991365] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 526.778375] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 533.629695] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 540.426004] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 547.238125] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 554.024434] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 560.854794] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 567.678160] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 574.494666] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 581.336653] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 588.157710] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 595.221122] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 602.047429] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 608.829534] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 615.639079] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 622.454991] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 629.273231] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 636.056613] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 642.858096] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 649.640753] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 657.184094] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 664.008018] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 670.838639] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 677.675418] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 684.507255] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 691.310994] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 698.095325] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 704.914509] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin [ 711.725178] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin uname -r 3.2.0-29-generic ifconfig eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 4c:72:b9:59:6c:61 inet addr:192.168.0.11 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::4e72:b9ff:fe59:6c61/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:4447 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:2762 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:3671147 (3.6 MB) TX bytes:335133 (335.1 KB) Interrupt:42 Base address:0x2000 lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:515 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:515 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:83153 (83.1 KB) TX bytes:83153 (83.1 KB) wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 74:e5:43:32:47:95 UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:280 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:51 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:32958 (32.9 KB) TX bytes:10431 (10.4 KB)

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• How big can my SharePoint 2010 installation be?

  - by Sahil Malik

  Ad:: SharePoint 2007 Training in .NET 3.5 technologies (more information). 3 years ago, I had published “How big can my SharePoint 2007 installation be?” Well, SharePoint 2010 has significant under the covers improvements. So, how big can your SharePoint 2010 installation be? There are three kinds of limits you should know about Hard limits that cannot be exceeded by design. Configurable that are, well configurable – but the default values are set for a pretty good reason, so if you need to tweak, plan and understand before you tweak. Soft limits, you can exceed them, but it is not recommended that you do. Before you read any of the limits, read these two important disclaimers - 1. The limit depends on what you’re doing. So, don’t take the below as gospel, the reality depends on your situation. 2. There are many additional considerations in planning your SharePoint solution scalability and performance, besides just the below. So with those in mind, here goes.   Hard Limits - Zones per web app 5 RBS NAS performance Time to first byte of any response from NAS must be less than 20 milliseconds List row size 8000 bytes driven by how SP stores list items internally Max file size 2GB (default is 50MB, configurable). RBS does not increase this limit. Search metadata properties 10,000 per item crawled (pretty damn high, you’ll never need to worry about it). Max # of concurrent in-memory enterprise content types 5000 per web server, per tenant Max # of external system connections 500 per web server PerformancePoint services using Excel services as a datasource No single query can fetch more than 1 million excel cells Office Web Apps Renders One doc per second, per CPU core, per Application server, limited to a maximum of 8 cores.   Configurable Limits - Row Size Limit 6, configurable via SPWebApplication.MaxListItemRowStorage property List view lookup 8 join operations per query Max number of list items that a single operation can process at one time in normal hours 5000 Configurable via SPWebApplication.MaxItemsPerThrottledOperation   Also you get a warning at 3000, which is configurable via SPWebApplication.MaxItemsPerThrottledOperationWarningLevel   In addition, throttle overrides can be requested, throttle overrides can be disabled, and time windows can be set when throttle is disabled. Max number of list items for administrators that a single operation can process at one time in normal hours 20000 Configurable via SPWebApplication.MaxItemsPerThrottledOperationOverride Enumerating subsites 2000 Word and Powerpoint co-authoring simultaneous editors 10 (Hard limit is 99). # of webparts on a page 25 Search Crawl DBs per search service app 10 Items per crawl db 25 million Search Keywords 200 per site collection. There is a max limit of 5000, which can then be modified by editing the web.config/client.config. Concurrent # of workflows on a content db 15. Workflows running in the timer service are not counted in this limit. Further workflows are queued. Can be configured via the Set-SPFarmConfig powershell commandlet. Number of events picked by the workflow timer job and delivered to workflows 100. You can increase this limit by running additional instances of the workflow timer service. Visio services file size 50MB Visio web drawing recalculation timeout 120 seconds Configurable via – Powershell commandlet Set-SPVisioPerformance Visio services minimum and maximum cache age for data connected diagrams 0 to 24 hours. Default is 60 minutes. Configurable via – Powershell commandlet Set-SPVisioPerformance   Soft Limits - Content Databases 300 per web app Application Pools 10 per web server Managed Paths 20 per web app Content Database Size 200GB per Content DB Size of 1 site collection 100GB # of sites in a site collection 250,000 Documents in a library 30 Million, with nesting. Depends heavily on type and usage and size of documents. Items 30 million. Depends heavily on usage of items. SPGroups one SPUser can be in 5000 Users in a site collection 2 million, depends on UI, nesting, containers and underlying user store AD Principals in a SPGroup 5000 SPGroups in a site collection 10000 Search Service Instances 20 Indexed Items in Search 100 million Crawl Log entries 100 million Search Alerts 1 million per search application Search Crawled Properties 1/2 million URL removals in search 100 removals per operation User Profiles 2 million per service application Social Tags 500 million per social database Comment on the article ....

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• JavaOne Afterglow by Simon Ritter

  - by JuergenKress

  Last week was the eighteenth JavaOne conference and I thought it would be a good idea to write up my thoughts about how things went. Firstly thanks to Yoshio Terada for the photos, I didn't bother bringing a camera with me so it's good to have some pictures to add to the words. Things kicked off full-throttle on Sunday.  We had the Java Champions and JUG leaders breakfast, which was a great way to meet up with a lot of familiar faces and start talking all things Java.  At midday the show really started with the Strategy and Technical Keynotes.  This was always going to be tougher job than some years because there was no big shiny ball to reveal to the audience.  With the Java EE 7 spec being finalised a few months ago and Java SE 8, Java ME 8 and JDK8 not due until the start of next year there was not going to be any big announcement.  I thought both keynotes worked really well each focusing on the things most important to Java developers: Strategy One of the things that is becoming more and more prominent in many companies marketing is the Internet of Things (IoT).  We've moved from the conventional desktop/laptop environment to much more mobile connected computing with smart phones and tablets.  The next wave of the internet is not just billions of people connected, but 10s or 100s of billions of devices connected to the network, all generating data and providing much more precise control of almost any process you can imagine.  This ties into the ideas of Big Data and Cloud Computing, but implementation is certainly not without its challenges.  As Peter Utzschneider explained it's about three Vs: Volume, Velocity and Value.  All these devices will create huge volumes of data at very high speed; to avoid being overloaded these devices will need some sort of processing capabilities that can filter the useful data from the redundant.  The raw data then needs to be turned into useful information that has value.  To make this happen will require applications on devices, at gateways and on the back-end servers, all very tightly integrated.  This is where Java plays a pivotal role, write once, run everywhere becomes essential, having nine million developers fluent in the language makes it the defacto lingua franca of IoT.  There will be lots more information on how this will become a reality, so watch this space. Technical How do we make the IoT a reality, technically?  Using the game of chess Mark Reinhold, with the help of people like John Ceccarelli, Jasper Potts and Richard Bair, showed what you could do.  Using Java EE on the back end, Java SE and JavaFX on the desktop and Java ME Embedded and JavaFX on devices they showed a complete end-to-end demo. This was really impressive, using 3D features from JavaFX 8 (that's included with JDK8) to make a 3D animated Duke chess board.  Jasper also unveiled the "DukePad" a home made tablet using a Raspberry Pi, touch screen and accelerometer. Although the Raspberry Pi doesn't have earth shattering CPU performance (about the same level as a mid 1990s Pentium), it does have really quite good GPU performance so the GUI works really well.  The plans are all open sourced and available here.  One small, but very significant announcement was that Java SE will now be included with the NOOB and Raspbian Linux distros provided by the Raspberry Pi foundation (these can be found here).  No more hassle having to download and install the JDK after you've flashed your SD card OS image.  The finale was the Raspberry Pi powered chess playing robot.  Really very, very cool.  I talked to Jasper about this and he told me each of the chess pieces had been 3D printed and then he had to use acetone to give them a glossy finish (not sure what his wife thought of him spending hours in the kitchen in a gas mask!)  The way the robot arm worked was very impressive as it did not have any positioning data (like a potentiometer connected to each motor), but relied purely on carefully calibrated timings to get the arm to the right place.  Having done things like this myself in the past I know how easy it is to find a small error gets magnified into very big mistakes. Here's some pictures from the keynote: The "Dukepad" architecture Nice clear perspex case so you can see the innards. The very nice 3D chess set.  Maya's obviously a great tool. Read the full article here. WebLogic Partner Community For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Technorati Tags: Simon Ritter,Java One,OOW,Oracle OpenWorld,WebLogic,WebLogic Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Lync Server 2010

  - by ManojDhobale

  Microsoft Lync Server 2010 communications software and its client software, such as Microsoft Lync 2010, enable your users to connect in new ways and to stay connected, regardless of their physical location. Lync 2010 and Lync Server 2010 bring together the different ways that people communicate in a single client interface, are deployed as a unified platform, and are administered through a single management infrastructure. Workload Description IM and presence Instant messaging (IM) and presence help your users find and communicate with one another efficiently and effectively. IM provides an instant messaging platform with conversation history, and supports public IM connectivity with users of public IM networks such as MSN/Windows Live, Yahoo!, and AOL. Presence establishes and displays a user’s personal availability and willingness to communicate through the use of common states such as Available or Busy. This rich presence information enables other users to immediately make effective communication choices. Conferencing Lync Server includes support for IM conferencing, audio conferencing, web conferencing, video conferencing, and application sharing, for both scheduled and impromptu meetings. All these meeting types are supported with a single client. Lync Server also supports dial-in conferencing so that users of public switched telephone network (PSTN) phones can participate in the audio portion of conferences. Conferences can seamlessly change and grow in real time. For example, a single conference can start as just instant messages between a few users, and escalate to an audio conference with desktop sharing and a larger audience instantly, easily, and without interrupting the conversation flow. Enterprise Voice Enterprise Voice is the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) offering in Lync Server 2010. It delivers a voice option to enhance or replace traditional private branch exchange (PBX) systems. In addition to the complete telephony capabilities of an IP PBX, Enterprise Voice is integrated with rich presence, IM, collaboration, and meetings. Features such as call answer, hold, resume, transfer, forward and divert are supported directly, while personalized speed dialing keys are replaced by Contacts lists, and automatic intercom is replaced with IM. Enterprise Voice supports high availability through call admission control (CAC), branch office survivability, and extended options for data resiliency. Support for remote users You can provide full Lync Server functionality for users who are currently outside your organization’s firewalls by deploying servers called Edge Servers to provide a connection for these remote users. These remote users can connect to conferences by using a personal computer with Lync 2010 installed, the phone, or a web interface. Deploying Edge Servers also enables you to federate with partner or vendor organizations. A federated relationship enables your users to put federated users on their Contacts lists, exchange presence information and instant messages with these users, and invite them to audio calls, video calls, and conferences. Integration with other products Lync Server integrates with several other products to provide additional benefits to your users and administrators. Meeting tools are integrated into Outlook 2010 to enable organizers to schedule a meeting or start an impromptu conference with a single click and make it just as easy for attendees to join. Presence information is integrated into Outlook 2010 and SharePoint 2010. Exchange Unified Messaging (UM) provides several integration features. Users can see if they have new voice mail within Lync 2010. They can click a play button in the Outlook message to hear the audio voice mail, or view a transcription of the voice mail in the notification message. Simple deployment To help you plan and deploy your servers and clients, Lync Server provides the Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Planning Tool and the Topology Builder. Lync Server 2010, Planning Tool is a wizard that interactively asks you a series of questions about your organization, the Lync Server features you want to enable, and your capacity planning needs. Then, it creates a recommended deployment topology based on your answers, and produces several forms of output to aid your planning and installation. Topology Builder is an installation component of Lync Server 2010. You use Topology Builder to create, adjust and publish your planned topology. It also validates your topology before you begin server installations. When you install Lync Server on individual servers, the installation program deploys the server as directed in the topology. Simple management After you deploy Lync Server, it offers the following powerful and streamlined management tools: Active Directory for its user information, which eliminates the need for separate user and policy databases. Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Control Panel, a new web-based graphical user interface for administrators. With this web-based UI, Lync Server administrators can manage their systems from anywhere on the corporate network, without needing specialized management software installed on their computers. Lync Server Management Shell command-line management tool, which is based on the Windows PowerShell command-line interface. It provides a rich command set for administration of all aspects of the product, and enables Lync Server administrators to automate repetitive tasks using a familiar tool. While the IM and presence features are automatically installed in every Lync Server deployment, you can choose whether to deploy conferencing, Enterprise Voice, and remote user access, to tailor your deployment to your organization’s needs.

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• Geocaching - World wide treasure hunt

  I'm not quite sure how I came across this topic but actually I find it absolutely interesting, challenging and most of all a great fun for the family and friends. The interesting part is for sure that you can follow other peoples treasures and their preferred locations where a cache might be hidden. Of course, it wont be easy to find a cache after all. Sometimes there are even 'mystery caches' which have either riddles, further instructions or little brain games for you in order to find the actual cache - that's the challenge. And last but not least, those caches are hidden outdoor. A great experience to explore nature either on your own, or your family especially with children, or as a treasure hunting pack with a couple of friends. What is geocaching? It's a high-tech outdoor treasure hunting game that's a great way to explore the world with friends, family or on your own. Participants use GPS-enabled devices to locate hidden containers called geocaches. There are over one million geocaches hidden around the world today, waiting for you to find them. Visit Geocaching.com to search for geocaches near you.(Source: Referral Email of geocaching.com) Checkout the Geocaching 101 for further details and information. They also provide a video channel on YouTube. Which equipment do I need? Any GPS-enabled device is sufficient to go onto the hunt. I'm going to start our geocaching experience equipped with my Samsung Galaxy Tab. Additionally, I installed a geocaching.com client called c:geo that hopefully assists me soon. Combined with a map app like Google Maps and a nice Compass app you should be fully equipped and ready to go. I guess, that even a car navigation system is perfect for that task. Later on, with more experience and demand for technology (or precision) it might be interesting to opt-in for a pure GPS device, like a Garmin or any other brand on the market. {loadposition content_adsense} What is a geocache and what does it contain? In its simplest form, a cache always contains a logbook or logsheet for you to log your find. Larger caches may contain a logbook and any number of items. These items turn the adventure into a true treasure hunt. You never know what the cache owner or visitors to the cache may have left for you to enjoy. Remember, if you take something, leave something of equal or greater value in return. It is recommended that items in a cache be individually packaged in a clear, zipped plastic bag to protect them from the elements. Finding your first geocache Well, first you have to have interest to pick up the challenge. Then you have to check out the Geocache directory on geocaching.com. They have recommendations for beginner's caches but you are free to choose any. Actually, we have a Mystery Cache very close to our base, and I guess that we are going for that one on our first trip. Anyway, there is a very informative guide on the website which should answer all your questions about starting your new outdoor adventure. For sure, it's going to be rewarding. Team up with friends and family Especially as a beginner there might be misunderstandings in handling the GPS coordinates, the compass, or the map, and even finding the container at the documented position isn't easy in the first place. Luckily, there are logbook reports online from other hunters, and most of the time there are even 'spoiler' images available. But also bear in mind, that a geocache might have been removed or is lost due to unconscious people or whatever other reasons. Don't be disappointed in case that you can't find anything... There be nothing anymore. A general recommendation in this case would be to replace the missing container with a new one, and give feedback to the original owner about the state of that particular location. After all, it's about fun and active participation in a world-wide community. Geocaches in Mauritius? Yes, there are currently about 45 geocaches spread all over the island, and even a single in Rodriguez - that's gonna be a tough one. Hopefully, we will get increasing numbers as Geocaching.com allows, no better, even encourages you to hide new containers at your locations of choice. I think this is going to be real fun for us during the upcoming weeks and months. Especially, when we are travelling to other countries and transfer so-called trackable items between geocaches. On my first impression, Geocaching.com seems to be very mature, open and community-oriented. There are literally hundreds of thousands geocache 'hunters' all over the world. And usually finding a container remote from your home is very rewarding. I'll keep you updated in these matters during the next months to come...

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• Code Metrics: Number of IL Instructions

  - by DigiMortal

  In my previous posting about code metrics I introduced how to measure LoC (Lines of Code) in .NET applications. Now let’s take a step further and let’s take a look how to measure compiled code. This way we can somehow have a picture about what compiler produces. In this posting I will introduce you code metric called number of IL instructions. NB! Number of IL instructions is not something you can use to measure productivity of your team. If you want to get better idea about the context of this metric and LoC then please read my first posting about LoC. What are IL instructions? When code written in some .NET Framework language is compiled then compiler produces assemblies that contain byte code. These assemblies are executed later by Common Language Runtime (CLR) that is code execution engine of .NET Framework. The byte code is called Intermediate Language (IL) – this is more common language than C# and VB.NET by example. You can use ILDasm tool to convert assemblies to IL assembler so you can read them. As IL instructions are building blocks of all .NET Framework binary code these instructions are smaller and highly general – we don’t want very rich low level language because it executes slower than more general language. For every method or property call in some .NET Framework language corresponds set of IL instructions. There is no 1:1 relationship between line in high level language and line in IL assembler. There are more IL instructions than lines in C# code by example. How much instructions there are? I have no common answer because it really depends on your code. Here you can see some metrics from my current community project that is developed on SharePoint Server 2007. As average I have about 7 IL instructions per line of code. This is not metric you should use, it is just illustrative example so you can see the differences between numbers of lines and IL instructions. Why should I measure the number of IL instructions? Just take a look at chart above. Compiler does something that you cannot see – it compiles your code to IL. This is not intuitive process because you usually cannot say what is exactly the end result. You know it at greater plain but you don’t know it exactly. Therefore we can expect some surprises and that’s why we should measure the number of IL instructions. By example, you may find better solution for some method in your source code. It looks nice, it works nice and everything seems to be okay. But on server under load your fix may be way slower than previous code. Although you minimized the number of lines of code it ended up with increasing the number of IL instructions. How to measure the number of IL instructions? My choice is NDepend because Visual Studio is not able to measure this metric. Steps to make are easy. Open your NDepend project or create new and add all your application assemblies to project (you can also add Visual Studio solution to project). Run project analysis and wait until it is done. You can see over-all stats form global summary window. This is the same window I used to read the LoC and the number of IL instructions metrics for my chart. Meanwhile I made some changes to my code (enabled advanced caching for events and event registrations module) and then I ran code analysis again to get results for this section of this posting. NDepend is also able to tell you exactly what parts of code have problematically much IL instructions. The code quality section of CQL Query Explorer shows you how much problems there are with members in analyzed code. If you click on the line Methods too big (NbILInstructions) you can see all the problematic members of classes in CQL Explorer shown in image on right. In my case if have 10 methods that are too big and two of them have horrible number of IL instructions – just take a look at first two methods in this TOP10. Also note the query box. NDepend has easy and SQL-like query language to query code analysis results. You can modify these queries if you like and also you can define your own ones if default set is not enough for you. What is good result? As you can see from query window then the number of IL instructions per member should have maximally 200 IL instructions. Of course, like always, the less instructions you have, the better performing code you have. I don’t mean here little differences but big ones. By example, take a look at my first method in warnings list. The number of IL instructions it has is huge. And believe me – this method looks awful. Conclusion The number of IL instructions is useful metric when optimizing your code. For analyzing code at general level to find out too long methods you can use the number of LoC metric because it is more intuitive for you and you can therefore handle the situation more easily. Also you can use NDepend as code metrics tool because it has a lot of metrics to offer.

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• An MCM exam, Rob? Really?

  - by Rob Farley

  I took the SQL 2008 MCM Knowledge exam while in Seattle for the PASS Summit ten days ago. I wasn’t planning to do it, but I got persuaded to try. I was meaning to write this post to explain myself before the result came out, but it seems I didn’t get typing quickly enough. Those of you who know me will know I’m a big fan of certification, to a point. I’ve been involved with Microsoft Learning to help create exams. I’ve kept my certifications current since I first took an exam back in 1998, sitting many in beta, across quite a variety of topics. I’ve probably become quite good at them – I know I’ve definitely passed some that I really should’ve failed. I’ve also written that I don’t think exams are worth studying for. (That’s probably not entirely true, but it depends on your motivation. If you’re doing learning, I would encourage you to focus on what you need to know to do your job better. That will help you pass an exam – but the two skills are very different. I can coach someone on how to pass an exam, but that’s a different kind of teaching when compared to coaching someone about how to do a job. For example, the real world includes a lot of “it depends”, where you develop a feel for what the influencing factors might be. In an exam, its better to be able to know some of the “Don’t use this technology if XYZ is true” concepts better.) As for the Microsoft Certified Master certification… I’m not opposed to the idea of having the MCM (or in the future, MCSM) cert. But the barrier to entry feels quite high for me. When it was first introduced, the nearest testing centres to me were in Kuala Lumpur and Manila. Now there’s one in Perth, but that’s still a big effort. I know there are options in the US – such as one about an hour’s drive away from downtown Seattle, but it all just seems too hard. Plus, these exams are more expensive, and all up – I wasn’t sure I wanted to try them, particularly with the fact that I don’t like to study. I used to study for exams. It would drive my wife crazy. I’d have some exam scheduled for some time in the future (like the time I had two booked for two consecutive days at TechEd Australia 2005), and I’d make sure I was ready. Every waking moment would be spent pouring over exam material, and it wasn’t healthy. I got shaken out of that, though, when I ended up taking four exams in those two days in 2005 and passed them all. I also worked out that if I had a Second Shot available, then failing wasn’t a bad thing at all. Even without Second Shot, I’m much more okay about failing. But even just trying an MCM exam is a big effort. I wouldn’t want to fail one of them. Plus there’s the illusion to maintain. People have told me for a long time that I should just take the MCM exams – that I’d pass no problem. I’ve never been so sure. It was almost becoming a pride-point. Perhaps I should fail just to demonstrate that I can fail these things. Anyway – boB Taylor (@sqlboBT) persuaded me to try the SQL 2008 MCM Knowledge exam at the PASS Summit. They set up a testing centre in one of the room there, so it wasn’t out of my way at all. I had to squeeze it in between other commitments, and I certainly didn’t have time to even see what was on the syllabus, let alone study. In fact, I was so exhausted from the week that I fell asleep at least once (just for a moment though) during the actual exam. Perhaps the questions need more jokes, I’m not sure. I knew if I failed, then I might disappoint some people, but that I wouldn’t’ve spent a great deal of effort in trying to pass. On the other hand, if I did pass I’d then be under pressure to investigate the MCM Lab exam, which can be taken remotely (therefore, a much smaller amount of effort to make happen). In some ways, passing could end up just putting a bunch more pressure on me. Oh, and I did.

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• SQL SERVER – SSMS: Top Object and Batch Execution Statistics Reports

  - by Pinal Dave

  The month of June till mid of July has been the fever of sports. First, it was Wimbledon Tennis and then the Soccer fever was all over. There is a huge number of fan followers and it is great to see the level at which people sometimes worship these sports. Being an Indian, I cannot forget to mention the India tour of England later part of July. Following these sports and as the events unfold to the finals, there are a number of ways the statisticians can slice and dice the numbers. Cue from soccer I can surely say there is a team performance against another team and then there is individual member fairs against a particular opponent. Such statistics give us a fair idea to how a team in the past or in the recent past has fared against each other, head-to-head stats during World cup and during other neutral venue games. All these statistics are just pointers. In reality, they don’t reflect the calibre of the current team because the individuals who performed in each of these games are totally different (Typical example being the Brazil Vs Germany semi-final match in FIFA 2014). So at times these numbers are misleading. It is worth investigating and get the next level information. Similar to these statistics, SQL Server Management studio is also equipped with a number of reports like a) Object Execution Statistics report and b) Batch Execution Statistics reports. As discussed in the example, the team scorecard is like the Batch Execution statistics and individual stats is like Object Level statistics. The analogy can be taken only this far, trust me there is no correlation between SQL Server functioning and playing sports – It is like I think about diet all the time except while I am eating. Performance – Batch Execution Statistics Let us view the first report which can be invoked from Server Node -> Reports -> Standard Reports -> Performance – Batch Execution Statistics. Most of the values that are displayed in this report come from the DMVs sys.dm_exec_query_stats and sys.dm_exec_sql_text(sql_handle). This report contains 3 distinctive sections as outline below.   Section 1: This is a graphical bar graph representation of Average CPU Time, Average Logical reads and Average Logical Writes for individual batches. The Batch numbers are indicative and the details of individual batch is available in section 3 (detailed below). Section 2: This represents a Pie chart of all the batches by Total CPU Time (%) and Total Logical IO (%) by batches. This graphical representation tells us which batch consumed the highest CPU and IO since the server started, provided plan is available in the cache. Section 3: This is the section where we can find the SQL statements associated with each of the batch Numbers. This also gives us the details of Average CPU / Average Logical Reads and Average Logical Writes in the system for the given batch with object details. Expanding the rows, I will also get the # Executions and # Plans Generated for each of the queries. Performance – Object Execution Statistics The second report worth a look is Object Execution statistics. This is a similar report as the previous but turned on its head by SQL Server Objects. The report has 3 areas to look as above. Section 1 gives the Average CPU, Average IO bar charts for specific objects. The section 2 is a graphical representation of Total CPU by objects and Total Logical IO by objects. The final section details the various objects in detail with the Avg. CPU, IO and other details which are self-explanatory. At a high-level both the reports are based on queries on two DMVs (sys.dm_exec_query_stats and sys.dm_exec_sql_text) and it builds values based on calculations using columns in them: SELECT * FROM    sys.dm_exec_query_stats s1 CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(sql_handle) AS s2 WHERE   s2.objectid IS NOT NULL AND DB_NAME(s2.dbid) IS NOT NULL ORDER BY  s1.sql_handle; This is one of the simplest form of reports and in future blogs we will look at more complex reports. I truly hope that these reports can give DBAs and developers a hint about what is the possible performance tuning area. As a closing point I must emphasize that all above reports pick up data from the plan cache. If a particular query has consumed a lot of resources earlier, but plan is not available in the cache, none of the above reports would show that bad query. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: SQL Reports

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• Big Data – Evolution of Big Data – Day 3 of 21

  - by Pinal Dave

  In yesterday’s blog post we answered what is the Big Data. Today we will understand why and how the evolution of Big Data has happened. Though the answer is very simple, I would like to tell it in the form of a history lesson. Data in Flat File In earlier days data was stored in the flat file and there was no structure in the flat file.  If any data has to be retrieved from the flat file it was a project by itself. There was no possibility of retrieving the data efficiently and data integrity has been just a term discussed without any modeling or structure around. Database residing in the flat file had more issues than we would like to discuss in today’s world. It was more like a nightmare when there was any data processing involved in the application. Though, applications developed at that time were also not that advanced the need of the data was always there and there was always need of proper data management. Edgar F Codd and 12 Rules Edgar Frank Codd was a British computer scientist who, while working for IBM, invented the relational model for database management, the theoretical basis for relational databases. He presented 12 rules for the Relational Database and suddenly the chaotic world of the database seems to see discipline in the rules. Relational Database was a promising land for all the unstructured database users. Relational Database brought into the relationship between data as well improved the performance of the data retrieval. Database world had immediately seen a major transformation and every single vendors and database users suddenly started to adopt the relational database models. Relational Database Management Systems Since Edgar F Codd proposed 12 rules for the RBDMS there were many different vendors who started them to build applications and tools to support the relationship between database. This was indeed a learning curve for many of the developer who had never worked before with the modeling of the database. However, as time passed by pretty much everybody accepted the relationship of the database and started to evolve product which performs its best with the boundaries of the RDBMS concepts. This was the best era for the databases and it gave the world extreme experts as well as some of the best products. The Entity Relationship model was also evolved at the same time. In software engineering, an Entity–relationship model (ER model) is a data model for describing a database in an abstract way. Enormous Data Growth Well, everything was going fine with the RDBMS in the database world. As there were no major challenges the adoption of the RDBMS applications and tools was pretty much universal. There was a race at times to make the developer’s life much easier with the RDBMS management tools. Due to the extreme popularity and easy to use system pretty much every data was stored in the RDBMS system. New age applications were built and social media took the world by the storm. Every organizations was feeling pressure to provide the best experience for their users based the data they had with them. While this was all going on at the same time data was growing pretty much every organization and application. Data Warehousing The enormous data growth now presented a big challenge for the organizations who wanted to build intelligent systems based on the data and provide near real time superior user experience to their customers. Various organizations immediately start building data warehousing solutions where the data was stored and processed. The trend of the business intelligence becomes the need of everyday. Data was received from the transaction system and overnight was processed to build intelligent reports from it. Though this is a great solution it has its own set of challenges. The relational database model and data warehousing concepts are all built with keeping traditional relational database modeling in the mind and it still has many challenges when unstructured data was present. Interesting Challenge Every organization had expertise to manage structured data but the world had already changed to unstructured data. There was intelligence in the videos, photos, SMS, text, social media messages and various other data sources. All of these needed to now bring to a single platform and build a uniform system which does what businesses need. The way we do business has also been changed. There was a time when user only got the features what technology supported, however, now users ask for the feature and technology is built to support the same. The need of the real time intelligence from the fast paced data flow is now becoming a necessity. Large amount (Volume) of difference (Variety) of high speed data (Velocity) is the properties of the data. The traditional database system has limits to resolve the challenges this new kind of the data presents. Hence the need of the Big Data Science. We need innovation in how we handle and manage data. We need creative ways to capture data and present to users. Big Data is Reality! Tomorrow In tomorrow’s blog post we will try to answer discuss Basics of Big Data Architecture. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• OpenWorld: Spotlight on Fusion CRM

  - by Tony Berk

  Oracle OpenWorld is less than 2 weeks away, so you need to start figuring out how you are going to maximize your week. I don't want to discourage you, but I'm pretty sure it is impossible to attend all 2000+ sessions. So you need to focus on what's important to you. Many of our CRM customers will be interested in Fusion CRM, since they have already started Fusion implementations or determining when to start. If that's you, or you are just looking for an overview of Fusion CRM, we've got you covered! Let's start at the top! For an overview of what is in Fusion CRM and where it is going, you should attend the general session and roadmap session: General Session: Oracle Fusion CRM—Improving Sales Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Ease of Use (Session ID: GEN9674) - Oct 2, 11:45 AM. Anthony Lye, Senior VP, Oracle leads this general session focused on Oracle Fusion CRM. Oracle Fusion CRM optimizes territories, combines quota management and incentive compensation, integrates sales and marketing, and cleanses and enriches data—all within a single application platform. Oracle Fusion can be configured, changed, and extended at runtime by end users, business managers, IT, and developers. Oracle Fusion CRM can be used from the Web, from a smartphone, from Microsoft Outlook, or from an iPad. Deloitte, sponsor of the CRM Track, will also present key concepts on CRM implementations. Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management: Overview/Strategy/Customer Experiences/Roadmap (CON9407) - Oct 1, 3:15PM. In this session, learn how Oracle Fusion CRM enables companies to create better sales plans, generate more quality leads, and achieve higher win rates and find out why customers are adopting Oracle Fusion CRM. Gain a deeper understanding of the unique capabilities only Oracle Fusion CRM provides, and learn how Oracle’s commitment to CRM innovation is driving a wide range of future enhancements. There is also a General Session for all Fusion Applications providing insight into the current strategy of the full product line and a high-level roadmap for each product area: Oracle Fusion Applications—Overview, Strategy, and Roadmap (GEN9433) - Oct 1, 10:45AM. This session will be repeated on Oct 3, 10:15AM. Now, if you want to drill down into some more detail, there are a lot more sessions with Oracle product management and customers. I'll highlight a few, but suggest you review the Fusion CRM Focus On document, or the search in the Content Catalog or Session Builder.  Driving Sales Performance with Oracle Fusion CRM (CON9744) - Oct 3, 10:15AM. Demonstrates how sales executives can gain instant visibility into their business, deliver pervasive coaching to their reps, maximize their sales pipeline, and drive team alignment. The result is increased sales performance that enables sales executives to deliver more revenue without increasing their resources or expenses. Maximize Your Revenue Potential with Oracle Fusion CRM Sales Planning (CON9751) - Oct 2, 1:15PM. Learn how Oracle Fusion CRM helps companies intelligently optimize sales planning and manage sales performance including the ability to predict their future sales opportunities and use those predictions in conjunction with past sales data to optimally define their sales territories, sales quotas, and incentive compensation plans. Boost Marketing’s Contribution to Revenue with Oracle Fusion CRM Marketing (CON9746) - Oct 3, 11:45AM. Learn how Oracle Fusion CRM can help your organization integrate sales and marketing, using one CRM platform. See how Oracle Fusion CRM can help your organization learn where to invest its precious marketing dollars; drive more revenue with cross-channel marketing and prospecting capabilities, including and not limited to e-mail, Web, and social media; improve lead conversion with integrated lead management functionality; and do more with less by automating many manual tasks. Oracle Fusion CRM: Social Marketing (CON11559) - Oct 1, 3:15PM. Learn how Oracle’s acquisition of Collective Intellect, Vitrue, and Involver extends Oracle Fusion Marketing as a world-class social marketing solution. Oracle Fusion Social CRM Strategy and Roadmap: Future of Collaboration and Social Engagement (CON9750) - Oct 4, 11:15AM. Hear how Oracle can help you know your customers better, encourage brand affinity, and improve collaboration within your ecosystem. This session reviews Oracle's social media solution and shows how you can discover hidden insights buried in your enterprise and social data. Also learn how Oracle Social Network revolutionizes how enterprise users work, collaborate, and share to achieve successful outcomes. Of course, we recommend you hear from the current Fusion CRM customers too. So, don't miss Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management: Customer Adoption and Experiences (CON9415) on Oct 3 at 10:15AM for panel of customers discussing implementation experiences, best practices and benefits.  After listening to all of this great information, you are probably going to have questions. Well, the experts will be on hand to help answer your questions and plan how your organization can get going with Fusion CRM. Be sure to head down to the DEMOgrounds and CRM Pavilion in the Moscone West Exhibit Hall. And finally, there is the always popular Meet the Experts session focused on Fusion CRM (MTE9658) on Oct 2 at 5PM (pre-registration via Schedule Builder is recommended.) In addition, there are more sessions on Mobility, Extensibility, Incentive Compensation, Fusion Customer Hub and other key components of the Fusion Applications infrastructure, Oracle Cloud and much, much more! For a full list, utilize the Fusion CRM Focus On document and Content Catalog. Enjoy!

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• Oracle SQL Developer v3.2.1 Now Available

  - by thatjeffsmith

  Oracle SQL Developer version 3.2.1 is now available. I recommend that everyone now upgrade to this release. It features more than 200 bug fixes, tweaks, and polish applied to the 3.2 edition. The high profile bug fixes submitted by customers and users on our forums are listed in all their glory for your review. I want to highlight a few of the changes though, as I recognize many of you lack the time and/or patience to ‘read the docs.’ That would include me, which is why I enjoy writing these kinds of blog posts. I’m lazy – just like you! No more artificial line breaks between CREATE OR REPLACE and your PL/SQL In versions 3.2 and older, when you pull up your stored procedural objects in our editor, you would see a line break inserted between the CREATE OR REPLACE and then the body of your code. In version 3.2.1, we have removed the line break. 3.1 3.2.1 Trivia Did You Know? The database doesn’t store the ‘CREATE’ or ‘CREATE OR REPLACE’ bit of your PL/SQL code in the database. If we look at the USER_SOURCE view, we can see that the code begins with the object name. So the CREATE OR REPLACE bit is ‘artificial’ The intent is to give you the code necessary to recreate your object – and have it ‘compile’ into the database. We pretty much HAVE to add the ‘CREATE OR REPLACE.’ From now on it will appear inline with the first line of your code. Exporting Tables & Views When exporting data from your tables or views, previous versions of SQL Developer presented a 3 step wizard. It allows you to choose your columns and apply data filters for what is exported. This was kind of redundant. The grids already allowed you to select your columns and apply filters. Wouldn’t it be more intuitive AND efficient to just make the grids behave in a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) fashion? In version 3.2.1, that is exactly what will happen. The wizard now only has two steps and the grid will export the data and columns as defined in the visible grid. Let the grid properties define what is actually exported! And here is what is pasted into my worksheet: "BREWERY"|"CITY" "3 Brewers Restaurant Micro-Brewery"|"Toronto" "Amsterdam Brewing Co."|"Toronto" "Ball Brewing Company Ltd."|"Toronto" "Big Ram Brewing Company"|"Toronto" "Black Creek Historic Brewery"|"Toronto" "Black Oak Brewing"|"Toronto" "C'est What?"|"Toronto" "Cool Beer Brewing Company"|"Toronto" "Denison's Brewing"|"Toronto" "Duggan's Brewery"|"Toronto" "Feathers"|"Toronto" "Fermentations! - Danforth"|"Toronto" "Fermentations! - Mount Pleasant"|"Toronto" "Granite Brewery & Restaurant"|"Toronto" "Labatt's Breweries of Canada"|"Toronto" "Mill Street Brew Pub"|"Toronto" "Mill Street Brewery"|"Toronto" "Molson Breweries of Canada"|"Toronto" "Molson Brewery at Air Canada Centre"|"Toronto" "Pioneer Brewery Ltd."|"Toronto" "Post-Production Bistro"|"Toronto" "Rotterdam Brewing"|"Toronto" "Steam Whistle Brewing"|"Toronto" "Strand Brasserie"|"Toronto" "Upper Canada Brewing"|"Toronto" JUST what I wanted And One Last Thing Speaking of export, sometimes I want to send data to Excel. And sometimes I want to send multiple objects to Excel – to a single Excel file that is. In version 3.2.1 you can now do that. Let’s export the bulk of the HR schema to Excel, with each table going to it’s own workbook in the same worksheet. Select many tables, put them in in a single Excel worksheet If you try this in previous versions of SQL Developer it will just write the first table to the Excel file. This is one of the bugs we addressed in v3.2.1. Here is what the output Excel file looks like now: Many tables - Many workbooks in an Excel Worksheet I have a sneaky suspicion that this will be a frequently used feature going forward. Excel seems to be the cornerstone of many of our popular features. Imagine that!

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• F# for the C# Programmer

  - by mbcrump

  Are you a C# Programmer and can’t make it past a day without seeing or hearing someone mention F#?  Today, I’m going to walk you through your first F# application and give you a brief introduction to the language. Sit back this will only take about 20 minutes. Introduction Microsoft's F# programming language is a functional language for the .NET framework that was originally developed at Microsoft Research Cambridge by Don Syme. In October 2007, the senior vice president of the developer division at Microsoft announced that F# was being officially productized to become a fully supported .NET language and professional developers were hired to create a team of around ten people to build the product version. In September 2008, Microsoft released the first Community Technology Preview (CTP), an official beta release, of the F# distribution . In December 2008, Microsoft announced that the success of this CTP had encouraged them to escalate F# and it is now will now be shipped as one of the core languages in Visual Studio 2010 , alongside C++, C# 4.0 and VB. The F# programming language incorporates many state-of-the-art features from programming language research and ossifies them in an industrial strength implementation that promises to revolutionize interactive, parallel and concurrent programming. Advantages of F# F# is the world's first language to combine all of the following features: Type inference: types are inferred by the compiler and generic definitions are created automatically. Algebraic data types: a succinct way to represent trees. Pattern matching: a comprehensible and efficient way to dissect data structures. Active patterns: pattern matching over foreign data structures. Interactive sessions: as easy to use as Python and Mathematica. High performance JIT compilation to native code: as fast as C#. Rich data structures: lists and arrays built into the language with syntactic support. Functional programming: first-class functions and tail calls. Expressive static type system: finds bugs during compilation and provides machine-verified documentation. Sequence expressions: interrogate huge data sets efficiently. Asynchronous workflows: syntactic support for monadic style concurrent programming with cancellations. Industrial-strength IDE support: multithreaded debugging, and graphical throwback of inferred types and documentation. Commerce friendly design and a viable commercial market. Lets try a short program in C# then F# to understand the differences. Using C#: Create a variable and output the value to the console window: Sample Program. using System;   namespace ConsoleApplication9 {     class Program     {         static void Main(string[] args)         {             var a = 2;             Console.WriteLine(a);             Console.ReadLine();         }     } } A breeze right? 14 Lines of code. We could have condensed it a bit by removing the “using” statment and tossing the namespace. But this is the typical C# program. Using F#: Create a variable and output the value to the console window: To start, open Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Studio 2008. Note: If using VS2008, then please download the SDK first before getting started. If you are using VS2010 then you are already setup and ready to go. So, click File-> New Project –> Other Languages –> Visual F# –> Windows –> F# Application. You will get the screen below. Go ahead and enter a name and click OK. Now, you will notice that the Solution Explorer contains the following: Double click the Program.fs and enter the following information. Hit F5 and it should run successfully. Sample Program. open System let a = 2        Console.WriteLine a As Shown below: Hmm, what? F# did the same thing in 3 lines of code. Show me the interactive evaluation that I keep hearing about. The F# development environment for Visual Studio 2010 provides two different modes of execution for F# code: Batch compilation to a .NET executable or DLL. (This was accomplished above). Interactive evaluation. (Demo is below) The interactive session provides a > prompt, requires a double semicolon ;; identifier at the end of a code snippet to force evaluation, and returns the names (if any) and types of resulting definitions and values. To access the F# prompt, in VS2010 Goto View –> Other Window then F# Interactive. Once you have the interactive window type in the following expression: 2+3;; as shown in the screenshot below: I hope this guide helps you get started with the language, please check out the following books for further information. F# Books for further reading   Foundations of F# Author: Robert Pickering An introduction to functional programming with F#. Including many samples, this book walks through the features of the F# language and libraries, and covers many of the .NET Framework features which can be leveraged with F#.       Functional Programming for the Real World: With Examples in F# and C# Authors: Tomas Petricek and Jon Skeet An introduction to functional programming for existing C# developers written by Tomas Petricek and Jon Skeet. This book explains the core principles using both C# and F#, shows how to use functional ideas when designing .NET applications and presents practical examples such as design of domain specific language, development of multi-core applications and programming of reactive applications.

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• AS11 Oracle B2B Sync Support - Series 2

  - by sinkarbabu.kirubanithi

  In the earlier series, we discussed about how to model "Sync Support" in Oracle B2B. And, we haven't discussed how the response can be consumed synchronously by the back-end application or initiator of sync request. In this sequel, we will see how we can extend it to the SOA composite applications to model the end-to-end usecase, this would help the initiator of sync request to receive the response synchronously. Series 2 - is little lengthier for blog standards so be prepared before you continue further :). Let's start our discussion with a high-level scenario where one need to initiate a synchronous request and get response synchronously. There are various approaches available, we will see one simplest approach here. Components Involved: 1. Oracle B2B 2. Oracle JCA JMS Adapter 3. Oracle BPEL 4. All of the above are wrapped up in a single SOA composite application. Oracle B2B: Skipping the "Sync Support" setup part in B2B, as we have already discussed that in the earlier series 1. Here we have provided "Sync Support" samples that can be imported to B2B directly and users can start testing the same in few minutes. Initiator Sample: This requires two JMS queues to be created, one for B2B to receive initial outbound sync request and the other is for B2B to deliver the incoming sync response to the back-end. Please enable "Use JMS Id" option in both internal listening and delivery channels. This would enable JCA JMS Adapter to correlate the initial B2B request and response and in turn it would be returned as synchronous response of BPEL. Internal Listening Channel Image: Internal Delivery Channel Image: To get going without much challenges, just create queues in Weblogic with the JNDI mentioned in the above two screenshots. If you want to use different names, then you may have to change the queue jndi names in sample after importing it into B2B. Here are the Queue related JNDI names used in the sample, 1. Internal Listening Channel Queue details, Name: JNDI Name: jms/b2b/syncreplyqueue 2. Internal Delivery Channel Queue details, Name: JNDI Name: jms/b2b/syncrequestqueue Here is the Initiator Sample Acme.zip Note: You may have to adjust the ip address of GlobalChips endpoint in the Delivery Channel. Responder Sample: Contains B2B meta-data and the Callout. Just import the sample and place the callout binary under "/tmp/callout" directory. If you choose to use a different location for callout, then you may have to change the same in B2B Configuration after importing the sample. Here are the artifacts, 1. Callout Source SampleCallout.java 2. Callout Binary sample-callout.jar 3. Responder Sample GlobalChips.zip Callout Details: Just gives the static response XML that needs to be sent back as response for the inbound sync request. For a sample purpose, we have given static response but in production you may have to invoke a web service or something similar to get the response. IMPORTANT NOTE: For Sync Support use case, responder is not expected to deliver the inbound sync request to backend as the process of delivering and getting the response from backend are expected from the Callout. This default behavior can be overridden by enabling the config property "b2b.SyncAppDelivery=true" in B2B config mbean (b2b-config.xml). This makes B2B to deliver the inbound sync request to be delivered to backend queue but the response to be sent to remote caller still has to come from Callout. 2. Oracle JCA JMS Adapter: On the initiator side, we have used JCA JMS Request/Reply pattern to send/receive the synchronous message from B2B. 3. Oracle BPEL: Exposes WS-SOAP Endpoint that takes payload as input and passes the same to B2B and returns the synchronous response of B2B as SOAP response. For outside world, it looks as if it is the synchronous web service endpoint but under the cover it uses JMS to trigger/initiate B2B to send and receive the synchronous response. 4. Composite application: All the components discussed above are wired in SOA composite application that helps to model a end-to-end synchronous use case. Here's the composite application sca_B2BSyncSample_rev1.0.jar, you may just deploy this to your AS11 SOA to make use of it. For any editing, you can just import the project in your JDEV under any SOA Application. Here are the composite application screenshots, Composite Application: BPEL With JCA JMS Adapter (Request/Reply):

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• Selling Visual Studio ALM

  - by Tarun Arora

  Introduction As a consultant I have been selling Application Lifecycle Management services using Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server. I’ve been contacted various times by friends working in organization telling me that ALM processes in their company were benchmarked when dinosaurs walked the earth. Most of these individuals already know the great features Microsoft ALM tools offer and are keen to start a conversation with the CIO but don’t exactly know where to start. It is very important how you engage in your first conversation, if you start the conversation with ‘There is this great tooling from Microsoft which offers amazing features to boost developer productivity, … ‘ from experience I can tell you the reply from your CIO would be ‘I already know! Our existing landscape has a combination of bleeding edge open source and cutting edge licensed tools which already cover these features quite well, more over Microsoft products have a high licensing cost associated to them.’ You will always find it harder to sell by feature, the trick is to highlight the gap in the existing processes & tools and then highlight the impact of these gaps to the overall development processes, by now you would have captured enough attention to show off how the ALM tooling offered by Microsoft not only fills those gaps but offers great value adds to take their development practices to the next level. Rangers ALM Assessment Guide Image 1 – Welcome! First look at the Rangers ALM assessment guide Most organization already have some processes in place to cover aspects of ALM. How do you go about proving that there isn’t enough cover in place? This is where Visual Studio ALM Rangers ALM Assessment guide can help. The ALM assessment guide is really a tool that helps you gather information about Development practices and processes within a customer's environment. Several questionnaires are used to identify the current state of individual development lifecycle areas and decide on a desired state for those processes. It also presents guidance and roll-up summaries to help with recommendations moving forward. The ALM Rangers assessment guide can be downloaded from here. Image 2 – ALM Assessment guide divided into different functions of SDLC The assessment guide is divided into different functions of Software Development Lifecycle (listed below), this gives you the ability to access how mature the company is in different areas of SDLC. Architecture & Design Requirement Engineering & UX Development Software Configuration Management Governance Deployment & Operations Testing & Quality Assurance Project Planning & Management Each section has a set of questions, fill in the assessment by selecting “Never/Sometimes/Always” from the Answer column in the question sheets.  Each answer has weightage to the overall score. Each question has a link next to it, clicking the link takes you to the Reference sheet which gives you more details about the question along with a reason for “why you need to ask this question?”, “other ways to phrase the question” and “what to expect as an answer from the customer”. The trick is to engage the customer in a discussion. You need to probe a lot, listen to the customer and have a discussion with several team members, preferably without management to ensure that you receive candid feedback. This reminds me of a funny incident when during an ALM review a customer told me that they have a sophisticated semi-automated application deployment process, further discussions revealed that deployment actually involved 72 manual configuration steps per production node. Such observations can be recorded in the Issue Brainstorming worksheet for further consideration later. It is also worth mentioning the different levels of ALM maturity to the customer. By default the desired state of ALM maturity is set to Standard, it is possible to set a desired state by area, you should strive for Advanced or Dynamic, it always helps by explaining the classification and advantages. Image 3 – ALM levels by description The ALM assessment guide helps you arrive at a quantitative measure of the company’s ALM maturity. The resultant graph plotted on a spider’s web shows you the company’s current state of ALM maturity and the desired state of ALM maturity. Further since the results are classified by area you can immediately spot the areas where the customer needs immediate help. Image 4 – The spiders web! The red cross icons are areas shouting out for immediate attention, the yellow exclamation icons are areas that need improvement. These icons are calculated on the difference between the Current State of ALM maturity VS the Desired state of ALM maturity. Image 5 – Results by area Conclusion To conclude the Rangers ALM assessment guide gives you the ability to, Measure the customer’s current ALM maturity level Understand the ALM maturity level the customer desires to achieve Capture a healthy list of issues the customer wants to brainstorm further Now What’s next…? Download and get started with the Rangers ALM Assessment Guide. If you have successfully captured the above listed three pieces of information you are in a great state to make recommendations on the identified areas highlighting the benefits that Visual Studio ALM tools would offer. In the next post I will be covering how to take the ALM assessment results as the base to actually convert your recommendation into a sell.  Remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. I would love to hear your feedback! If you have any recommendations on things that I should consider or any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment. *** A special thanks goes out to fellow ranges Willy, Ethem and Philip for reviewing the blog post and providing valuable feedback. ***

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• What's going on with INETA and the Regional Speakers Bureau?

  - by Chris Williams

  For those of you that have been waiting patiently (and not so patiently) I'm happy to say that we're very near completion on some changes/enhancements/improvements that will allow us to finally go live with the INETA Regional Speakers Bureau. I know quite a few of you have already registered, which is great (though some of you may need to come back and update your info) and we've had a few folks submit requests, mostly in a test capacity, but soon we'll be up and live. Here's how it breaks down. Be sure to read this, because things have changed a bit from when we initially announced it. 1. The majority of our speaker/event funding is going into the Regional Speakers Bureau.  The National Bureau still exists, but it's a good bit smaller than it was before, and it's not an "every group" benefit anymore. We'll be using the National Bureau as more of a strategic task force, targeting high impact events and areas that need some community building love from INETA. These will be identified and handled on a case by case basis, and may include more than just user group events. 2. You're going to get more events per group, per year than you did before. Not only are we focusing more resources on this program, but we're also making a lot of efforts to use it more effectively. With the INETA Regional Speakers Bureau, you should be able to get 2-3 INETA speakers per year, on average. Not every geographical area will have exactly the same experience, but we're doing the best we can. 3. It's not a farm team program for the National Bureau. Unsurprisingly, I managed to offend a number of people when I previously made the comment that the Regional Speakers Bureau program was a farm team or stepping stone to the National Bureau. It was a poor choice of words.  Anyone can participate in the Regional Speakers Bureau, and I look forward to working with all of you. 4. There is assistance for your efforts. The exact final details are still being hammered out, but expect it to look something like this: (all distances listed are based on a round trip) Distances < 120 miles = $0 121 miles - 240 miles = $50 (effectively 1 to 2 hours, each way) 241 miles - 360 miles = $100 (effectively 2 to 3 hours, each way) 361 miles - 480 miles = $200 (effectively 3 to 4 hours, each way) For those of you who travel a lot, we're working on a solution to handle group visits when you're away from home. These will (for now) be handled on a case by case basis. 5. We're going to make it as easy as possible to work with the program. In order to do this, we need a few things from you. For speakers, that means your home address. It also means (maybe) filling out a simple 1 line expense report via the INETA website. For user groups, it means making sure your meeting address is up to date as well. 6. Distances will be automatically calculated from your home of record to the user group event and back. We realize that this is not a perfect solution to every instance, but we're not paying you to speak at an event, and you won't be taxed on this money. It's simply some assistance to make your community efforts easier. Our way of saying thanks for everything you do. 7. Sounds good so far, what's the catch? There's always a catch, right? In this case there are two of them: 1) At this time, Microsoft employees are welcome to use the website to line up speaking engagements with user groups, but are not eligible for financial assistance. 2) Anyone can register and use the website to line up speaking engagements with user groups, however you must receive and maintain a net score of 3+ positive ratings (we're implementing a thumbs up / thumbs down system) in order to receive financial assistance. These ratings are provided by the User Group leaders after the meeting has taken place. 8. Involvement by the User Group leaders is a key factor in the success of this program. Your job isn't done once you request a speaker. After you've had your meeting, it's critical that you go back to the website and take a very small survey. Doing this ensures that the speaker gets rated (and compensated if eligible) and also ensures that you can make another request, since you won't be able to make a new request if you have an old one outstanding. 9. What about Canada? We're definitely working on that. Unfortunately nothing new to report on that front, other than to say that we're trying. So... this is where things stand currently. We're working very quickly to get this in place and get speakers and groups together. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below and I'll answer them as quickly as possible. If I've forgotten anything, or if things change, I'll update it here. Thanks, Chris G. Williams INETA Board of Directors

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• Happy 3rd Birthday SilverlightCream!

  - by Dave Campbell

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

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• Advice on learning programming languages and math.

  - by Joris Ooms

  I feel like I'm getting stuck lately when it comes to learning about programming-related things; I thought I'd ask a question here and write it all down in the hope to get some pointers/advice from people. Perhaps writing it down helps me put things in perspective for myself aswell. I study Interactive Multimedia Design. This course is based on two things: graphic design on one hand, and web development on the other hand. I have quite a decent knowledge of web-related languages (the usual HTML/JS/PHP) and I'll be getting a course on ASP.NET next year. In my free time, I have learnt how to work with CodeIgniter, aswell as some diving into Ruby (and Rails) and basic iOS programming. In my first year of college I also did a class on Java (19/20 on the end result). This grade doesn't really mean anything though; I have the basics of OOP down but Java-wise, we learnt next to nothing. Considering the time I have been programming in, for example, PHP.. I can't say I'm bad at it. I'm definitely not good or great at it, but I'm decent. My teachers tell me I have the programming thing down. They just tell me I should keep on learning. So that's what I do, and I try to take in as much as possible; however, sometimes I'm unsure where to start and I have this tendency to always doubt myself. Now, for the 'question'. I want to get into iOS programming. I know iOS programming boils down to programming in Cocoa Touch and Objective-C. I also know Obj-C is a superset of C. I have done a class on C a couple of years ago, but I failed miserably. I got stuck at pointers and never really understood them.. Until like a month ago. I suddenly 'got' it. I have been working through a book on Objective-C for a week or so now, and I understand the basics (I'm at like.. chapter 6 or so). However, I keep running into similar problems as the ones I had when I did the C class: I suck at math. No, really. I come from a Latin-Modern Languages background in high school and I had nearly no math classes back then. I wanted to study Computer Science, but I failed there because of the miserable state of my mathematics knowledge. I can't explain why I'm suddenly talking about math here though, because it isn't directly related to programming.. yet it is. For example, the examples in the book I'm reading now are about programming a fraction-calculator. All good, I can do the programming when I get the formulas down.. but it takes me a full day or more to actually get to that point. I also find it hard to come up with ideas for myself. I made one small iOS app the other day and it's just a button / label kind of thing. When I press the button, it generates a random number. That's really all I could come up with. Can you 'learn' that? It probably comes down to creativity, but evidently, I'm not too great at being creative. Are there any sites or resources out there that provide something like a basic list of things you can program when you're just starting out? Maybe I'm focusing on too many things at once. I want to keep my HTML/CSS at a decent level, while learning PHP and CodeIgniter, while diving into Ruby on Rails and learning Objective-C and the iOS SDK at the same time. I just want to be good at something, I guess. The problem is that I can't seem to be happy with my PHP stuff. I want more, something 'harder'; that's why I decided to pick up the iOS thing. Like I said, I have the basics down of a lot of different languages. I can program something simple in Java, in C, in Objective-C as of this week.. but it ends there. Mostly because I can't come up with ideas for more complex applications, and also because I just doubt myself: 'Oh, that's too complex, I can never do that'. And then it ends there. To conclude my rant, let me basically rephrase my questions into a 'tl;dr' part. A. I want to get into iOS programming and I have basic knowledge of C/Objective-C. However, I struggle to come up with ideas of my own and implement them and I also suck at math which is something that isn't directly related to, yet often needed while programming. What can I do? B. I have an interest in a lot of different programming languages and I can't stop reading/learning. However, I don't feel like I'm good in anything. Should I perhaps focus on just one language for a year or longer, or keep taking it all in at the same time and hope I'll finally get them all down? C. Are there any resources out there that provide basic ideas of things I can program? I'm thinking about 'simple' command-line applications here to help me while studying C/Obj-C away from the whole iPhone SDK. Like I said, the examples in my book are mainly math-based (fraction calculator) and it's kinda hard. :( Thanks a lot for reading my post. I didn't plan it to be this long but oh well. Thanks in advance for any answers.

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• Do Not Optimize Without Measuring

  - by Alois Kraus

  Recently I had to do some performance work which included reading a lot of code. It is fascinating with what ideas people come up to solve a problem. Especially when there is no problem. When you look at other peoples code you will not be able to tell if it is well performing or not by reading it. You need to execute it with some sort of tracing or even better under a profiler. The first rule of the performance club is not to think and then to optimize but to measure, think and then optimize. The second rule is to do this do this in a loop to prevent slipping in bad things for too long into your code base. If you skip for some reason the measure step and optimize directly it is like changing the wave function in quantum mechanics. This has no observable effect in our world since it does represent only a probability distribution of all possible values. In quantum mechanics you need to let the wave function collapse to a single value. A collapsed wave function has therefore not many but one distinct value. This is what we physicists call a measurement. If you optimize your application without measuring it you are just changing the probability distribution of your potential performance values. Which performance your application actually has is still unknown. You only know that it will be within a specific range with a certain probability. As usual there are unlikely values within your distribution like a startup time of 20 minutes which should only happen once in 100 000 years. 100 000 years are a very short time when the first customer tries your heavily distributed networking application to run over a slow WIFI network… What is the point of this? Every programmer/architect has a mental performance model in his head. A model has always a set of explicit preconditions and a lot more implicit assumptions baked into it. When the model is good it will help you to think of good designs but it can also be the source of problems. In real world systems not all assumptions of your performance model (implicit or explicit) hold true any longer. The only way to connect your performance model and the real world is to measure it. In the WIFI example the model did assume a low latency high bandwidth LAN connection. If this assumption becomes wrong the system did have a drastic change in startup time. Lets look at a example. Lets assume we want to cache some expensive UI resource like fonts objects. For this undertaking we do create a Cache class with the UI themes we want to support. Since Fonts are expensive objects we do create it on demand the first time the theme is requested. A simple example of a Theme cache might look like this: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Drawing; struct Theme { public Color Color; public Font Font; } static class ThemeCache { static Dictionary<string, Theme> _Cache = new Dictionary<string, Theme> { {"Default", new Theme { Color = Color.AliceBlue }}, {"Theme12", new Theme { Color = Color.Aqua }}, }; public static Theme Get(string theme) { Theme cached = _Cache[theme]; if (cached.Font == null) { Console.WriteLine("Creating new font"); cached.Font = new Font("Arial", 8); } return cached; } } class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { Theme item = ThemeCache.Get("Theme12"); item = ThemeCache.Get("Theme12"); } } This cache does create font objects only once since on first retrieve of the Theme object the font is added to the Theme object. When we let the application run it should print “Creating new font” only once. Right? Wrong! The vigilant readers have spotted the issue already. The creator of this cache class wanted to get maximum performance. So he decided that the Theme object should be a value type (struct) to not put too much pressure on the garbage collector. The code Theme cached = _Cache[theme]; if (cached.Font == null) { Console.WriteLine("Creating new font"); cached.Font = new Font("Arial", 8); } does work with a copy of the value stored in the dictionary. This means we do mutate a copy of the Theme object and return it to our caller. But the original Theme object in the dictionary will have always null for the Font field! The solution is to change the declaration of struct Theme to class Theme or to update the theme object in the dictionary. Our cache as it is currently is actually a non caching cache. The funny thing was that I found out with a profiler by looking at which objects where finalized. I found way too many font objects to be finalized. After a bit debugging I found the allocation source for Font objects was this cache. Since this cache was there for years it means that the cache was never needed since I found no perf issue due to the creation of font objects. the cache was never profiled if it did bring any performance gain. to make the cache beneficial it needs to be accessed much more often. That was the story of the non caching cache. Next time I will write something something about measuring.

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• Five Reasons to Attend PLM Summit 2013: The Conference Formerly Known as AGILITY

  - by Terri Hiskey

  As we approach the end of 2012, we are also closing in on the last couple of weeks that Agile customers and prospects can register for the upcoming PLM Summit 2013 for the bargain early bird rate of $195. Register now to secure your spot! The Conference Formerly Known as AGILITY... Long-time Agile customers may remember AGILITY, which was Agile's PLM customer conference that was held on an annual basis prior to Oracle's acquisiton of Agile in 2007. In February 2012, due to feedback we received from our Agile PLM community, we successfully resurrected the AGILITY conference and renamed it the PLM Summit. The PLM Summit was so well received and well-attended, that we are doing it again in 2013. This upcoming PLM Summit is being co-located in San Francisco under the overarching banner of the Oracle Value Chain Summit, and will be held alongside several other Oracle customer conferences that cover a range of value chain solutions, including Value Chain Planning, Value Chain Execution, Procurement, Maintenance and Manufacturing. This setup offers PLM attendees the best of all worlds--the opportunity to participate and learn about PLM in smaller, focused sessions by product and by industry, while also giving attendees the chance to see how PLM works together with other critical enterprise applications that address other important aspects of the value chain. Top Five Reasons to Attend the PLM Summit 2013 In the spirit of all of the end-of-the-year lists that are currently popping up, here is a list of the top five reasons to attend the PLM Summit for anyone out there needs a little extra encouragement to register: 1. The Best Opportunities for Customer Networking   The PLM Summit offers attendees numerous opportunities to learn and network with fellow Agile users. Customer stories are featured in keynote and breakout presentations and the schedule allows for plenty of networking time during breakfasts, lunches, breaks and dinners. Customer networking is the number one reason that Agile users attend the PLM Summit. Read what attendees thought of the most recent PLM Summit: "Hearing about the implementation of Agile products from a customers’ perspective is invaluable." - Director of Quality Assurance & Regulatory Affairs, leading medical device manufacturer "Understanding the scope of other companies’ projects and the lessons learned made attending this event well worth my time." - Director of Test Engineering, global industrial manufacturer "The most beneficial thing about attending this event is the opportunity to network with other customers with similar experiences." - Director of Business Process Improvement, leading high technology company Come to the PLM Summit and play an active role within the PLM community: swap war stories and business cards, connect on LinkedIn and Facebook, share your stories and discuss the sessions from each day. Register now! 2. It's Educational! The PLM Summit is the premier educational event for anyone in the Agile PLM community. There are nearly 40 PLM-focused in-depth educational sessions led by Agile PLM experts, customers and partners that will cover a range of specific product and industry-focused topics. Keynotes will give attendees a broad overview of the entire Agile PLM footprint, while sessions will delve deeply into specific product functionality and customer case studies. There is truly something for everyone. Check out the latest agenda for view of all the sessions. 3. Visit with the PLM Partner Community Our partners play a significant and important role within the Agile PLM community. At the PLM Summit, attendees will be able to meet and mingle with several of the top Oracle Agile PLM partners including: Deloitte, Domain, GoEngineer, Hitachi Consulting, IBM, Kalypso, KPIT Cummins (CPG Solutions), Perception Software, Verdant, Xavor and ZeroWaitState. Go here for a complete list of all the Value Chain Summit sponsors. 4. See Agile PLM in Action at our Dedicated PLM Demo Pods At the PLM Summit, attendees will have the chance to see Agile PLM in action at dedicated PLM demo pods, manned by expert members of our Agile PLM team. If you would like to see up close specific Agile PLM functionality, or if you have a question on how to extend the scope of your current implemention or if you want a better understanding of how to leverage Agile PLM to address specific use-cases, stop by one of the Agile PLM demo pods and engage the Agile PLM experts on hand at the PLM Summit. 5. Spend Some Time in Lovely San Francisco Still on the fence about the upcoming PLM Summit? Remember that it is being held in San Francisco, which is a fantastic city for a getaway. After spending time learning and networking about PLM, take an extra day or two to escape the dreary winter and enjoy the beautiful scenery and the unique actitivies offered only by the City by the Bay. You will walk away from the conference not only with renewed excitement about Agile PLM, but feeling rejuvenated in general.

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