Search Results

Search found 33468 results on 1339 pages for 'behaviour change'.

Page 293/1339 | < Previous Page | 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300  | Next Page >

• Visual Studio 2010 SP1

  - by ScottGu

  Last week we shipped Service Pack 1 of Visual Studio 2010 and the Visual Studio Express Tools.  In addition to bug fixes and performance improvements, SP1 includes a number of feature enhancements.  This includes improved local help support, IntelliTrace support for 64-bit applications and SharePoint, built-in Silverlight 4 Tooling support in the box, unit testing support when targeting .NET 3.5, a new performance wizard for Silverlight, IIS Express and SQL CE Tooling support for web projects, HTML5 Intellisense for ASP.NET, and more.  TFS 2010 SP1 was also released last week, together with a new TFS Project Server Integration Pack and Load Test Feature Pack.  Brian Harry has a good blog post about the TFS updates here. VS 2010 SP1 Download Click here to download and install SP1 for all versions of Visual Studio (including express).  This installer examines what you have installed on your machine, and only downloads the servicing downloads necessary to update them to SP1.  The time it takes to download and update will consequently depend on what all you have installed.  Jon Galloway has a good blog post on tips to speed up the SP1 install by uninstalling unused components. Web Platform Installer Bundles In addition to the core VS 2010 SP1 installer, we have also put together two Web Platform Installer (WebPI) bundles that automate installing SP1 together with additional web-specific components: VS 2010 SP1 WebPI Bundle Visual Web Developer 2010 SP1 WebPI Bundle The above WebPI bundles automate installing: VS 2010/VWD 2010 SP1 ASP.NET MVC 3 (runtime + tools support) IIS 7.5 Express SQL Server Compact Edition 4.0 (runtime + tools support) Web Deployment 2.0 Only the components that are not already installed on your machine will be downloaded when you use the above WebPI bundles.  This means that you can run the WebPI bundle at any time (even if you have already installed SP1 or ASP.NET MVC 3) and not have to worry about wasting time downloading/installing these components again. Earlier this year I did two posts that discussed how to use IIS Express and SQL CE with ASP.NET projects in SP1.  Read the below posts to learn more about how to use them after you run the above bundles: Visual Studio 2010 SP1 and IIS Express Visual Studio 2010 SP1 and SQL CE for ASP.NET The above feature additions work with any web project type – including both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC. Additional SP1 Notes Two additional notes about VS 2010 SP1: 1) One change we made between RTM and SP1 is that by default Visual Studio now uses software rendering instead of hardware acceleration when running on Windows XP.  We made this change because we’ve seen reports of (often inconsistent) performance issues caused by older video drivers.  Running in software mode eliminates these and delivers consistent speeds.  You can optionally re-enable hardware acceleration with SP1 using Visual Studio’s Tools->Options menu command – we did not remove support for HW acceleration on XP, we simply changed the default setting for it.  Jason Zander has written more details on the change and how to re-enable HW acceleration inside VS here. 2) We have discovered an issue where installing SP1 can cause TSQL intellisense within SQL Server Management Studio 2008 R2 to stop working (typing still works – but intellisense doesn’t show up).  The SQL team is investigating this now and I’ll post an update on how to fix this once more details are known.  Hope this helps, Scott P.S. I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

  Read the article

• Dynamic Class Inheritance For PHP

  - by VirtuosiMedia

  I have a situation where I think I might need dynamic class inheritance in PHP 5.3, but the idea doesn't sit well and I'm looking for a different design pattern to solve my problem if it's possible. Use Case I have a set of DB abstraction layer classes that dynamically compiles SQL queries, with one DAL class for each DB type (MySQL, MsSQL, Oracle, etc.). Each table in the database has its own class that extends the appropriate DAL class. The idea is that you interact with the table classes, but never directly use the DAL class. If you want to support a different DB type for your app, you don't need to rewrite any queries or even any code, you simply change a setting that swaps one DAL class out for another...and that's it. To give you a better idea of how this is used, you can take a look at the DAL class, the table classes, and how they are used on this StackExchange Code Review page. To really understand what I'm trying to do, please take a look at my implementation first before suggesting a solution. Issues The strategy that I had used previously was to have all of the DAL classes share the same class name. This eliminated autoloading, so I had to manually load the appropriate DAL class in a switch statement. However, this approach presents some problems for testing and documentation purposes, so I'd like to find a different way to solve the problem of loading the correct DAL class more elegantly. Update to clarify the issue The problem basically boils down to inconsistencies in the class name (pre-PHP 5.3) or class namespace (PHP 5.3) and its location in the directory structure. At this point, all of my DAL classes have the same name, DBObject, but reside in different folders, MySQL, Oracle, etc. My table classes all extend DBObject, but which DBObject they extend varies depending on which one has been loaded. Basically, I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too. The table classes act as a stable API and extend a dynamic backend, the DAL (DBObject) classes. It works great, but I outsmarted myself and because of the inconsistencies with the class names and their locations, I can't autoload the DBObject, which makes running unit tests and generating API docs impossible for the DBObject classes because the tests and docs rely on auto-loading. Just loading the appropriate DBObject into memory using a factory method won't work because there will be times when I need to load multiple DBObjects for testing. Because the classes currently share a name, this causes a class is already defined error. I can make exceptions for the DBObjects in my test code, obviously, but I'm looking for something a little less hacky as there may future instances where something similar would need to be done. Solutions? Worst case scenario, I can continue my current strategy, but I don't like it very much, especially as I'll soon be converting my code to PHP 5.3. I suspect that I can use some sort of dynamic inheritance via either namespaces (preferred) or a dynamic class extension, but I haven't been able to find good examples of this implemented in the wild. In your answers, please suggest either an alternate pattern that would work for this use case or an example of dynamic inheritance done right. Please assume PHP 5.3 with namespaced code. Any code examples are greatly encouraged. The preferred constraints for the solution are: DAL class can be autoloaded. DAL classes don't share the same exact same namespace, but share the same class name. As an example, I would prefer to use classes named DbObject that use namespaces like Vm\Db\MySql and Vm\Db\Oracle. Table classes don't have to be rewritten with a change in DB type. The appropriate DB type is determined via a single setting only. That setting is the only thing that should need to change to interchange DB types. Ideally, the setting check should occur only once per page load, but I'm flexible on that.

  Read the article

• Why Haven’t NFC Payments Taken Off?

  - by David Dorf

  With the EMV 2015 milestone approaching rapidly, there’s been renewed interest in smartcards, those credit cards with an embedded computer chip.  Back in 1996 I was working for a vendor helping Visa introduce a stored-value smartcard to the US.  Visa Cash was debuted at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and I firmly believed it was the beginning of a cashless society.  (I later worked on MasterCard’s system called Mondex, from the UK, which debuted the following year in Manhattan). But since you don’t have a Visa Cash card in your wallet, it’s obvious the project never took off.  It was convenient for consumers, faster for merchants, and more cost-effective for banks, so why did it fail?  All emerging payment systems suffer from the chicken-and-egg dilemma.  Consumers won’t carry the cards if few merchants accept them, and merchants won’t install the terminals if few consumers have cards. Today’s emerging payment providers are in a similar pickle.  There has to be enough value for all three constituents – consumers, merchants, banks – to change the status quo.  And it’s not enough to exceed the value, it’s got to be a leap in value, because people generally resist change.  ATMs and transit cards are great examples of this, and airline kiosks and self-checkout systems are to a lesser extent. Although Google Wallet and ISIS, the two leading NFC payment platforms in the US, have shown strong commitment, there’s been very little traction.  Yes, I can load my credit card number into my phone then tap to pay, but what was the incremental value over swiping my old card?  For it to be a leap in value, it has to offer more than just payment, which I can do very easily today.  The other two ingredients are thought to be loyalty programs and digital coupons, but neither Google nor ISIS really did them well. Of course a large portion of the mobile phone market doesn’t even support NFC thanks to Apple, and since it’s not in their best interest that situation is unlikely to change.  Another issue is getting access to the “secure element,” the chip inside the phone where accounts numbers can be held securely.  Telco providers and handset manufacturers own that area, and they’re not willing to share with banks.  (Host Card Emulation, which has been endorsed by MasterCard and Visa, might be a solution.) Square recently gave up on its wallet, and MCX (the group of retailers trying to create a mobile payment platform) is very slow out of the gate.  That leaves PayPal and a slew of smaller companies trying to introduce easier ways to pay. But is it really so cumbersome to carry and swipe (soon to insert) a credit card?  Aren’t there more important problems to solve in the retail customer experience?  Maybe Apple will come up with some novel way to use iBeacons and fingerprint identification to make payments, but for now I think we need to focus on upgrading to Chip-and-PIN and tightening security.  In the meantime, NFC payments will continue to struggle.

  Read the article

• Instant Rename and Rename Refactoring

  - by Petr

  During the last weeks I have got  a few questions about rename refactoring and some users also complain to me that the refactoring in NetBeans 6.x was much faster. So I would like to explain the situation. For some people, who don't know, Instant Rename action and Rename Refactoring  can look like one action. But it's not true, even if  both actions use the same shortcut (CTRL + R). NetBeans 6.x contained only Instant Rename action (speaking about PHP support), which we can mark as very simple rename refactoring through one file. From NetBeans 7.0 the Instant Rename action works only in "non public" context. It means that this action is used for fast renaming variables that has local context like inside a method, or for renaming private methods and fields that can not be used outside of the scope, where they are declared. From user point of view these two action can be simply recognized. When is after CTRL+R called Instant Rename action, then the identifier is surrounded with rectangle and you can rename it directly in the file. It's fast and simple, also the usages of this identifier are renamed in the same time as you write. The picture below shows Instant Rename action for $message identifier, that is visible only in the print_test method and due this after CTRL+R is called Instant Rename. In NetBeans 7.0, there was added Rename Refactoring that is called for public identifiers. It means for identifiers that could be used in other files. If you press CTRL+R shortcut when the caret is inside $hello identifier from the picture above, NetBeans recognizes that $hello is declared / used in a global context and calls the Rename Refactoring that brings a dialog to change the name of the identifier. From this dialog you have to preview suggested changes, through pressing Preview button and then execute the refactoring through Do Refactoring button. Yes, it's more complicated from user point of view than Instant Rename, but in Rename Refactoring NetBeans can change more files at once. It should be  the developer responsibility to decide whether the suggested changes are right and the refactoring can be executed or in some files original name should be kept. Someone can argue that he doesn't use $hello variable in any other file so Instant Rename could be used in such case. Yes it's true, but in such case NetBeans has to know all usages of all identifiers and keep this informations up to date during editing a file. I'm sure that this is not possible due to the performance problems, mainly for big projects. So the usages are computed after pressing the Preview button. And why is the Refactor button always disabled in the Rename dialog and user has to always go through the preview phase? NetBeans has API and SPI for implementing refactoring actions and this dialog is a part of this infrastructure. If you rename an identifier for example in Java, the Refactor buttons is enabled, but Java is strongly type language and you can be almost in 99% sure that the IDE will suggest the right results. In PHP as a dynamic language, we can not be sure, what NetBeans finds is only a "guess". This is why NetBeans pushes developers to preview the changes for PHP rename. I hope that I have explain it clearly. I'm open to any discussion. What I have described above is situation in NetBeans 7.0, 7.0.1 and probably it will be also in NetBeans 7.1, because there is no plan to change it. Please write your opinion here.

  Read the article

• TiVo Follow-up&hellip;Training Opportunities

  - by MightyZot

  A few posts ago I talked about my experience with TiVo Customer Service. While I didn’t receive bad service per se, I felt like the reps could have communicated better. I made the argument that it should be just as easy to leave a company as it is to engage with a company, even though my intention is to remain a TiVo fan. I worked for DataStorm Technologies in the early 90s. I pointed out to another developer that we were leaving files behind in our installations. My opinion was that, if the customer is uninstalling our application, there should be no trace of it left after uninstall except for the customer’s data. He replied with, “screw ‘em. They’re leaving us. Why do we care if we left anything behind?” Wow. Surely there is a lot of arrogance in that statement. Think about this…how often do you change your services, devices, or whatever?  Personally, I change things up about once every two or three years. If I don’t change things up, I at least think about it. So, every two or three years there is an opportunity for you (as a vendor or business) to sell me something. (That opportunity actually exists all the time, because there are many of these two or three year periods overlapping.) Likewise, you have the opportunity to win back my business every two or three years as well. Customer service on exit is just as important as customer service during engagement because, every so often, you have another chance to gain back my loyalty. If you screw that up on exit, your chances are close to zero. In addition, you need to consider all of the potential or existing customers that are part of or affected by my social organizations. “Melissa” at TiVo gave me a call last week and set up some time to talk about my experience. We talked yesterday and she gave me a few moments to pontificate about my thoughts on the importance of a complete customer experience. She had listened to my customer support calls and agreed that I had made it clear that I intended to remain a TiVo customer even though suddenLink is handling my subscription. She said that suddenLink is a very important partner for them and, of course, they want to do everything they can to support TiVo / suddenLink customers.  “Melissa” also said that they had turned this experience into a training opportunity for the reps involved. I hope that is true, because that “programmer arrogance” that I mentioned above (which was somewhat pervasive back then) may be part of the reason why that company is no longer around. Good job “Melissa”!  And, like I said, I am still a TiVo fan. In fact, we love our new TiVo and many of the great new features. In addition, if you’re one of the two people that read these posts, please remember that these are just opinions. Your experiences may be, and likely will be, completely unique to you.

  Read the article

• SQLAuthority News – Follow up on – Replace a Column Name in Multiple Stored Procedure all together

  - by pinaldave

  Last month I had a fantastic time with lots of puzzles and brain teasers, the amount of participation which I have received on the blog is indeed inspiring to write more. One of the blog post was about how to replace a column name in all the stored procedures. The article had very interesting conversation as a follow up. Please read the original article Replace a Column Name in Multiple Stored Procedure all together before reading this blog further as they are connected. Let us start few of the interesting comments. SQL Server Expert Imran Mohammed had a wonderful first and excellent note. I suggest all of you to read it. Imran stresses on the Data Modelling and Logical as well as Physical Design. Developers must create a logical design and get approval on naming convention, data types, references, constraints, indexes etc. He further suggested that one should not cut steps but must follow all the industry standards and guidelines. Here extended my blog post with following note – “Extending Pinal’s answer, what you can do is go to database properties, all tasks, scripts objects, in scripting wizard select all the stored procedure for which you want to change column name, export the query to a new window and then do find and replace, all in once window and execute the script. But make sure you check what you are replacing, sometimes column names are also used in table names, for ex:Table Name: Product and Column Name: ProductId, ProductName”. Thanks Imran Great Points!  Gatej Alexandru suggested that it is not good idea to DROP or CREATE but rather use ALTER as quite possible there may be permissions issue as well. Very good point let me see if I can write blog post over it. Vinay Kumar and SQLStudent144 have proposed another method to achieve the same. I am combining their solution and writing them here. Step 1. Press Ctrl+T or change “Result to Text” mode. Step 2. Execute below commands.SELECT 'EXEC sp_helptext [' + referencing_schema_name + '.' + referencing_entity_name + ']' FROM sys.dm_sql_referencing_entities('schema.objectname','OBJECT') Where schema.objectname is the object or table you are searching for. Step 3. Now copy the result and paste in new window. Again Press Ctrl+T or change “Result to Text” mode. Step 4. Copy the result and paste in new window. Execute the query. Step 5. Copy the result and paste in new window. Step 6. Now find your searching text in the script, make necessary changes and execute this script. Do not forget to remove the code which is generated in resultset which are not relevant to the T-SQL Script. Digitqr suggest we can do this for other objects besides Stored Procedure as well. Iosif suggests to use tool SQL Search from RedGate. I guess this sums it well. We have an alternative perspective to our original issue of replacing the column name in multiple stored procedure. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

  Read the article

• Having fun with Reflection

  - by Nick Harrison

  I was once asked in a technical interview what I could tell them about Reflection.   My response, while a little tongue in cheek was that "I can tell you it is one of my favorite topics to talk about" I did get a laugh out of that and it was a great ice breaker.    Reflection may not be the answer for everything, but it often can be, or maybe even should be.     I have posted in the past about my favorite CopyTo method.   It can come in several forms and is often very useful.   I explain it further and expand on the basic idea here  The basic idea is to allow reflection to loop through the properties of two objects and synchronize the ones that are in common.   I love this approach for data binding and passing data across the layers in an application. Recently I have been working on a project leveraging Data Transfer Objects to pass data through WCF calls.   We won't go into how the architecture got this way, but in essence there is a partial duplicate inheritance hierarchy where there is a related Domain Object for each Data Transfer Object.     The matching objects do not share a common ancestor or common interface but they will have the same properties in common.    By passing the problems with this approach, let's talk about how Reflection and our friendly CopyTo could make the most of this bad situation without having to change too much. One of the problems is keeping the two sets of objects in synch.   For this particular project, the DO has all of the functionality and the DTO is used to simply transfer data back and forth.    Both sets of object have parallel hierarchies with the same properties being defined at the corresponding levels.   So we end with BaseDO,  BaseDTO, GenericDO, GenericDTO, ProcessAreaDO,  ProcessAreaDTO, SpecializedProcessAreaDO, SpecializedProcessAreaDTO, TableDo, TableDto. and so on. Without using Reflection and a CopyTo function, tremendous care and effort must be made to keep the corresponding objects in synch.    New properties can be added at any level in the inheritance and must be kept in synch at all subsequent layers.    For this project we have come up with a clever approach of calling a base GetDo or UpdateDto making sure that the same method at each level of inheritance is called.    Each level is responsible for updating the properties at that level. This is a lot of work and not keeping it in synch can create all manner of problems some of which are very difficult to track down.    The other problem is the type of code that this methods tend to wind up with. You end up with code like this: Transferable dto = new Transferable(); base.GetDto(dto); dto.OfficeCode = GetDtoNullSafe(officeCode); dto.AccessIndicator = GetDtoNullSafe(accessIndicator); dto.CaseStatus = GetDtoNullSafe(caseStatus); dto.CaseStatusReason = GetDtoNullSafe(caseStatusReason); dto.LevelOfService = GetDtoNullSafe(levelOfService); dto.ReferralComments = referralComments; dto.Designation = GetDtoNullSafe(designation); dto.IsGoodCauseClaimed = GetDtoNullSafe(isGoodCauseClaimed); dto.GoodCauseClaimDate = goodCauseClaimDate;       One obvious problem is that this is tedious code.   It is error prone code.    Adding helper functions like GetDtoNullSafe help out immensely, but there is still an easier way. We can bypass the tedious code, by pass the complex inheritance tricks, and reduce all of this to a single method in the base class. TransferObject dto = new TransferObject(); CopyTo (this, dto); return dto; In the case of this one project, such a change eliminated the need for 20% of the total code base and a whole class of unit test cases that made sure that all of the properties were in synch. The impact of such a change also needs to include the on going time savings and the improvements in quality that can arise from them.    Developers who are not worried about keeping the properties in synch across mirrored object hierarchies are freed to worry about more important things like implementing business requirements.

  Read the article

• Windows Azure Use Case: New Development

  - by BuckWoody

  This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx Description: Computing platforms evolve over time. Originally computers were directed by hardware wiring - that, the “code” was the path of the wiring that directed an electrical signal from one component to another, or in some cases a physical switch controlled the path. From there software was developed, first in a very low machine language, then when compilers were created, computer languages could more closely mimic written statements. These language statements can be compiled into the lower-level machine language still used by computers today. Microprocessors replaced logic circuits, sometimes with fewer instructions (Reduced Instruction Set Computing, RISC) and sometimes with more instructions (Complex Instruction Set Computing, CISC). The reason this history is important is that along each technology advancement, computer code has adapted. Writing software for a RISC architecture is significantly different than developing for a CISC architecture. And moving to a Distributed Architecture like Windows Azure also has specific implementation details that our code must follow. But why make a change? As I’ve described, we need to make the change to our code to follow advances in technology. There’s no point in change for its own sake, but as a new paradigm offers benefits to our users, it’s important for us to leverage those benefits where it makes sense. That’s most often done in new development projects. It’s a far simpler task to take a new project and adapt it to Windows Azure than to try and retrofit older code designed in a previous computing environment. We can still use the same coding languages (.NET, Java, C++) to write code for Windows Azure, but we need to think about the architecture of that code on a new project so that it runs in the most efficient, cost-effective way in a Distributed Architecture. As we receive new requests from the organization for new projects, a distributed architecture paradigm belongs in the decision matrix for the platform target. Implementation: When you are designing new applications for Windows Azure (or any distributed architecture) there are many important details to consider. But at the risk of over-simplification, there are three main concepts to learn and architect within the new code: Stateless Programming - Stateless program is a prime concept within distributed architectures. Rather than each server owning the complete processing cycle, the information from an operation that needs to be retained (the “state”) should be persisted to another location c(like storage) common to all machines involved in the process.  An interesting learning process for Stateless Programming (although not unique to this language type) is to learn Functional Programming. Server-Side Processing - Along with developing using a Stateless Design, the closer you can locate the code processing to the data, the less expensive and faster the code will run. When you control the network layer, this is less important, since you can send vast amounts of data between the server and client, allowing the client to perform processing. In a distributed architecture, you don’t always own the network, so it’s performance is unpredictable. Also, you may not be able to control the platform the user is on (such as a smartphone, PC or tablet), so it’s imperative to deliver only results and graphical elements where possible.  Token-Based Authentication - Also called “Claims-Based Authorization”, this code practice means instead of allowing a user to log on once and then running code in that context, a more granular level of security is used. A “token” or “claim”, often represented as a Certificate, is sent along for a series or even one request. In other words, every call to the code is authenticated against the token, rather than allowing a user free reign within the code call. While this is more work initially, it can bring a greater level of security, and it is far more resilient to disconnections. Resources: See the references of “Nondistributed Deployment” and “Distributed Deployment” at the top of this article for more information with graphics:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee658120.aspx  Stack Overflow has a good thread on functional programming: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/844536/advantages-of-stateless-programming  Another good discussion on Stack Overflow on server-side processing is here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3064018/client-side-or-server-side-processing Claims Based Authorization is described here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee335707.aspx

  Read the article

• Configuring Multiple Instances of MySQL in Solaris 11

  - by rajeshr

  Recently someone asked me for steps to configure multiple instances of MySQL database in an Operating Platform. Coz of my familiarity with Solaris OE, I prepared some notes on configuring multiple instances of MySQL database on Solaris 11. Maybe it's useful for some: If you want to run Solaris Operating System (or any other OS of your choice) as a virtualized instance in desktop, consider using Virtual Box. To download Solaris Operating System, click here. Once you have your Solaris Operating System (Version 11) up and running and have Internet connectivity to gain access to the Image Packaging System (IPS), please follow the steps as mentioned below to install MySQL and configure multiple instances: 1. Install MySQL Database in Solaris 11 $ sudo pkg install mysql-51 2. Verify if the mysql is installed: $ svcs -a | grep mysql Note: Service FMRI will look similar to the one here: svc:/application/database/mysql:version_51 3. Prepare data file system for MySQL Instance 1 zfs create rpool/mysql zfs create rpool/mysql/data zfs set mountpoint=/mysql/data rpool/mysql/data 4. Prepare data file system for MySQL Instance 2 zfs create rpool/mysql/data2 zfs set mountpoint=/mysql/data rpool/mysql/data2 5. Change the mysql/datadir of the MySQL Service (SMF) to point to /mysql/data $ svcprop mysql:version_51 | grep mysql/data $ svccfg -s mysql:version_51 setprop mysql/data=/mysql/data 6. Create a new instance of MySQL 5.1 (a) Copy the manifest of the default instance to temporary directory: $ sudo cp /lib/svc/manifest/application/database/mysql_51.xml /var/tmp/mysql_51_2.xml (b) Make appropriate modifications on the XML file $ sudo vi /var/tmp/mysql_51_2.xml - Change the "instance name" section to a new value "version_51_2" - Change the value of property name "data" to point to the ZFS file system "/mysql/data2" 7. Import the manifest to the SMF repository: $ sudo svccfg import /var/tmp/mysql_51_2.xml 8. Before starting the service, copy the file /etc/mysql/my.cnf to the data directories /mysql/data & /mysql/data2. $ sudo cp /etc/mysql/my.cnf /mysql/data/ $ sudo cp /etc/mysql/my.cnf /mysql/data2/ 9. Make modifications to the my.cnf in each of the data directories as required: $ sudo vi /mysql/data/my.cnf Under the [client] section port=3306 socket=/tmp/mysql.sock ---- ---- Under the [mysqld] section port=3306 socket=/tmp/mysql.sock datadir=/mysql/data ----- ----- server-id=1 $ sudo vi /mysql/data2/my.cnf Under the [client] section port=3307 socket=/tmp/mysql2.sock ----- ----- Under the [mysqld] section port=3307 socket=/tmp/mysql2.sock datadir=/mysql/data2 ----- ----- server-id=2 10. Make appropriate modification to the startup script of MySQL (managed by SMF) to point to the appropriate my.cnf for each instance: $ sudo vi /lib/svc/method/mysql_51 Note: Search for all occurences of mysqld_safe command and modify it to include the --defaults-file option. An example entry would look as follows: ${MySQLBIN}/mysqld_safe --defaults-file=${MYSQLDATA}/my.cnf --user=mysql --datadir=${MYSQLDATA} --pid=file=${PIDFILE} 11. Start the service: $ sudo svcadm enable mysql:version_51_2 $ sudo svcadm enable mysql:version_51 12. Verify that the two services are running by using: $ svcs mysql 13. Verify the processes: $ ps -ef | grep mysqld 14. Connect to each mysqld instance and verify: $ mysql --defaults-file=/mysql/data/my.cnf -u root -p $ mysql --defaults-file=/mysql/data2/my.cnf -u root -p Some references for Solaris 11 newbies Taking your first steps with Solaris 11 Introducing the basics of Image Packaging System Service Management Facility How To Guide For a detailed list of official educational modules available on Solaris 11, please visit here For MySQL courses from Oracle University access this page.

  Read the article

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

  - by David Atkinson

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

  Read the article

• F# and the rose-tinted reflection

  - by CliveT

  We're already seeing increasing use of many cores on client desktops. It is a change that has been long predicted. It is not just a change in architecture, but our notions of efficiency in a program. No longer can we focus on the asymptotic complexity of an algorithm by counting the steps that a single core processor would take to execute it. Instead we'll soon be more concerned about the scalability of the algorithm and how well we can increase the performance as we increase the number of cores. This may even lead us to throw away our most efficient algorithms, and switch to less efficient algorithms that scale better. We might even be willing to waste cycles in order to speculatively execute at the algorithm rather than the hardware level. State is the big headache in this parallel world. At the hardware level, main memory doesn't necessarily contain the definitive value corresponding to a particular address. An update to a location might still be held in a CPU's local cache and it might be some time before the value gets propagated. To get the latest value, and the notion of "latest" takes a lot of defining in this world of rapidly mutating state, the CPUs may well need to communicate to decide who has the definitive value of a particular address in order to avoid lost updates. At the user program level, this means programmers will need to lock objects before modifying them, or attempt to avoid the overhead of locking by understanding the memory models at a very deep level. I think it's this need to avoid statefulness that has led to the recent resurgence of interest in functional languages. In the 1980s, functional languages started getting traction when research was carried out into how programs in such languages could be auto-parallelised. Sadly, the impracticality of some of the languages, the overheads of communication during this parallel execution, and rapid improvements in compiler technology on stock hardware meant that the functional languages fell by the wayside. The one thing that these languages were good at was getting rid of implicit state, and this single idea seems like a solution to the problems we are going to face in the coming years. Whether these languages will catch on is hard to predict. The mindset for writing a program in a functional language is really very different from the way that object-oriented problem decomposition happens - one has to focus on the verbs instead of the nouns, which takes some getting used to. There are a number of hybrid functional/object languages that have been becoming more popular in recent times. These half-way houses make it easy to use functional ideas for some parts of the program while still allowing access to the underlying object-focused platform without a great deal of impedance mismatch. One example is F# running on the CLR which, in Visual Studio 2010, has because a first class member of the pack. Inside Visual Studio 2010, the tooling for F# has improved to the point where it is easy to set breakpoints and watch values change while debugging at the source level. In my opinion, it is the tooling support that will enable the widespread adoption of functional languages - without this support, people will put off any transition into the functional world for as long as they possibly can. Without tool support it will make it hard to learn these languages. One tool that doesn't currently support F# is Reflector. The idea of decompiling IL to a functional language is daunting, but F# is potentially so important I couldn't dismiss the idea. As I'm currently developing Reflector 6.5, I thought it wise to take four days just to see how far I could get in doing so, even if it achieved little more than to be clearer on how much was possible, and how long it might take. You can read what happened here, and of the insights it gave us on ways to improve the tool.

  Read the article

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

  - by Mat Keep

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

  Read the article

• Why Your ERP System Isn't Ready for the Next Evolution of the Enterprise

  - by ken.pulverman

    ERP has been the backbone of enterprise software.  The data held in your ERP system is core of most companies.  Efficiencies gained through the accounting and resource allocation through ERP software have literally saved companies trillions of dollars. Not only does everything seem to be fine with your ERP system, you haven't had to touch it in years.  Why aren't you ready for what comes next? Well judging by the growth rates in the space (Oracle posted only a 3% growth rate, while SAP showed a 12% decline) there hasn't been much modernization going on, just a little replacement activity. If you are like most companies, your ERP system is connected to a proprietary middleware solution that only effectively talks with a handful of other systems you might have acquired from the same vendor.   Connecting your legacy system through proprietary middleware is expensive and brittle and if you are like most companies, you were only willing to pay an SI so much before you said "enough."  So your ERP is working.  It's humming along.  You might not be able to get Order to Promise information when you take orders in your call center, but there are work arounds that work just fine. So what's the problem? The problem is that you built your business around your ERP core, and now there is such pressure to innovate your business processes to keep up that you need a whole new slew of modern apps and you need ERP data to be accessible from everywhere.   Every time you change a sales territory or a comp plan or change a benefits provider your ERP system, literally the economic brain of your business, needs to know what's going on.  And this giant need to access and provide information to your ERP is only growing. What makes matters even more challenging is that apps today come in every flavor under the Sun™.   SaaS, cloud, managed, hybrid, outsourced, composite....and they all have different integration protocols. The only easy way to get ahead of all this is to modernize the way you connect and run your applications.  Unlike the middleware solutions of yesteryear, modern middleware is effectively the operating system of the enterprise.  In the same way that you rely on Apple, Microsoft, and Google to find a video driver for your 23" monitor or to ensure the Word or Keynote runs, modern middleware takes care of intra-application connectivity and process execution.  It effectively allows you to take ERP out of the middle while ensuring connectivity to your vital data for anything you want to do.  The diagram below reflects that change.    In this model, the hegemony of ERP is over.  It too has to become a stealthy modern app to help you quickly adapt to business changes while managing vital information.  And through modern middleware it will connect to everything.  So yes ERP as we've know it is dead, but long live ERP as a connected application member of the modern enterprise. I want to Thank Andrew Zoldan, Group Vice President Oracle Manufacturing Industries Business Unit for introducing me to how some of his biggest customers have benefited by modernizing their applications infrastructure and making ERP a connected application. by John Burke, Group Vice President, Applications Business Unit

  Read the article

• Oracle WebCenter: Common User Experience Architecture

  - by kellsey.ruppel(at)oracle.com

  You may remember that the key goals of the new release of WebCenter are providing a Modern User Experience, unparalleled Application Integration, converging all the best of the existing portal platforms into WebCenter and delivering a Common User Experience Architecture.  In previous weeks we've provided an overview of Oracle WebCenter and discussed some of the other key goals and this week, we'll focus on how the new release of Oracle WebCenter delivers a Common User Experience Architecture.When Oracle talks about a Common User Experience Architecture, it really focuses on a core set of areas.  First, the way that information is accessed needs to be consistent and extensible so that as requirements change, the applications don't need to be rewritten for every change. Second, this information access layer needs to be securely accessible to any application, site, or any other channel that needs to leverage this information.  Third, there needs to be a consistent presentation layout, Oracle calls it a UI shell, so that all resources can fit together in a useable, productive way.  Fourth, there needs to be a common set of design patterns for how different menus, features, and services fit into this UI Shell for broad and productive usability.  Fifth, there needs to be a set of design patterns for the individual services that plug into this UI shell so that end users can move from one module of the application to another without new learning.  Finally, all of these layers need to be customizable in an easy way that insulates IT from patching and upgrading problems and allows the business owners the agility to quickly change with the market conditions.As Oracle has already announced, we will release our next generation of enterprise applications called Oracle Fusion Applications.  We have thousands of developers building these applications that all had different programming tool experience and UI design experience.  We've educated over 6,000 developers building Oracle Fusion Applications to leverage these Common User Experience Architecture patterns to speed their learning curve of the new Java standards as well as SOA principles to deliver a revolutionary new set of applications.  You could imagine the big challenge with getting all these developers with different backgrounds and different UI design skills to deliver a completely integrated application user experience.  This is why Oracle invested heavily in designing this Common User Experience Architecture, based on Oracle WebCenter and the Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF).  It pulls together the best practices and design patterns that Oracle development required in order to bring Fusion Applications to market and Oracle WebCenter is the user experience layer that all of this is surfaced through.  In this way, customers can quickly brand a deployment for new partnerships without having to redevelop a new site.  Or they can quickly add new options to the UI Shell to enable their line of business managers to quickly adapt to a new competitive product.  And with the core integration of the activities to produce a Business Activity Stream, customers are able to stay on top of all their key business actions when they happen as they happen and more importantly, the system can recommend actions or resources to help act on these activities.And we've authored this whole set of design patterns for Oracle development to take advantage of in delivering Fusion Applications.  We're also applying these design patterns to our existing eBusiness Suite, Peoplesoft, Siebel, and JD Edwards applications so that they can tie in the exact same way that Fusion Applications has been brought together.  This will provide customers with a complete Common User Experience Architecture for their entire ecosystem of applications within their enterprise whether they are from Oracle, another vender, or custom built applications. And this is all provided in the new release of Oracle WebCenter.  These design patterns cover elements around delivering a complete, aggregated menu of all the capabilities that their role allows independent of which application they are trying to access.   It means that as they move from one application to another, they will have a consistent user experience.  And if they are using an Oracle application, any customizations that are made to the application are preserved and managed through upgrades and patches.Be sure to check back this week as we share more information and resources on Oracle's Common User Experience Architecture.

  Read the article

• Windows Azure Use Case: New Development

  - by BuckWoody

  This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx Description: Computing platforms evolve over time. Originally computers were directed by hardware wiring - that, the “code” was the path of the wiring that directed an electrical signal from one component to another, or in some cases a physical switch controlled the path. From there software was developed, first in a very low machine language, then when compilers were created, computer languages could more closely mimic written statements. These language statements can be compiled into the lower-level machine language still used by computers today. Microprocessors replaced logic circuits, sometimes with fewer instructions (Reduced Instruction Set Computing, RISC) and sometimes with more instructions (Complex Instruction Set Computing, CISC). The reason this history is important is that along each technology advancement, computer code has adapted. Writing software for a RISC architecture is significantly different than developing for a CISC architecture. And moving to a Distributed Architecture like Windows Azure also has specific implementation details that our code must follow. But why make a change? As I’ve described, we need to make the change to our code to follow advances in technology. There’s no point in change for its own sake, but as a new paradigm offers benefits to our users, it’s important for us to leverage those benefits where it makes sense. That’s most often done in new development projects. It’s a far simpler task to take a new project and adapt it to Windows Azure than to try and retrofit older code designed in a previous computing environment. We can still use the same coding languages (.NET, Java, C++) to write code for Windows Azure, but we need to think about the architecture of that code on a new project so that it runs in the most efficient, cost-effective way in a Distributed Architecture. As we receive new requests from the organization for new projects, a distributed architecture paradigm belongs in the decision matrix for the platform target. Implementation: When you are designing new applications for Windows Azure (or any distributed architecture) there are many important details to consider. But at the risk of over-simplification, there are three main concepts to learn and architect within the new code: Stateless Programming - Stateless program is a prime concept within distributed architectures. Rather than each server owning the complete processing cycle, the information from an operation that needs to be retained (the “state”) should be persisted to another location c(like storage) common to all machines involved in the process.  An interesting learning process for Stateless Programming (although not unique to this language type) is to learn Functional Programming. Server-Side Processing - Along with developing using a Stateless Design, the closer you can locate the code processing to the data, the less expensive and faster the code will run. When you control the network layer, this is less important, since you can send vast amounts of data between the server and client, allowing the client to perform processing. In a distributed architecture, you don’t always own the network, so it’s performance is unpredictable. Also, you may not be able to control the platform the user is on (such as a smartphone, PC or tablet), so it’s imperative to deliver only results and graphical elements where possible.  Token-Based Authentication - Also called “Claims-Based Authorization”, this code practice means instead of allowing a user to log on once and then running code in that context, a more granular level of security is used. A “token” or “claim”, often represented as a Certificate, is sent along for a series or even one request. In other words, every call to the code is authenticated against the token, rather than allowing a user free reign within the code call. While this is more work initially, it can bring a greater level of security, and it is far more resilient to disconnections. Resources: See the references of “Nondistributed Deployment” and “Distributed Deployment” at the top of this article for more information with graphics:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee658120.aspx  Stack Overflow has a good thread on functional programming: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/844536/advantages-of-stateless-programming  Another good discussion on Stack Overflow on server-side processing is here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3064018/client-side-or-server-side-processing Claims Based Authorization is described here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee335707.aspx

  Read the article

• Organizational characteristics that impact the selection of Development Methodology concepts applied to a project

  Based on my experience, no one really follows a specific methodology exactly as it is formally designed. In fact, the key concepts of a few methodologies are usually combined to form a hybrid methodology for each project based on the current organizational makeup and the project need/requirements to be accomplished. Organizational characteristics that impact the selection of methodology concepts applied to a project. Prior subject knowledge pertaining to a project can be critical when deciding on what methodology or combination of methodologies to apply to a project. For example, if a project is very straight forward, and the development staff has experience in developing  that are similar, then the waterfall method could possibly be the best choice because little to no research is needed  in order to complete the project tasks and there is very little need for changes to occur.  On the other hand, if the development staff has limited subject knowledge or the requirements/specification of the project could possibly change as the project progresses then the use of spiral, iterative, incremental, agile, or any combination would be preferred. The previous methodologies used by an organization typically do not change much from project to project unless the needs of a project dictate differently. For example, if the waterfall method is the preferred development methodology then most projects will be developed by the waterfall method. Depending on the time allotted to a project each day can impact the selection of a development methodology. In one example, if the staff can only devote a few hours a day to a project then the incremental methodology might be ideal because modules can be added to the final project as they are developed. On the other hand, if daily time allocation is not an issue, then a multitude of methodologies could work well for a project. Project characteristics that impact the selection of methodology concepts applied to a project. The type of project being developed can often dictate the type of methodology used for the project. Based on my experience, projects that tend to have a lot of user interaction, follow a more iterative, incremental, or agile approach typically using a prototype that develops into a final project. These methodologies desire back and forth communication between users, clients, and developers to allow for requirements to change and functionality to be enhanced. Conversely, limited interaction applications or automated services can still sometimes get away with using the waterfall or transactional approach. The timeline of a project can also force an organization to prefer a particular methodology over the rest. For instance, if the project must be completed within 24 hours, then there is very little time for discussions back and forth between clients, users and the development team. In this scenario, the waterfall method would be perfect because the only interaction with the client occurs prior to a development project to outline the system requirements, and the development team can quickly move through the software development stages in order to complete the project within the deadline. If the team had more time, then the other methodologies could also be considered because there is more time for client and users to review the project and make changes as they see fit, and/or allow for more time to review the project in order to enhance the business performance and functionality. Sometimes the client and or user involvement can dictate the selection of methodologies applied to a project. One example of this is if a client is highly motivated to get a project completed and desires to play an active part in the development process then the agile development approach would work perfectly with this client because it allows for frequent interaction between clients, users and the development team. The inverse of this situation is a client that just wants to provide the project requirements and only wants to get involved when the project is to be delivered. In this case the waterfall method would work well because there is no room for changes and no back and forth between the users, clients or the development team.

  Read the article

• Why Your ERP System Isn't Ready for the Next Evolution of the Enterprise

  - by [email protected]

  By ken.pulverman on March 24, 2010 8:51 AM ERP has been the backbone of enterprise software. The data held in your ERP system is core of most companies. Efficiencies gained through the accounting and resource allocation through ERP software have literally saved companies trillions of dollars. Not only does everything seem to be fine with your ERP system, you haven't had to touch it in years. Why aren't you ready for what comes next? Well judging by the growth rates in the space (Oracle posted only a 3% growth rate, while SAP showed a 12% decline) there hasn't been much modernization going on, just a little replacement activity. If you are like most companies, your ERP system is connected to a proprietary middleware solution that only effectively talks with a handful of other systems you might have acquired from the same vendor. Connecting your legacy system through proprietary middleware is expensive and brittle and if you are like most companies, you were only willing to pay an SI so much before you said "enough." So your ERP is working. It's humming along. You might not be able to get Order to Promise information when you take orders in your call center, but there are work arounds that work just fine. So what's the problem? The problem is that you built your business around your ERP core, and now there is such pressure to innovate your business processes to keep up that you need a whole new slew of modern apps and you need ERP data to be accessible from everywhere. Every time you change a sales territory or a comp plan or change a benefits provider your ERP system, literally the economic brain of your business, needs to know what's going on. And this giant need to access and provide information to your ERP is only growing. What makes matters even more challenging is that apps today come in every flavor under the Sun™. SaaS, cloud, managed, hybrid, outsourced, composite....and they all have different integration protocols. The only easy way to get ahead of all this is to modernize the way you connect and run your applications. Unlike the middleware solutions of yesteryear, modern middleware is effectively the operating system of the enterprise. In the same way that you rely on Apple, Microsoft, and Google to find a video driver for your 23" monitor or to ensure that Word or Keynote runs, modern middleware takes care of intra-application connectivity and process execution. It effectively allows you to take ERP out of the middle while ensuring connectivity to your vital data for anything you want to do. The diagram below reflects that change. In this model, the hegemony of ERP is over. It too has to become a stealthy modern app to help you quickly adapt to business changes while managing vital information. And through modern middleware it will connect to everything. So yes ERP as we've know it is dead, but long live ERP as a connected application member of the modern enterprise. I want to Thank Andrew Zoldan, Group Vice President Oracle Manufacturing Industries Business Unit for introducing me to how some of his biggest customers have benefited by modernizing their applications infrastructure and making ERP a connected application. by John Burke, Group Vice President, Applications Business Unit

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – Puzzle to Win Print Book – Functions FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause and ORDER BY

  - by pinaldave

  Some time an interesting feature and smart audience makes total difference at places. From last two days, I have been writing on SQL Server 2012 feature FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE. Please read following post before I continue today as this question is based on the same. Introduction to FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE Introduction to FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause As a comment of the second post I received excellent question from Nilesh Molankar. He asks what will happen if we change few things in the T-SQL. I really like this question as this kind of questions will make us sharp and help us perform in critical situation in need. We recently publish SQL Server Interview Questions book. I promise that in future version of this book, we will for sure include this question. Instead of repeating his question, I am going to ask something very similar to his question. Let us first run following query (read yesterday’s blog post for more detail): USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty, FIRST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) FstValue, LAST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) LstValue FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail s WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty GO Here is the resultset of the above query. Now let us change the ORDER BY clause of OVER clause in above query and see what is the new result. USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty, FIRST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY OrderQty ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) FstValue, LAST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY OrderQty ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) LstValue FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail s WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty GO Now let us see the result and ready for interesting question: Puzzle You can see that row number 2, 3, 4, and 5 has same SalesOrderID = 43667. The FIRST_VALUE is 78 and LAST_VALUE is 77. Now if these function was working on maximum and minimum value they should have given answer as 77 and 80 respectively instead of 78 and 77. Also the value of FIRST_VALUE is greater than LAST_VALUE 77. Why? Explain in detail. Hint Let me give you a simple hint. Just for simplicity I have changed the order of columns selected in the SELECT and ORDER BY (at the end). This will not change resultset but just order of the columns as well order of the rows. However, the data remains the same. USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT s.OrderQty,s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID, FIRST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY OrderQty ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) FstValue, LAST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY OrderQty ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING) LstValue FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail s WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY s.OrderQty,s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID GO Above query returns following result: Now I am very sure all of you have figured out the solution. Here is the second hint – pay attention to row 2, 3, 4, and 10. Hint2 T-SQL Enhancements: FIRST_VALUE() and LAST_VALUE() MSDN: FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE Rules Leave a comment with your detailed answer by Nov 15′s blog post. Open world-wide (where Amazon ships books) If you blog about puzzle’s solution and if you win, you win additional surprise gift as well. Prizes Print copy of my new book SQL Server Interview Questions Amazon|Flipkart If you already have this book, you can opt for any of my other books SQL Wait Stats [Amazon|Flipkart|Kindle] and SQL Programming [Amazon|Flipkart|Kindle]. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

  Read the article

• Inspiring a co-worker to adopt better coding practices?

  - by Aaronaught

  In the Handling my antiquated coworker question, various people discussed strategies for dealing with coworkers who are unwilling to integrate their workflow with the team's. I'd like, if possible, to learn some strategies for "teaching" a coworker who is merely ignorant of modern techniques and tools, and possibly a little apathetic. I've started working with a programmer who until recently has been working in relative isolation, in a different part of the company. He has extensive domain knowledge and most importantly he has demonstrated good problem-solving skills, something which many candidates seem to lack. However, the actual (C#) code I've seen is a throwback to the VB6 days. Procedural structure, Hungarian notation, global variables (abuse of static), no interfaces, no tests, non-use of Generics, throwing System.Exception... you get the idea. This programmer is a fair bit older than I am and, by first impressions at least, doesn't actively seek positive change. I'm not going to say resistant to change, because I think that is largely an issue of how the topic gets broached, and I want to be prepared. Programmers tend to be stubborn people, and going in with guns blazing and instituting rip-it-to-shreds code reviews and strictly-enforced policies is very likely not going to produce the end result that I want. If this were a new hire, a junior programmer, I wouldn't think twice about taking a "mentor" stance, but I'm extremely wary of treating an experienced employee as a clueless newbie (which he's not - he just hasn't kept pace with certain advancements in the field). How might I go about raising this developer's code quality standard the Dale Carnegie way, through gentle persuasion and non-material incentives? What would be the best strategy for effecting subtle, gradual changes, without creating an adversarial situation? Have other people - especially lead developers - been in this type of situation before? Which strategies were successful at stimulating interest and creating a positive group dynamic? Which strategies weren't successful and would be better to avoid? Clarifications: I really feel that several people are answering based on personal feelings without actually reading all of the details of the question. Please note the following, which should have been implied but I am now making explicit: This coworker is only my "senior" by virtue of age. I never said that his title, sphere of influence, or years at the organization exceed mine, and in fact, none of those things are true. He's a LOB programmer who's been absorbed into the main development shop. That's it. I am not a new hire, junior programmer, or other naïve idiot with grand plans to transform the company overnight. I am basically in charge of the software process, but as many who've worked as "leads" will know, responsibilities don't always correlate precisely with the org chart. I'm not asking people how to get my way, come hell or high water. I could do that if I wanted to, with the net result being that this person would become resentful and/or quit. Please try to understand that I am looking for a social, cooperative method of driving change. The mention of "...global variables... no tests... throwing System.Exception" was intended to demonstrate that the problems are not just superficial or aesthetic. Practices that may work for relatively small CRUD apps do not necessarily work for large enterprise apps, and in fact, none of the code so far has actually passed the integration tests. Please, try to take the question at face value, accept that I actually know what I'm talking about, and either answer the question that I actually asked or move on. P.S. My sincerest gratitude to those who -did- offer constructive advice rather than arguing with the premise. I'm going to leave this open for a while longer as I'm hoping to hear more in the way of real-world experiences.

  Read the article

• AZURE - Stairway To Heaven

  - by Waclaw Chrabaszcz

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Wchrabaszcz/archive/2014/08/02/azure---stairway-to-heaven.aspx  Before you’ll start reading please start to play this song.   OK boys and girls, time get familiar with clouds. Time to become a meteorologist. To be honest I don’t know how to start. Is cloud better or worse than on campus resources … hmm … it is just different. I think for successful adoption in cloud world IT Dinosaurs need to forget some “Private Cloud” virtualization bad habits, and learn new way of thinking. Take a look: - I don’t need any  tapes or  CDs  (Physical Kingdom of Windows XP and 2000) - I don’t need any locally stored MP3s (CD virtualization :-) - I can just stream music to your computer no matter whether my on-site infrastructure is powered on. Why not to do exactly the same with WebServer, SQL, or just rented for a while Windows server ? Let’s go, to the other side of the mirror. 1st  - register yourself for free one month trial, as happy MSDN subscriber you’ve got monthly budget to spent. In addition in default setting your limit protects you against loosing real money, if your toys will consume too much traffic and space. http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/ Once your account is ready forget WebPortal, we are PowerShell knights. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9811175&clcid=0x409 #Authenticate yourself in Azure Add-AzureAccount #download once your settings file Get-AzurePublishSettingsFile #Import it to your PowerShell Module Import-AzurePublishSettingsFile "C:\Azure\[filename].publishsettings" #validation Get-AzureAccount Get-AzureSubscription #where are Azure datacenters Get-AzureLocation #You will need it Update-Help #storage account is related to physical location, there are two datacenters on each continent, try nearest to you # all your VMs will store VHD files on your storage account #your storage account must be unique globally, so I assume that words account or server are already used New-AzureStorageAccount -StorageAccountName "[YOUR_STORAGE_ACCOUNT]" -Label "AzureTwo" -Location "West Europe" Get-AzureStorageAccount #it looks like you are ready to deploy first VM, what templates we can use Get-AzureVMImage | Select ImageName #what a mess, let’s choose Server 2012 $ImageName = (Get-AzureVMImage)[74].ImageName $cloudSvcName = '[YOUR_STORAGE_ACCOUNT]' $AdminUsername = "[YOUR-ADMIN]" $adminPassword = '[YOUR_PA$$W0RD]' $MediaLocation = "West Europe" $vmnameDC = 'DC01' #burn baby burn !!! $vmDC01 = New-AzureVMConfig -Name $vmnameDC -InstanceSize "Small" -ImageName $ImageName   `     | Add-AzureProvisioningConfig -Windows -Password $adminPassword -AdminUsername $AdminUsername   `     | New-AzureVM -ServiceName $cloudSvcName #ice, ice baby … Get-AzureVM Get-AzureRemoteDesktopFile -ServiceName "[YOUR_STORAGE_ACCOUNT]" -Name "DC01" -LocalPath "c:\AZURE\DC01.rdp" As you can see it is not just a new-VM, you need to associate your VM with AzureVMConfig (it sets your template), AzureProvisioningConfig (it sets your customizations), and Storage account. In next releases you’ll need to put this machine in specific subnet, attach a HDD and many more. After second reading I found that I am using the same name for STORAGE and SERVICE account, please be aware of it if you need to split these values. Conclusions: - pipe rules ! - at the beginning it is hard to change your mind and agree with fact that it is easier to remove and recreate a VM than move it to different subnet - by default everything is firewalled, limited access to DNS, but NATed outside on custom ports. It is good to check these translations sometimes on the webportal. - if you remove your VMs your harddrives remains on storage and MS will charge you . Remove-AzureVM -DeleteVHD For me AZURE it is a lot of fun, once again I can be newbie and learn every page. For me Azure offers real freedom in deployment of VMs without arguing with NetAdmins, WinAdmins, DBAs, PMs and other Change Managers. Unfortunately soon or later they will come to my haven and change it into …

  Read the article

• How to Make the Gnome Panels in Ubuntu Totally Transparent

  - by The Geek

  We all love transparency, since it makes your desktop so beautiful and lovely—so today we’re going to show you how to apply transparency to the panels in your Ubuntu Gnome setup. It’s an easy process, and here’s how to do it. This article is the first part of a multi-part series on how to customize the Ubuntu desktop, written by How-To Geek reader and ubergeek, Omar Hafiz. Making the Gnome Panels Transparent Of course we all love transparency, It makes your desktop so beautiful and lovely. So you go for enabling transparency in your panels , you right click on your panel, choose properties, go to the Background tab and make your panel transparent. Easy right? But instead of getting a lovely transparent panel, you often get a cluttered, ugly panel like this: Fortunately it can be easily fixed, all we need to do is to edit the theme files. If your theme is one of those themes that came with Ubuntu like Ambiance then you’ll have to copy it from /usr/share/themes to your own .themes directory in your Home Folder. You can do so by typing the following command in the terminal cp /usr/share/themes/theme_name ~/.themes Note: don’t forget to substitute theme_name with the theme name you want to fix. But if your theme is one you downloaded then it is already in your .themes folder. Now open your file manager and navigate to your home folder then do to .themes folder. If you can’t see it then you probably have disabled the “View hidden files” option. Press Ctrl+H to enable it. Now in .themes you’ll find your previously copied theme folder there, enter it then go to gtk-2.0 folder. There you may find a file named “panel.rc”, which is a configuration file that tells your panel how it should look like. If you find it there then rename it to “panel.rc.bak”. If you don’t find don’t panic! There’s nothing wrong with your system, it’s just that your theme decided to put the panel configurations in the “gtkrc” file. Open this file with your favorite text editor and at the end of the file there is line that looks like this “include “apps/gnome-panel.rc””. Comment out this line by putting a hash mark # in front of it. Now it should look like this “# include “apps/gnome-panel.rc”” Save and exit the text editor. Now change your theme to any other one then switch back to the one you edited. Now your panel should look like this: Stay tuned for the second part in the series, where we’ll cover how to change the color and fonts on your panels. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The Legend of Zelda – 1980s High School Style [Video] Suspended Sentence is a Free Cross-Platform Point and Click Game Build a Batman-Style Hidden Bust Switch Make Your Clock Creates a Custom Clock for your Android Homescreen Download the Anime Angels Theme for Windows 7 CyanogenMod Updates; Rolls out Android 2.3 to the Less Fortunate

  Read the article

• DISA Cross Domain Enterprise Solutions on the NetBeans Platform

  - by Geertjan

  Bray 2.0 is a tool based on the NetBeans Platform that assists in creating valid Data Flow Configuration (DFC) files. The DFC Specification was developed to provide a standardized way for defining, validating, and approving data flows for use on cross-domain guarding solutions. A DFC document specifies key entities such as security domains, guards that facilitate data between security domains, data flows that describe how data travels between security domains, filters that transform and validate the data and more. Related info: http://www.disa.mil/Services/Information-Assurance/Cross-Domain-Solutions The Bray product is in development at Fulcrum IT (http://www.fulcrumco.com). The DFC Specification and Bray were developed in support of the US Department of Defense. Bray 2.0 marks the first release of Bray on the NetBeans Platform and utilizes a number of features that are core to the NetBeans Platform: Modular plugability. Bray consumers can integrate their own tools, file types, and more into the product with relative ease. Robust UI. The NetBeans Platform intuitive UI makes it easy to access and manipulate multiple aspects of a DFC. Explorer. The Explorer is a key component that makes the DFC XML easy to traverse, edit, and find errors. Context-sensitive help. JavaHelp can be readily integrated for the product as well as all the UI within. Editors. Any external file can be added to a DFC. Users can register their own editors or use the provided NetBeans editors to edit files. Printing. The NetBeans Platform Print API makes it easy to determine what should be printed and how.   A screenshot: Bray 2.0 provides a lot of key features in developing valid, robust DFC files:  XML validation. A DFC can be validated against the DFC schema specification. DFC Check List. An interactive, minimal guide for creating a complete DFC. Summary Window. The Summary Window functions like the Navigator in NetBeans IDE. The current "item of interest" is checked against various business rules and provides the ability to quickly find and fix errors. Change Log. Bray audits every change to a DFC and places them in a change log for users to peruse. Comments. Users can optionally add comments for other users to see. Digital signatures. DFC files can be digitally signed. A signature history and signature validation is provided in Bray. Pluggable security schemes. Bray ships with plain text and IC-ISM security schemes. If needed, users can integrate additional ones.  ...and more to come! New features for Bray are constantly in development including use of the NetBeans Visual Library, language support, and more. More screenshots:

  Read the article

• Create a Remote Git Repository from an Existing XCode Repository

  - by codeWithoutFear

  Introduction Distributed version control systems (VCS’s), like Git, provide a rich set of features for managing source code.  Many development tools, including XCode, provide built-in support for various VCS’s.  These tools provide simple configuration with limited customization to get you up and running quickly while still providing the safety net of basic version control. I hate losing (and re-doing) work.  I have OCD when it comes to saving and versioning source code.  Save early, save often, and commit to the VCS often.  I also hate merging code.  Smaller and more frequent commits enable me to minimize merge time and effort as well. The work flow I prefer even for personal exploratory projects is: Make small local changes to the codebase to create an incrementally improved (and working) system. Commit these changes to the local repository.  Local repositories are quick to access, function even while offline, and provides the confidence to continue making bold changes to the system.  After all, I can easily recover to a recent working state. Repeat 1 & 2 until the codebase contains “significant” functionality and I have connectivity to the remote repository. Push the accumulated changes to the remote repository.  The smaller the change set, the less likely extensive merging will be required.  Smaller is better, IMHO. The remote repository typically has a greater degree of fault tolerance and active management dedicated to it.  This can be as simple as a network share that is backed up nightly or as complex as dedicated hardware with specialized server-side processing and significant administrative monitoring. XCode’s out-of-the-box Git integration enables steps 1 and 2 above.  Time Machine backups of the local repository add an additional degree of fault tolerance, but do not support collaboration or take advantage of managed infrastructure such as on-premises or cloud-based storage. Creating a Remote Repository These are the steps I use to enable the full workflow identified above.  For simplicity the “remote” repository is created on the local file system.  This location could easily be on a mounted network volume. Create a Test Project My project is called HelloGit and is located at /Users/Don/Dev/HelloGit.  Be sure to commit all outstanding changes.  XCode always leaves a single changed file for me after the project is created and the initial commit is submitted. Clone the Local Repository We want to clone the XCode-created Git repository to the location where the remote repository will reside.  In this case it will be /Users/Don/Dev/RemoteHelloGit. Open the Terminal application. Clone the local repository to the remote repository location: git clone /Users/Don/Dev/HelloGit /Users/Don/Dev/RemoteHelloGit Convert the Remote Repository to a Bare Repository The remote repository only needs to contain the Git database.  It does not need a checked out branch or local files. Go to the remote repository folder: cd /Users/Don/Dev/RemoteHelloGit Indicate the repository is “bare”: git config --bool core.bare true Remove files, leaving the .git folder: rm -R * Remove the “origin” remote: git remote rm origin Configure the Local Repository The local repository should reference the remote repository.  The remote name “origin” is used by convention to indicate the originating repository.  This is set automatically when a repository is cloned.  We will use the “origin” name here to reflect that relationship. Go to the local repository folder: cd /Users/Don/Dev/HelloGit Add the remote: git remote add origin /Users/Don/Dev/RemoteHelloGit Test Connectivity Any changes made to the local Git repository can be pushed to the remote repository subject to the merging rules Git enforces. Create a new local file: date > date.txt /li> Add the new file to the local index: git add date.txt Commit the change to the local repository: git commit -m "New file: date.txt" Push the change to the remote repository: git push origin master Now you can save, commit, and push/pull to your OCD hearts’ content! Code without fear! --Don

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – Configuring Interactive Cleansing Suggestion Min Score for Suggestions in Data Quality Services (DQS) – Sensitivity of Suggestion

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier I talked about what kind of questions, I do not like when I get asked. Today we will go over the question which I like when I get asked the same. One of the reader practices various steps in my earlier blog post Step by Step Guide to Beginning Data Quality Services in SQL Server 2012 – Introduction to DQS. While reading the blog post he noticed that Data Quality Services is not providing very helpful suggestions. He wrote an email to me about it. Let us go over his email. “Pinal, I noticed in one of your images that DQS is not providing very helpful suggestions. First of all DQS should be able to make intelligent guesses and make the necessary correction by itself. If it cannot do the same, in that case, it should give us intelligent suggestions but in the image included here, I see the suggestions are not there as well. Why is it so? Would you please tell me how to increase the numbers of suggestion? I do understand this may not be preferable solution in many case but all the business cases go on it depends. There are cases when the high sensitivity required and there are cases when higher sensitivities are not required. I would like to seek your help here. –Sriram MD” This is indeed a great question. I see that Sriram understands that every system is different and every application has a different need. I will not have to tell him this most important concept. The question is about how to change the sensitivity of suggestions for correction in DQS. Well, this option is available under the configuration tab in the DQS client. Once you click on Configuration you will see the following screen. Click the Tab of General Settings. You will see the section of Interactive Cleansing. Under this second there is the first option of “Min score for suggestions”. As this is set to 0.7 every suggestion which matches 0.7 probabilities or higher probability are displayed under the suggestion tab. You can see in the following image that there is no suggestion as the min score for suggestions is set to 0.7 and there is no record which qualifies to that much confidence. Now let us change the value of Min Score for suggestion to 0.5. The lower value increased the confidence of DQS to give further suggestion to values which are over 0.5. However, in our case the suggestions which it provides are also accurate. This may not be true for your sample. Every sample is different so you should manually review it before approving them. I guess, this is a simple blog post to demonstrate how to change the confidence value for the suggestions which Data Quality Services provides. Use this feature with care and always tune it according to your datasets and record diversity. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)       Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Data Quality Services, DQS

  Read the article

• Workflow versioning

  - by Nitra

  I believe I have a fundamental misunderstanding when it comes to workflow engines which I would appreciate if you could help me sort out. I'm not sure if my misunderstanding is specific to the workflow engine I'm using, or if it's a general misunderstanding. I happen to use Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF). TLDR-version WWF allows you to implement business processes in long-running workflows (think months or even years). When started, the workflows can't be changed. But what business process can't change at any time? And if a business process changes, wouldn't you want your software to reflect this change for already started 'instances' of the business process? What am I missing? Background In WWF you define a workflow by combining a set of activites. There are different types of activities - some of them are for flow control, such as the IfElseActivity and the WhileActivty while others allows you to perform actual tasks, such as the CodeActivity wich allows you to run .NET code and the InvokeWebServiceActivity which allows you to call web services. The activites are combined to a workflow using a visual designer. You pretty much drag-and-drop activities from a toolbox to a designer area and connect the activites to each other. The workflow and activities have input paramters, output parameters and variables. We have a single workflow which sometimes runs in a matter of a few days, but it may run for 5-6 months. WWF takes care of persisting the workflow state (what activity are we currently executing, what are the variable values and so on). So far I think WWF makes sense. Some people will prefer to implement a software representation of a business process using a visual designer over writing all of it in code. So what's the issue then? What I don't really get is the following: WWF is designed to take care of long-running workflows. But at the same time, WWF has no built-in functionality which allows you to modify the running workflows. So if you model a business process using a workflow and run that for 6 months, you better hope that the business process does not change. Because if it do, you'll have to have multiple versions of the workflow executing at the same time. This seems like a fundamental design mistake to me, but at the same time it seems more likely that I've misunderstood something. For us, this has had some real-world effects: We release new versions every month, but some workflows may run for a year. This means that we have several versions of the workflow running in parallell, in other words several versions of the business logics. This is the same as having many differnt versions of your code running in production in the same system at the same time, which becomes a bit hard to understand for users. (depending on on whether they clicked a 'Start' button 9 or 10 months ago, the software will behave differently) Our workflow refers to different types of entities and since WWF now has persisted and serialized these we can't really refactor the entities since then existing workflows can't be resumed (deserialization will fail We've received some suggestions on how to handle this When we create a new version of the workflow, cancel all running workflows and create new ones. But in our workflows there's a lot of manual work involved and if we start from scratch a lot of people has to re-do their work. Track what has been done in the workflow and when you create a new one skip activites which have already been executed. I feel that this alternative may work for simple workflows, but it becomes hairy to automatically figure out what activities to skip if there's major refactoring done to a workflow. When we create a new version of the workflow, upgrade old versions using the new WWF 4.5 functionality for upgrading workflows. But then we would have to skip using the visual designer and write code to inject activities in the right places in the workflow. According to MSDN, this upgrade functionality is only intended for minor bug fixes and not larger changes. What am I missing?

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300  | Next Page >