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• Friday Fun: Snowball

  - by Asian Angel

  It is Christmas Eve and hopefully you are enjoying the start of an early weekend away from work. This week we have a snowball throwing game for you to try out, so bundle up and get ready to let those snowballs fly! Snowball The object of the game is to use your snowball ammo to harass the drunk businessman and send him flying along distance-wise as far as you can. Simply use your mouse to aim and click the left button to throw snowballs. You can monitor your stats on the silver bar towards the top of the window. The sound can also be disabled if the music is bothering you, but keep in mind that all sound will be disabled if you use the option. Time to get those snowballs flying through the air!! Keep hitting the businessman with your snowballs as you chase after him. Make certain that your aim is good or you will quickly run out of snowballs! You can really get him moving along at a good rate and he can even go high enough in the air to disappear off the screen for a few moments. There is a also chance that your aim will be so wicked with the snowballs that you will literally knock the drunk businessman’s head off! Weird but possible… The game ends when one of these two events occur: 1.) you run out of snowballs or 2.) the businessman literally bounces back at and then drops behind you as seen in the screenshot here. The moment either happens your score will pop up and then you have the opportunity to try again. Have fun! Note: The bounce back event can happen when encountering cars. Play Snowball Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials Is Your Desktop Printer More Expensive Than Printing Services? 20 OS X Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know HTG Explains: Which Linux File System Should You Choose? HTG Explains: Why Does Photo Paper Improve Print Quality? An Alternate Star Wars Christmas Special [Video] Sunset in a Tropical Paradise Wallpaper Natural Wood Grain Icons for Your Desktop and App Launcher Docks My Blackberry Is Not Working! The Apple Too?! [Funny Video] Hidden Tracks Your Stolen Mac; Free Until End of January Why the Other Checkout Line Always Moves Faster

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• How to Create a Send/Receive Group for RSS Feeds in Outlook 2013

  - by Lori Kaufman

  If you choose to manually update your RSS feeds on demand, there is a way to do this without having to send and receive your email at the same time. You can create a special Send/Receive Group for your RSS feeds. NOTE: If you choose to not have your RSS feeds updated automatically, creating a separate Send/Receive Group for your RSS feeds is useful so you can update them when you want to. To begin creating a new Send/Receive Group, click the File tab. Click Options in the menu on the left side of the Account Information screen. On the Outlook Options dialog box, click Advanced in the left pane list of menu options. In the right pane, scroll down to the Send and receive section and click the Send/Receive button. On the Send/Receive Groups dialog box, click New next to the list of groups. On the Send/Receive Group Name dialog box, enter a name, such as “RSS Feeds On Demand Only,” in the edit box and click OK. For all the other Accounts, except RSS, in the list on the left, de-select the Include RSS Feeds in this Send/Receive group check box so there is NO check mark in the box. Click RSS under Accounts, and make sure the Include RSS Feeds in this Send/Receive group check box is selected. NOTE: If you want to have a separate Send/Receive group for each RSS Feed or group certain RSS feeds together, you can turn on and off specific feeds in the lower half of the Send/Receive Settings dialog box. If you decide to do this, you might specify a more appropriate name for each Send/Receive group for the RSS feeds. Click OK to accept your changes and close the Send/Receive dialog box. Make sure your new Send/Receive group is selected in the list of groups on the Send/Receive Groups dialog box. De-select all the options under Setting for group section at the bottom of the dialog box and click Close. This prevents this group from being updated when you click the general Send/Receive button to retrieve your email. Click OK on the Outlook Options dialog box. To manually update your RSS feeds, click the Send / Receive tab. Click Send/Receive Groups and select your new group from the drop-down list. You can change, rename, or remove any Send/Receive Groups you create by accessing the Send/Receive Groups dialog box again.     

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• SQLAuthority News – Featuring in Call Me Maybe The Developer Way – Pluralsight Video

  - by pinaldave

  Is SQL boring? Not at all. SQL is fun – one has to know how to maximize the fun while working with SQL Server. Earlier I was invited to participate in the video Pluralsight. I am sure all of you know that I have authored 3 SQL Server Learning courses with Pluralsight – 1) SQL Server Q and A 2) SQL Server Performance Tuning and 3) SQL Server Indexing. Before I say anything I suggest all of you watch the following video. Make sure that you pay special attention after 0 minute and 36 seconds. What I can say about this. I am just fortunate to be part of the history in the making. There are more than 53 super cool celebrities in this video. In this just over 3 minute video there are so many story lines. I must congratulate director Megan and creative assistant Mari for excellent work. There are so many fun moments in this small video. Let me list my top five moments. @John_Papa ‘s dance at second 14 @julielerman playing with cute doggy The RACE between @josepheames and @bruthafish – the end is hilarious The black belt moment by @boedie @stwool relaxing on something strange! Well, this is indeed a great short film. This video demonstrates how cool is the culture of Pluralsight and how fun loving they are. A good organization provides an environment to its employees and partners to have maximum fun while they all become part of the success story. Hats off to Aaron Skonnard for producing this fun loving video. Well, after listening to this song for multiple times, I decided to give a call to Pluralsight. If you want, you can call them at +1 (801) 784-9032 or send an email to james-cole at pluralsight.com . What are your top five favorite moments? List it in comments and you may win Pluralsight subscription. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: About Me, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Oracle Social Network Developer Challenge: Fishbowl Solutions

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  Originally posted by Jake Kuramoto on The Apps Lab blog. Today, I give you the final entry in the Oracle Social Network Developer Challenge, held last week during OpenWorld. This one comes from Friend of the ‘Lab and Fishbowl Solutions (@fishbowle20) hacker, John Sim (@jrsim_uix), whom you might remember from his XBox Kinect demo at COLLABORATE 12 (presentation slides and abstract) hacks and other exploits with WebCenter. We put this challenge together specifically for developers like John, who like to experiment with new tools and push the envelope of what’s possible and build cool things, and as you can see from his entry John did just that, mashing together Google Maps and Oracle Social Network into a mobile app built with PhoneGap that uses the device’s camera and GPS to keep teams on the move in touch. He calls it a Mobile GeoTagging Solution, but I think Avengers Assemble! would have equally descriptive, given that was obviously his inspiration. Here’s his description of the mobile app: My proposed solution was to design and simplify GeoLocation mapping, and automate updates for users and teams on the move; who don’t have access to a laptop or want to take their ipads out – but allow them to make quick updates to OSN and upload photos taken from their mobile device – there and then. As part of this; the plan was to include a rules engine that could be configured by the user to allow the device to automatically update and post messages when they arrived at a set location(s). Inspiration for this came from on{x} – automate your life. Unfortunately, John didn’t make it to the conference to show off his hard work in person, but luckily, he had a colleague from Fishbowl and a video to showcase his work.    Here are some shots of John’s mobile app for your viewing pleasure: John’s thinking is sound. Geolocation is usually relegated to consumer use cases, thanks to services like foursquare, but distributed teams working on projects out in the world definitely need a way to stay in contact. Consider a construction job. Different contractors all converge on a single location, and time is money. Rather than calling or texting each other and risking a distracted driving accident, an app like John’s allows everyone on the job to see exactly where the other contractors are. Using his GPS rules, they could easily be notified about how close each is to the site, definitely useful when you have a flooring contractor sitting idle, waiting for an electrician to finish the wiring. The best part is that the project manager or general contractor could stay updated on all the action (or inaction) using Oracle Social Network, either sitting at a desk using the browser app or desktop client or on the go, using one of the native mobile apps built for Oracle Social Network. I can see this being used by insurance adjusters too, and really any team that, erm, assembles at a given spot. Of course, it’s also useful for meeting at the pub after the day’s work is done. Beyond people, this solution could also be implemented for physical objects that are in route to a destination. Say you’re a customer waiting on rail shipment or a package delivery. You could track your valuable’s whereabouts easily as they report their progress via checkins. If they deviated from the GPS rules, you’d be notified. You might even be able to get a picture into Oracle Social Network with some light hacking. Thanks to John and his colleagues at Fishbowl for participating in our challenge. We hope everyone had a good experience. Make sure to check out John’s blog post on his work and the experience using Oracle Social Network. Although this is the final, official entry we had, tomorrow, I’ll show you the work of someone who finished code, but wasn’t able to make the judging event. Stay tuned.

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• Generating Report for NUnit

  - by thangchung

   All source codes for this post can be found at my github.Time ago, I received a request that people ask me how they can generate reports of the results of testing using NUnit? In fact, I may never do this. In the little world of my programming, I only care about the test results, red-green-refactoring, and that was it. When I got that question quite a bit unexpected, I knew that I could use NCover to generate reports, but reports of NCover too simple, it did not give us more details on the number of test cases, test methods, ... And I began to see about creating interesting report for NUnit.I was lucky to find an open source here. Its authors call it NUnit2Report, but one disadvantage is it only running on .NET 1.0. Indeed too old compared to the current version 4.0. And I try to download the preview, but I could not run. I had to open its source code and found that it uses XSLT to convert the output of NUnit results from XML to HTML. Nothing really special, because I also knew that after NUnit run output file extension is XML is created. Author only use this file to convert to HTML using XSLT. And I decided to convert it to. NET 4.0, because I will not have to code from scratch. Conversion work made me take some time, but was lucky that I finally have what I want. Thanks Gilles for the this OSS. I will send a mail to thank him for his efforts but put this out for the OSS. Now I will show people how to do it. I used the auto built NAnt and NUnit for running TestCase, and I use Selenium testing framework. After writing three TestCase using Selenium, I ran NUnit, and got the following results: There are 1 fail and 2s success. In the bin directory of this project will have the NUnit output file as shown below: Then I create a build file, and a bat file for easy running (can use PowerShell is here also.) Double click in the bat file to create a report like this:       Finally open the index.html file in the folder to view report. As everyone can see, it is the TestCase and divide very clearly, that I meet the requirements. This is really good. Once again I really thank NUnit2Report from Gilles. People can contact him via the mail address [email protected] or website  http://nunit2report.sourceforge.net. It really is useful to those who promised to QA. Hopefully this post will help anyone really interested in doing reports for NUnit.   

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• Spotlight on an office - Dublin!

  - by Tim Koekkoek

  In this third instalment of our monthly topic ‘Spotlight on an Office’, we visit Dublin, Ireland Oracle has 5 offices in Dublin all in the EastPoint Business Park close to Dublin City centre. In Dublin there are currently 1,000 people working for Oracle. You’ll find, among others, a large part of OracleDirect, our inside sales organization, part of our EMEA Finance organization and employees from Product and Systems Development who work on the heart of Oracle’s products. Facilities EastPoint Business Park is located next to the Irish Financial Service Centre (IFSC) and is only one train stop away from Dublin city centre. This seafront business park and nearby amenities cater for staff’s needs, which include a Sandwich Bar, a Coffee Shop and a small Convenience Store and Newsagent. Moreover there is a Physical Therapy Clinic and Beauty Salon onsite, Pilates and Boot Camp classes, weekly WeightWatcher Classes, five football / tennis courts and an outdoor chess board. When the sun is shining On sunny days comfy, colourful beanbags are spread throughout the park to relax and every Wednesday there is the Irish Village Market providing staff with a variety of delicious gourmet foods from all over the world. Friday afternoons after work are often used by Oracle employees to start the weekend socializing in The Epicenter Cafe Bar & Venue. In the office In the Oracle offices, you have an open floor design and an open door policy which makes it really easy to walk over to your colleagues or a manager to discuss your projects and keep informed with what is going on. This way you also have a great chance to bond with your colleagues. In two of the Oracle buildings there are subsidized canteens especially for Oracle employees with chefs cooking something special everyday! One of the best things about Oracle in Dublin is that it is really multinational. Currently there are more than 25 languages spoken by Oracle employees. So you will work with colleagues from all around the globe, every day, which makes it a really interesting and exciting experience. Sport & Social There is also a dedicated Sport and Social Club, Oraclub. They organize many sport and social activities. It doesn’t matter which sport is your favourite, Oraclub caters for like-minded individuals and makes sure you can play or watch your favourite sport. Furthermore, Oraclub organizes exhibition matches to get you acquainted with some other sports. Last year the Gaelic Warriors (A Wheelchair Rugby club) held an exhibition match. Oraclub also offer Oracle parties, language courses and offer discounts on many events! So whether you want to go to a Robbie Williams concert, an exhibition of Van Gogh or a match of the Irish Rugby team, Oraclub is there for everyone! There are also plenty of possibilities to get involved in volunteering. Want to know more about the current vacancies in Dublin? Check https://campus.oracle.com for all of our vacancies.

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• Happy New Year! Upcoming Events in January 2011

  - by mandy.ho

  Oracle Database kicks off the New Year at the following events during the month of January. Hope to see you there and please send in your pictures and feedback! Jan 20, 2011 - San Francisco, CA LinkShare Symposium West 2011 Oracle is a proud Gold Sponsor at the LinkShare Symposium West 2011 January 20 in San Francisco, California. Year after year LinkShare has been bringing their network the opportunity to come to life. At the LinkShare Symposium online performance marketing leaders meet to optimize face-to-face during a full day of networking. Learn more by attending Oracle Breakout Session, "Omni - Channel Retailing, What is possible now?" on Thursday, January 20, 11:15 a.m. - 12:00 noon, Grand Ballroom. http://eventreg.oracle.com/webapps/events/ns/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=128306&src=6954634&src=6954634&Act=397 Jan 24, 2011 - Cincinnati, OH Greater Cincinnati Oracle User Group Meeting "Tom Kyte Day" - Featuring a day of sessions presented by Senior Technical Architect, Tom Kyte. Sessions include "Top 10, no 11, new features of Oracle Database 11g Release 2" and "What do I really need to know when upgrading", plus more. http://www.gcoug.org/ Jan 25, 2011 - Vancouver, British Columbia Oracle Security Solutions Forum Featuring a Special Keynote Presentation from Tom Kyte - Complete Database Security Join us at this half-day event; Oracle Database Security Solutions: Complete Information Security. Learn how Oracle Database Security solutions help you: • Prevent external threats like SQL injection attacks from reaching your databases • Transparently encrypt application data without application changes • Prevent privileged database users and administrators from accessing data • Use native database auditing to monitor and report on database activity • Mask production data for safe use in nonproduction environments http://eventreg.oracle.com/webapps/events/ns/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=126974&src=6958351&src=6958351&Act=97 Jan 26, 2011 - Halifax, Nova Scotia Oracle Database Security Technology Day Exclusive Seminar on Complete Information Security with Oracle Database 11g The amount of digital data within organizations is growing at unprecedented rates, as is the value of that data and the challenges of safeguarding it. Yet most IT security programs fail to address database security--specifically, insecure applications and privileged users. So how can you protect your mission-critical information? Avoid risky third-party solutions? Defend against security breaches and compliance violations? And resist costly new infrastructure investments? Join us at this half-day seminar, Oracle Database Security Solutions: Complete Information Security, to find out http://eventreg.oracle.com/webapps/events/ns/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=126269&src=6958351&src=6958351&Act=93

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• Is there a language or design pattern that allows the *removal* of object behavior or properties in a class hierarchy?

  - by Sebastien Diot

  A well-know shortcoming of traditional class hierarchies is that they are bad when it comes to model the real world. As an example, trying to represent animals species with classes. There are actually several problems when doing that, but one that I never saw a solution to is when a sub-class "looses" a behavior or properties that was defined in a super-class, like a penguin not being able to fly (there are probably better examples, but that's the first one that comes to my mind, having seen "Madagascar 2" recently). On the one hand, you don't want to define for every property and behavior some flag that specifies if it is at all present, and check it every time before accessing that behavior or property. You would just like to say that birds can fly, simply and clearly, in the Bird class. But then it would be nice if one could define "exceptions" afterward, without having to use some horrible hacks everywhere. This often happens when a system has been productive for a while. You suddenly find an "exception" that doesn't fit in the original design at all, and you don't want to change a large portion of your code to accommodate it. So, is there some language or design patterns that can cleanly handle this problem, without requiring major changes to the "super-class", and all the code that uses it? Even if a solution only handle a specific case, several solutions might together form a complete strategy. [EDIT] Forgot about the Liskov Substitution Principle. That is why you can't do it. Assuming you define "traits/interfaces" for all major "feature groups", you can freely implement traits in different branches of the hierarchy, like the Flying trait could be implemented by Birds, and some special kind of squirrels and fish. So my question could amount to "How could I un-implement a trait?" If your super-class is a Java Serializable, you have to be one too, even if there is no way for you to serialize your state, for example if you contained a "Socket". So one way to do it is to always define all your traits in pair from the start: Flying and NotFlying (which would throw UnsupportedOperationExceiption, if not checked against). The Not-trait would not define any new interface, and could be simply checked for. Sounds like a "cheap" solution, in particular if used from the start.

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• Lease Accounting Closed for Comment

  - by Theresa Hickman

  December 15, 2010 marked the last day to send public comments to FASB and IASB on lease accounting. June 2011 is the deadline for the final consideration of the Leases Exposure Draft that will be given to standard setters in order to create a new lease accounting standard. Landlords, lessees, retailers, airlines industry, etc. are all worried right now about the changes to lease accounting. They feel the changes will be too costly and complex without adding significant improvement to the quality and relevance of financial statements. In a nutshell, IASB and FASB want to abolish operating leases where the lessee records the periodic payments as an expense over time. The proposed changes will mean that the accounting for leases will move from the P&L and hit both the lessee's and lessor's balance sheets. For companies that occupy a lot of property, this could significantly increase their liabilities not to mention front-load much of the costs that they were able to spread out over time before. Why are IASB and FASB doing this? Their goal is to have consistent accounting for both the lessees and lessors with higher quality financial statements. Leasing is one of four major projects being undertaken by the IASB and FASB in order to complete convergence between US GAAP and IFRS. I spoke to our resident accounting expert Seamus Moran about this to better understand how this might impact accounting software. He reminded me that the proposed changes to both US GAAP and IFRS in respect to leases are "proposed." It is still inappropriate to account for leases the way they are being proposed and we still need to account for them in accordance to the current regulations, which is what current accounting software programs, such as E-Business Suite Release 12.1 and prior and PeopleSoft Enterprise support. The FASB (US GAAP) and IASB (IFRS) exposure drafts (EDs) that outline the proposal were published. The FASB edition was published on August 17th, with comments due by December 15th. The IASB edition was published on the same date, and comments were due in London on the same date. Exposure drafts are the method both the FASB and the IASB use to solicit General Acceptance, the "GA" in GAAP. Both Boards will consider the input they have received, and perhaps revise the proposal. The proposal has come in for some criticism, both from the finance houses and the uses of the leased assets. There is, given the opposition to it, an excellent chance that the Leasing proposal will be modified or rewritten. We will know this in about six months, the usual time it takes for the FASB and IASB to digest the comments they receive. If they feel the proposal has General Acceptance, they will issue the final Standard at that time; if not, they will issue a revised proposal with another year of comment of drafting. Oracle participates in the standard setting process and is fully aware of the leasing proposal. We have designs that would reflect the proposal in hand. These designs will be finalized when the proposal is finalized. It is likely that customers will develop new financial arrangements if the proposal is finalized, and we are working with customers and partners to stay in touch with people's business responses to the proposal. The IASB and FASB are aware that ERP companies will have to revise their software, and that the companies filing results under IFRS or under US GAAP will have to implement such software. The form and timing of the release of the updated software will depend on the schedule of the take up of the new standard, the complexity of the standard, and the releases supported at the time the standard becomes effective.

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• How to Modify a Signature for Use in Plain Text Emails in Outlook 2013

  - by Lori Kaufman

  If you’ve created a signature with an image, links, text formatting, or special characters, the signature will not look the same in plain text formatted emails as it does in HTML format. As the name suggests, Plain Text does not support any type of formatting. For example, if you include an image in your signature, as shown below, the plain text version will be blank. Active links in HTML signatures will be converted to just the text of the link in plain text emails. The How-To Geek link in the image below will become simply How-To Geek and will look like the rest of the text in the signature. The same thing is true in the following example. The active links are stripped from the text. The picture of the envelope that was inserted using the Wingdings font will only display as the plain text character associated with it. There are times you may need to send email in Plain Text format, but still include your signature. You can edit the plain text version of your signature to make it look good in plain text emails by manually editing the text file. To do this, click the File tab. Click Options in the menu list on the left side of the Account Information screen. On the Outlook Options dialog box, click Mail in the list of options on the left side of the dialog box. In the Compose messages section, press and hold the Ctrl key and click the Signatures button. This opens the Signatures folder containing the files used to insert signatures into emails. The .txt file version of each signature is used when inserting a signature into a plain text email. Double-click on a .txt file for the signature you want to edit to open it in Notepad, or your default text editor. Notice that the links on “How-To Geek” and “Email me” are gone and the envelope typed using the Wingdings font was converted to an “H.” Edit the text file to remove extra characters, replace images, and provide full web and email links. Save the text file. Create a new mail message and select the edited signature, if it’s not the default signature for the current email account. To convert the email to plain text, click the Format Text tab and click Plain Text in the Format section. The Microsoft Outlook Compatibility Checker displays telling you that Formatted text will become plain text. Click Continue. The HTML version of your signature is converted to the plain text version. NOTE: You should make a backup of the .txt signature file you edited, as this file will change again when you change your signature in the Signature Editor.     

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• Is there an appropriate coding style for implementing an algorithm during an interview?

  - by GlenPeterson

  I failed an interview question in C years ago about converting hex to decimal by not exploiting the ASCII table if (inputDigitByte > 9) hex = inputDigitByte - 'a'. The rise of Unicode has made this question pretty silly, but the point was that the interviewer valued raw execution speed above readability and error handling. They tell you to review algorithms textbooks to prepare for these interviews, yet these same textbooks tend to favor the implementation with the fewest lines of code, even if it has to rely on magic numbers (like "infinity") and a slower, more memory-intensive implementation (like a linked list instead of an array) to do that. I don't know what is right. Coding an algorithm within the space of an interview has at least 3 constraints: time to code, elegance/readability, and efficiency of execution. What trade-offs are appropriate for interview code? How much do you follow the textbook definition of an algorithm? Is it better to eliminate recursion, unroll loops, and use arrays for efficiency? Or is it better to use recursion and special values like "infinity" or Integer.MAX_VALUE to reduce the number of lines of code needed to write the algorithm? Interface: Make a very self-contained, bullet-proof interface, or sloppy and fast? On the one extreme, the array to be sorted might be a public static variable. On the other extreme, it might need to be passed to each method, allowing methods to be called individually from different threads for different purposes. Is it appropriate to use a linked-list data structure for items that are traversed in one direction vs. using arrays and doubling the size when the array is full? Implementing a singly-linked list during the interview is often much faster to code and easier remember for recursive algorithms like MergeSort. Thread safety - just document that it's unsafe, or say so verbally? How much should the interviewee be looking for opportunities for parallel processing? Is bit shifting appropriate? x / 2 or x >> 1 Polymorphism, type safety, and generics? Comments? Variable and method names: qs(a, p, q, r) vs: quickSort(theArray, minIdx, partIdx, maxIdx) How much should you use existing APIs? Obviously you can't use a java.util.HashMap to implement a hash-table, but what about using a java.util.List to accumulate your sorted results? Are there any guiding principals that would answer these and other questions, or is the guiding principal to ask the interviewer? Or maybe this should be the basis of a discussion while writing the code? If an interviewer can't or won't answer one of these questions, are there any tips for coaxing the information out of them?

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• Multitenant Design for SQL Azure: White Paper Available

  - by Herve Roggero

  Cloud computing is about scaling out all your application tiers, from web application to the database layer. In fact, the whole promise of Azure is to pay for just what you need. You need more IIS servers? No problemo... just spin another web server. You expect to double your storage needs for Azure Tables? No problemo; you are covered there too... just pay for your storage needs. But what about the database tier, SQL Azure? How do you add new databases easily, and transparently, so that your application simply uses more of SQL Azure if its needs to? Without changing a single line of code? And what if you need to scale back down? Welcome to the world of database scalability. There are many terms that describe database scalability, including data federation, multitenant designs, and even NoSQL depending on the technical solution you are implementing.  Because SQL Azure is a transactional database system, NoSQL is not really an option. However data federation and multitenant designs offer some very interesting scalability options that are worth considering. Data federation, a feature of SQL Azure that will be offered in the future, offers very interesting capabilities available natively on the SQL Azure platform. More to come in a few weeks... Multitenant designs on the other hand are design practices and technologies designed to help you reach flexible scalability options not available otherwise. The first incarnation of such a method was made available on CodePlex as an open source project (http://enzosqlshard.codeplex.com).  This project was an attempt to provide a sharding library for educational purposes.  All that sounds really cool... and really esoteric... almost a form of database "voodoo"... However after being on multiple Azure projects I am starting to see a real need. Customers want to be able to free themselves from the database tier, so that if they have 10 new customers tomorrow, all they need to do is add 2 more SQL Azure instances. It's that simple. How you achieve this, and suggested application design guidelines, are available in a white paper I just published.  The white paper offers two primary sections. The first section describes the business and technical problem at hand, and how to classify it according to specific design patterns. For example, I discuss compressed shards through schema separation. The second section offers a method for addressing the needs of a multitenant design using a new library, the big bother of the codeplex project mentioned previously (that I created earlier this year), complete with management interface and such. A Beta of this platform will be made available within weeks; as soon as the documentation will be ready.   I would like to ask you to drop me a quick email at [email protected] if you are going to download the white paper. It's not required, but it would help me get in touch with you for feedback.  You can download this white paper here:   http://www.bluesyntax.net/files/EnzoFramework.pdf . Thank you, and I am looking for feedback, thoughts and implementation opportunities.

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• SQL 2012 Licensing Thoughts

  - by Geoff N. Hiten

  The only thing more controversial than new Federal Tax plans is new Licensing plans from Microsoft.  In both cases, everyone calculates several numbers.  First, will I pay more or less under this plan?  Second, will my competition pay more or less than now?  Third, will <insert interesting person/company here> pay more or less?  Not that items 2 and 3 are meaningful, that is just how people think. Much like tax plans, the devil is in the details, so lets see how this looks.  Microsoft shows it here: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/sql2012-licensing.aspx First up is a switch from per-socket to per-core licensing.  Anyone who didn’t see something like this coming should rapidly search for a new line of work because you are not paying attention.  The explosion of multi-core processors has made SQL Server a bargain.  Microsoft is in business to make money and the old per-socket model was not going to do that going forward. Per-core licensing also simplifies virtualization licensing.  Physical Core = Virtual Core, at least for licensing.  Oversubscribe your processors, that’s your lookout.  You still pay for  what is exposed to the VM.  The cool part is you can seamlessly move physical and virtual workloads around and the licenses follow.  The catch is you have to have Software Assurance to make the licenses mobile.  Nice touch there. Let’s have a moment of silence for the late, unlamented, largely ignored Workgroup Edition.  To quote the Microsoft  FAQ:  “Standard becomes our sole edition for basic database needs”.  Considering I haven’t encountered a singe instance of SQL Server Workgroup Edition in the wild, I don’t think this will be all that controversial. As for pricing, it looks like a wash with current per-socket pricing based on four core sockets.  Interestingly, that is the minimum core count Microsoft proposes to swap to transition per-socket to per-core if you are on Software Assurance.  Reading the fine print shows that if you are using more, you will get more core licenses: From the licensing FAQ. 15. How do I migrate from processor licenses to core licenses?  What is the migration path? Licenses purchased with Software Assurance (SA) will upgrade to SQL Server 2012 at no additional cost. EA/EAP customers can continue buying processor licenses until your next renewal after June 30, 2012. At that time, processor licenses will be exchanged for core-based licenses sufficient to cover the cores in use by processor-licensed databases (minimum of 4 cores per processor for Standard and Enterprise, and minimum of 8 EE cores per processor for Datacenter). Looks like the folks who invested in the AMD 12-core chips will make out like bandits. Now, on to something new: SQL Server Business Intelligence Edition. Yep, finally a BI-specific SKU licensed for server+CAL configurations only.  Note that Enterprise Edition still supports the complete feature set; the BI Edition is intended for smaller shops who want to use the full BI feature set but without needing Enterprise Edition scale (or costs).  No, you don’t get ColumnStore, Compression, or Partitioning in the BI Edition.  Those are Enterprise scale features, ThankYouVeryMuch.  Then again, your starting licensing costs are about one sixth of an Enterprise Edition system (based on an 8 core server). The only part of the message I am missing is if the current Failover Licensing Policy will change.  Do we need to fully or partially license failover servers?  That is a detail I definitely want to know.

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• Paypal PDT and IPN , how does it work?

  - by slow diver

  PDT Payment Data Transfer is getting the transaction data of the purchase that was made on paypal site and you want to fetch that on your own site and display to the user. Also you may want to store it in your database for archive and tracking purposes. But I cannot exactly follow the documentation here What I am not getting is Once you have activated PDT, every time a buyer makes a website payment and is redirected to your return URL, a transaction token will be passed along as a "GET" variable to this return URL. In order to properly use PDT and display transaction details to your customer, you should fetch the transaction token, variable name "tx", and retreive transaction details from PayPal by constructing an HTTP POST to PayPal. Your POST should be sent to https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr. You must post the transaction token using the variable "tx" and the value of the transaction token previously received (e.g. "tx=transaction_token"), and the special identity token using the variable at and the value of your PDT identity token (e.g. "at=identity_token"). You will also need to append a variable named "cmd" with the value "_notify-synch", for example "cmd=_notify-synch", to the POST string. IPN I have setup Instant Payment Notification through setting according to this documentation. This is basically logging into your paypal account and enable IPN while specifying a url where the notification will be sent. This is used to complete an order so that the product can be shipped. What I did is setup a PHP page. I have created a table and whenever that page is called (or hit), it registers an entry in the table so I know a notification came from Paypal. But it does not work either. What am I really doing wrong? The first thing I want to trouble shoot though is when the buyer pays the amount, he is automatically redirected to my site. I have enabled this but automatic redirection just does not work. Instead he is shown the url as an option after payment confirmation is shown. Can someone guide my how the PDT process goes? Where do I make the request for PDT, is it along the very first request (Buy Now button) or it is sent later? Addition I found some good sampling code of how everything should work but it still does not work. I use this code http://officetrio.com/modules/free-php-paypal-ipn-script.php for IPN. I am using this for PDT. This one uses SSL, I changed SSL to regular HTTP (copied paypal version), still does not work. http://ykyuen.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/paypal-payment-data-transfer-sample-code/

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-07-11

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Is the future of retail showrooming? | GigaOm "The digital shopper isn’t just digital and she expects to be served seamlessly across all channels, physical and digital," reports GigaOm. Twenty years into the Internet era and the changes just keep coming. Solution architects take note... Agile Bureaucracy: When Practices become Principles | Jim Highsmith.com "Principles and values are a critical part of keeping individuals in organizations aligned and engaged," says Agile guru Jim Highsmith, "but the more pseudo-principles are piled on top of principles, the less and less organizations are able to adapt." Oracle Fusion Applications 11g Basics | Michel Schildmeijer "We are trying to build up a Oracle Fusion Apps environment on a Exalogic system, though still on bare metal, because officially there still is no Oracle VM available yet on Exalogic," says Michel Schildmeijer, an Oracle Fusion Middleware Architect at Qualogy. "It is a bit of a challenge, but getting to know the basics and which components the install, build and configure phase use, might bring you a step further on the way." Process Centric Banking: Loan Origination Solution | Manish Palaparthy This interesting, detailed post by Manish Palaparthy explains the process behind the execution of a proof-of-concept for a Fusion Middleware-based loan-origination solution for a bank. The solution incorporates Oracle BPM Suite, Webcenter, and ADF technolgies in a SOA infrastructure. How eBay and Facebook are Cleaning Up Data Centers | Amy Gallo - HBR The Cloud has needs! As reported by Amy Gallo in an article in the Harvard Business Review, "The electricity demand of data centers and the telecommunications network is rivaling that of most nations. If the cloud were itself a country, it would rank fifth in the world on energy demand behind the U.S., China, Russia, and Japan." Do WebLogic configuration from ANT | Edwin Biemond "With WebLogic WLST you can script the creation of all your Application DataSources or SOA Integration artifacts( like JMS etc)," says Oracle ACE Edwin Biemond. "This is necessary if your domain contains many WebLogic artifacts or you have more then one WebLogic environment. If so, you want to script this so you can configure a new WebLogic domain in minutes and you can repeat this task with always the same result." Oracle Special-Edition E-Book: Cloud Architecture for Dummies Learn how to architect and model your cloud implementation to drive efficiency and leverage economies of scale with Cloud Architecture for Dummies, a free Oracle e-book. (Registration required.) Thought for the Day "One of the best things to come out of the home computer revolution could be the general and widespread understanding of how severely limited logic really is." — Frank Herbert Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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• Choose Custom New Tab Pages in Chrome

  - by Asian Angel

  For most people the default New Tab Page in Chrome works perfectly well for their purposes. But if you would prefer to choose what opens in a new tab for yourself then you will definitely want to have a look at the “Define your own new tab!” extension for Google Chrome. Before Unless you are using a Speed Dial (or similar) extension each time you click on the “New Tab Button” you get the same old page. It would certainly be a lot more satisfying if you could choose custom webpage(s) to open as new tabs. After Once you have the extension installed the best thing to do is click on the “New Tab Button”. That will open up the “Options Page” where you can enter one or two custom website URLs of your choosing. Once you have your custom URLs entered click on “Save”. As soon as you click on the “New Tab Button” your new custom webpage(s) will open. If you chose two webpages the first choice will open focused on the “right side” instead of the “left”. Clicking on the “Home Button” will also open the webpage(s) that you chose. The webpage(s) that you chose will also open as your starting “Home Pages” each time that you start your browser. Conclusion If you have wanted to choose your own custom “New Tab Page” then this is the extension that you have been waiting for. Links Download the Define your own new tab! extension (Google Chrome Extensions) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Find Similar Websites in Google ChromeAccess Google Chrome’s Special Pages the Easy WayEnable Vista Black Style Theme for Google Chrome in XPSet Custom Reload Times for Individual Webpages in ChromeEnable Auto-Paging Goodness in Google Chrome TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Play Music in Chrome by Simply Dragging a File 15 Great Illustrations by Chow Hon Lam Easily Sync Files & Folders with Friends & Family Amazon Free Kindle for PC Download Stretch popurls.com with a Stylish Script (Firefox) OldTvShows.org – Find episodes of Hitchcock, Soaps, Game Shows and more

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• Rewriting code under BSD license

  - by Frank

  I am currently studding OpengGL with OpenGL Supebible 5th edition. I've found interested for me some C++ code that is distributed with the book (see also on google code). That code is under New BSD License. I am writing my software on C# with SharpGL wrapper and I'd like to know following things: Can I rewrite that C++ to C#? edid: I'am interesting in using such things like GLBatch, GLShaderManager and some other thing from GLTools. Problem is that library is on C++, but I use C#. How do I have to mark my source code if I put it somewhere like to my github account? What disclaimer should be? Original disclaimer looks like: /* GLShaderManager.h Copyright (c) 2009, Richard S. Wright Jr. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. Neither the name of Richard S. Wright Jr. nor the names of other contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. */ Edit: Should my copyright looks like after rewriting something like that? Copyright (c) 2014, My Name Copyright (c) 2009, Richard S. Wright Jr. All rights reserved. Redistribution...................

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• Impressions on jQuery Mobile

  - by Jeff

  For the uninitiated, jQuery Mobile is a sweet little client framework that turns regular HTML into something more touch and mobile friendly. It results in a user interface that has bigger targets, rounded corners and simple skinning capability. When it was announced that ASP.NET MVC 4 would include support for a mobile-sensitive view engine, offering up alternate views for clients that fit the mobile profile, I was all over that. Combined with jQuery Mobile, it brought a chance to do some experimentation. I blitzed through the views in POP Forums and converted them all to mobile views. (For the curious, this first pass can be found here on CodePlex, while a more recent update that uses RC 2 of jQuery Mobile v1.1.0 is running on the demo site.) Initially, it was kind of a mixed bag. The jQuery demo site also acts as documentation, and it’s reasonably complete. I had no problem getting up a lot of basic views quickly, splitting out portions of some pages as subpages that they quickly load in. The default behavior in the older version was to slide the pages in, which looked a little weird when you were using a back button. They’ve since changed it so the default transition is a fade in/out. Because you’re dealing with Web pages, I don’t think anyone is really under the illusion that you’re not using a native app, so I don’t know that this matters. I’ve tested extensively on iPad and Windows Phone, and to be honest, I’ve encountered a lot of issues. On Windows Phone, there is some kind of inconsistency that prevents the proper respect for the viewport settings. The text background on text fields (for labeling) doesn’t work, either. On both platforms, certain in-DOM page navigation links work only half of the time. Is this an issue of user error? Probably, but that’s what’s frustrating about it. Most of what you accomplish with this framework involves decorating various elements with CSS classes. There isn’t any design-time safety to speak of to make sure that you’re doing it right. I think the issues can be overcome, but there are some trade-offs to consider. The first is download size. Yes, the scripts and CSS do get cached, but that first hit will cost nearly 40k for the mobile parts. That’s still a lot when you’re on some crappy AT&T EDGE network, or hotel Wi-Fi. Then you have to ask yourself, do you really want your app to look like it’s native to iOS? I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, because consistent UI is good, but you will end up feeling a whole lot of sameness, and maybe you don’t want that. I did some experimentation to try and Metro-ize the jQuery Mobile theme, and it’s kind of a mixed bag. It mostly works, but you get some weirdness on badges and with buttons that I’m not crazy about. It probably just means you need to keep tweaking. At this point, I’m a little torn about whether or not I’ll use it for POP Forums or one of the sites I’m working on. The benefits are pretty strong, but figuring out where I’m doing it wrong is proving a little time consuming.

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• When to use SOAP over REST

  So, how does REST based services differ from SOAP based services, and when should you use SOAP? Representational State Transfer (REST) implements the standard HTTP/HTTPS as an interface allowing clients to obtain access to resources based on requested URIs. An example of a URI may look like this http://mydomain.com/service/method?parameter=var1&parameter=var2. It is important to note that REST based services are stateless because http/https is natively stateless. One of the many benefits for implementing HTTP/HTTPS as an interface is can be found in caching. Caching can be done on a web service much like caching is done on requested web pages. Caching allows for reduced web server processing and increased response times because content is already processed and stored for immediate access. Typical actions performed by REST based services include generic CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) operations and operations that do not require state. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) on the other hand uses a generic interface in order to transport messages. Unlike REST, SOAP can use HTTP/HTTPS, SMTP, JMS, or any other standard transport protocols. Furthermore, SOAP utilizes XML in the following ways: Define a message Defines how a message is to be processed Defines the encoding of a message Lays out procedure calls and responses As REST aligns more with a Resource View, SOAP aligns more with a Method View in that business logic is exposed as methods typically through SOAP web service because they can retain state. In addition, SOAP requests are not cached therefore every request will be processed by the server. As stated before Soap does retain state and this gives it a special advantage over REST for services that need to preform transactions where multiple calls to a service are need in order to complete a task. Additionally, SOAP is more ideal for enterprise level services that implement standard exchange formats in the form of contracts due to the fact that REST does not currently support this. A real world example of where SOAP is preferred over REST can be seen in the banking industry where money is transferred from one account to another. SOAP would allow a bank to perform a transaction on an account and if the transaction failed, SOAP would automatically retry the transaction ensuring that the request was completed. Unfortunately, with REST, failed service calls must be handled manually by the requesting application. References: Francia, S. (2010). SOAP vs. REST. Retrieved 11 20, 2011, from spf13: http://spf13.com/post/soap-vs-rest Rozlog, M. (2010). REST and SOAP: When Should I Use Each (or Both)? Retrieved 11 20, 2011, from Infoq.com: http://www.infoq.com/articles/rest-soap-when-to-use-each

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• JavaScript: Code Folding

  - by Petr

  Today I would like to mentioned code folding in the new JavaScript editor support, which is available in the continual builds from our server. It's a basic feature, but was mentioned in a comment under the mentioned post. So you can fold comments and every code block between { and }. The current support allows only methods to be folded. The difference is shown below. In the picture on the left side is the current folding and on the right side the new one.   The code folding can be switched off in the Editor Options (Tools main menu -> Options -> Editor category -> General Tab). In this dialog you can also define which folds should be collapsed by default when you open a file. These options more closely fit Java editor needs, but you can see in the next picture how the options are mapped for JavaScript code.  The Method option folds all functions in the code. Other code blogs are fold through the option Tags and Other Code Blogs.  The documentation comments (starts with /**) are fold through Javadoc Comments and when you check Initial Comment, then all comments that start with /* are folded by default.  The new JavaScript editor also supports custom folds. To add your custom fold, type in two special comments as shown in this example: // <editor-fold> Your code goes here... // </editor-fold> You can define the default description of a collapsed fold by adding a "desc" attribute: // <editor-fold desc="This is my super secret genius code."> Your code goes here... // </editor-fold> You can set a fold to be collapsed by default by adding a "defaultstate" attribute: // <editor-fold defaultstate="collapsed"> Your code goes here... // </editor-fold> There is a code template that helps with writing custom fold comments. The abbreviation for the template is fcom. As I wrote the new JS support is available in the continual builds. Go here for more info.

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• Applying Quotas Across all My Sites

  - by Bil Simser

  Just a quick snippet this morning. If you need to apply a new quota template to all users My Sites here's a quick script to do it. Changing an existing quota is fine but if you're migrating users from another system or you just want to up everyone's storage a bit here's what you do. Create a new quota template. This is found in Central Admin under Application Management | Site Collections | Specify quota templates. There's already a default "Individual Quota" created you might want to create your own or have a special one for your users Open up the PowerShell Management Console and enter "Get-SPWebApplication". This will list all your web applications on the farm.  To apply it to all My Sites (each site is a site collection of its own) run this script below. .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: Consolas, "Courier New", Courier, Monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } 1: $webapps = Get-SPWebApplication; 2:   3: $webapp = $webapps[4]; 4:   5: foreach ($site in $webapp.Sites) { 6: Set-SPSite -Identity $site.url -QuotaTemplate "Your Quota Template" 7: } The first line gets all the web applications on the server. In our case, the forth one is the mysite web app (yours will probably be a different number). Just run Get-SPWebApplication from the console to figure out which one to use. You could get fancy and pipe the name to find it but I'm too lazy for that.Then we loop through all the sites on the list using the $site.url property and pass it to the Set-SPSite cmdlet and specify the name of the our custom QuotaTemplate.Easy. Now all users are updated with the new quota template.

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• SQL Community – stronger than ever

  - by Rob Farley

  I posted a few hours ago about a reflection of the Summit, but I wanted to write another one for this month’s T-SQL Tuesday, hosted by Chris Yates. In January of this year, Adam Jorgensen and I joked around in a video that was used for the SQL Server 2012 launch. We were asked about SQLFamily, and we said how we were like brothers – how we could drive each other crazy (the look he gave me as I patted his stomach was priceless), but that we’d still look out for each other, just like in a real family. And this is really true. Last week at the PASS Summit, there was a lot going on. I was busy as always, as were many others. People told me their good news, their awful news, and some whinged to me about other people who were driving them crazy. But throughout this, people in the SQL Server community genuinely want the best for each other. I’m sure there are exceptions, but I don’t see much of this. Australians aren’t big on cheering for each other. Neither are the English. I think we see it as an American thing. It could be easy for me to consider that the SQL Community that I see at the PASS Summit is mainly there because it’s a primarily American organisation. But when you speak to people like sponsors, or people involved in several types of communities, you quickly hear that it’s not just about that – that PASS has something special. It goes beyond cheering, it’s a strong desire to see each other succeed. I see MVPs feel disappointed for those people who don’t get awarded. I see Summit speakers concerned for those who missed out on the chance to speak. I see chapter leaders excited about the opportunity to help other chapters. And throughout, I see a gentleness and love for people that you rarely see outside the church (and sadly, many churches don’t have it either). Chris points out that the M-W dictionary defined community as “a unified body of individuals”, and I feel like this is true of the SQL Server community. It goes deeper though. It’s not just unity – and we’re most definitely different to each other – it’s more than that. We all want to see each other grow. We all want to pull ourselves up, to serve each other, and to grow PASS into something more than it is today. In that other post of mine I wrote a bit about Paul White’s experience at his first Summit. His missus wrote to me on Facebook saying that she welled up over it. But that emotion was nothing about what I wrote – it was about the reaction that the SQL Community had had to Paul. Be proud of it, my SQL brothers and sisters, and never lose it.

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• Insurers Pushed to Transform Their Business

  - by Calvin Glenn

  Everyone in the P&C industry has heard it “We can’t do it.” “Nobody wants to do it.” “We can’t afford to do it.”  Unfortunately, what they’re referencing are the reasons many insurers are still trying to maintain their business processing on legacy policy administration systems, attempting to bide time until there is no other recourse but to give in, bite the bullet, and take on the monumental task of replacing an entire policy administration system (PAS). Just the thought of that project sends IT, Business Users and Management reeling. However, is that fear real?  It is a bit daunting when one realizes that a complete policy administration system replacement will touch most every function an insurer manages, from quoting and rating, to underwriting, distribution, and even customer service. With that, everyone has heard at least one horror story around a transformation initiative that has far exceeded budget and the promised implementation / go-live timeline.    But, does it have to be that hard?  Surely, in the age where a person can voice-activate their DVR to record a TV program from a cell phone, there has to be someone somewhere who’s figured out how to simplify this process. To be able to help insurers, of all sizes, transform and grow their business while also delivering on their overall objectives of providing speed to market, straight-through-processing for applications, quoting, underwriting, and simplified product development. Maybe we’re looking too hard and the answer is simple and straight-forward. Why replace the entire machine when all it really needs is a new part…a single enterprise rating system? This core, modular piece of the policy administration system is the foundation of product development and rate management that enables insurers to provide the right product at the right price to the right customer through the best channels at any given moment in time. The real benefit of a single enterprise rating system is the ability to deliver enhanced business capabilities, such as improved product management, streamlined underwriting, and speed to market. With these benefits, carriers have accomplished a portion of their overall transformation goal. Furthermore, lessons learned from the rating project can be applied to the bigger, down-the-road PAS project to support the successful completion of the overall transformation endeavor. At the recent Oracle OpenWorld Conference in San Francisco, information was shared with attendees about a recent “go-live” project from an Oracle Insurance Tier 1 insurer who did what is proposed above…replaced just the rating portion of their legacy policy administration system with Oracle Insurance Insbridge Rating and Underwriting.  This change provided the insurer greater flexibility to set rates that better reflect risk while enabling the company to support its market segment strategy. Using the Oracle Insurance Insbridge enterprise rating solution, the insurer was able to reduce processing time for agents and underwriters, gained the ability to support proprietary rating models and improved pricing accuracy.      There is mounting pressure on P&C insurers to produce growth and show net profitability in the midst of modest overall industry growth, large weather-related losses and intensifying competition for market share.  Insurers are also being asked to improve customer service, offer a differentiated value proposition and simplify insurance processes.  While the demands are many there is an easy answer…invest in and update the most mission critical application in your arsenal, the single enterprise rating system. Download the Podcast to listen to “Stand-Alone Rating Engine - Leading Force Behind Core Transformation Projects in the P&C Market,” a podcast originally recorded in October 2013. Related Resources: White Paper: Stand-Alone Rating Engine: Leading Force Behind Core Transformation Projects in the P&C Market Webcast On Demand: Stand-Alone Rating Engine and Core Transformation for P&C Insurers Don’t forget to keep up with us year-round: Facebook: www.facebook.com/oracleinsurance Twitter: www.twitter.com/oracleinsurance YouTube: www.youtube.com/oracleinsurance

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• Create Outlook Appointments from PowerShell

  - by BuckWoody

  I've been toying around with a script to create a special set of calendar objects in Outlook that show when my SQL Server Agent Jobs are scheduled to run. I haven't finished yet, but I thought I would share the part that creates the Outlook Appointments.I have yet to fill a variable with the start and end times, and then loop through that to create the appointments. I'm thinking I'll make the script below into a function, and feed it those variables in a loop. The script below creates a whole new Calendar Folder in Outlook called "SQL Server Agent Jobs". I also use categories quite a bit, so you'll see that too. Caution: If you plan to play with this script, do it on an isolated workstation, not on your "regular" Outlook calendar. Otherwise, you'll have lots of appointments in there that you don't care about!  # Add a new calendar item to a new Outlook folder called "SQL Server Agent Jobs" $outlook = new-object -com Outlook.Application $calendar = $outlook.Session.folders.Item(1).Folders.Item("SQL Server Agent Jobs") $appt = $calendar.Items.Add(1) # == olAppointmentItem $appt.Start = [datetime]"03/11/2010 11:00" $appt.End = [datetime]"03/11/2009 12:00" $appt.Subject = "JobName" $appt.Location = "ServerName" $appt.Body = "Job Details" $appt.Categories = "SQL server Agent Job" $appt.Save()   Script Disclaimer, for people who need to be told this sort of thing: Never trust any script, including those that you find here, until you understand exactly what it does and how it will act on your systems. Always check the script on a test system or Virtual Machine, not a production system. All scripts on this site are performed by a professional stunt driver on a closed course. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Offer good for a limited time only. Keep out of reach of small children. Do not operate heavy machinery while using this script. If you experience blurry vision, indigestion or diarrhea during the operation of this script, see a physician immediately.   Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Own a KINECT for MS-XBOX before anyone does

  Following is the announced by Richik Nandi from Microsoft team. Dear Customer, We believe that our privileged customers shouldn't have to wait for good things. So, here's a special offer exclusively for you. Be one of the first in India to own and experience Kinect for XBOX 360, few days before it is even launched in stores. Introducing the new Kinect for XBOX 360®. Kinect needs no controllers. You are the controller. Kinect brings games and entertainment to life in extraordinary new ways without using a controller. The sensor recognizes your face, eyes and body movements to deliver a superb gaming experience. Easy to use and great fun, Kinect gets everyone off the couch. See a ball? Kick it. Want to join a friend in the fun? Simply jump in. Imagine controlling movies and music with the wave of a hand or the sound of your voice! Kinect is all about fun for you and your family. And the best part is Kinect works with every Xbox 360®. There are two options you can choose from: •  Kinect sensor + 4GB Xbox 360 bundle + Kinect Adventures game at Rs 22,990/-and get Dance Central game worth Rs 1999 from Redington, 20% discount voucher from Starwood on food and beverages, T-shirt from PUMA and a Kinect adventure live card absolutely free using your unique promo code : XbTXXZl2Sb •  Kinect Sensor at Rs 9,500/-and get 20% discount voucher from Starwood on food and beverages, T-shirt from PUMA and a Kinect adventure live card absolutely free using your unique promo code : lDg6o8SuYh We want you to own your Kinect before the official launch. The promotion closes by 10th November. To know more about Kinect click here. To book your Kinect PRE-ORDER now! Enter your details along with the above mentioned promo code to avail of the free gifts offer. We will have your Kinect delivered by 19th November 2010. Enjoy being the controller. Enjoy the Kinect. span.fullpost {display:none;}

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