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• SQLPASS Summit 2011 -- I'm going but not as a speaker

  - by NeilHambly

  This post is about my attempt and slight failure @ getting a presenting session @ this year’s SQLPASS Summit 2011 I had submitted for the 1st time 2 submissions (think we had max of 4 we could enter, but I was happy to go with just 2 this time, 1 I had already presented & 1 was nearly completed) My general session (75 minutes) the same session on “Waits” I had done @ SQLBits 8 back in Brighton last April, and a new 1/2 day 3.5 hours format which is a session I’m completing on SQLOS layer Well...(read more)

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• T-SQL Tuesday 24: Ode to Composable Code

  - by merrillaldrich

  I love the T-SQL Tuesday tradition, started by Adam Machanic and hosted this month by Brad Shulz . I am a little pressed for time this month, so today’s post is a short ode to how I love saving time with Composable Code in SQL. Composability is one of the very best features of SQL, but sometimes gets picked on due to both real and imaginary performance worries. I like to pick composable solutions when I can, while keeping the perf issues in mind, because they are just so handy and eliminate so much...(read more)

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• JMSContext, @JMSDestinationDefintion, DefaultJMSConnectionFactory with simplified JMS API: TOTD #213

  - by arungupta

  "What's New in JMS 2.0" Part 1 and Part 2 provide comprehensive introduction to new messaging features introduced in JMS 2.0. The biggest improvement in JMS 2.0 is introduction of the "new simplified API". This was explained in the Java EE 7 Launch Technical Keynote. You can watch a complete replay here. Sending and Receiving a JMS message using JMS 1.1 requires lot of boilerplate code, primarily because the API was designed 10+ years ago. Here is a code that shows how to send a message using JMS 1.1 API: @Statelesspublic class ClassicMessageSender { @Resource(lookup = "java:comp/DefaultJMSConnectionFactory") ConnectionFactory connectionFactory; @Resource(mappedName = "java:global/jms/myQueue") Queue demoQueue; public void sendMessage(String payload) { Connection connection = null; try { connection = connectionFactory.createConnection(); connection.start(); Session session = connection.createSession(false, Session.AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE); MessageProducer messageProducer = session.createProducer(demoQueue); TextMessage textMessage = session.createTextMessage(payload); messageProducer.send(textMessage); } catch (JMSException ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } finally { if (connection != null) { try { connection.close(); } catch (JMSException ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } } } }} There are several issues with this code: A JMS ConnectionFactory needs to be created in a application server-specific way before this application can run. Application-specific destination needs to be created in an application server-specific way before this application can run. Several intermediate objects need to be created to honor the JMS 1.1 API, e.g. ConnectionFactory -> Connection -> Session -> MessageProducer -> TextMessage. Everything is a checked exception and so try/catch block must be specified. Connection need to be explicitly started and closed, and that bloats even the finally block. The new JMS 2.0 simplified API code looks like: @Statelesspublic class SimplifiedMessageSender { @Inject JMSContext context; @Resource(mappedName="java:global/jms/myQueue") Queue myQueue; public void sendMessage(String message) { context.createProducer().send(myQueue, message); }} The code is significantly improved from the previous version in the following ways: The JMSContext interface combines in a single object the functionality of both the Connection and the Session in the earlier JMS APIs.  You can obtain a JMSContext object by simply injecting it with the @Inject annotation.  No need to explicitly specify a ConnectionFactory. A default ConnectionFactory under the JNDI name of java:comp/DefaultJMSConnectionFactory is used if no explicit ConnectionFactory is specified. The destination can be easily created using newly introduced @JMSDestinationDefinition as: @JMSDestinationDefinition(name = "java:global/jms/myQueue",        interfaceName = "javax.jms.Queue") It can be specified on any Java EE component and the destination is created during deployment. JMSContext, Session, Connection, JMSProducer and JMSConsumer objects are now AutoCloseable. This means that these resources are automatically closed when they go out of scope. This also obviates the need to explicitly start the connection JMSException is now a runtime exception. Method chaining on JMSProducers allows to use builder patterns. No need to create separate Message object, you can specify the message body as an argument to the send() method instead. Want to try this code ? Download source code! Download Java EE 7 SDK and install. Start GlassFish: bin/asadmin start-domain Build the WAR (in the unzipped source code directory): mvn package Deploy the WAR: bin/asadmin deploy <source-code>/jms/target/jms-1.0-SNAPSHOT.war And access the application at http://localhost:8080/jms-1.0-SNAPSHOT/index.jsp to send and receive a message using classic and simplified API. A replay of JMS 2.0 session from Java EE 7 Launch Webinar provides complete details on what's new in this specification: Enjoy!

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• T-SQL Tuesday: Personality Clashes, Style Collisions, and Differences of Opinion

  - by andyleonard

  This post is the twenty-sixth part of a ramble-rant about the software business. The current posts in this series are: Goodwill, Negative and Positive Visions, Quests, Missions Right, Wrong, and Style Follow Me Balance, Part 1 Balance, Part 2 Definition of a Great Team The 15-Minute Meeting Metaproblems: Drama The Right Question Software is Organic, Part 1 Metaproblem: Terror I Don't Work On My Car A Turning Point Human Doings Everything Changes Getting It Right The First Time One-Time Boosts Institutionalized!...(read more)

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• Custom shadow mapping in Unity 3D Free Edition

  - by nosferat

  Since real time hard and soft shadows are Unity 3D Pro only features I thought I will learn Cg programming and create my own shadow mapping shader. But after some digging I found that the shadow mapping technique uses depth textures, and in Unity depth values can be accessed through a Render Texture object, which is Unity Pro only again. So is it true, that I cannot create real time shadow shaders as a workaround to the limitations of the free version?

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• How to Make Money Online Part 4 - Keyword Research is Critical

  Last time we looked at choosing the best products on ClickBank to promote, now we will look at keyword research, and how critical it is to make money online. You may have heard the term keyword research if you have been looking around for a while, but if you are looking to make or earn money online for the first time, I will give a brief description of what keyword research is and why it is so important.

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• In the Cloud, Everything Costs Money

  - by BuckWoody

  I’ve been teaching my daughter about budgeting. I’ve explained that most of the time the money coming in is from only one or two sources – and you can only change that from time to time. The money going out, however, is to many locations, and it changes all the time. She’s made a simple debits and credits spreadsheet, and I’m having her research each part of the budget. Her eyes grow wide when she finds out everything has a cost – the house, gas for the lawnmower, dishes, water for showers, food, electricity to run the fridge, a new fridge when that one breaks, everything has a cost. She asked me “how do you pay for all this?” It’s a sentiment many adults have looking at their own budgets – and one reason that some folks don’t even make a budget. It’s hard to face up to the realities of how much it costs to do what we want to do. When we design a computing solution, it’s interesting to set up a similar budget, because we don’t always consider all of the costs associated with it. I’ve seen design sessions where the new software or servers are considered, but the “sunk” costs of personnel, networking, maintenance, increased storage, new sizes for backups and offsite storage and so on are not added in. They are already on premises, so they are assumed to be paid for already. When you move to a distributed architecture, you'll see more costs directly reflected. Store something, pay for that storage. If the system is deployed and no one is using it, you’re still paying for it. As you watch those costs rise, you might be tempted to think that a distributed architecture costs more than an on-premises one. And you might be right – for some solutions. I’ve worked with a few clients where moving to a distributed architecture doesn’t make financial sense – so we didn’t implement it. I still designed the system in a distributed fashion, however, so that when it does make sense there isn’t much re-architecting to do. In other cases, however, if you consider all of the on-premises costs and compare those accurately to operating a system in the cloud, the distributed system is much cheaper. Again, I never recommend that you take a “here-or-there-only” mentality – I think a hybrid distributed system is usually best – but each solution is different. There simply is no “one size fits all” to architecting a solution. As you design your solution, cost out each element. You might find that using a hybrid approach saves you money in one design and not in another. It’s a brave new world indeed. So yes, in the cloud, everything costs money. But an on-premises solution also costs money – it’s just that “dad” (the company) is paying for it and we don’t always see it. When we go out on our own in the cloud, we need to ensure that we consider all of the costs.

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• World Record Oracle E-Business Consolidated Workload on SPARC T4-2

  - by Brian

  Oracle set a World Record for the Oracle E-Business Suite Standard Medium multiple-online module benchmark using Oracle's SPARC T4-2 and SPARC T4-4 servers which ran the application and database. Oracle's SPARC T4 servers demonstrate performance leadership and world-record results on Oracle E-Business Suite Applications R12 OLTP benchmark by publishing the first result using multiple concurrent online application modules with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 running Solaris.   This results shows that a multi-tier configuration of SPARC T4 servers running the Oracle E-Business Suite R12.1.2 application and Oracle Database 11g Release 2 is capable of supporting 4,100 online users with outstanding response-times, executing a mix of complex transactions consolidating 4 Oracle E-Business modules (iProcurement, Order Management, Customer Service and HR Self-Service).   The SPARC T4-2 server in the application tier utilized about 65% and the SPARC T4-4 server in the database tier utilized about 30%, providing significant headroom for additional Oracle E-Business Suite R12.1.2 processing modules, more online users, and future growth.   Oracle E-Business Suite Applications were run in Oracle Solaris Containers on SPARC T4 servers and provides a consolidation platform for multiple E-Business instances.   Performance Landscape Multiple Online Modules (Self-Service, Order-Management, iProcurement, Customer-Service) Medium Configuration System Users AverageResponse Time 90th PercentileResponse Time SPARC T4-2 4,100 2.08 sec 2.52 sec Configuration Summary Application Tier Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-2 server 2 x SPARC T4 processors, 2.85 GHz 256 GB memory 3 x 300 GB internal disks Oracle Solaris 10 Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.2 Database Tier Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-4 server 4 x SPARC T4 processors, 3.0 GHz 256 GB memory 2 x 300 GB internal disks Oracle Solaris 10 Oracle Solaris Containers Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Storage Configuration: 1 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array (80 x 24 GB flash modules) Benchmark Description The Oracle R12 E-Business Suite Standard Benchmark combines online transaction execution by simulated users with multiple online concurrent modules to model a typical scenario for a global enterprise. The online component exercises the common UI flows which are most frequently used by a majority of our customers. This benchmark utilized four concurrent flows of OLTP transactions, for Order to Cash, iProcurement, Customer Service and HR Self-Service and measured the response times. The selected flows model simultaneous business activities inclusive of managing customers, services, products and employees. See Also Oracle R12 E-Business Suite Standard Benchmark Results Oracle R12 E-Business Suite Standard Benchmark Overview Oracle R12 E-Business Benchmark Description E-Business Suite Applications R2 (R12.1.2) Online Benchmark - Using Oracle Database 11g on Oracle's SPARC T4-2 and Oracle's SPARC T4-4 Servers oracle.com SPARC T4-2 Server oracle.com OTN SPARC T4-4 Server oracle.com OTN Oracle E-Business Suite oracle.com OTN Oracle Solaris oracle.com OTN Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition oracle.com OTN Disclosure Statement Oracle E-Business Suite R12 medium multiple-online module benchmark, SPARC T4-2, SPARC T4, 2.85 GHz, 2 chips, 16 cores, 128 threads, 256 GB memory, SPARC T4-4, SPARC T4, 3.0 GHz, 4 chips, 32 cores, 256 threads, 256 GB memory, average response time 2.08 sec, 90th percentile response time 2.52 sec, Oracle Solaris 10, Oracle Solaris Containers, Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.2, Oracle Database 11g Release 2, Results as of 9/30/2012.

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• How do your busiest people transfer their knowledge?

  - by Wikis Commit At Area 51

  We have recently polled our company wide wiki users and found out that there are two large groups of users: people with lots of knowledge but (who claim they have) no time to document people with time but (who claim they have) not enough knowledge worth documenting Each group covered almost 50% of the users! How do your companies handle this? That is, how do you encourage your busiest / most knowledgeable people to share their knowledge?

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• Is having several desktop environments on one account bad?

  - by Joseph_carp

  I have gnome classic, cinnamon, unity, gnome 3, and KDE installed on my only user account because I enjoy a little change from time to time (although my favorite is gnome classic) so I installed all of these desktop environments. I heard from a friend that it could potentially cause some problems. I was also told that it would be okay if I created a separate account for each environment, but I don't want to if I don't have to. Any help is much appreciated, thank you.

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• WebCenter Customer Spotlight: spectrumK Holding GmbH

  - by me

  Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist Oracle WebCenter Solution Summary spectrumK Holding GmbH was founded in 2007 by various German health insurance funds and national insurance associations and is a service provider for the healthcare market, covering patient care management, financial management, and information management, as well as payment services and legal counseling. spectrumK Holding GmbH business objectives was to implement innovative new Web-based services and solution systems for health insurance funds by integrating a multitude of isolated solutions from different organizations. Using Oracle WebCenter Portal, Oracle WebCenter Content, and Site Studio, the customer created a multiple-portal environment and deployed the 1st three applications for patient receipt, a medication navigator, and disability information. spectrumK Holding GmbH accelerated time-to-market for new features by reducing the development time, achieved 40% development and cost savings using standard modules and realized 80% overall savings using the Oracle multiple portal environment, as compared to individual installations. Company Overview spectrumK Holding GmbH was founded in 2007 by various company health insurance funds and national insurance associations. A service provider for the healthcare market, spectrumK consists of one holding company and four operative subsidiaries. Its broad product portfolio of compulsory health funds covers patient care management, financial management, and information management, as well as payment services and legal counseling. Business ChallengesspectrumK Holding GmbH business objectives were to implement innovative new Web-based services and solution systems for the health insurance funds by integrating a multitude of isolated solutions from different organizations. Specifically, spectrumK was looking to: Establish a portal-based environment to provide health coverage information services to the insured, with the option to integrate a multitude of isolated solutions from different organizations Implement innovative new Web-based spectrumK service products and solutions systems for health insurance funds Lower costs while improving services for the health fund’s clients Find an infrastructure that supports the small development team in efficient implementation and operation of the solution Reuse standard modules while enabling easy, inexpensive adaptations to customer-specific corporate requirements Solution Deployed spectrumK Holding GmbH created a multiple-portal environment, called “KundenCenter+“ which is based on the integration of Oracle WebCenter Portal, Oracle WebCenter Content, and Site Studio. They initiated and launched the first three of the company’s KundenCenter+, Oracle-based modules for patient receipt, a medication navigator, and disability information, with numerous successful deployments and individual customer environment adaptations. Business ResultsspectrumK Holding GmbH accelerated time-to-market for new features by reducing the development time, achieved 40% development and cost savings using standard modules and realized 80% overall savings using the Oracle multiple portal environment, as compared to individual installations Additional Information  spectrumK Holding GmbH Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Suite Oracle Customer Support Oracle Consulting Oracle WebCenter Content

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• Overload Avoidance

  - by mikef

  A little under a year ago, Matt Simmons wrote a rather reflective article about his terrifying brush with stress-induced ill health. SysAdmins and DBAs have always been prime victims of work-related stress, but I wonder if that predilection is perhaps getting worse, despite the best efforts of Matt and his trusty side-kick, HR. The constant pressure from share-holders and CFOs to 'streamline' the workforce is partially to blame, but the more recent culprit is technology itself. I can't deny that the rise of technologies like virtualization, PowerCLI, PowerShell, and a host of others has been a tremendous boon. As a result, individual IT professionals are now able to handle more and more tasks and manage increasingly large and complex environments. But, without a doubt, this is a two-edged sword; The reward for competence is invariably more work. Unfortunately, SysAdmins play such a pivotal role in modern business that it's easy to see how they can very quickly become swamped in conflicting demands coming from different directions. However, that doesn't justify the ridiculous hours many are asked (or volunteer) to devote to their work. Admirably though their commitment is, it isn't healthy for them, it sets a dangerous expectation, and eventually something will snap. There are times when everyone needs to step up to the plate outside of 'normal' work hours, but that time isn't all the time. Naturally, with all that lovely technology, you can automate more and more of those tricky tasks to keep on top of the workload, but you are still only human. Clever though you may be, there is a very real limit to how far technology can take you. I'm not suggesting that you avoid these technologies, or deliberately aim for mediocrity; I'm just saying that you need to be more than just technically skilled (and Wesley Nonapeptide riffs on and around this topic in his excellent 'Telepathic Robot Drones' blog post). You need to be able to manage expectations, not just Exchange. Specifically, that means your own expectations of what you are capable of, because those come before everyone else's. After all, how can you keep your work-life balance under control, if you're the one setting the bar way too high? Talking to your manager, or discussing issues with your users, is only going to be productive if you have some facts to work with. "Know Thyself" is the first law of managing work overload, and this is obviously a skill which people develop over time; the fact that veteran Sysadmins exist at all is testament to this. I'd just love to know how you get to that point. Personally, I'm using RescueTime to keep myself honest, but I'm open to recommendations for better methods. Do you track your own time, do you have an intuitive sense of what is possible, or do you just rely on someone else to handle that all for you? Cheers, Michael

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• How In-Memory Database Objects Affect Database Design: The Conceptual Model

  - by drsql

  After a rather long break in the action to get through some heavy tech editing work (paid work before blogging, I always say!) it is time to start working on this presentation about In-Memory Databases. I have been trying to decide on the scope of the demo code in the back of my head, and I have added more and taken away bits and pieces over time trying to find the balance of "enough" complexity to show data integrity issues and joins, but not so much that we get lost in the process of trying to...(read more)

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• Good Video Game User Interface Design Books/Websites?

  - by Tucker Morgan

  I having been programming games for some time, but while my teachers say that my code is good and advanced, my friends say that the interface is hard to understand and not the easiest to navigate. I want to learn how to design good user interfaces so that I can program better games, and people will have a easier time getting around. Does anyone know of any good books or websites about designing video game interfaces?

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• More Changes...

  - by MOSSLover

  Stuff has changed drastically for me in the past two to three years.  I moved over 1000 miles from Saint Louis.  I go outside and I get up in front of crowds with less issues.  Now I'm changing jobs again.  I'm not really sure what to say here.  I was obviously unhappy and I needed to do something different.  So quit two days ago and I guess it worked out that I end with B&R this Friday, then head to TEC and SPS Huntsville and a week from this Monday I start my new job at Gig Werks.  I'm not sure what to expect or where I'm heading, but I think it's a step in the right direction.  I won't really know what kind of impact this will have on my life for at least another 6 months to a year. For some reason I can't sleep tonight and I think it's really a reflection of my last day.  Tomorrow is an ending and a beginning at the same time.  So it's both kind of sad and exciting.  I don't know why I'm really excited to go to Disney Land for the second time ever in my life time.  I get to ride the Teacups.  For the longest time when I was a kid I wanted to go to Disney Land.  I wanted to ride the teacups.  In 2007, at the age of 25, I rode the teacups for my first ever visit to LA.  That was the start of finally syncing up with my childhood goals.  I wanted to live near a major city.  I wanted to visit all the major cities in the world.  I wanted to see everything and meet everyone.  This job change will probably turn into something great I just don't know it yet.  I'm walking again outside my comfort zone and stepping into uncharted territory.  In 2-3 years I'll probably write another blog post how this week lead to something great.  It just stinks when you have to leave behind something you know and love.  I will miss all my current colleagues, but I'm sure I'll gain some new ones and keep in touch with the old.  To 2010 being a great year for change and hopefully by the end of the year I can say I went to Europe.  To reaching my goals and my dreams.  Don't let anyone stop you from getting what you want in life (unless you are axe murderer please don't kill anyone that's just wrong).  Have a good weekend everyone!

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• Free training at Northwest Cadence

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Even though I have only been at Northwest Cadence for a short time I have already done so much. What I really wanted to do was let you guys know about a bunch of FREE training that NWC offers. These sessions are at a fantastic time for the UK as 9am PST (Seattle time) is around 5pm GMT. Its a fantastic way to finish off your Fridays and with the lack of love for developers in the UK set to continue I would love some of you guys to get some from the US instead. There are really two offerings. The first is something called Coffee talks that take you through an hours worth of detail in a specific category. Coffee Talks These coffee talks have some superb topics and you can get excellent interaction with the presenter as they are kind of informal. Date Day Time Topic Register Here 01/04/11 Tuesday 8:30AM – 9:30AM PST Real World Business and Technical Benefits of ALM with TFS 2010 150656 01/28/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST The Full Testing Experience Professional Quality Assurance with Visual Studio 2010 152810 02/11/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST Visual Source Safe to Team Foundation Server 152844 02/25/11 Friday 2:00PM - 3:00PM PST The Full Testing Experience Professional Quality Assurance with Visual Studio 2010 152816 03/11/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST Lab Manager The Ultimate “No More No Repro” Tool 152809 03/25/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST The Full Testing Experience Professional Quality Assurance with Visual Studio 2010 152838 04/08/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST Visual Source Safe to Team Foundation Server 152846 04/22/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST The Full Testing Experience Professional Quality Assurance with Visual Studio 2010 152839 05/06/11 Friday 2:00PM - 3:00PM PST Real World Business and Technical Benefits of ALM with TFS 2010 150657 05/20/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST The Full Testing Experience Professional Quality Assurance with Visual Studio 2010 152842 06/03/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST Visual Source Safe to Team Foundation Server 152847 06/17/11 Friday 9:00AM - 10:00AM PST The Full Testing Experience Professional Quality Assurance with Visual Studio 2010 152843   ALM Training Engagement Program Microsoft has released a new program to bring free Visual Studio 2010 Training Sessions to select customers on Microsoft Visual Studio products and how Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) solutions can help drive greater business impact. For more details on this program, please see the process chart below.  To get started send an email to us; This training is paid for by Microsoft and you would need to commit to 4 sessions in order to get accepted into the program. So these have more hoops to jump through to get them, but the content is much more formal and centres around adoption.

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• Thank you Geeks With Blogs for letting me join your community!

  - by GreeNTUG

  First, a link to the blog I can no longer edit because Office Live blew away my digital identity and so I can no longer log into it (the source of a loooong blog about protecting your digital identity sometime when I have more time and after it has played out to the end) http://greentug.spaces.live.com/ The following are the communities I participate in: Green & Sustainability.  I run a virtual user group on Green and Sustainability as it relates to developers and software architects.  It was located at greentug.groups.live.com, and we will need to find a new digital location for it, because I am locked out of that site as well. BizSpark Tampa Bay:  I run a BizSpark group for Microsoft technologists (meetup.com, search for BizSpark Tampa Bay) and speak at Code Camps about "No Better Time to Start Your Own Tech Business".  The meetup group facilitates a balanced presentation that is respectful to anyone wanting to start their own business, whether part-time or full-time, whether micro (just you), sustainable (grow to 2-25-ish, self-funded), high growth (get venture capital or other funding, grow it, sell it within 5 years, do it again), or hybrid (the new model going forward).  It is an "action" group, with assignments and homework if you want to get the most out of it.   At the end of a year you will either have your business on the path to where you want it to be, or you will know the steps you need to do to get it there. Women in Technology Have been participating in the Women in Technology community since 2008, my main interests in this area are mentoring women in the workplace to have them believe they can become geeks and double their income, and to mentor them with respect to starting and running their own business. Access 2010/SharePoint 2010.  This is a game-changer with respect to the Access community (the ap both devs and IT Pros love to hate, the other a-word that's not a fruit).  I conducted Lunch n Learns and Brunch n Learns around this topic before the Office 2010/SharePoint 2010 launch, and spoke on the topic at SharePoint Saturday Tampa in Nov 2009. Interested in learning more about: Using Silverlight HD Streaming out in the non-technical world (horses and equestrian sport).  Migrating to Access Web Services and VB .Net from VBA (see the Access 2010/SharePoint 2010 interest above) Windows Phone 7!  Exciting opportunities both for Green and Sustainability and for my "day job" of Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS). My day job is Environmental, Health & Safetey (EHS) consulting and software solutions, where that interfaces with the developer world is with respect to opportunities around Green and Sustainability, The SmartGrid and Juval Lowy's EnergyNet, both of which will require a lot of technology and software to make them work, The new Microsoft Partner competency for "Digital Home", and The Y2K kind of deadline around how managing chemicals in ERP systems is changing because of Global Harmonization, which hits the EU with a hard deadline on 11/30/10 (yes, this year), and hits the USA about 15 months later. Hope you enjoy my contributions to the digital geek community, and feel free to email me, [email protected] (the email leftover after my digital identity was blown away), and [email protected] (this one could go away at some future point) Best, Kathy Malone

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• Big Visible Charts

  - by Robert May

  An important part of Agile is the concept of transparency and visibility. In proper functioning teams, stakeholders can look at any team at any time in the iteration or release and see how that team is doing by simply looking at what we call Big Visible Charts. If you’ve done Scrum, you’ve seen these charts. However, interpreting these charts can often be an art form. There are several different charts that can be useful. In this newsletter, I’ll focus on the Iteration Burndown and Cumulative Flow charts. I’ve included a copy of the spreadsheet that I used to create the charts, and if you don’t have a tool that creates them for you, you can use this spreadsheet to do so. Our preferred tool for managing Scrum projects is Rally. Rally creates all of these charts for you, saving you quite a bit of time. The Iteration Burndown and Cumulative Flow Charts This is the main chart that teams use. Although less useful to stakeholders, this chart is critical to the team and provides quite a bit of information to the team about how their iteration is going. Most charts are a combination of the charts below, so you may need to combine aspects of each section to understand what is happening in your iterations. Ideal Ah, isn’t that a pretty picture? Unfortunately, it’s also very unrealistic. I’ve seen iterations that come close to ideal, but never that match perfectly. If your iteration matches perfectly, chances are, someone is playing with the numbers. Reality is just too difficult to have a burndown chart that matches this exactly. Late Planning Iteration started, but the team didn’t. You can tell this by the fact that the real number of estimated hours didn’t appear until day two. In the cumulative flow, you can also see that nothing was defined in Day one and two. You want to avoid situations like this. You’ll note that the team had to burn faster than is ideal to meet the iteration because of the late planning. This often results in long weeks and days. Testing Starved Determining whether or not testing is starved is difficult without the cumulative flow. The pattern in the burndown could be nothing more that developers not completing stories early enough or could be caused by stories being too big. With the cumulative flow, however, you see that only small bites are in progress and stories were completed early, but testing didn’t start testing until the end of the iteration, and didn’t complete testing all stories in the iteration. When this happens, question whether or not your testing resources are sufficient for your team and whether or not acceptance is adequately defined. No Testing With this one, both graphs show the same thing; the team needs testers and testing! Without testing, what was completed cannot be verified to make sure that it is acceptable to the business. If you find yourself in this situation, review your testing practices and acceptance testing process and make changes today. Late Development With this situation, both graphs tell a story. In the top graph, you can see that the hours failed to burn down as quickly as the team expected. This could be caused by the team not correctly estimating their hours or the team could have had illness or some other issue that affected them. Often, when teams are tackling something that is more unknown, they’ll run into technical barriers that cause the burn down to happen slower than expected. In the cumulative flow graph, you can see that not much was completed in the first few days. This could be because of illness or technical barriers or simply poor estimation. Testing was able to keep up with everything that was completed, however. No Tool Updating When you see graphs that look like this, you can be assured that it’s because the team is not updating the tool that generates the graphs. Review your policy for when they are to update. On the teams that I run, I require that each team member updates the tool at least once daily. You should also check to see how well the team is breaking down stories into tasks. If they’re creating few large tasks, graphs can look similar to this. As a general rule, I never allow tasks, other than Unit Testing and Uncertainty, to be greater than eight hours in duration. Scope Increase I always encourage team members to enter in however much time they think they have left on a task, even if that means increasing the total amount of time left to do. You get a much better and more realistic picture this way. Increasing time remaining could explain the burndown graph, but by looking at the cumulative flow graph, we can see that stories were added to the iteration and scope was increased. Since planning should consume all of the hours in the iteration, this is almost always a bad thing. If the scope change happened late in the iteration and the hours remaining were well below the ideal burn, then increasing scope is probably o.k., but estimation needs to get better. However, with the charts above, that’s clearly not what happened and the team was required to do extra work to make the iteration. If you find this happening, your product owner and ScrumMasters need training. The team also needs to learn to say no. Scope Decrease Scope decreases are just as bad as scope increases. Usually, graphs above show that the team did a poor job of estimating their stories and part way through had to reduce scope to change the iteration. This will happen once in a while, but if you find it’s a pattern on your team, you need to re-evaluate planning. Some teams are hopelessly optimistic. In those cases, I’ll introduce a task I call “Uncertainty.” With Uncertainty, the team estimates how many hours they might need if things don’t go well with the tasks they’ve defined. They try to estimate things that could go poorly and increase the time appropriately. Having an Uncertainty task allows them to have a low and high estimate. Uncertainty should not just be an arbitrary buffer. It must correlate to real uncertainty in the tasks that have been defined. Stories are too Big Often, we see graphs like the ones above. Note that the burndown looks fairly good, other than the chunky acceptance of stories. However, when you look at cumulative flow, you can see that at one point, everything is in progress. This is a bad thing. When you see graphs like this, you’re in one of two states. You may just have a very small team and can only handle one or two stories in your iteration. If you have more than one or two people, then the most likely problem is that your stories are far too big. To combat this, break large high hour stories into smaller pieces that can be completed independently and accepted independently. If you don’t, you’ll likely be requiring your testers to do heroic things to complete testing on the last day of the iteration and you’re much more likely to have the entire iteration fail, because of the limited amount of things that can be completed. Summary There are other charts that can be useful when doing scrum. If you don’t have any big visible charts, you really need to evaluate your process and change. These charts can provide the team a wealth of information and help you write better software. If you have any questions about charts that you’re seeing on your team, contact me with a screen capture of the charts and I’ll tell you what I’m seeing in those charts. I always want this information to be useful, so please let me know if you have other questions. Technorati Tags: Agile

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• How can I avoid team burnout?

  - by Shawn Dalma

  I work for a small web company that deals with a lot of projects, a few at any given time are development heavy for us (400-1500 hours or more) and I've been noticing developers get extremely burnt out on a project after 150 hours or so. I've been toying around with the idea of working some form of rotation/rest so when someone reaches the threshold, they at least get some time off of working on that project. Is there an industry standard approach?

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• Java Certification Exams and Their Move to Pearson VUE

  - by Harold Green

  You may be aware that Oracle recently migrated all Sun-branded certification exams from Prometric to Pearson VUE. Below are answers to some frequently-asked questions that we've been getting recently: What changes to the exams should I be aware of?Only minor changes were made to the exams during the transition to Pearson VUE: Renumbering of all exams to the Oracle exam numbering structure (i.e. 1Z0...). Most exam score reports were enhanced to provide more detailed feedback. Score reports now list every exam objective for which a question (or questions) were answered incorrectly. The previous format provided only section-level performance feedback. For three Java exams, some lengthy (time-consuming) questions were removed & replaced with shorter (less time-consuming) questions. This was done in order to shorten the required exam time (to 150 minutes). Some interactive question types were removed from several Java and Solaris exams (including "matching" and "drag-and-drop" questions). The passing scores (for the exams that were revised) were statistically adjusted to make them equal to their prior passing scores, thus ensuring that the exams maintained the same level of difficulty as before. The exam objectives and the exam questions themselves did not change. Candidates should study the same material and objectives. Are there also new testing practices I should be aware of?Oracle follows a common industry practice of placing occasional un-scored questions on our certification exams. Candidates will not know which questions are unscored. At the time of this blog post, only one of the migrated exams (1Z0-898) contains unscored questions.I started the Master certification path through Prometric, and now I need to complete the requirements through Pearson VUE. Where can I get guidance on this process?Visit our Vendor Transition FAQs to find comprehensive instructions. Oracle has created several specific paths to accommodate candidates who were at at varying stages of completion of their master path when the transition occurred. Make sure to follow the specific path designed for your case, as you will need to know which exam number to select in order to submit/re-submit your requirements. QUICK LINKS Oracle Certification Blog Post: Java, Oracle Solaris, MySQL and Other Former Sun Certification Exams Now Being Delivered At Pearson VUE Oracle Certification Website: Vendor Transition Announcement

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• Building a Flash Platformer

  - by Jonathan O

  I am basically making a game where the whole game is run in the onEnterFrame method. This is causing a delay in my code that makes debugging and testing difficult. Should programming an entire platformer in this method be efficient enough for me to run hundreds of lines of code? Also, do variables in flash get updated immediately? Are there just lots of threads listening at the same time? Here is the code... stage.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, onEnter); function onEnter(e:Event):void { //Jumping if (Yoshi.y > groundBaseLevel) { dy = 0; canJump = true; onGround = true; //This line is not updated in time } if (Key.isDown(Key.UP) && canJump) { dy = -10; canJump = false; onGround = false; //This line is not updated in time } if(!onGround) { dy += gravity; Yoshi.y += dy; } //limit screen boundaries //character movement if (! Yoshi.hitTestObject(Platform)) //no collision detected { if (Key.isDown(Key.RIGHT)) { speed += 4; speed *= friction; Yoshi.x = Yoshi.x + movementIncrement + speed; Yoshi.scaleX = 1; Yoshi.gotoAndStop('Walking'); } else if (Key.isDown(Key.LEFT)) { speed -= 4; speed *= friction; Yoshi.x = Yoshi.x - movementIncrement + speed; Yoshi.scaleX = -1; Yoshi.gotoAndStop('Walking'); } else { speed *= friction; Yoshi.x = Yoshi.x + speed; Yoshi.gotoAndStop('Still'); } } else //bounce back collision detected { if(Yoshi.hitTestPoint(Platform.x - Platform.width/2, Platform.y - Platform.height/2, false)) { trace('collision left'); Yoshi.x -=20; } if(Yoshi.hitTestPoint(Platform.x, Platform.y - Platform.height/2, false)) { trace('collision top'); onGround=true; //This update is not happening in time speed = 0; } } }

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• Learn How to Make Money Online With SEO and Affiliate Marketing

  If you learn how to make money online with SEO and affiliate marketing then you can start to build a monthly income that will increase over time, just like your rankings. It does however, take a lot of time to build the quality backlinks that search engines require to increase your rank.

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• Google I/O 2010 - Integrate apps w/ Google Apps Marketplace

  Google I/O 2010 - Integrate apps w/ Google Apps Marketplace Google I/O 2010 - Integrating your app with the Google Apps Marketplace: Navigation, SSO, Data APIs and manifests Enterprise 201 Ryan Boyd, Steve Bazyl In this fast-paced, demo-focused session, you'll learn how to build, integrate, and sell a web app on the Google Apps Marketplace. We'll go end-to-end in 40 minutes with time left for Q&A. For all I/O 2010 sessions, please go to code.google.com From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 5 0 ratings Time: 59:45 More in Science & Technology

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• TDD vs. Productivity

  - by Nairou

  In my current project (a game, in C++), I decided that I would use Test Driven Development 100% during development. In terms of code quality, this has been great. My code has never been so well designed or so bug-free. I don't cringe when viewing code I wrote a year ago at the start of the project, and I have gained a much better sense for how to structure things, not only to be more easily testable, but to be simpler to implement and use. However... it has been a year since I started the project. Granted, I can only work on it in my spare time, but TDD is still slowing me down considerably compared to what I'm used to. I read that the slower development speed gets better over time, and I definitely do think up tests a lot more easily than I used to, but I've been at it for a year now and I'm still working at a snail's pace. Each time I think about the next step that needs work, I have to stop every time and think about how I would write a test for it, to allow me to write the actual code. I'll sometimes get stuck for hours, knowing exactly what code I want to write, but not knowing how to break it down finely enough to fully cover it with tests. Other times, I'll quickly think up a dozen tests, and spend an hour writing tests to cover a tiny piece of real code that would have otherwise taken a few minutes to write. Or, after finishing the 50th test to cover a particular entity in the game and all aspects of it's creation and usage, I look at my to-do list and see the next entity to be coded, and cringe in horror at the thought of writing another 50 similar tests to get it implemented. It's gotten to the point that, looking over the progress of the last year, I'm considering abandoning TDD for the sake of "getting the damn project finished". However, giving up the code quality that came with it is not something I'm looking forward to. I'm afraid that if I stop writing tests, then I'll slip out of the habit of making the code so modular and testable. Am I perhaps doing something wrong to still be so slow at this? Are there alternatives that speed up productivity without completely losing the benefits? TAD? Less test coverage? How do other people survive TDD without killing all productivity and motivation?

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• Showplan Operator of the Week - Merge Interval

  When Fabiano agreed to undertake the epic task of describing each showplan operator, none of us quite predicted the interesting ways that the series helps to understand how the query optimizer works. With the Merge Interval, Fabiano comes up with some insights about the way that the Query optimizer handles overlapping ranges efficiently. Free trial of SQL Backup™“SQL Backup was able to cut down my backup time significantly AND achieved a 90% compression at the same time!” Joe Cheng. Download a free trial now.

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