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• How to install SharePoint Server 2013 Preview

  - by ybbest

  The Office 2013 and SharePoint Server 2013 Preview is announced yesterday and as a SharePoint Developer, I am really excited to learn all the new features and capabilities. Today I will show you how to install the preview. 1. Create a service account called SP2013Install and give this account Dbcreator and SecurityAdmin in SQL Server 2012 2. You need to run the following script to set the ‘maxdegree of parellism’ setting to the required value of 1 in SQL Server 2012(using sysadmin privilege) before configure the SharePoint Farm. Otherwise , you might get the error ‘This SQL Server Instance does not have the required maxdegree of parellism setting of 1’ sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1; GO RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE; GO sp_configure 'max degree of parallelism', 1; GO RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE; GO 3. Download the SharePoint preview from here and I am going to install it on Windows Server 2008R2 with SQL2012. 4. Click the Install software prerequisites, this works fine with the internet connection. (However, if you do not have internet connection, it is a bit tricky to install window azure AppFabric as it has to be installed using the prerequisite installer. Your computer might reboot a few times in the process.) 5.After the prerequisites are installed `completely, you can then install the Preview. Click the Install SharePoint Server and Enter the Product key you get from the Preview download page. 6. Accept the License terms and Click Next. 7. Leave the default path for the file location. 8. You can now start the installation process 9. After binary files are installed, you then can configure your farm using the farm configuration wizard. 10.Specify the Database server and the install account 11. Specify SharePoint farm passphrase. 12 Specify the port number , you should choose your own favorite port number. 13. Choose Create a New Server Farm and click next. 14. Double-check with the settings and click Next to Configure the farm install. 15. Finally, your farm is configured successfully and you now are able to go to your Central Admin site http://sp2010:6666/ 16. You should configure the services manually or automate using PowerShell (If you like to understand why,you can read the blog post here) ,however I will use the wizard to configure automatically here  as  this is a test machine. After the configuration is complete, you now be able to see your SharePoint Site. 17.To start the evaluate the Preview , you need to install Visual Studio 2012 RC , Microsoft Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012,SharePoint 2013 Designer Preview , Office 2013 Preview. References: Download SharePoint2013 Server 2013 Download Microsoft Visio Professional 2013 Preview Install SharePoint 2013 Preview Hardware and software requirements for SharePoint 2013 Preview SharePoint 2013 IT Pro and Developer training materials released Plan for SharePoint 2013 Preview Microsoft Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012 SharePoint 2013 Preview Office365 for the SharePoint 2013 preview SharePoint Designer 2013 Download: Microsoft Office 2013 Preview Language Pack Try Office

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• BI and EPM Landscape

  - by frank.buytendijk

  Most of my blog entries are not about Oracle products, and most of the latest entries are about topics such as IT strategy and enterprise architecture. However, given my background at Gartner, and at Hyperion, I still keep a close eye on what's happening in BI and EPM. One important reason is that I believe there is significant competitive value for organizations getting BI and EPM right. Davenport and Harris wrote a great book called "Competing on Analytics", in which they explain this in a very engaging and convincing way. At Oracle we have defined the concept of "management excellence" that outlines what organizations have to do to keep or create a competitive edge. It's not only in the business processes, but also in the management processes. Recently, Gartner published its 2009 market shares report for BI, Analytics, and Performance Management. Gartner identifies the same three segments that Oracle does: (1) CPM Suites (Oracle refers not to Corporate Performance Management, but Enterprise Performance Management), (2) BI Platform, and (3) Analytic Applications & Performance Management. According to Gartner, Oracle's share is increasing with revenue growing by more than 5%. Oracle currently holds the #2 market share position in the overall BI Software space based on total BI software revenue. Source: Gartner Dataquest Market Share: Business Intelligence, Analytics and Performance Management Software, Worldwide, 2009; Dan Sommer and Bhavish Sood; Apr 2010 Gartner has ranked Oracle as #1 in the CPM Suites worldwide sub-segment based on total BI software revenue, and Oracle is gaining share with revenue growing by more than 6% in 2009. Source: Gartner Dataquest Market Share: Business Intelligence, Analytics and Performance Management Software, Worldwide, 2009; Dan Sommer and Bhavish Sood; Apr 2010 The Analytic Applications & Performance Management subsegment is more fragmented. It has for instance a very large "Other Vendors" category. The largest player traditionally is SAS. Analytic Applications are often meant for very specific analytic needs in very specific industry sectors. According to Gartner, from the large vendors, again Oracle is the one who is gaining the most share - with total BI software revenue growth close to 15% in 2009. Source: Gartner Dataquest Market Share: Business Intelligence, Analytics and Performance Management Software, Worldwide, 2009; Dan Sommer and Bhavish Sood; Apr 2010 I believe this shows Oracle's integration strategy is working. In fact, integration actually is the innovation. BI and EPM have been silo technology platforms and application suites way too long. Management and measuring performance should be very closely linked to strategy execution, which is the domain of other business application areas such as CRM, ERP, and Supply Chain. BI and EPM are not about "making better decisions" anymore, but are part of a tangible action framework. Furthermore, organizations are getting more serious about ecosystem thinking. They do not evaluate single tools anymore for different application areas, but buy into a complete ecosystem of hardware, software and services. The best ecosystem is the one that offers the most options, in environments where the uncertainty is high and investments are hard to reverse. The key to successfully managing such an environment is middleware, and BI and EPM become increasingly middleware intensive. In fact, given the horizontal nature of BI and EPM, sitting on top of all business functions and applications, you could call them "upperware". Many are active in the BI and EPM space. Big players can offer a lot, but there are always many areas that are covered by specialty vendors. Oracle openly embraces those technologies within the ecosystem as well. Complete, open and integrated still accurately describes the Oracle product strategy. frank

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• More SQL Smells

  - by Nick Harrison

  Let's continue exploring some of the SQL Smells from Phil's list. He has been putting together. Datatype mis-matches in predicates that rely on implicit conversion.(Plamen Ratchev) This is a great example poking holes in the whole theory of "If it works it's not broken" Queries will this probably will generally work and give the correct response. In fact, without careful analysis, you probably may be completely oblivious that there is even a problem. This subtle little problem will needlessly complicate queries and slow them down regardless of the indexes applied. Consider this example: CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Page](     [PageId] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,     [Title] [varchar](75) NOT NULL,     [Sequence] [int] NOT NULL,     [ThemeId] [int] NOT NULL,     [CustomCss] [text] NOT NULL,     [CustomScript] [text] NOT NULL,     [PageGroupId] [int] NOT NULL;  CREATE PROCEDURE PageSelectBySequence ( @sequenceMin smallint , @sequenceMax smallint ) AS BEGIN SELECT [PageId] , [Title] , [Sequence] , [ThemeId] , [CustomCss] , [CustomScript] , [PageGroupId] FROM [CMS].[dbo].[Page] WHERE Sequence BETWEEN @sequenceMin AND @SequenceMax END  Note that the Sequence column is defined as int while the sequence parameter is defined as a small int. The problem is that the database may have to do a lot of type conversions to evaluate the query. In some cases, this may even negate the indexes that you have in place. Using Correlated subqueries instead of a join   (Dave_Levy/ Plamen Ratchev) There are two main problems here. The first is a little subjective, since this is a non-standard way of expressing the query, it is harder to understand. The other problem is much more objective and potentially problematic. You are taking much of the control away from the optimizer. Written properly, such a query may well out perform a corresponding query written with traditional joins. More likely than not, performance will degrade. Whenever you assume that you know better than the optimizer, you will most likely be wrong. This is the fundmental problem with any hint. Consider a query like this:  SELECT Page.Title , Page.Sequence , Page.ThemeId , Page.CustomCss , Page.CustomScript , PageEffectParams.Name , PageEffectParams.Value , ( SELECT EffectName FROM dbo.Effect WHERE EffectId = dbo.PageEffects.EffectId ) AS EffectName FROM Page INNER JOIN PageEffect ON Page.PageId = PageEffects.PageId INNER JOIN PageEffectParam ON PageEffects.PageEffectId = PageEffectParams.PageEffectId  This can and should be written as:  SELECT Page.Title , Page.Sequence , Page.ThemeId , Page.CustomCss , Page.CustomScript , PageEffectParams.Name , PageEffectParams.Value , EffectName FROM Page INNER JOIN PageEffect ON Page.PageId = PageEffects.PageId INNER JOIN PageEffectParam ON PageEffects.PageEffectId = PageEffectParams.PageEffectId INNER JOIN dbo.Effect ON dbo.Effects.EffectId = dbo.PageEffects.EffectId  The correlated query may just as easily show up in the where clause. It's not a good idea in the select clause or the where clause. Few or No comments. This one is a bit more complicated and controversial. All comments are not created equal. Some comments are helpful and need to be included. Other comments are not necessary and may indicate a problem. I tend to follow the rule of thumb that comments that explain why are good. Comments that explain how are bad. Many people may be shocked to hear the idea of a bad comment, but hear me out. If a comment is needed to explain what is going on or how it works, the logic is too complex and needs to be simplified. Comments that explain why are good. Comments may explain why the sql is needed are good. Comments that explain where the sql is used are good. Comments that explain how tables are related should not be needed if the sql is well written. If they are needed, you need to consider reworking the sql or simplify your data model. Use of functions in a WHERE clause. (Anil Das) Calling a function in the where clause will often negate the indexing strategy. The function will be called for every record considered. This will often a force a full table scan on the tables affected. Calling a function will not guarantee that there is a full table scan, but there is a good chance that it will. If you find that you often need to write queries using a particular function, you may need to add a column to the table that has the function already applied.

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• Your Job Search Should be More Than Just a New Year's Resolution

  - by david.talamelli

  I love the beginning of a new year, it is a great chance to refocus and either re-evaluate goals you are working to or even set new ones. I don't have any statistics to measure this but I am sure that one of the more popular new year's resolutions in the general workforce is to either get a new job or work to further develop one's career. I think this is a good idea, in today's competitive work force people should have a plan of what they want to do, what role they are after and how to get there. One common mistake I think many people make though is that a career plan shouldn't be a once a year thought. When people finish with the holiday season with their new year's resolution to find a new job fresh in their mind, you can see the enthusiasm and motivation a person has to make something happen. Emails are sent, calls are made, applications are made, networking is happening, etc..... Finding the right role that you are after however can be difficult, while it would be great if that dream role was available just at the time you happened to be looking for it - in reality this is not always the case. Job Seekers need to keep reminding themselves that while sometimes that dream job they are after is available at the same time they are looking, that also a Job search can be a difficult and long process. Many people who set out with the best of intentions in January to find a new job can soon lose interest in a job search if they do not immediately find a role. Just like the Christmas decorations are put away and the photos from New Year's are stored away - a Job Seeker's motivation may slowly decrease until that person finds themselves 12 months later in the same situation in same role and looking for that new opportunity again. Rather than just "going for it" and looking for a role in the month of January, a person's job search or career plan should be an ongoing activity and thought process that is constantly updated and evaluated over the course of the year. It can be hard to stay motivated over an extended period of time, especially when you are newly motivated and ready for that new role and the results are not immediate. Rather than letting your job search fall down the priority list and into the "too hard basket" a few ideas that may keep your enthusiasm fresh Update your resume every 6 months, even if you are not looking for a job - it is easy to forget what you have accomplished if you don't keep your details updated. Also it is good to be prepared and have a resume ready to go in case you do get an unexpected phone call for that 'dream job' you have been hoping for. Work out what you want out of your next role before you begin your job search - rather than aimlessly searching job ads or talking to people - think of the organisations or type of role you would like before you search. If you know what you are looking for it will be much easier to work out how to get there than if you do not know what you want. Don't expect immediate results once you decide to look for another job, things don't always fall into place. Timing and delivery can be important pieces of being selected for a role, companies don't hire every role in January. Have an open mind - people you meet or talk to may not result in immediate results for your job search but every connection may help you get a bit closer to what you are after . These actions will not guarantee a positive result, but in today's competitive work force every little of extra preparation and planning helps. All the best for 2011 and I hope your career plan whatever it may be is a success.

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• Launch Webcast Q&A: Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g - The Platform for the Modern User Experience

  - by howard.beader(at)oracle.com

  Did you have a chance to watch the Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g Launch Webcast yet? Andy MacMillan presented some great information on the webcast and answered quite a few of your questions in the Q&A session as well. For your reading pleasure we have captured a number of the questions and answers and they are summarized below: Question: Can you tell me what should our Portal strategy be for integrating and extending our Oracle enterprise applications? Answer: We recommend that you look at this in two steps, the first would be to ensure that you have a good understanding of our common user experience architecture. Internally our product teams at Oracle are already investing in this quite heavily today for Fusion Applications and this is driving natural convergence from a UX strategy standpoint. The second step would be to look at how best to componentize the back office applications so that the business users across your organization can take advantage of these -- don't make it just about putting a new skin on top of what you already have from an application standpoint, instead look at how best to embed the social computing capabilities as part of the solution for your business users. Question: We are currently using the BEA WebLogic Portal now, should we stay on WLP or should we be looking at moving to WebCenter or when should we move to WebCenter? Answer: Our strategy has been called "Continue & Converge", this theme means that you can continue to use WebLogic or Plumtree portals until your organization is ready to move to WebCenter and in the mean time you can continue to deploy what you need to in your organization of WLP or WCI Portals with the full support of Oracle. In addition WebCenter Services can be leveraged for social computing to complement what you are already doing today and enable your organization to take advantage of some of the latest and greatest social computing capabilities. We have migration scripts and conversion capabilities available as well as programs where Oracle can help you evaluate your options to decide how best to move forward. WebCenter provides the best of the best capabilities and will enable you to take advantage of new capabilities that may not exist in your current portal today. In the end though it's up to you as a customer as to when you want to make the transition to Oracle WebCenter Suite. Question: Can you tell me how is Oracle leveraging WebCenter internally and for its Application and Middleware product UX strategies? Answer: Internally, Oracle is leveraging WebCenter for our employees and thus far we are seeing significant updates with our users taking advantage of the business activity streams, team spaces and collaboration capabilities. From a product strategy standpoint, our product teams are taking advantage of the common user experience architecture and leveraging WebCenter to provide social and collaborative capabilities to the Oracle Applications and providing new types of composite applications with what is coming with Fusion Applications. WebCenter also provides a common user experience across all the products in the Oracle Fusion Middleware family as well. Question: Our organization is currently using SharePoint, but we are also an Oracle Applications customer, how should we be thinking about WebCenter as we move forward? Answer: Great question. Typically, we are seeing organizations using SharePoint for its core use cases of small team collaboration and file server replacement. WebCenter can connect to SharePoint as a content source to feed into WebCenter quite easily and it leverages the robust Oracle ECM product under WebCenter as well. In addition, SharePoint team sites can be connected to WebCenter utilizing our SharePoint connector. With Oracle WebCenter though, we are really targeting business users and enterprise applications, thus affecting positive change on the processes that drive the business to improve productivity across your organization. Question: Are organizations today using WebCenter as a Web platform for externally facing public websites? Answer: Yes, we are seeing a convergence around web content management and portal types of websites with customers converting them from just broadcasting content to making it a much richer personalized experience and also exposing back-office applications as well. Web Content Management capabilities are already embedded in WebCenter so that organizations can take advantage now of the benefits a personalized web experience provides for your customers. This is simply a short summary of a few of the questions addressed on the webcast, please tune in now to learn more about Oracle WebCenter, the user experience platform for the enterprise and the web! The Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g Launch Webcast can be found here

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• Oracle Fusion Procurement Designed for User Productivity

  - by Applications User Experience

  Sean Rice, Manager, Applications User Experience Oracle Fusion Procurement Design Goals In Oracle Fusion Procurement, we set out to create a streamlined user experience based on the way users do their jobs. Oracle has spent hundreds of hours with customers to get to the heart of what users need to do their jobs. By designing a procurement application around user needs, Oracle has crafted a user experience that puts the tools that people need at their fingertips. In Oracle Fusion Procurement, the user experience is designed to provide the user with information that will drive navigation rather than requiring the user to find information. One of our design goals for Oracle Fusion Procurement was to reduce the number of screens and clicks that a user must go through to complete frequently performed tasks. The requisition process in Oracle Fusion Procurement (Figure 1) illustrates how we have streamlined workflows. Oracle Fusion Self-Service Procurement brings together billing metrics, descriptions of the order, justification for the order, a breakdown of the components of the order, and the amount—all in one place. Previous generations of procurement software required the user to navigate to several different pages to gather all of this information. With Oracle Fusion, everything is presented on one page. The result is that users can complete their tasks in less time. The focus is on completing the work, not finding the work. Figure 1. Creating a requisition in Oracle Fusion Self-Service Procurement is a consumer-like shopping experience. Will Oracle Fusion Procurement Increase Productivity? To answer this question, Oracle sought to model how two experts working head to head—one in an existing enterprise application and another in Oracle Fusion Procurement—would perform the same task. We compared Oracle Fusion designs to corresponding existing applications using the keystroke-level modeling (KLM) method. This method is based on years of research at universities such as Carnegie Mellon and research labs like Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. The KLM method breaks tasks into a sequence of operations and uses standardized models to evaluate all of the physical and cognitive actions that a person must take to complete a task: what a user would have to click, how long each click would take (not only the physical action of the click or typing of a letter, but also how long someone would have to think about the page when taking the action), and user interface changes that result from the click. By applying standard time estimates for all of the operators in the task, an estimate of the overall task time is calculated. Task times from the model enable researchers to predict end-user productivity. For the study, we focused on modeling procurement business process task flows that were considered business or mission critical: high-frequency tasks and high-value tasks. The designs evaluated encompassed tasks that are currently performed by employees, professional buyers, suppliers, and sourcing professionals in advanced procurement applications. For each of these flows, we created detailed task scenarios that provided the context for each task, conducted task walk-throughs in both the Oracle Fusion design and the existing application, analyzed and documented the steps and actions required to complete each task, and applied standard time estimates to the operators in each task to estimate overall task completion times. The Results The KLM method predicted that the Oracle Fusion Procurement designs would result in productivity gains in each task, ranging from 13 percent to 38 percent, with an overall productivity gain of 22.5 percent. These performance gains can be attributed to a reduction in the number of clicks and screens needed to complete the tasks. For example, creating a requisition in Oracle Fusion Procurement takes a user through only two screens, while ordering the same item in a previous version requires six screens to complete the task. Modeling user productivity has resulted not only in advances in Oracle Fusion applications, but also in advances in other areas. We leveraged lessons learned from the KLM studies to establish products like Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS). New user experience features in EBS 12.1.3, such as navigational improvements to the main menu, a Google-type search using auto-suggest, embedded analytics, and an in-context list of values tool help to reduce clicks and improve efficiency. For more information about KLM, refer to the Measuring User Productivity blog.

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• Another sound not working post

  - by Thomas Smart

  Tried all the other "sound not working" posts i think, lost count. purge/reinstall alsa and pulse, reboot, add user to audio group, various lines in the alsa config file such as "options snd-hda-intel model=" then tried different options like generic, auto, basic, default, etc. tried pulseaudio -k && sudo alsa force-reload a few times, with and without rebooting. Hardware: 16gb ram, core I7-4790, Intel Haswell mboard with onboard sound and graphics Multimedia: Audio Adapter: HDA-Intel-HDA Intel HDMI OS: Ubuntu server 14.04 with ubuntu-desktop installed. GUI sound settings lists only the dummy sound card alsamixer -c 0 ¦ Card: HDA Intel HDMI F1: Help ¦ ¦ Chip: Intel Haswell HDMI F2: System information ¦ ¦ View: F3:[Playback] F4: Capture F5: All F6: Select sound card ¦ ¦ Item: S/PDIF ¦ ¦ +--+ ¦ ¦ ¦OO¦ ¦ ¦ +--+ ¦ ¦ < S/PDIF > ¦ aplay -l **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 aplay -L default Playback/recording through the PulseAudio sound server null Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture) pulse PulseAudio Sound Server hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=0 HDA Intel HDMI, HDMI 0 HDMI Audio Output dmix:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3 HDA Intel HDMI, HDMI 0 Direct sample mixing device dsnoop:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3 HDA Intel HDMI, HDMI 0 Direct sample snooping device hw:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3 HDA Intel HDMI, HDMI 0 Direct hardware device without any conversions plughw:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3 HDA Intel HDMI, HDMI 0 Hardware device with all software conversions cat /proc/asound/cards 0 [HDMI ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel HDMI HDA Intel HDMI at 0xf7d14000 irq 46 cat /proc/asound/devices 1: : sequencer 2: [ 0- 3]: digital audio playback 3: [ 0- 0]: hardware dependent 4: [ 0] : control 33: : timer mplayer -ao alsa:device=hdmi /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg MPlayer 1.1-4.8 (C) 2000-2012 MPlayer Team mplayer: could not connect to socket mplayer: No such file or directory Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control. Playing /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg. libavformat version 54.20.4 (external) Mismatching header version 54.20.3 libavformat file format detected. [lavf] stream 0: audio (vorbis), -aid 0 Load subtitles in /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/ ========================================================================== Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders libavcodec version 54.35.0 (external) AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 1 ch, floatle, 80.0 kbit/5.67% (ratio: 10000->176400) Selected audio codec: [ffvorbis] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg Vorbis) ========================================================================== [AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: confmisc.c:768:(parse_card) cannot find card '1' [AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: conf.c:4248:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such file or directory [AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings [AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: conf.c:4248:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such file or directory [AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: confmisc.c:1251:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name [AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: conf.c:4248:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory [AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: conf.c:4727:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory [AO_ALSA] alsa-lib: pcm.c:2239:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM hdmi [AO_ALSA] Playback open error: No such file or directory Failed to initialize audio driver 'alsa:device=hdmi' Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound. Audio: no sound Video: no video Exiting... (End of file) mplayer -ao alsa:device=hw=0.3 /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg MPlayer 1.1-4.8 (C) 2000-2012 MPlayer Team mplayer: could not connect to socket mplayer: No such file or directory Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control. Playing /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg. libavformat version 54.20.4 (external) Mismatching header version 54.20.3 libavformat file format detected. [lavf] stream 0: audio (vorbis), -aid 0 Load subtitles in /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/ ========================================================================== Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders libavcodec version 54.35.0 (external) AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 1 ch, floatle, 80.0 kbit/5.67% (ratio: 10000->176400) Selected audio codec: [ffvorbis] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg Vorbis) ========================================================================== [AO_ALSA] Format floatle is not supported by hardware, trying default. AO: [alsa] 44100Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample) Video: no video Starting playback... A: 0.4 (00.4) of 0.8 (00.7) 0.1% Exiting... (End of file) Thank you for your time and help :)

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• Why Cornell University Chose Oracle Data Masking

  - by Troy Kitch

  One of the eight Ivy League schools, Cornell University found itself in the unfortunate position of having to inform over 45,000 University community members that their personal information had been breached when a laptop was stolen. To ensure this wouldn’t happen again, Cornell took steps to ensure that data used for non-production purposes is de-identified with Oracle Data Masking. A recent podcast highlights why organizations like Cornell are choosing Oracle Data Masking to irreversibly de-identify production data for use in non-production environments. Organizations often copy production data, that contains sensitive information, into non-production environments so they can test applications and systems using “real world” information. Data in non-production has increasingly become a target of cyber criminals and can be lost or stolen due to weak security controls and unmonitored access. Similar to production environments, data breaches in non-production environments can cost millions of dollars to remediate and cause irreparable harm to reputation and brand. Cornell’s applications and databases help carry out the administrative and academic mission of the university. They are running Oracle PeopleSoft Campus Solutions that include highly sensitive faculty, student, alumni, and prospective student data. This data is supported and accessed by a diverse set of developers and functional staff distributed across the university. Several years ago, Cornell experienced a data breach when an employee’s laptop was stolen.  Centrally stored backup information indicated there was sensitive data on the laptop. With no way of knowing what the criminal intended, the university had to spend significant resources reviewing data, setting up service centers to handle constituent concerns, and provide free credit checks and identity theft protection services—all of which cost money and took time away from other projects. To avoid this issue in the future Cornell came up with several options; one of which was to sanitize the testing and training environments. “The project management team was brought in and they developed a project plan and implementation schedule; part of which was to evaluate competing products in the market-space and figure out which one would work best for us.  In the end we chose Oracle’s solution based on its architecture and its functionality.” – Tony Damiani, Database Administration and Business Intelligence, Cornell University The key goals of the project were to mask the elements that were identifiable as sensitive in a consistent and efficient manner, but still support all the previous activities in the non-production environments. Tony concludes,  “What we saw was a very minimal impact on performance. The masking process added an additional three hours to our refresh window, but it was well worth that time to secure the environment and remove the sensitive data. I think some other key points you can keep in mind here is that there was zero impact on the production environment. Oracle Data Masking works in non-production environments only. Additionally, the risk of exposure has been significantly reduced and the impact to business was minimal.” With Oracle Data Masking organizations like Cornell can: Make application data securely available in non-production environments Prevent application developers and testers from seeing production data Use an extensible template library and policies for data masking automation Gain the benefits of referential integrity so that applications continue to work Listen to the podcast to hear the complete interview.  Learn more about Oracle Data Masking by registering to watch this SANS Institute Webcast and view this short demo.

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• How to install SharePoint Server 2013 Preview

  - by ybbest

  The Office 2013 and SharePoint Server 2013 Preview is announced yesterday and as a SharePoint Developer, I am really excited to learn all the new features and capabilities. Today I will show you how to install the preview. 1. Create a service account called SP2013Install and give this account Dbcreator and SecurityAdmin in SQL Server 2012 2. You need to run the following script to set the ‘maxdegree of parellism’ setting to the required value of 1 in SQL Server 2012(using sysadmin privilege) before configure the SharePoint Farm. Otherwise , you might get the error ‘This SQL Server Instance does not have the required maxdegree of parellism setting of 1’ sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1; GO RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE; GO sp_configure 'max degree of parallelism', 1; GO RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE; GO 3. Download the SharePoint preview from here and I am going to install it on Windows Server 2008R2 with SQL2012. 4. Click the Install software prerequisites, this works fine with the internet connection. (However, if you do not have internet connection, it is a bit tricky to install window azure AppFabric as it has to be installed using the prerequisite installer. Your computer might reboot a few times in the process.) 5.After the prerequisites are installed `completely, you can then install the Preview. Click the Install SharePoint Server and Enter the Product key you get from the Preview download page. 6. Accept the License terms and Click Next. 7. Leave the default path for the file location. 8. You can now start the installation process 9. After binary files are installed, you then can configure your farm using the farm configuration wizard. 10.Specify the Database server and the install account 11. Specify SharePoint farm passphrase. 12 Specify the port number , you should choose your own favorite port number. 13. Choose Create a New Server Farm and click next. 14. Double-check with the settings and click Next to Configure the farm install. 15. Finally, your farm is configured successfully and you now are able to go to your Central Admin site http://sp2010:6666/ 16. You should configure the services manually or automate using PowerShell (If you like to understand why,you can read the blog post here) ,however I will use the wizard to configure automatically here  as  this is a test machine. After the configuration is complete, you now be able to see your SharePoint Site. 17.To start the evaluate the Preview , you need to install Visual Studio 2012 RC , Microsoft Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012,SharePoint 2013 Designer Preview , Office 2013 Preview. References: Download SharePoint2013 Server 2013 Download Microsoft Visio Professional 2013 Preview Install SharePoint 2013 Preview Hardware and software requirements for SharePoint 2013 Preview SharePoint 2013 IT Pro and Developer training materials released Plan for SharePoint 2013 Preview Microsoft Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012 SharePoint 2013 Preview Office365 for the SharePoint 2013 preview SharePoint Designer 2013 Download: Microsoft Office 2013 Preview Language Pack Try Office

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• Big Data – Data Mining with Hive – What is Hive? – What is HiveQL (HQL)? – Day 15 of 21

  - by Pinal Dave

  In yesterday’s blog post we learned the importance of the operational database in Big Data Story. In this article we will understand what is Hive and HQL in Big Data Story. Yahoo started working on PIG (we will understand that in the next blog post) for their application deployment on Hadoop. The goal of Yahoo to manage their unstructured data. Similarly Facebook started deploying their warehouse solutions on Hadoop which has resulted in HIVE. The reason for going with HIVE is because the traditional warehousing solutions are getting very expensive. What is HIVE? Hive is a datawarehouseing infrastructure for Hadoop. The primary responsibility is to provide data summarization, query and analysis. It  supports analysis of large datasets stored in Hadoop’s HDFS as well as on the Amazon S3 filesystem. The best part of HIVE is that it supports SQL-Like access to structured data which is known as HiveQL (or HQL) as well as big data analysis with the help of MapReduce. Hive is not built to get a quick response to queries but it it is built for data mining applications. Data mining applications can take from several minutes to several hours to analysis the data and HIVE is primarily used there. HIVE Organization The data are organized in three different formats in HIVE. Tables: They are very similar to RDBMS tables and contains rows and tables. Hive is just layered over the Hadoop File System (HDFS), hence tables are directly mapped to directories of the filesystems. It also supports tables stored in other native file systems. Partitions: Hive tables can have more than one partition. They are mapped to subdirectories and file systems as well. Buckets: In Hive data may be divided into buckets. Buckets are stored as files in partition in the underlying file system. Hive also has metastore which stores all the metadata. It is a relational database containing various information related to Hive Schema (column types, owners, key-value data, statistics etc.). We can use MySQL database over here. What is HiveSQL (HQL)? Hive query language provides the basic SQL like operations. Here are few of the tasks which HQL can do easily. Create and manage tables and partitions Support various Relational, Arithmetic and Logical Operators Evaluate functions Download the contents of a table to a local directory or result of queries to HDFS directory Here is the example of the HQL Query: SELECT upper(name), salesprice FROM sales; SELECT category, count(1) FROM products GROUP BY category; When you look at the above query, you can see they are very similar to SQL like queries. Tomorrow In tomorrow’s blog post we will discuss about very important components of the Big Data Ecosystem – Pig. 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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• What's New in Oracle's EPM System?

  - by jmorourke

  Oracle’s EPM System R11.1.2.2  is now generally available to customers and partners on the download center.  Although the release number doesn’t sound significant, this is a major release of Oracle’s Hyperion EPM Suite with new modules as well as significant enhancements across the suite.  This release was announced back on April 4th as part of Oracle’s Business Analytics Strategy launch, so analytics is a key aspect of the release.  But the three biggest pieces of news in this release are Oracle Hyperion Planning support for the Exalytics In-Memory Machine, the new Project Financial Planning Application and the new Account Reconciliations Manager module. The Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine was announced back in October 2011, at Oracle OpenWorld.  It’s the latest installment from Oracle in a line of engineered systems that combine Oracle Sun hardware, with Oracle database and application technologies – in solutions that are designed to provide high scalability and performance for specific tasks.  Exalytics is the first engineered system specifically designed for high performance analytics.  Running in-memory versions of Oracle Essbase, as well as the Oracle TimesTen database and Oracle BI tools, Exalytics provides speed of thought response times for complex analytic processes with advanced visualizations.  Early adopter customers have achieved 5X to 100X faster interactivity and 6X to 10X faster planning cycles.  Hyperion Planning running with Oracle Exalytics will support enterprise-wide planning, budgeting and forecasting with more detailed data, with hundreds to thousands of users across an organization getting speed of thought performance. The new Hyperion Project Financial Planning application delivered with EPM 11.1.2.2 is also great news for Oracle customers.  This application follows on the heels of other special-purpose planning applications that Oracle has delivered for Workforce and Capital Asset planning.  It allows Project Managers to identify project-related expenses and revenues, plan and propose new projects, and track results over time. Finance Managers can evaluate and compare different projects, manage the funding process, monitor and report the actual financial results and impacts of projects and project portfolios. This new application is applicable to capital projects, contract projects and indirect projects like IT and HR projects across all industries.  This application is a great complement to existing Project Management applications, and helps bridge the gap between these applications, and the financial planning and budgeting process. Account reconciliations has to be one of the biggest bottlenecks and risks in the financial close and reporting process, and many organizations rely on spreadsheets and manual processes to perform this critical process.  To help address this problem, Oracle developed an Account Reconciliation Manager module that is being delivered as part of Oracle Hyperion Financial Close Management.   This module helps automate and streamline account reconciliations and eliminates the chances for errors, omissions and fraud.  But unlike standalone account reconciliation packages, it’s integrated with the rest of the Oracle Hyperion Financial Close suite, and can integrate balances from any source system.  This can help alleviate a major bottleneck in the financial close process, increase accuracy and reduce risk, and can complement existing investments in Hyperion Financial Management, as well as Oracle and non-Oracle transaction processing systems. Other enhancements in this release include an enhanced Web 2.0 interface for Hyperion Planning and Hyperion Financial Management (HFM), configurable dimensionality in HFM, new Predictive Planning feature in Hyperion Planning, new Detailed Profitability feature in Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management, new Smart View interface for Hyperion Strategic Finance, and integration of the Hyperion applications with JD Edwards Financials. For more information about Oracle EPM System R11.1.2.2 check out the links below: Press Release:  http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/1575775 Product Information on O.com:  http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/business-analytics/overview/index.html Product Information on OTN:  http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/epm/downloads/index.html Webcast Replay:  http://www.oracle.com/us/go/index.html?Src=7317510&Act=65&pcode=WWMK11054701MPP046 Please contact me if you have any questions or need additional information – [email protected]

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• When is your interview?

  - by Rob Farley

  Sometimes it’s tough to evaluate someone – to figure out if you think they’d be worth hiring. These days, since starting LobsterPot Solutions, I have my share of interviews, on both sides of the desk. Sometimes I’m checking out potential staff members; sometimes I’m persuading someone else to get us on board for a project. Regardless of who is on which side of the desk, we’re both checking each other out. The world is not how it was some years ago. I’m pretty sure that every time I walk into a room for an interview, I’ve searched for them online, and they’ve searched for me. I suspect they usually have the easier time finding me, although there are obviously other Rob Farleys in the world. They may have even checked out some of my presentations from conferences, read my blog posts, maybe even heard me tell jokes or sing. I know some people need me to explain who I am, but for the most part, I think they’ve done plenty of research long before I’ve walked in the room. I remember when this was different (as it could be for you still). I remember a time when I dealt with recruitment agents, looking for work. I remember sitting in rooms having been giving a test designed to find out if I knew my stuff or not, and then being pulled into interviews with managers who had to find out if I could communicate effectively. I’d need to explain who I was, what kind of person I was, what my value-system involved, and so on. I’m sure you understand what I’m getting at. (Oh, and in case you hadn’t realised, it’s a T-SQL Tuesday post, this month about interviews.) At TechEd Australia some years ago (either 2009 or 2010 – I forget which), I remember hearing a comment made during the ‘locknote’, the closing session. The presenter described a conversation he’d heard between two girls, discussing a guy that one of them had just started dating. The other girl expressed horror at the fact that her friend had met this guy in person, rather than through an online dating agency. The presenter pointed out that people realise that there’s a certain level of safety provided through the checks that those sites do. I’m not sure I completely trust this, but I’m sure it’s true for people’s technical profiles. If I interview someone, I hope they have a profile. I hope I can look at what they already know. I hope I can get samples of their work, and see how they communicate. I hope I can get a feel for their sense of humour. I hope I already know exactly what kind of person they are – their value system, their beliefs, their passions. Even their grammar. I can work out if the person is a good risk or not from who they are online. If they don’t have an online presence, then I don’t have this information, and the risk is higher. So if you’re interviewing with me, your interview started long before the conversation. I hope it started before I’d ever heard of you. I know the interview in which I’m being assessed started before I even knew there was a product called SQL Server. It’s reflected in what I write. It’s in the way I present. I have spent my life becoming me – so let’s talk! @rob_farley

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• BizTalk Testing Series - The xpath Function

  - by Michael Stephenson

  Background While the xpath function in a BizTalk orchestration is a very powerful feature I have often come across the situation where someone has hard coded an xpath expression in an orchestration. If you have read some of my previous posts about testing I've tried to get across the general theme like test-driven or test-assisted development approaches where the underlying principle is that your building up your solution of small well tested units that are put together and the resulting solution is usually quite robust. You will be finding more bugs within your unit tests and fewer outside of your team. The thing I don't like about the xpath functions usual usage is when you come across an orchestration which has something like the below snippet in an expression or assign shape: string result = xpath(myMessage,"string(//Order/OrderItem/ProductName)"); My main issue with this is that the xpath statement is hard coded in the orchestration and you don't really know it works until you are running the orchestration. Some of the problems I think you end up with are: You waste time with lengthy debugging of the orchestration when your statement isn't working You might not know the function isn't working quite as expected because the testable unit around it is big You are much more open to regression issues if your schema changes     Approach to Testing The technique I usually follow is to hold the xpath statement as a constant in a helper class or to format a constant with a helper function to get the actual xpath statement. It is then used by the orchestration like follows. string result = xpath(myMessage, MyHelperClass.ProductNameXPathStatement); This means that because the xpath statement is available outside of the orchestration it now becomes testable in its own right. This means: I can test it in its own right I'm less likely to waste time tracking down problems caused by an error in the statement I can reduce the risk or regression issuess I'm now able to implement some testing around my xpath statements which usually are something like the following:    The test will use a sample xml file The sample will be validated against the schema The test will execute the xpath statement and then check the results are as expected     Walk-through BizTalk uses the XPathNavigator internally behind the xpath function to implement the queries you will usually use using the navigators select or evaluate functions. In the sample (link at bottom) I have a small solution which contains a schema from which I have generated a sample instance. I will then use this instance as the basis for my tests.     In the below diagram you can see the helper class which I've encapsulated my xpath expressions in, and some helper functions which will format the expression in the case of a repeating node which would want to inject an index into the xpath query.             I have then created a test class which has some functions to execute some queries against my sample xml file. An example of this is below.         In the test class I have a couple of helper functions which will execute the xpath expressions in a similar way to BizTalk. You could have a proper helper class to do this if you wanted.         You can see now in the BizTalk expression editor I can use these functions alongside the xpath function.         Conclusion I hope you can see with very little effort you can make your life much easier by testing xpath statements outside of an orchestration rather than using them directly hard coded into the orchestration.     This can also save you lots of pain longer term because your build should break if your schema changes unexpectedly causing these xpath tests to fail where as your tests around the orchestration will be more difficult to troubleshoot and workout the cause of the problem.     Sample Link The sample is available from the following link: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/testbtsxpathfunction     Other Tools On the subject of using the xpath function, if you don't already use it the below tool is very useful for creating your xpath statements (thanks BizBert) http://www.bizbert.com/bizbert/2007/11/30/XPath+The+Hidden+Language+Of+BizTalk.aspx

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• Oracle MDM Maturity Model

  - by David Butler

  A few weeks ago, I discussed the results of a survey conducted by Oracle’s Insight team. The survey was based on the data management maturity model that the Oracle Insight team has developed over the years as they analyzed customer IT organizations to help them get more out of everything they already have. I thought you might like to learn more about the maturity model itself. It can help you figure out where you stand when it comes to getting your organizations data management act together. The model covers maturity levels around five key areas: Profiling data sources; Defining a data strategy; Defining a data consolidation plan; Data maintenance; and Data utilization. Profile data sources: Profiling data sources involves taking an inventory of all data sources from across your IT landscape. Then evaluate the quality of the data in each source system. This enables the scoping of what data to collect into an MDM hub and what rules are needed to insure data harmonization across systems. Define data strategy: A data strategy requires an understanding of the data usage. Given data usage, various data governance requirements need to be developed. This includes data controls and security rules as well as data structure and usage policies. Define data consolidation strategy: Consolidation requires defining your operational data model. How integration is to be accomplished. Cross referencing common data attributes from multiple systems is needed. Synchronization policies also need to be developed. Data maintenance: The desired standardization needs to be defined, including what constitutes a ‘match’ once the data has been standardized. Cleansing rules are a part of this methodology. Data quality monitoring requirements also need to be defined. Utilize the data: What data gets published, and who consumes the data must be determined. How to get the right data to the right place in the right format given its intended use must be understood. Validating the data and insuring security rules are in place and enforced are crucial aspects for full no-risk data utilization. For each of the above data management areas, a maturity level needs to be assessed. Where your organization wants to be should also be identified using the same maturity levels. This results in a sound gap analysis your organization can use to create action plans to achieve the ultimate goals. Marginal is the lowest level. It is characterized by manually maintaining trusted sources; lacking or inconsistent, silo’d structures with limited integration, and gaps in automation. Stable is the next leg up the MDM maturity staircase. It is characterized by tactical MDM implementations that are limited in scope and target a specific division.  It includes limited data stewardship capabilities as well. Best Practice is a serious MDM maturity level characterized by process automation improvements. The scope is enterprise wide. It is a business solution that provides a single version of the truth, with closed-loop data quality capabilities. It is typically driven by an enterprise architecture group with both business and IT representation.   Transformational is the highest MDM maturity level. At this level, MDM is quantitatively managed. It is integrated with Business Intelligence, SOA, and BPM. MDM is leveraged in business process orchestration. Take an inventory using this MDM Maturity Model and see where you are in your journey to full MDM maturity with all the business benefits that accrue to organizations who have mastered their data for the benefit of all operational applications, business processes, and analytical systems. To learn more, Trevor Naidoo and I have written the Oracle MDM Maturity Model whitepaper. It’s free, so go ahead and download it and use it as you see fit.

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• Get Your Enterprise Working With Oracle On Track Communication 1.0

  - by Josh Lannin

  The On Track Development team is very pleased to announce that today On Track is available for our customers to download and evaluate.  To learn more about what On Track does start with our whitepaper and datasheet.   If you are a developer, take a look at our documentation and samples posted to our OTN page. For this first blog post, I’ll be speaking to several notable points about our product. Graceful Escalation via Conversations: On Track addresses the “Collaboration Problem” through a single guiding principle – graceful escalation – within the construct of a Conversation. In On Track, collaboration is based on a context (called a “Conversation”) that gracefully escalates in form, structure, and content, as dictated by the particular needs of a given collaboration.  Within that context, On Track provides a rich set of tools to choose from.  These tools provide for communication, coordination, content management, organization, decision making, and analysis -- all essential aspects of collaboration, but not all of them are essential all of the time.  Every collaborative interaction will evolve differently.  Some will evolve to represent work spreading over the course of years and involving a large, distributed team, while others may involve few people and not evolve at all.  Regardless, all collaborative contexts are built from the same parts, utilize the same concepts, and start the same way.  The principle of graceful escalation is that you only use the tools and structure you need; so you only incur the complexity you need. Purposeful Collaboration: Through application integration, On Track Conversations bring enterprise application users the communication and collaboration capabilities required to complete business process.  By association with specific processes or business objects conversations extend the possible interactions and broaden participation to internal or external non-application users and provide a sophisticated interaction experience, all the while enhancing the data set within the owning application.  Purposeful collaboration not only needs to happen in the context of applications, it must support a full range of real-time and long-running interactions to provide the greatest value. Multi Client, Multi Modal: This On Track 1.0 product release includes the same day availability of  multiple clients, including iPhone and iPad applications which are now available on the Apple Store, a fully capable and accessible Outlook Add-In, along with our browser web client.  With each client we have sought to leverage the strengths of each unique device- our iPhone client supports picture and voice posts, the iPad is optimized for meeting room situations and document viewing, and our Outlook add-in allows you to take emails in context and bring them into On Track.  In addition to supporting a diverse array of clients, On Track provides a unified multi modal experience support starting with basic messages moving through to integrated documents with live annotations, snapshots, application sharing, and voice. Next Generation Web Architecture: We believe On Track will help move the bar higher for what users can expect from all web applications, most notably ones that involve real-time activity.  On Track is built from the ground up with an innovative, real-time architecture that leverages the extensive push capabilities of our server.  Whether you are receiving a new message, viewing where crowds of people are collaborating, or doing live annotation on a document with a set of people, that information comes to you immediately without refreshes or moving back and forth between pages.  We’ve leveraged this core architecture across the product experience and raised the user experience bar for this type of application.  As well these capabilities are based on open standards and protocols, and are fully extensible by anyone- enabling sophisticated integrations to be created with a wide variety of both legacy and next-generation applications. Agile Product Development: As a product team we operate using continuous feedback and modified agile development methodologies.  We have thousands of active internal Oracle users who have helped pilot our product for critical business functions, and the On Track product development team uses our product as our primary vehicle for all our collaboration.  Additionally we been working with early access customers who are adopting our technology and providing us valuable feedback - which our process has rapidly realized in improvements to our software.  On Track agility extends to our server as well, which is built to scale, and is very simple to install and configure. We are pleased to make this product announcement and encourage you to join us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter, as well as checking back here for the latest product information.

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• How do you report out user research results?

  - by user12277104

  A couple weeks ago, one of my mentees asked to meet, because she wanted my advice on how to report out user research results. She had just conducted her first usability test for her new employer, and was getting to the point where she wanted to put together some slides, but she didn't want them to be boring. She wanted to talk with me about what to present and how best to present results to stakeholders. While I couldn't meet for another week, thanks to slideshare, I could quickly point her in the direction that my in-person advice would have led her. First, I'd put together a panel for the February 2012 New Hampshire UPA monthly meeting that we then repeated for the 2012 Boston UPA annual conference. In this panel, I described my reporting techniques, as did six of my colleagues -- two of whom work for companies smaller than mine, and four of whom are independent consultants. Before taking questions, we each presented for 3 to 5 minutes on how we presented research results. The differences were really interesting. For example, when do you really NEED a long, written report (as opposed to an email, spreadsheet, or slide deck with callouts)? When you are reporting your test results to the FDA -- that makes sense. in this presentation, I describe two modes of reporting results that I use.  Second, I'd been a participant in the CUE-9 study. CUE stands for Comparative Usability Evaluation, and this was the 9th of these studies that Rolf Molich had designed. Originally, the studies were designed to show the variability in evaluation methods practitioners use to evaluate websites and applications. Of course, using methods and tasks of their own choosing, the results were wildly different. However, in this 9th study, the tasks were the same, the participants were the same, and the problem severity scale was the same, so how would the results of the 19 practitioners compare? Still wildly variable. But for the purposes of this discussion, it gave me a work product that was not proprietary to the company I work for -- a usability test report that I could share publicly. This was the way I'd been reporting results since 2005, and pretty much what I still do, when time allows.  That said, I have been continuing to evolve my methods and reporting techniques, and sometimes, there is no time to create that kind of report -- the team can't wait the days that it takes to take screen shots, go through my notes, refer back to recordings, and write it all up. So in those cases, I use bullet points in email, talk through the findings with stakeholders in a 1-hour meeting, and then post the take-aways on a wiki page. There are other requirements for that kind of reporting to work -- for example, the stakeholders need to attend each of the sessions, and the sessions can't take more than a day to complete, but you get the idea: there is no one "right" way to report out results. If the method of reporting you are using is giving your stakeholders the information they need, in a time frame in which it is useful, and in a format that meets their needs (FDA report or bullet points on a wiki), then that's the "right" way to report your results. 

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• You Probably Already Have a “Private Cloud”

  - by BuckWoody

  I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a fan of the word “Cloud”. It’s too marketing-oriented, gimmicky and non-specific. A better definition (in many cases) is “Distributed Computing”. That means that some or all of the computing functions are handled somewhere other than under your specific control. But there is a current use of the word “Cloud” that does not necessarily mean that the computing is done somewhere else. In fact, it’s a vector of Cloud Computing that can better be termed “Utility Computing”. This has to do with the provisioning of a computing resource. That means the setup, configuration, management, balancing and so on that is needed so that a user – which might actually be a developer – can do some computing work. To that person, the resource is just “there” and works like they expect, like the phone system or any other utility. The interesting thing is, you can do this yourself. In fact, you probably already have been, or are now. It’s got a cool new trendy term – “Private Cloud”, but the fact is, if you have your setup automated, the HA and DR handled, balancing and performance tuning done, and a process wrapped around it all, you can call yourself a “Cloud Provider”. A good example here is your E-Mail system. your users – pretty much your whole company – just logs into e-mail and expects it to work. To them, you are the “Cloud” provider. On your side, the more you automate and provision the system, the more you act like a Cloud Provider. Another example is a database server. In this case, the “end user” is usually the development team, or perhaps your SharePoint group and so on. The data professionals configure, monitor, tune and balance the system all the time. The more this is automated, the more you’re acting like a Cloud Provider. Lots of companies help you do this in your own data centers, from VMWare to IBM and many others. Microsoft's offering in this is based around System Center – they have a “cloud in a box” provisioning system that’s actually pretty slick. The most difficult part of operating a Private Cloud is probably the scale factor. In the case of Windows and SQL Azure, we handle this in multiple ways – and we're happy to share how we do it. It’s not magic, and the algorithms for balancing (like the one we started with called Paxos) are well known. The key is the knowledge, infrastructure and people. Sure, you can do this yourself, and in many cases such as top-secret or private systems, you probably should. But there are times where you should evaluate using Azure or other vendors, or even multiple vendors to spread your risk. All of this should be based on client need, not on what you know how to do already. So congrats on your new role as a “Cloud Provider”. If you have an E-mail system or a database platform, you can just put that right on your resume.

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• A proposal for #DAX Code Formatting #ssas #powerpivot #tabular

  - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

  I recently published a set of rules for DAX code formatting. The following is an example of what I obtain: CALCULATE (     SUMX (         Orders,         Orders[Amount]     ),     FILTER (         ALL ( Customers ),         CALCULATE (             COUNTROWS ( Sales ),             ALL ( Calendar[Date] )         ) > 42 + 8 – 25 * ( 3 - 1 )             + 2 – 1 + 2 – 1             + CALCULATE (                   2 + 2 – 2                   + 2 - 2               )             – CALCULATE ( 4 )     ) ) The goal is to improve code readability and I look forward to implement a code formatting feature in DAX Studio. The DAX Editor already supports the rules described in the article. I am also considering whether to add a rule specific for ADDCOLUMNS / SUMMARIZE because I would like to see the “pairs” of arguments to define a column in the same row or with a special indentation rule (DAX expression for a column is indented in the line following the column name). EVALUATE CALCULATETABLE (        CALCULATETABLE (         SUMMARIZE (             Audience,             'Date'[Year],             Individuals[Gender],             Individuals[AgeRange],             "Num of Rows", FORMAT (COUNTROWS (Audience), "#,#"),             "Weighted Mean Age",                 SUMX (Audience, Audience[Weight] * Audience[Age]) / SUM (Audience[Weight])         ),         SUMMARIZE (             BridgeIndividualsTargets,             Individuals[ID_Individual]         ),         Audience[Weight] > 0        ),        Targets[Target] = "Maschi",     'Date'[Year] = 2010,     'Date'[MonthName] = "January" ) I would like to get feedback for that – you can use comments here or comments in original article. Thanks!

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• Conflict Minerals - Design to Compliance

  - by C. Chadwick

  Dr. Christina  Schröder - Principal PLM Consultant, Enterprise PLM Solutions EMEA What does the Conflict Minerals regulation mean? Conflict Minerals has recently become a new buzz word in the manufacturing industry, particularly in electronics and medical devices. Known as the "Dodd-Frank Section 1502", this regulation requires SEC listed companies to declare the origin of certain minerals by 2014. The intention is to reduce the use of tantalum, tungsten, tin, and gold which originate from mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and adjoining countries that are controlled by violent armed militia abusing human rights. Manufacturers now request information from their suppliers to see if their raw materials are sourced from this region and which smelters are used to extract the metals from the minerals. A standardized questionnaire has been developed for this purpose (download and further information). Soon, even companies which are not directly affected by the Conflict Minerals legislation will have to collect and maintain this information since their customers will request the data from their suppliers. Furthermore, it is expected that the public opinion and consumer interests will force manufacturers to avoid the use of metals with questionable origin. Impact for existing products Several departments are involved in the process of collecting data and providing conflict minerals compliance information. For already marketed products, purchasing typically requests Conflict Minerals declarations from the suppliers. In order to address requests from customers, technical operations or product management are usually responsible for keeping track of all parts, raw materials and their suppliers so that the required information can be provided. For complex BOMs, it is very tedious to maintain complete, accurate, up-to-date, and traceable data. Any product change or new supplier can, in addition to all other implications, have an effect on the Conflict Minerals compliance status. Influence on product development  It makes sense to consider compliance early in the planning and design of new products. Companies should evaluate which metals are needed or contained in supplier parts and if these could originate from problematic sources. The answer influences the cost and risk analysis during the development. If it is known early on that a part could be non-compliant with respect to Conflict Minerals, alternatives can be evaluated and thus costly changes at a later stage can be avoided. Integrated compliance management  Ideally, compliance data for Conflict Minerals, but also for other regulations like REACH and RoHS, should be managed in an integrated supply chain system. The compliance status is directly visible across the entire BOM at any part level and for the finished product. If data is missing, a request to the supplier can be triggered right away without having to switch to another system. The entire process, from identification of the relevant parts, requesting information, handling responses, data entry, to compliance calculation is fully covered end-to-end while being transparent for all stakeholders. Agile PLM Product Governance and Compliance (PG&C) The PG&C module extends Agile PLM with exactly this integrated functionality. As with the entire Agile product suite, PG&C can be configured according to customer requirements: data fields, attributes, workflows, routing, notifications, and permissions, etc… can be quickly and easily tailored to a customer’s needs. Optionally, external databases can be interfaced to query commercially available sources of Conflict Minerals declarations which obviates the need for a separate supplier request in many cases. Suppliers can access the system directly for data entry through a special portal. The responses to the standard EICC-GeSI questionnaire can be imported by the supplier or internally. Manual data entry is also supported. A set of compliance-specific dashboards and reports complement the functionality Conclusion  The increasing number of product compliance regulations, for which Conflict Minerals is just one example, requires companies to implement an efficient data and process management in this area. Consumer awareness in this matter increases as well so that an integrated system from development to production also provides a competitive advantage. Follow this link to learn more about Agile's PG&C solution

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• Implementing Service Level Agreements in Enterprise Manager 12c for Oracle Packaged Applications

  - by Anand Akela

  Contributed by Eunjoo Lee, Product Manager, Oracle Enterprise Manager. Service Level Management, or SLM, is a key tool in the proactive management of any Oracle Packaged Application (e.g., E-Business Suite, Siebel, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards E1, Fusion Apps, etc.). The benefits of SLM are that administrators can utilize representative Application transactions, which are constantly and automatically running behind the scenes, to verify that all of the key application and technology components of an Application are available and performing to expectations. A single transaction can verify the availability and performance of the underlying Application Tech Stack in a much more efficient manner than by monitoring the same underlying targets individually. In this article, we’ll be demonstrating SLM using Siebel Applications, but the same tools and processes apply to any of the Package Applications mentioned above. In this demonstration, we will log into the Siebel Application, navigate to the Contacts View, update a contact phone record, and then log-out. This transaction exposes availability and performance metrics of multiple Siebel Servers, multiple Components and Component Groups, and the Siebel Database - in a single unified manner. We can then monitor and manage these transactions like any other target in EM 12c, including placing pro-active alerts on them if the transaction is either unavailable or is not performing to required levels. The first step in the SLM process is recording the Siebel transaction. The following screenwatch demonstrates how to record Siebel transaction using an EM tool called “OpenScript”. A completed recording is called a “Synthetic Transaction”. The second step in the SLM process is uploading the Synthetic Transaction into EM 12c, and creating Generic Service Tests. We can create a Generic Service Test to execute our synthetic transactions at regular intervals to evaluate the performance of various business flows. As these transactions are running periodically, it is possible to monitor the performance of the Siebel Application by evaluating the performance of the synthetic transactions. The process of creating a Generic Service Test is detailed in the next screenwatch. EM 12c provides a guided workflow for all of the key creation steps, including configuring the Service Test, uploading of the Synthetic Test, determining the frequency of the Service Test, establishing beacons, and selecting performance and usage metrics, just to name a few. The third and final step in the SLM process is the creation of Service Level Agreements (SLA). Service Level Agreements allow Administrators to utilize the previously created Service Tests to specify expected service levels for Application availability, performance, and usage. SLAs can be created for different time periods and for different Service Tests. This last screenwatch demonstrates the process of creating an SLA, as well as highlights the Dashboards and Reports that Administrators can use to monitor Service Test results. Hopefully, this article provides you with a good start point for creating Service Level Agreements for your E-Business Suite, Siebel, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards E1, or Fusion Applications. Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c, with the Application Management Suites, represents a quick and easy way to implement Service Level Management capabilities at customer sites. Stay Connected: Twitter |  Face book |  You Tube |  Linked in |  Google+ |  Newsletter

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• Process for Securing Web Sites and Applications

  - by Aamir Hasan

  The following quick-start guide provides a detailed overview of how to configure security for IIS 6.0. Reduce the Attack Surface of the Web Server 1.       Enable only essential Windows Server 2003 components and services. 2.       Enable only essential IIS 6.0 components and services. 3.       Enable only essential Web service extensions. 4.       Enable only essential Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) types. 5.       Configure Windows Server 2003 security settings. Prevent Unauthorized Access to Web Sites and Applications 1.       Store content on a dedicated disk volume. 2.       Set IIS Web site permissions. 3.       Set IP address and domain name restrictions. 4.       Set the NTFS file system permissions. Isolate Web Sites and Applications 1.       Evaluate the effects of impersonation on application compatibility: 2·         Identify the impersonation behavior for ASP applications. 3·         Select the impersonation behavior for ASP.NET applications. 4.       Configure Web sites and applications for isolation. Configure User Authentication 1.       Configure Web site authentication. 2·         Select the Web site authentication method. 3·         Configure the Web site authentication method. 4.       Configure File Transfer Protocol (FTP) site authentication. Encrypt Confidential Data Exchanged with Clients 1.       Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to encrypt confidential data. 2.       Use Internet Protocol security (IPSec) or virtual private network (VPN) with remote administration. Maintain Web Site and Application Security 1.       Obtain and apply current security patches. 2.       Enable Windows Server 2003 security logs. 3.       Enable file access auditing for Web site content. 4.       Configure IIS logs. 5.       Review security policies, processes, and procedures.  Note:To secure the Web sites and applications in a Web farm, use the process described in this chapter to configure security for each server in the Web farm. Link:http://www.studentacad.com/post/2010/04/28/Process-for-Securing-Web-Sites-and-Applications.aspx

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• Getting Started with Cloud Computing

  - by juanlarios

  You’ve likely heard about how Office 365 and Windows Intune are great applications to get you started with Cloud Computing. Many of you emailed me asking for more info on what Cloud Computing is, including the distinction between "Public Cloud" and "Private Cloud". I want to address these questions and help you get started. Let's begin with a brief set of definitions and some places to find more info; however, an excellent place where you can always learn more about Cloud Computing is the Microsoft Virtual Academy. Public Cloud computing means that the infrastructure to run and manage the applications users are taking advantage of is run by someone else and not you. In other words, you do not buy the hardware or software to run your email or other services being used in your organization – that is done by someone else. Users simply connect to these services from their computers and you pay a monthly subscription fee for each user that is taking advantage of the service. Examples of Public Cloud services include Office 365, Windows Intune, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Hotmail, and others. Private Cloud computing generally means that the hardware and software to run services used by your organization is run on your premises, with the ability for business groups to self-provision the services they need based on rules established by the IT department. Generally, Private Cloud implementations today are found in larger organizations but they are also viable for small and medium-sized businesses since they generally allow an automation of services and reduction in IT workloads when properly implemented. Having the right management tools, like System Center 2012, to implement and operate Private Cloud is important in order to be successful. So – how do you get started? The first step is to determine what makes the most sense to your organization. The nice thing is that you do not need to pick Public or Private Cloud – you can use elements of both where it makes sense for your business – the choice is yours. When you are ready to try and purchase Public Cloud technologies, the Microsoft Volume Licensing web site is a good place to find links to each of the online services. In particular, if you are interested in a trial for each service, you can visit the following pages: Office 365, CRM Online, Windows Intune, and Windows Azure. For Private Cloud technologies, start with some of the courses on Microsoft Virtual Academy and then download and install the Microsoft Private Cloud technologies including Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and System Center 2012 in your own environment and take it for a spin. Also, keep up to date with the Canadian IT Pro blog to learn about events Microsoft is delivering such as the IT Virtualization Boot Camps and more to get you started with these technologies hands on. Finally, I want to ask for your help to allow the team at Microsoft to continue to provide you what you need. Twice a year through something we call "The Global Relationship Study" – they reach out and contact you to see how they're doing and what Microsoft could do better. If you get an email from "Microsoft Feedback" with the subject line "Help Microsoft Focus on Customers and Partners" between March 5th and April 13th, please take a little time to tell them what you think. Cloud Computing Resources: Microsoft Server and Cloud Computing site – information on Microsoft's overall cloud strategy and products. Microsoft Virtual Academy – for free online training to help improve your IT skillset. Office 365 Trial/Info page – get more information or try it out for yourself. Office 365 Videos – see how businesses like yours have used Office 365 to transition to the cloud. Windows Intune Trial/Info – get more information or try it out for yourself. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online page – information on trying and licensing Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Additional Resources You May Find Useful: Springboard Series Your destination for technical resources, free tools and expert guidance to ease the deployment and management of your Windows-based client infrastructure. TechNet Evaluation Center Try some of our latest Microsoft products for free, Like System Center 2012 Pre-Release Products, and evaluate them before you buy. AlignIT Manager Tech Talk Series A monthly streamed video series with a range of topics for both infrastructure and development managers. Ask questions and participate real-time or watch the on-demand recording. Tech·Days Online Discover what's next in technology and innovation with Tech·Days session recordings, hands-on labs and Tech·Days TV.

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• Career-Defining Moments

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/robz/archive/2013/06/25/career-defining-moments.aspx Fear holds us back from many things. A little fear is healthy, but don’t let it overwhelm you into missing opportunities. In every career there is a moment when you can either step forward and define yourself, or sit down and regret it later. Why do we hold back: is it fear, constraints, family concerns, or that we simply can't do it? I think in many cases it comes to the unknown, and we are good at fearing the unknown. Some people hold back because they are fearful of what they don’t know. Some hold back because they are fearful of learning new things. Some hold back simply because to take on a new challenge it means they have to give something else up. The phrase sometimes used is “It’s the devil you know versus the one you don’t.” That fear sometimes allows us to miss great opportunities. In many people’s case it is the opportunity to go into business for yourself, to start something that never existed. Most hold back hear for a fear of failing. We’ve all heard the phrase “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”, which is intended to get people to think about the opportunities they might create. A better term I heard recently on the Ruby Rogues podcast was “What would be worth doing even if you knew you were going to fail?” I think that wording suits the intent better. If you knew (or thought) going in that you were going to fail and you didn’t care, it would open you up to the possibility of paying more attention to the journey and not the outcome. In my case it is a fear of acceptance. I am fearful that I may not learn what I need to learn or may not do a good enough job to be accepted. At the same time that fear drives me and makes me want to leap forward. Some folks would define this as “The Flinch”. I’m learning Ruby and Puppet right now. I have limited experience with both, limited to the degree it scares me some that I don’t know much about either. Okay, it scares me quite a bit! Some people’s defining moment might be going to work for Microsoft. All of you who know me know that I am in love with automation, from low-tech to high-tech automation. So for me, my “mecca” is a little different in that regard. Awhile back I sat down and defined where I wanted my career to go and it had to do more with DevOps, defined as applying developer practices to system administration operations (I could not find this definition when I searched). It’s an area that interests me and why I really want to expand chocolatey into something more awesome. I want to see Windows be as automatable and awesome as other operating systems that are out there. Back to the career-defining moment. Sometimes these moments only come once in a lifetime. The key is to recognize when you are in one of these moments and step back to evaluate it before choosing to dive in head first. So I am about to embark on what I define as one of these “moments.”  On July 1st I will be joining Puppet Labs and working to help make the Windows automation experience rock solid! I’m both scared and excited about the opportunity!

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• Making user input/math on data fast, unlike excel type programs

  - by proGrammar

  I'm creating a research platform solely for myself to do some research on data. Programs like excel are terribly slow for me so I'm trying to come up with another solution. Originally I used excel. A1 was the cell that contained the data and all other cells in use calculated something on A1, or on other cells, that all could be in the end traced to A1. A1 was like an element of an array, I then I incremented it to go through all my data. This was way too slow. So the only other option I found originally was to hand code in c# the calculations inside a loop. Then I simply recompiled each time I changed my math. This was terribly slow to do and I had to order everything correctly so things would update correctly (dependencies). I could have also used events, but hand coding events for each cell like calculation would also be very slow. Next I created an application to read Excel and to perfectly imitate it. Which is what I now use. Basically I write formulas onto a fraction of my data to get live results inside excel. Then my program reads excel, writes another c# program, compiles it, and runs that program which runs my excel created formulas through a lot more data a whole lot faster. The advantage being my application dependency sorts everything (or I could use events) so I don't have to (like excel does) And of course the speed. But now its not a single application anymore. Instead its 2 applications, one which only reads my formulas and writes another program. The other one being the result which only lives for a short while before I do other runs through my data with different formulas / settings. So I can't see multiple results at one time without introducing even more programs like a database or at least having the 2 applications talking to each other. My idea was to have a dll that would be written, compiled, loaded, and unloaded again and again. So a self-updating program, sort of. But apparently that's not possible without another appdomain which means data has to be marshaled to be moved between the appdomains. Which would slow things down, not for summaries, but for other stuff I need to do with all my data. I'm also forgetting to mention a huge problem with restarting an application again and again which is having to reload ALL my data into memory again and again. But its still a whole lot faster than excel. I'm really super puzzled as to what people do when they want to research data fast. I'm completely unable to have a program accept user input and having it fast. My understanding is that it would have to do things like excel which is to evaluate strings again and again. So my only option is to repeatedly compile applications. Do I have a correct understanding on computer science? I've only just began programming, and didn't think I would have to learn much to do some simple math on data. My understanding is its either compiling my user defined stuff to a program or evaluating them from a string or something stupid again and again. And my only option is to probably switch operating systems or something to be able to have a program compile and run itself without stopping (writing/compiling dll, loading dll to program, unloading, and repeating). Can someone give me some idea on how computers work? Is anything better possible? Like a running program, that can accept user input and compile it and then unload it later? I mean heck operating systems dont need to be RESTARTED with every change to user input. What is this the cave man days? Sorry, it's just so super frustrating not knowing what one can do, and can't do. If only I could understand and learn this stuff fast enough.

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• How do I filter out NaN FLOAT values in Teradata SQL?

  - by Paul Hooper

  With the Teradata database, it is possible to load values of NaN, -Inf, and +Inf into FLOAT columns through Java. Unfortunately, once those values get into the tables, they make life difficult when writing SQL that needs to filter them out. There is no IsNaN() function, nor can you "CAST ('NaN' as FLOAT)" and use an equality comparison. What I would like to do is, SELECT SUM(VAL**2) FROM DTM WHERE NOT ABS(VAL) > 1e+21 AND NOT VAL = CAST ('NaN' AS FLOAT) but that fails with error 2620, "The format or data contains a bad character.", specifically on the CAST. I've tried simply "... AND NOT VAL = 'NaN'", which also fails for a similar reason (3535, "A character string failed conversion to a numeric value."). I cannot seem to figure out how to represent NaN within the SQL statement. Even if I could represent NaN successfully in an SQL statement, I would be concerned that the comparison would fail. According to the IEEE 754 spec, NaN = NaN should evaluate to false. What I really seem to need is an IsNaN() function. Yet that function does not seem to exist.

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