quick guide to irm - Page 317

Value of SOA Specialization interview with Thomas Schaller IPT - part III

- by Jürgen Kress

Recognized by Oracle, Preferred by Customers. We had the great opportunity to interview Thomas Schaller – Partner from our SOA Specialized Partner IPT Innovation Process Technology from Switzerland Why did IPT decide to become SOA Specialized? " SOA Specialization is a great branding for IPT. We are the SOA Specialists in the Swiss market, as we focus all our services around SOA. With 65 Swiss consultants focused on SOA Security & SOA Testing & BPM – Business Process Management & BSM – Business Service Modeling the partnership with Oracle as the technology leader in SOA is key, therefore it was important to us to become the first SOA Specialized company in Switzerland. As a result IPT is mentioned by Gartner as one of eight European SOA Consulting Firms and included in „Guide to SOA Consulting and System Integration Service Providers“ Can you describe the marketing activities with Oracle? Once a year we organize the largest SOA Conference in Switzerland “SOA, BPM & Integration Forum 2011“ Oracle is much more than a sponsor for the conference. Jointly we invite our customer base to attend this key event. The sales teams address jointly their most important prospects and customers. Oracle supports us with key speakers who present future directions of the Oracle SOA portfolio like Clemens Utschig-Utschig who presented details about the Complex Event Processing (CEP) solution in 2009 and James Allerton-Austin who presented details about the social BPM solution (BPM) in 2010. Additional our key customers presented their Oracle SOA success stories. How did you team with Oracle around the sales activities? "Sales alignment is key for the successful partnership. When we achieved! SOA Specialization we celebrated jointly with the Oracle and IPT middleware sales team. At the Aperol may interesting discussions resulted in joint opportunities and business. A key section of our joint business planning are marketing and sales activities. Together we define campaign topics and target customers. Matthias Breitschmid our superb Oracle partner manager ensures that the defined sales teams align and start the joint business. Regular we review our joint business plan with the joint management teams and Jürgen Kress our EMEA Oracle Sponsor. It is great to see that both companies profit from each other and we receive leads from Oracle!” Did you get Oracle support to train your consultants in the Oracle SOA Suite? “Enablement is key for us to deliver successful SOA projects. Together with Ralph Bellinghausen from the Oracle Enablement team we defined an Oracle trainings plan for our consultants. The monthly SOA Partner Community newsletter is a great resource to get the latest product updates, webcasts and trainings. As a SOA Specialized partner we get also invited to the SOA Blackbelt trainings, this trainings are hosted by Oracle product management where we get not only first hand information we get also direct access to the developers who can support us in critical project phases. Driven by the customer success we have increased our Oracle SOA practice by more than 200% in the last years!” Why did the customer decide for the IPT SOA offering? “SOA Specialization becomes a brand for customers, it proofs that we have the certified SOA skills and that IPT has delivered successful Oracle SOA projects. Jointly with Oracle and all the support we get from marketing, sales, enablement, support and product management we can ensure our customers to deliver their SOA project successful!” What are the next steps for IPT? “SOA Specialization is a super beneficial for IPT. We are looking forward to our upcoming SOA, BPM & Integration Forum 2011 and prepare to become BPM Specialized. part I Torsten Winterberg, Opitz Consulting & part II Debra Lilley, Fujitsu For more information on SOA Specialization and the SOA Partner Community please feel free to register at www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Website

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How can I change mouse keymapping

- by zuberuber

I have Razer DeathAdder(left handed edition) and A4Tech wireless mouse. My problem is I don't know how to change wireless mouse keymapping(swaping left/right click). Can somebody guide me how to do such thing? List of my devices: ? Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)] ? ? Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)] ? ? Logitech Unifying Device. Wireless PID:4004 id=8 [slave pointer (2)] ? ? Razer Razer DeathAdder id=11 [slave pointer (2)] ? ? A4TECH USB Device id=12 [slave pointer (2)] ? ? A4TECH USB Device id=13 [slave pointer (2)] ? Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)] ? Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)] ? Power Button id=6 [slave keyboard (3)] ? Power Button id=7 [slave keyboard (3)] ? Logitech USB Keyboard id=9 [slave keyboard (3)] ? Logitech USB Keyboard id=10 [slave keyboard (3)] This is my Razer xinput: Device 'Razer Razer DeathAdder': Device Enabled (121): 1 Coordinate Transformation Matrix (123): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000 Device Accel Profile (246): 0 Device Accel Constant Deceleration (247): 5.000000 Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration (248): 1.000000 Device Accel Velocity Scaling (249): 10.000000 Device Product ID (240): 5426, 22 Device Node (241): "/dev/input/event4" Evdev Axis Inversion (250): 0, 0 Evdev Axes Swap (252): 0 Axis Labels (253): "Rel X" (131), "Rel Y" (132), "Rel Vert Wheel" (274) Button Labels (254): "Button Left" (124), "Button Middle" (125), "Button Right" (126), "Button Wheel Up" (127), "Button Wheel Down" (128), "Button Horiz Wheel Left" (129), "Button Horiz Wheel Right" (130), "Button Side" (269), "Button Extra" (270), "Button Forward" (271), "Button Back" (272), "Button Task" (273), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243) Evdev Middle Button Emulation (255): 0 Evdev Middle Button Timeout (256): 50 Evdev Third Button Emulation (257): 0 Evdev Third Button Emulation Timeout (258): 1000 Evdev Third Button Emulation Button (259): 3 Evdev Third Button Emulation Threshold (260): 20 Evdev Wheel Emulation (261): 0 Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes (262): 0, 0, 4, 5 Evdev Wheel Emulation Inertia (263): 10 Evdev Wheel Emulation Timeout (264): 200 Evdev Wheel Emulation Button (265): 4 Evdev Drag Lock Buttons (266): 0 And this is my wireless mouse xinput: Device 'A4TECH USB Device': Device Enabled (121): 1 Coordinate Transformation Matrix (123): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000 Device Accel Profile (246): 0 Device Accel Constant Deceleration (247): 1.000000 Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration (248): 1.000000 Device Accel Velocity Scaling (249): 10.000000 Device Product ID (240): 2522, 1359 Device Node (241): "/dev/input/event16" Evdev Axis Inversion (250): 0, 0 Evdev Axes Swap (252): 0 Axis Labels (253): "Rel X" (131), "Rel Y" (132), "Rel Horiz Wheel" (245), "Rel Vert Wheel" (274) Button Labels (254): "Button Left" (124), "Button Middle" (125), "Button Right" (126), "Button Wheel Up" (127), "Button Wheel Down" (128), "Button Horiz Wheel Left" (129), "Button Horiz Wheel Right" (130), "Button Side" (269), "Button Extra" (270), "Button Forward" (271), "Button Back" (272), "Button Task" (273), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243), "Button Unknown" (243) Evdev Middle Button Emulation (255): 0 Evdev Middle Button Timeout (256): 50 Evdev Third Button Emulation (257): 0 Evdev Third Button Emulation Timeout (258): 1000 Evdev Third Button Emulation Button (259): 3 Evdev Third Button Emulation Threshold (260): 20 Evdev Wheel Emulation (261): 0 Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes (262): 0, 0, 4, 5 Evdev Wheel Emulation Inertia (263): 10 Evdev Wheel Emulation Timeout (264): 200 Evdev Wheel Emulation Button (265): 4 Evdev Drag Lock Buttons (266): 0

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SQLAuthority News – Android Efficiency Tips and Tricks – Personal Technology Tip #003

- by pinaldave

I use my phone for lots of things. I use it mainly to replace my tablet – I can e-mail, take and edit photos, and do almost everything I can do on a laptop with this phone. And I am sure that there are many of you out there just like me. I personally have a Galaxy S3, which uses the Android operating system, and I have decided to feature it as the third installment of my Technology Tips and Tricks series. 1) Shortcut to your favorite contacts on home screen Access your most-called contacts easily from your home screen by holding your finger on any empty spot on the home screen. A menu will pop up that allows you to choose Shortcuts, and Contact. You can scroll through your contact list and then just tap on the name of the person you want to be able to dial with a single click. 2) Keep track of your data usage Yes, we all should keep a close eye on our data usage, because it is very easy to go over our limits and then end up with a giant bill at the end of the month. Never get surprised when you open that mobile phone envelope again. Go to Settings, then Data Usage, and you can find a quick rundown of your usage, how much data each app uses, and you can even set alarms to let you know when you are nearing the limits. Better yet, you can set the phone to stop using data when it reaches a certain limit. 3) Bring back Good Grammar We often hear proclamations about the downfall of written language, and how texting abbreviations, misspellings, and lack of punctuation are the root of all evil. Well, we can show all those doomsdayers that all is not lost by bringing punctuation back to texting. Usually we leave it off when we text because it takes too long to get to the screen with all the punctuation options. But now you can hold down the period (or “full stop”) button and a list of all the commonly-used punctuation marks will pop right up. 4) Apps, Apps, Apps and Apps And finally, I cannot end an article about smart phones without including a list of my favorite apps. Here are a list of my Top 10 Applications on my Android (not counting social media apps). Advanced Task Killer – Keeps my phone snappy by closing un-necessary apps WhatsApp - my favorite alternate to Text SMS Flipboard - my ‘timepass’ moments Skype – keeps me close to friends and family GoogleMaps - I am never lost because of this one thing Amazon Kindle – Books my best friends DropBox - My data always safe Pluralsight Player – Learning never stops for me Samsung Kies Air – Connecting Phone to Computer Chrome – Replacing default browser I have not included any social media applications in the above list, but you can be sure that I am linked to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Best Practices, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Android, Personal Technology

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New security options in UCM Patch Set 3

- by kyle.hatlestad

While the Patch Set 3 (PS3) release was mostly focused on bug fixes and such, some new features sneaked in there. One of those new features is to the security options. In 10gR3 and prior versions, UCM had a component called Collaboration Manager which allowed for project folders to be created and groups of users assigned as members to collaborate on documents. With this component came access control lists (ACL) for content and folders. Users could assign specific security rights on each and every document and folder within a project. And it was even possible to enable these ACL's without having the Collaboration Manager component enabled (see technote# 603148.1). When 11g came out, Collaboration Manager was no longer available. But the configuration settings to turn on ACLs were still there. Well, in PS3 they're implemented slightly differently. And there is a new component available which adds an additional dimension to define security on the object, Roles. So now instead of selecting individual users or groups of users (defined as an Alias in User Admin), you can select a particular role. And if a user has that role, they are granted that level of access. This can allow for a much more flexible and manageable security model instead of trying to manage with just user and group access as people come and go in the organization. The way that it is enabled is still through configuration entries. First log in as an administrator and go to Administration -> Admin Server. On the Component Manager page, click the 'advanced component manager' link in the description paragraph at the top. In the list of Disabled Components, enable the RoleEntityACL component. Then click the General Configuration link on the left. In the Additional Configuration Variables text area, enter the new configuration values: UseEntitySecurity=true SpecialAuthGroups=<comma separated list of Security Groups to honor ACLs> The SpecialAuthGroups should be a list of Security Groups that honor the ACL fields. If an ACL is applied to a content item with a Security Group outside this list, it will be ignored. Save the settings and restart the instance. Upon restart, three new metadata fields will be created: xClbraUserList, xClbraAliasList, xClbraRoleList. If you are using OracleTextSearch as the search indexer, be sure to run a Fast Rebuild on the collection. On the Check In, Search, and Update pages, values are added by simply typing in the value and getting a type-ahead list of possible values. Select the value, click Add and then set the level of access (Read, Write, Delete, or Admin). If all of the fields are blank, then it simply falls back to just Security Group and Account access. For Users and Groups, these values are automatically picked up from the corresponding database tables. In the case of Roles, this is an explicitly defined list of choices that are made available. These values must match the role that is being defined from WebLogic Server or you LDAP/AD repository. To add these values, go to Administration -> Admin Applets -> Configuration Manager. On the Views tab, edit the values for the ExternalRolesView. By default, 'guest' and 'authenticated' are added. Once added to through the view, they will be available to select from for the Roles Access List. As for how they are stored in the metadata fields, each entry starts with it's identifier: ampersand (&) symbol for users, "at" (@) symbol for groups, and colon (:) for roles. Following that is the entity name. And at the end is the level of access in paranthesis. e.g. (RWDA). And each entry is separated by a comma. So if you were populating values through batch loader or an external source, the values would be defined this way. Detailed information on Access Control Lists can be found in the Oracle Fusion Middleware System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Content Server.

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Time to stop using “Execute Package Task”– a way to execute package in SSIS catalog taking advantage of the new project deployment model ,and the logging and reporting feature

- by Kevin Shyr

I set out to find a way to dynamically call package in SSIS 2012. The following are 2 excellent blogs I found; I used them heavily. The code below has some addition to parameter types and message types, but was made essentially derived entirely from the blogs. http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/archive/2011/07/16/ssis-logging-in-denali.aspx http://www.ssistalk.com/2012/07/24/quick-tip-run-ssis-2012-packages-synchronously-and-other-execution-options/ The code: Every package will be called by a PackageController package. The packageController is initialized with some information on which package to run and what information to pass in. The following is the stored procedure called from the “Execute SQL Task”. Here is the highlight of the stored procedure It takes in packageName, project name, and folder name (folder in SSIS project deployment to SSIS catalog) The stored procedure sets the package variables of the upcoming package execution Execute package in SSIS Catalog Get the status of the execution. Also, if exists, get the error message’s message_id and store them in the management database. Return value to “Execute SQL Task” to manage failure properly CREATE PROCEDURE [AUDIT].[LaunchPackageExecutionInSSISCatalog] @PackageName NVARCHAR(255) , @ProjectFolder NVARCHAR(255) , @ProjectName NVARCHAR(255) , @AuditKey INT , @DisableNotification BIT , @PackageExecutionLogID INT AS BEGIN TRY DECLARE @execution_id BIGINT = 0; -- Create a package execution EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[create_execution] @package_name=@PackageName, @execution_id=@execution_id OUTPUT, @folder_name=@ProjectFolder, @project_name=@ProjectName, @use32bitruntime=False; UPDATE [AUDIT].[PackageInstanceExecutionLog] WITH(ROWLOCK) SET [SSISCatalogExecutionID] = @execution_id WHERE [PackageInstanceExecutionLogID] = @PackageExecutionLogID -- this is to set the execution synchronized so that I can check the result in the end EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id, @object_type=50, @parameter_name=N'SYNCHRONIZED', @parameter_value=1; -- true /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: setting parameters Source table: SSISDB.internal.object_parameters object_type list: 20: project level variables 30: package level variables 50: execution parameter ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id, @object_type=30, @parameter_name=N'FromParent_AuditKey', @parameter_value=@AuditKey; -- true EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id, @object_type=30, @parameter_name=N'FromParent_DisableNotification', @parameter_value=@DisableNotification; -- true EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id, @object_type=30, @parameter_name=N'FromParent_PackageInstanceExecutionID', @parameter_value=@PackageExecutionLogID; -- true /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: setting variables END ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ /* This section is carried over from example code I don't see a reason to change them yet */ -- Set our package parameters EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id, @object_type=50, @parameter_name=N'DUMP_ON_EVENT', @parameter_value=1; -- true EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id, @object_type=50, @parameter_name=N'DUMP_EVENT_CODE', @parameter_value=N'0x80040E4D;0x80004005'; EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id, @object_type=50, @parameter_name=N'LOGGING_LEVEL', @parameter_value= 1; -- Basic EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id, @object_type=50, @parameter_name=N'DUMP_ON_ERROR', @parameter_value=1; -- true /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: EXECUTING ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[start_execution] @execution_id; /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: EXECUTING END ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: checking execution result Source table: [SSISDB].[catalog].[executions] status: 1: created 2: running 3: cancelled 4: failed 5: pending 6: ended unexpectedly 7: succeeded 8: stopping 9: completed ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ if EXISTS(SELECT TOP 1 1 FROM [SSISDB].[catalog].[executions] WITH(NOLOCK) WHERE [execution_id] = @execution_id AND [status] NOT IN (2, 7, 9)) BEGIN /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: logging error messages Source table: [SSISDB].[internal].[operation_messages] message type: 10: OnPreValidate 20: OnPostValidate 30: OnPreExecute 40: OnPostExecute 60: OnProgress 70: OnInformation 90: Diagnostic 110: OnWarning 120: OnError 130: Failure 140: DiagnosticEx 200: Custom events 400: OnPipeline message source type: 10: Messages logged by the entry APIs (e.g. T-SQL, CLR Stored procedures) 20: Messages logged by the external process used to run package (ISServerExec) 30: Messages logged by the package-level objects 40: Messages logged by tasks in the control flow 50: Messages logged by containers (For, ForEach, Sequence) in the control flow 60: Messages logged by the Data Flow Task ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ INSERT INTO AUDIT.PackageInstanceExecutionOperationErrorLink SELECT @PackageExecutionLogID ,[operation_message_id] FROM [SSISDB].[internal].[operation_messages] WITH(NOLOCK) WHERE operation_id = @execution_id AND message_type IN (120, 130) EXEC [AUDIT].[FailPackageInstanceExecution] @PackageExecutionLogID, 'SSISDB Internal operation_messages found' GOTO ReturnTrueAsErrorFlag /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: checking messages END ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ /* This part is not really working, so now using rowcount to pass status --DECLARE @PackageErrorMessage NVARCHAR(4000) --SET @PackageErrorMessage = @PackageName + 'failed with executionID: ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), @execution_id) --RAISERROR (@PackageErrorMessage -- Message text. -- , 18 -- Severity, -- , 1 -- State, -- , N'check table AUDIT.PackageInstanceExecutionErrorMessages' -- First argument. -- ); */ END ELSE BEGIN GOTO ReturnFalseAsErrorFlagToSignalSuccess END /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: checking execution result END ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ END TRY BEGIN CATCH DECLARE @SSISCatalogCallError NVARCHAR(MAX) SELECT @SSISCatalogCallError = ERROR_MESSAGE() EXEC [AUDIT].[FailPackageInstanceExecution] @PackageExecutionLogID, @SSISCatalogCallError GOTO ReturnTrueAsErrorFlag END CATCH; /******************************************************** ******************************************************** Section: end result ******************************************************** ********************************************************/ ReturnTrueAsErrorFlag: SELECT CONVERT(BIT, 1) AS PackageExecutionErrorExists ReturnFalseAsErrorFlagToSignalSuccess: SELECT CONVERT(BIT, 0) AS PackageExecutionErrorExists GO

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Big Data: Size isn’t everything

- by Simon Elliston Ball

Big Data has a big problem; it’s the word “Big”. These days, a quick Google search will uncover terabytes of negative opinion about the futility of relying on huge volumes of data to produce magical, meaningful insight. There are also many clichéd but correct assertions about the difficulties of correlation versus causation, in massive data sets. In reading some of these pieces, I begin to understand how climatologists must feel when people complain ironically about “global warming” during snowfall. Big Data has a name problem. There is a lot more to it than size. Shape, Speed, and…err…Veracity are also key elements (now I understand why Gartner and the gang went with V’s instead of S’s). The need to handle data of different shapes (Variety) is not new. Data developers have always had to mold strange-shaped data into our reporting systems, integrating with semi-structured sources, and even straying into full-text searching. However, what we lacked was an easy way to add semi-structured and unstructured data to our arsenal. New “Big Data” tools such as MongoDB, and other NoSQL (Not Only SQL) databases, or a graph database like Neo4J, fill this gap. Still, to many, they simply introduce noise to the clean signal that is their sensibly normalized data structures. What about speed (Velocity)? It’s not just high frequency trading that generates data faster than a single system can handle. Many other applications need to make trade-offs that traditional databases won’t, in order to cope with high data insert speeds, or to extract quickly the required information from data streams. Unfortunately, many people equate Big Data with the Hadoop platform, whose batch driven queries and job processing queues have little to do with “velocity”. StreamInsight, Esper and Tibco BusinessEvents are examples of Big Data tools designed to handle high-velocity data streams. Again, the name doesn’t do the discipline of Big Data any favors. Ultimately, though, does analyzing fast moving data produce insights as useful as the ones we get through a more considered approach, enabled by traditional BI? Finally, we have Veracity and Value. In many ways, these additions to the classic Volume, Velocity and Variety trio acknowledge the criticism that without high-quality data and genuinely valuable outputs then data, big or otherwise, is worthless. As a discipline, Big Data has recognized this, and data quality and cleaning tools are starting to appear to support it. Rather than simply decrying the irrelevance of Volume, we need as a profession to focus how to improve Veracity and Value. Perhaps we should just declare the ‘Big’ silent, embrace these new data tools and help develop better practices for their use, just as we did the good old RDBMS? What does Big Data mean to you? Which V gives your business the most pain, or the most value? Do you see these new tools as a useful addition to the BI toolbox, or are they just enabling a dangerous trend to find ghosts in the noise?

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Running ODI 11gR1 Standalone Agent as a Windows Service

- by fx.nicolas

ODI 11gR1 introduces the capability to use OPMN to start and protect agent processes as services. Setting up the OPMN agent is covered in the following post and extensively in the ODI Installation Guide. Unfortunately, OPMN is not installed along with ODI, and ODI 10g users who are really at ease with the old Java Wrapper are a little bit puzzled by OPMN, and ask: "How can I simply set up the agent as a service?". Well... although the Tanuki Service Wrapper is no longer available for free, and the agentservice.bat script lost, you can switch to another service wrapper for the same result. For example, Yet Another Java Service Wrapper (YAJSW) is a good candidate. To configure a standalone agent with YAJSW: download YAJSW Uncompress the zip to a folder (called %YAJSW% in this example) Configure, start and test your standalone agent. Make sure that this agent is loaded with all the required libraries and drivers, as the service will not load dynamically the drivers added subsequently in the /drivers directory. Retrieve the PID of the agent process: Open Task Manager. Select View Select Columns Select the PID (Process Identifier) column, then click OK In the list of processes, find the java.exe process corresponding to your agent, and note its PID. Open a command line prompt in %YAJSW%/bat and run: genConfig.bat <your_pid> This command generates a wrapper configuration file for the agent. This file is called %YAJSW%/conf/wrapper.conf. Stop your agent. Edit the wrapper.conf file and modify the configuration of your service. For example, modify the display name and description of the service as shown in the example below. Important: Make sure to escape the commas in the ODI encoded passwords with a backslash! In the example below, the ODI_SUPERVISOR_ENCODED_PASS contained a comma character which had to be prefixed with a backslash. # Title to use when running as a console wrapper.console.title=\"AGENT\" #******************************************************************** # Wrapper Windows Service and Posix Daemon Properties #******************************************************************** # Name of the service wrapper.ntservice.name=AGENT_113 # Display name of the service wrapper.ntservice.displayname=ODI Agent # Description of the service wrapper.ntservice.description=Oracle Data Integrator Agent 11gR3 (11.1.1.3.0) ... # Escape the comma in the password with a backslash. wrapper.app.parameter.7 = -ODI_SUPERVISOR_ENCODED_PASS=fJya.vR5kvNcu9TtV\,jVZEt Execute your wrapped agent as console by calling in the command line prompt: runConsole.bat Check that your agent is running, and test it again.This command starts the agent with the configuration but does not install it yet as a service. To Install the agent as service call installService.bat From that point, you can view, start and stop the agent via the windows services. Et voilà ! Two final notes: - To modify the agent configuration, you must uninstall/reinstall the service. For this purpose, run the uninstallService.bat to uninstall it and play again the process above. - To be able to uninstall the agent service, you should keep a backup of the wrapper.conf file. This is particularly important when starting several services with the wrapper.

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Restricting Input in HTML Textboxes to Numeric Values

- by Rick Strahl

Ok, here’s a fairly basic one – how to force a textbox to accept only numeric input. Somebody asked me this today on a support call so I did a few quick lookups online and found the solutions listed rather unsatisfying. The main problem with most of the examples I could dig up was that they only include numeric values, but that provides a rather lame user experience. You need to still allow basic operational keys for a textbox – navigation keys, backspace and delete, tab/shift tab and the Enter key - to work or else the textbox will feel very different than a standard text box. Yes there are plug-ins that allow masked input easily enough but most are fixed width which is difficult to do with plain number input. So I took a few minutes to write a small reusable plug-in that handles this scenario. Imagine you have a couple of textboxes on a form like this: <div class="containercontent"> <div class="label">Enter a number:</div> <input type="text" name="txtNumber1" id="txtNumber1" value="" class="numberinput" /> <div class="label">Enter a number:</div> <input type="text" name="txtNumber2" id="txtNumber2" value="" class="numberinput" /> </div> and you want to restrict input to numbers. Here’s a small .forceNumeric() jQuery plug-in that does what I like to see in this case: [Updated thanks to Elijah Manor for a couple of small tweaks for additional keys to check for] <script type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function () { $(".numberinput").forceNumeric(); }); // forceNumeric() plug-in implementation jQuery.fn.forceNumeric = function () { return this.each(function () { $(this).keydown(function (e) { var key = e.which || e.keyCode; if (!e.shiftKey && !e.altKey && !e.ctrlKey && // numbers key >= 48 && key <= 57 || // Numeric keypad key >= 96 && key <= 105 || // comma, period and minus key == 190 || key == 188 || key == 109 || // Backspace and Tab and Enter key == 8 || key == 9 || key == 13 || // Home and End key == 35 || key == 36 || // left and right arrows key == 37 || key == 39 || // Del and Ins key == 46 || key == 45) return true; return false; }); }); } </script> With the plug-in in place in your page or an external .js file you can now simply use a selector to apply it: $(".numberinput").forceNumeric(); The plug-in basically goes through each selected element and hooks up a keydown() event handler. When a key is pressed the handler is fired and the keyCode of the event object is sent. Recall that jQuery normalizes the JavaScript Event object between browsers. The code basically white-lists a few key codes and rejects all others. It returns true to indicate the keypress is to go through or false to eat the keystroke and not process it which effectively removes it. Simple and low tech, and it works without too much change of typical text box behavior.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in JavaScript jQuery HTML

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SQL SERVER – Puzzle – Statistics are not Updated but are Created Once

- by pinaldave

After having excellent response to my quiz – Why SELECT * throws an error but SELECT COUNT(*) does not?I have decided to ask another puzzling question to all of you. I am running this test on SQL Server 2008 R2. Here is the quick scenario about my setup. Create Table Insert 1000 Records Check the Statistics Now insert 10 times more 10,000 indexes Check the Statistics – it will be NOT updated Note: Auto Update Statistics and Auto Create Statistics for database is TRUE Expected Result – Statistics should be updated – SQL SERVER – When are Statistics Updated – What triggers Statistics to Update Now the question is why the statistics are not updated? The common answer is – we can update the statistics ourselves using UPDATE STATISTICS TableName WITH FULLSCAN, ALL However, the solution I am looking is where statistics should be updated automatically based on algorithm mentioned here. Now the solution is to ____________________. Vinod Kumar is not allowed to take participate over here as he is the one who has helped me to build this puzzle. I will publish the solution on next week. Please leave a comment and if your comment consist valid answer, I will publish with due credit. Here is the script to reproduce the scenario which I mentioned. -- Execution Plans Difference -- Create Sample Database CREATE DATABASE SampleDB GO USE SampleDB GO -- Create Table CREATE TABLE ExecTable (ID INT, FirstName VARCHAR(100), LastName VARCHAR(100), City VARCHAR(100)) GO -- Insert One Thousand Records -- INSERT 1 INSERT INTO ExecTable (ID,FirstName,LastName,City) SELECT TOP 1000 ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name) RowID, 'Bob', CASE WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%2 = 1 THEN 'Smith' ELSE 'Brown' END, CASE WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 1 THEN 'New York' WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 5 THEN 'San Marino' WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 3 THEN 'Los Angeles' WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 7 THEN 'La Cinega' WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 13 THEN 'San Diego' WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 17 THEN 'Las Vegas' ELSE 'Houston' END FROM sys.all_objects a CROSS JOIN sys.all_objects b GO -- Display statistics of the table - none listed sp_helpstats N'ExecTable', 'ALL' GO -- Select Statement SELECT FirstName, LastName, City FROM ExecTable WHERE City = 'New York' GO -- Display statistics of the table sp_helpstats N'ExecTable', 'ALL' GO -- Replace your Statistics over here -- NOTE: Replace your _WA_Sys with stats from above query DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS('ExecTable', _WA_Sys_00000004_7D78A4E7); GO -------------------------------------------------------------- -- Round 2 -- Insert Ten Thousand Records -- INSERT 2 INSERT INTO ExecTable (ID,FirstName,LastName,City) SELECT TOP 10000 ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name) RowID, 'Bob', CASE WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%2 = 1 THEN 'Smith' ELSE 'Brown' END, CASE WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 1 THEN 'New York' WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 5 THEN 'San Marino' WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 3 THEN 'Los Angeles' WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 7 THEN 'La Cinega' WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 13 THEN 'San Diego' WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 17 THEN 'Las Vegas' ELSE 'Houston' END FROM sys.all_objects a CROSS JOIN sys.all_objects b GO -- Select Statement SELECT FirstName, LastName, City FROM ExecTable WHERE City = 'New York' GO -- Display statistics of the table sp_helpstats N'ExecTable', 'ALL' GO -- Replace your Statistics over here -- NOTE: Replace your _WA_Sys with stats from above query DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS('ExecTable', _WA_Sys_00000004_7D78A4E7); GO -- You will notice that Statistics are still updated with 1000 rows -- Clean up Database DROP TABLE ExecTable GO USE MASTER GO ALTER DATABASE SampleDB SET SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE; GO DROP DATABASE SampleDB GO Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Index, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SQL Statistics, Statistics

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Silverlight Cream for March 23, 2010 -- #818

- by Dave Campbell

In this Issue: Max Paulousky, Jeremy Likness, Mark Tucker, Christian Schormann, Page Brooks, Brad Abrams(-2-), Jeff Wilcox, Unnir, Bea Stollnitz, John Papa and Adam Kinney, and Bill Reiss(-2-). Shoutouts: Ashish Shetty posted his material from his MIX10 presentation: Stepping outside the browser with Silverlight 4 Not Silverlight, but dang useful, Karl Shifflett posted a Visual Studio 2010 XAML Editor IntelliSense Presenter Extension Yavor Georgiev posted his MIX10 material: Two samples from today's MIX talk From SilverlightCream.com: GroupBox Sketching Control for WPF applications Using Blend Max Paulousky creates a GroupBox control for SketchFlow for WPF. He includes a link to an example of doing the same for Silverlight. Sequential Asynchronous Workflows in Silverlight using Coroutines Jeremy Likness' latest post begann with a post on the Silverlight.net forum and Rob Eisenburg's MVVM presentation from MIX10 resulting in the use of Wintellect's PowerThreading library (downloadable), and Coroutines. Windows Phone 7 UI Templates Mark Tucker has been putting a lot of thought into WP7 apps and produced 5 templates for building apps, downloadable in PowerPoint format. He's also looking to discuss this concept. Blend 4: About Path Layout, Part I Christian Schormann has a great tutorial up about Expression Blend 4 and path layout ... this is lots of great info, and it's only part 1! Custom Splash Screen for Windows Phone Page Brooks makes very quick work of showing how to add a splash screen to your WP7 app... very nice, Page! Silverlight 4 + RIA Services - Ready for Business: Exposing Data from Entity Framework Brad Abrams next post in the series is is on pulling your data from wherever it lives, and uses a DomainService to shape it for your Silverlight app. Silverlight 4 + RIA Services - Ready for Business: Consuming Data in the Silverlight Client Brad Abrams then discusses consuming that data in a Silverlight app. Not much code involvement at all.. great ROI :) Building Silverlight 3 and Silverlight 4 applications on a .NET 3.5 build machine Jeff Wilcox talks about building Silverlight 3 and Silverlight 4B both on a .NET 3.5 machine. He then adds in the Toolkit, and even WCF RIA Services. Expression Blend 4 - XAML generation tweaks Unnir demonstrates a few changes to Expression Blend 4 that produce more compact XAML. He's also asking for other examples you'd like to see tightened up. How can I sort a hierarchy? Bea Stollnitz posts plausible solutions to sorting data items at each level of a hierarchical UI, with descriptions of why they don't work, followed by the real deal... Silverlight and WPF. Silverlight Training Course (Silverlight 4) John Papa and Adam Kinney have posted a huge body of work to get us up-to-speed on Silverlight 4 -- a WhitePaper, hands-on labs, and an 8-unit course with 25 accompanying videos... geez... Silverlight game development on Windows Phone 7 Bill Reiss has a post up discussing game development on WP7 in general and then discusses his SilverSprite library, with a link to it. XNA or Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 game development? Bill Reiss next discusses the advantage of using Silverlight or XNA for your WP7 game development, and who better to discuss both? Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight Silverlight 3 Silverlight 4 Windows Phone MIX10

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Increase the size of Taskbar Preview Thumbnails in Windows 7

- by Matthew Guay

Taskbar thumbnail previews are incredibly useful in Windows 7, but for some users they may be too small. Here’s a tool to help you make your taskbar thumbnail previews just like you want them. A few years ago we featured a tool to increase the size of your thumbnail previews in Windows Vista, but unfortunately this application doesn’t work correctly in Windows 7. However, there is a new tool for Windows 7 that lets you customize your taskbar thumbnail previews even more in Windows 7. With it, you can change almost anything about your taskbar thumbnail previews. The default taskbar thumbnails are nice, but may be too small for users with vision problems or with very high resolution monitors. Whatever your need, this is a great tool to make the thumbnails looks and work just like you want. Let’s get started Download the Windows 7 Taskbar Thumbnail Customizer (link below), and unzip the files. Run the Windows 7 Taskbar Thumbnail Customizer when you’re done. Simply double-click on it; you don’t need to run it as administrator. Now, you change the size, spacing, margin, and delay time of your taskbar thumbnails. The Delay Time setting is very handy; to speed things up, we set it to 0 so there’s no delay between when you mouse-over a taskbar icon to when you see the thumbnail. Simply drag the slider to the size (or time in the delay settings) you want, and click Apply settings. Windows Explorer will automatically restart, and your new taskbar thumbnails will be ready to use. Here is the default Windows 7 thumbnail preview of a video playing in Media player: And here’s the taskbar thumbnail enlarged to 380px. Now you can really watch a video from your taskbar thumbnail. The larger taskbar thumbnails show up a little different in Internet Explorer. It shows a larger preview of your active tab, and smaller previews of your other tabs. Notice also that Aero peek shows the tab you’re hovering over in Internet Explorer, but the tab name in IE’s toolbar doesn’t change to the one you’re previewing. Here we increased the width between the thumbnails, while keeping the thumbnails at their default size. This could be useful if you have trouble selecting the correct preview, and we can imagine it would be a very useful modification on touch screens. And, if you ever take your changes too far, and want to revert to your default Windows 7 taskbar thumbnail previews, simply run the Customizer again and select Restore Defaults. Windows Explorer will restart again, and your taskbar thumbnails will be back to their default settings. Conclusion This tool makes it safe and easy to change the size, spacing, and more of your taskbar thumbnail previews. And since you can always revert to the default settings, you can experiment without fear of messing up your computer. If you’d prefer to change the settings manually without using a dedicated application, here’s a list of the registry changes you can make to accomplish this by hand. Link Download the Windows 7 Taskbar Thumbnail Customizer from The Windows Club Vista Users: Increase Size of Windows Vista Taskbar Previews Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Bounty(Paid!) for Increasing Windows Vista Taskbar Preview SizeGet Vista Taskbar Thumbnail Previews in Windows XPVista Style Popup Previews for Firefox TabsIncrease Size of Windows Vista Taskbar PreviewsWhat is dwm.exe And Why Is It Running? TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Are You Blocked On Gtalk? Find out Discover Latest Android Apps On AppBrain The Ultimate Guide For YouTube Lovers Will it Blend? iPad Edition Penolo Lets You Share Sketches On Twitter Visit Woolyss.com for Old School Games, Music and Videos

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Read Mobi eBooks on Kindle for PC

- by Matthew Guay

Do you use your PC as a eBook reader? Kindle for PC makes it easy to read thousands of books from the Kindle Store on your computer. What you may not know is that is also works with .mobi format too, so you can increase the amount of books you can read. Amazon has jumpstarted the eBook market with their popular Kindle device. Last fall Amazon unveiled Kindle for PC, and we reviewed how you can Read Kindle Books On Your Computer with Kindle for PC. Whether or not you own a Kindle or other eBook reader, this is a great way to take advantage of the thousands of eBooks available from the Kindle Store today. It supports azw, prc, and tpz format, which are sold from the Kindle store, but it also supports Mobipocket (.mobi) eBooks that are not DRM protected. Here’s how you can add them to Kindle for PC so you can easily read them on your PC Getting Started: First, make sure you have Kindle for PC (link below) installed on your computer. Sign in with your Amazon account when you first run it. Kindle for PC lets you easily read eBooks downloaded from the Kindle Store, but it doesn’t have any way to add other eBooks directly from the program. To add eBooks, you can sometimes download and double-click on the books, and they will open in Kindle for PC and be automatically added to the library. However, this does not always seem to work. So instead, browse to your Documents folder (simply click on the Documents link on your Start menu), and double-click on the My Kindle Content folder. This folder contains all the Kindle books you have downloaded. If you have other eBooks you would like to add to Kindle for PC, simply drag-and-drop or copy and paste them into this folder. Here we have a .mobi formatted book downloaded from the Gutenberg Project that we’re dragging into the folder. Now, close and reopen Kindle for PC. It should now show your new eBook right beside the eBooks you have downloaded from the Kindle Store. These eBooks work just the same as the ones downloaded from the Kindle store, and you can change font size and add bookmarks just as with other eBooks. The eBooks downloaded this way may show up with either a Amazon logo or a mobile device icon. You should only see the mobile device icon on .mobi files formatted for mobile devices; other ones should show up with the Amazon logo. In this screen, Pilgrim’s Progress is a standard .mobi book, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a mobipocket book, and the others are downloaded from the Kindle Store. Conclusion This is a great way to read eBooks from across the internet on Kindle for PC. Wikipedia’s Kindle page has a list of websites that offer eBooks formatted for the Kindle, so be sure to check it out for more books. Links Download Kindle for PC List of websites that offer eBooks that will work on Kindle – via Wikipedia Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Read Kindle Books On Your Computer with Kindle for PCInstall Adobe PDF Reader on Ubuntu EdgyHow to Access your Box.Net Account from Ubuntu the Easy Way TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional New Stinger from McAfee Helps Remove ‘FakeAlert’ Threats Google Apps Marketplace: Tools & Services For Google Apps Users Get News Quick and Precise With Newser Scan for Viruses in Ubuntu using ClamAV Replace Your Windows Task Manager With System Explorer Create Talking Photos using Fotobabble

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Watch Netflix Instant Movies in Boxee

- by DigitalGeekery

Boxee is multi-platform Media PC application with a host of media applications. One of which is the popular Movie service, Netflix. Today we’ll show you how to get setup to watch Netflix Instant streaming video in Boxee. Note: Nexflix requires Microsoft Silverlight which unfortunately means Boxee users running Linux out of luck. What You’ll Need A Netflix account Authorize your Netflix account with Boxee Install Microsoft Silverlight Authorize Your Netflix Account First, we need to authorize our Netflix account with Boxee. (See link below). Type in your Boxee username and password and click “Login.” When prompted, click “Authorize.” Click “Yes, Link This Account.” Install Silverlight If you don’t already have Silverlight installed, you’ll need to do so. See the download link at the end of the article. Log into Boxee Now we’re ready to log into Boxee. Once logged in, click on “Apps” on the Home screen. From the My Apps screen click on Netflix. Then click “Start.” Click “Yes” to enable the cookie. Now you’ll enter the Netflix App. From here, you can browse your Instant Queue, Recommendations, New Arrivals, Browse Genre, or Search for available titles. Click on a selection you’d like to watch. From here, you can Play, Rate, or even add the title to your regular Netflix Queue. With a remote or the on-screen controls you can pause, stop, play, and skip forward or back through the video. Now you’re all set to enjoy the Netflix Instant library with Boxee. Netflix Instant is one of many great Apps included with Boxee. While the current available selection isn’t exactly overwhelming, most subscribers will likely find enough to keep themselves entertained in between DVD deliveries. Haven’t tried Boxee yet? Check out our article on getting started with Boxee. Links Authorize your Netflix account with Boxee Install Microsoft Silverlight Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Find Movies and TV Based on your Mood with JinniGetting Started with BoxeeQuickly Find Movies to Watch at Hello MoviesIntegrate Boxee with Media Center in Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Change DNS servers on the fly with DNS Jumper Live PDF Searches PDF Files and Ebooks Converting Mp4 to Mp3 Easily Use Quick Translator to Translate Text in 50 Languages (Firefox) Get Better Windows Search With UltraSearch Scan News With NY Times Article Skimmer

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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

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Multiplayer / Networking options for a 2D game with physics

- by lahmas

Summary: My 50% finished 2D sidescroller with Box2D as physics engine should have multiplayer support in the final version. However, the current code is just a singleplayer game. What should I do now? And more important, how should I implement multiplayer and combine it with singleplayer? Is it a bad idea to code the singleplayer mode separated from multiplayer mode (like Notch did it with Minecraft)? The performance in singleplayer should be as good as possible (Simulating physics with using a loopback server to implement singleplayer mode would be a problem there) Full background / questions: I'm working on a relatively large 2D game project in C++, with physics as a core element of it. (I use Box2D for that) The finished game should have full multiplayer support, however I made the mistake that I didn't plan the networking part properly and basically worked on a singleplayer game until now. I thought that multiplayer support could be added to the almost finished singleplayer game in a relatively easy and clear way, but apparently, from what I have read this is wrong. I even read that a multiplayer game should be programmed as one from the beginning, with the singleplayer mode actually just consisting of hosting an invisible local server and connecting to it via loopback. (I found out that most FPS game engines do it that way, an example would be Source) So here I am, with my half finished 2D sidescroller game, and I don't really know how to go on. Simply continueing to work on the singleplayer / client seems useless to me now, as I'd have to recode and refactor even more later. First, a general question to anybody who possibly found himself in a situation like this: How should I proceed? Then, the more specific one - I have been trying to find out how I can approach the networking part for my game: (Possible solutions:) Invisible / loopback server for singleplayer This would have the advantage that there basically is no difference between singleplayer and multiplayer mode. Not much additional code would be needed. A big disadvantage: Performance and other limitations in singleplayer. There would be two physics simulations running. One for the client and one for the loopback server. Even if you work around by providing a direct path for the data from the loopback server, through direct communcation by the threads for example, the singleplayer would be limited. This is a problem because people should be allowed to play around with masses of objects at once. Separated singleplayer / Multiplayer mode There would be no server involved in singleplayer mode. I'm not really sure how this would work. But at least I think that there would be a lot of additional work, because all of the singleplayer features would have to be re-implemented or glued to multiplayer mode. Multiplayer mode as a module for singleplayer This is merely a quick thought I had. Multiplayer could consist of a singleplayer game, with an additional networking module loaded and connected to a server, which sends and receives data and updates the singleplayer world. In the retrospective, I regret not having planned the multiplayer mode earlier. I'm really stuck at this point and I hope that somebody here is able to help me!

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SQL SERVER – DQS Error – Cannot connect to server – A .NET Framework error occurred during execution of user-defined routine or aggregate “SetDataQualitySessions” – SetDataQualitySessionPhaseTwo

- by pinaldave

Earlier I wrote a blog post about how to install DQS in SQL Server 2012. Today I decided to write a second part of this series where I explain how to use DQS, however, as soon as I started the DQS client, I encountered an error that will not let me pass through and connect with DQS client. It was a bit strange to me as everything was functioning very well when I left it last time. The error was very big but here are the first few words of it. Cannot connect to server. A .NET Framework error occurred during execution of user-defined routine or aggregate “SetDataQualitySessions”: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException (0×80131904): A .NET Framework error occurred during execution of user-defined routine or aggregate “SetDataQualitySessionPhaseTwo”: The error continues – here is the quick screenshot of the error. As my initial attempts could not fix the error I decided to search online and I finally received a wonderful solution from Microsoft Site. The error has happened due to latest update I had installed on .NET Framework 4. There was a mismatch between the Module Version IDs (MVIDs) of the SQL Common Language Runtime (SQLCLR) assemblies in the SQL Server 2012 database and the Global Assembly Cache (GAC). This mismatch was to be resolved for the DQS to work properly. The workaround is specified here in detail. Scroll to subtopic 4.23 Some .NET Framework 4 Updates Might Cause DQS to Fail. The script was very much straight forward. Here are the few things to not to miss while applying workaround. Make sure DQS client is properly closed The NETAssemblies is based on your OS. NETAssemblies for 64 bit machine – which is my machine is “c:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319″. If you have Winodws installed on any other drive other than c:\windows do not forget to change that in the above path. Additionally if you have 32 bit version installed on c:\windows you should use path as ”c:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319″ Make sure that you execute the script specified in 4.23 sections in this article in the database DQS_MAIN. Do not run this in the master database as this will not fix your error. Do not forget to restart your SQL Services once above script has been executed. Once you open the client it will work this time. Here is the script which I have bit modified from original script. I strongly suggest that you use original script mentioned 4.23 sections. However, this one is customized my own machine. /* Original source: http://bit.ly/PXX4NE (Technet) Modifications: -- Added Database context -- Added environment variable @NETAssemblies -- Main script modified to use @NETAssemblies */ USE DQS_MAIN GO BEGIN -- Set your environment variable -- assumption - Windows is installed in c:\windows folder DECLARE @NETAssemblies NVARCHAR(200) -- For 64 bit uncomment following line SET @NETAssemblies = 'c:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\' -- For 32 bit uncomment following line -- SET @NETAssemblies = 'c:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\' DECLARE @AssemblyName NVARCHAR(200), @RefreshCmd NVARCHAR(200), @ErrMsg NVARCHAR(200) DECLARE ASSEMBLY_CURSOR CURSOR FOR SELECT name AS NAME FROM sys.assemblies WHERE name NOT LIKE '%ssdqs%' AND name NOT LIKE '%microsoft.sqlserver.types%' AND name NOT LIKE '%practices%' AND name NOT LIKE '%office%' AND name NOT LIKE '%stdole%' AND name NOT LIKE '%Microsoft.Vbe.Interop%' OPEN ASSEMBLY_CURSOR FETCH NEXT FROM ASSEMBLY_CURSOR INTO @AssemblyName WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN BEGIN TRY SET @RefreshCmd = 'ALTER ASSEMBLY [' + @AssemblyName + '] FROM ''' + @NETAssemblies + @AssemblyName + '.dll' + ''' WITH PERMISSION_SET = UNSAFE' EXEC sp_executesql @RefreshCmd PRINT 'Successfully upgraded assembly ''' + @AssemblyName + '''' END TRY BEGIN CATCH IF ERROR_NUMBER() != 6285 BEGIN SET @ErrMsg = ERROR_MESSAGE() PRINT 'Failed refreshing assembly ' + @AssemblyName + '. Error message: ' + @ErrMsg END END CATCH FETCH NEXT FROM ASSEMBLY_CURSOR INTO @AssemblyName END CLOSE ASSEMBLY_CURSOR DEALLOCATE ASSEMBLY_CURSOR END GO Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Error Messages, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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Is Microsoft’s Cloud Bet Placed on the Ground?

- by andrewbrust

Today at the Unversity of Washington, Steve Ballmer gave a speech on Microsoft’s cloud strategy. Significantly, Azure was only briefly mentioned and was not shown. Instead, Ballmer spoke about what he called the five “dimensions” of the cloud, and used that as the basis for an almost philosophical discussion. Ballmer opined on how the cloud should be distinguished from the Internet.as well as what the cloud will and should enable. Ballmer worked hard to portray the cloud not as a challenger to Windows and PCs (as Google would certainly suggest it is) but really as just the latest peripheral that adds value to PCs and devices. At one point during his speech, Ballmer said “We start with Windows at Microsoft. It’s the most popular smart device on the planet. And our design center for the future of Windows is to make it one of those smarter devices that the cloud really wants.” I’m not sure I agree with Ballmer’s ambition here, but I must admit he’s taken the “software + services” concept and expanded on it in more consumer-friendly fashion. There were demos too. For example, Blaise Aguera y Arcas reprised his Bing Maps demo from the TED conference held last month. And Simon Atwell showed how Microsoft has teamed with Sky TV in the UK to turn Xbox into something that looks uncannily like Windows Media Center. Specifically, an Xbox console app called Sky Player provides full access to Sky’s on-demand programming but also live TV access to an array of networks carried on its home TV service, complete with an on-screen programming guide. Windows Phone 7 Series was shown quickly and Ballmer told us that while Windows Mobile/Phone 6.5 and earlier were designed for voice and legacy functionality, Windows Phone 7 Series is designed for the cloud. Over and over during Ballmer’s talk (and those of his guest demo presenters), the message was clear: Microsoft believes that client (“smart”) devices, and not mere HTML terminals, are the technologies to best deliver on the promise of the cloud. The message was that PCs running Windows, game consoles and smart phones whose native interfaces are Internet-connected offer the most effective way to utilize cloud capabilities. Even the Bing Maps demo conveyed this message, because the advanced technology shown in the demo uses Silverlight (and thus the PCs computing power), and not AJAX (which relies only upon the browser’s native scripting and rendering capabilities) to produce the impressive interface shown to the audience. Microsoft’s new slogan, with respect to the cloud, is “we’re all in.” Just as a Texas Hold ‘em player bets his entire stash of chips when he goes all in, so too is Microsoft “betting the company” on the cloud. But it would seem that Microsoft’s bet isn’t on the cloud in a pure sense, and is instead on the power of the cloud to fuel new growth in PCs and other client devices, Microsoft’s traditional comfort zone. Is that a bet or a hedge? If the latter, is Microsoft truly all in? I don’t really know. I think many people would say this is a sucker’s bet. But others would say it’s suckers who bet against Microsoft. No matter what, the burden is on Microsoft to prove this contrarian view of the cloud is a sensible one. To do that, they’ll need to deliver on cloud-connected device innovation. And to do that, the whole company will need to feel that victory is crucial. Time will tell. And I expect to present progress reports in future posts.

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Intel I217LM ethernet controller not detected by Ubuntu 12.04LTS

- by Alexandr Kurilin

My last installation of Ubuntu 12.04 on a machine using an ASUS Q87M-E motherboard with an Intel I217LM Ethernet controller has failed to detect the ethernet card. The only thing displayed by ifconfig -a is the loopback. I double-checked in the BIOS, and the controller should be online. $ rfkill list all 0: phy0: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no $ lspci 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Haswell DRAM Controller (rev 06) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Haswell PCI Express x16 Controller (rev 06) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Haswell Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06) 00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Haswell HD Audio Controller (rev 06) 00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Lynx Point USB xHCI Host Controller (rev 04) 00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Lynx Point MEI Controller #1 (rev 04) 00:16.3 Serial controller: Intel Corporation Lynx Point KT Controller (rev 04) 00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Device 153a (rev 04) 00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Lynx Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Lynx Point HD Audio Controller (rev 04) 00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Lynx Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Lynx Point LPC Controller (rev 04) 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Lynx Point 6-Port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 04) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Lynx Point SMBus Controller (rev 04) $ lsmod Module Size Used by vesafb 13844 1 snd_hda_codec_realtek 224173 1 arc4 12529 2 joydev 17693 0 usbhid 47238 0 hid 99636 1 usbhid rfcomm 47604 0 rt73usb 31735 0 crc_itu_t 12707 1 rt73usb rt2x00usb 20808 1 rt73usb rt2x00lib 55326 2 rt73usb,rt2x00usb mac80211 506862 2 rt2x00usb,rt2x00lib cfg80211 205774 2 rt2x00lib,mac80211 eeepc_wmi 13109 0 bnep 18281 2 asus_wmi 24456 1 eeepc_wmi sparse_keymap 13890 1 asus_wmi psmouse 97485 0 bluetooth 180153 10 rfcomm,bnep ppdev 17113 0 snd_hda_intel 33719 6 snd_hda_codec 127706 2 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel snd_seq_midi 13324 0 snd_hwdep 17764 1 snd_hda_codec snd_rawmidi 30748 1 snd_seq_midi serio_raw 13211 0 snd_pcm 97275 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec snd_seq_midi_event 14899 1 snd_seq_midi snd_seq 61929 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event snd_timer 29990 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq snd_seq_device 14540 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq parport_pc 32866 1 snd 79041 21 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_rawmidi,snd_pcm,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device video 19651 0 soundcore 15091 1 snd wmi 19256 1 asus_wmi snd_page_alloc 18529 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm mac_hid 13253 0 lp 17799 0 parport 46562 3 ppdev,parport_pc,lp $ ifconfig lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:1091 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:1091 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:80048 (80.0 KB) TX bytes:80048 (80.0 KB) wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:fd:07:91:a8:b9 inet addr:172.16.42.4 Bcast:172.16.42.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::2fd:7ff:fe91:a8b9/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:56644 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:36417 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:85270918 (85.2 MB) TX bytes:3413849 (3.4 MB) additionally, running sudo lshw -C network returns: *-network UNCLAIMED description: Ethernet Controller [...] I'm pretty stumped at this point. This doesn't sound like a very uncommon ethernet controller and I figured it would be picked up by the system. Does anybody have advice for how to deal with this? Anything specific I should look into to figure out what could be causing this? Edit: It seems that following the guide on the Intel e1000e drivers page allowed the card to start working. Is this a real fix or is there a better way?

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Add the Vista Style Sidebar Back to Windows 7

- by Mysticgeek

If you are moving from Vista to Windows 7, you might miss the Sidebar which was introduced in Vista. Today we take a look at a couple options for getting a Sidebar back in Windows 7. Copy Files from Vista Note: In this example we are using 32-bit versions of Vista and Windows 7. Make sure you are logged in with Administrator credentials. If you have a Vista machine running, we can copy the Windows Sidebar files over to the Windows 7 machine. On the Vista machine navigate to C:\Program Files and copy the Windows Sidebar folder and all of its contents over to a flash drive or network location. On the Windows 7 machine go to C:\Program Files and rename the Windows Sidebar folder to something like Windows Sidebar_old. Now copy the Vista Windows Sidebar folder into C:\Program Files… Now you will have both folders…Windows Sidebar and Windows Sidebar_old in your C:\Program Files folder. Right-click on the desktop and select Gadgets. There you are…the Original Vista Sidebar is back and will act as it did in Vista. Move Sidebar Gadgets Another work around if you don’t have a copy of Vista, you can simply move the Desktop Gadgets you want over to the right side of the screen and they will stay there…no dock needed. Type gadgets into the Search box in the Windows Start Menu and click on Desktop Gadgets. Then drag the included Gadgets you want over to the right side of the screen. Or click on the link to Get more gadgets online to find more. Once you have them where you want, each time you reboot they will still be in the same location. This holds true no matter where you place them on your desktop as well. Install Desktop Sidebar If you want an enhanced sidebar that includes a lot of different features, and don’t have a copy of Vista, you might want to check out Desktop Sidebar Beta (link below). This is a freeware application that works with Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. After installation you can access it from the Start Menu… Here is how it will look after you launch it… It includes several pre-installed panels including a clock, Media Player, Search Bar, Slideshow, Messenger, Outlook inbox, Tasks, Quick Launch, Performance…and a lot more. It is highly customizable and allows you to change skins, add various levels of transparency, and a lot more. One caveat with going with Desktop Sidebar is we didn’t find a way to add Windows Gadgets to it (though there might be a plugin for it that we’re not aware of). But there are so many options, you may not mind. However, you can still use the desktop gadgets as you normally would in Windows 7. Believe it or not, some people actually prefer the Vista style Sidebar and would like it back in Windows 7. With these options you can get the Vista Sidebar back if you have a copy of Vista, place the Gadgets on the desktop, or go the freeware route. Download Desktop Sidebar (freeware) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Disable Windows Sidebar in VistaHow To Repair Your Crashed or Hanging Vista SidebarApplying Themes To Your Windows Vista SidebarDisable Sidebar / Desktop Gadgets on Windows 7Put AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) In your Windows Sidebar TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor Gmail Button Addon (Firefox) Hyperwords addon (Firefox)

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Add Social Elements to Your Gmail Contacts with Rapportive

- by Matthew Guay

Would you like to discover more about your contacts? Xobni is a great tool for this in Outlook, and thanks to a small plugin for Gmail, you can get similar functionality right from your favorite webmail app. Setup Rapportive on Your Gmail Browse to the Rapportive site (link below), and click install to add it to your browser. Rapportive currently only supports Firefox and Google Chrome. In this test, we installed it on Google Chrome. Notice that Chrome warns Rapportive may access your private data from Gmail, though Rapportive says that they only use this data securely on your computer or their servers. Next time you log into Gmail, open a message to see the new Rapportive sidebar. Click Log in to get started. Choose if you want to let Rapportive to access your data. Finally, choose whether to stay logged into Rapportive or to log out when you log out of Gmail. Using Rapportive Now, when you open an email, you should see more information about your contact on the right side of the message where you usually see Google AdSense ads. You may see an avatar, short bio, and links to their social networks. You can add notes about a contact also, which lets you use Rapportive as a CRM. You may see more information on some contacts. Here we see a contact that shows recent Tweets and links to several social networks. Take Rapportive Further You can add more features to Rapportive with Raplets, which are small extensions that add more information or CRM functionality. To add these, click the Rapportive button on the top of Gmail, and select Add Raplets to Rapportive. Find a Raplet you want, and click Add This. A popup will open to give you more information about the Raplet; click the Add button at the bottom if you still want it. And, if you’re wish to close Rapportive without logging out of Gmail, click the Rapportive link in Gmail and select Log out. Conclusion Whether you want to find out more about your contacts or keep track of notes about them, Rapportive is a great way to do this from Gmail. With tools like this, Gmail gets a bit more powerful and feels more like a desktop application. If you would like this type of functionality in Outlook, check out our article on how to power up Outlook’s search and contacts with Xobni. Add Rapportive to Gmail Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How to Import Gmail Contacts Into Outlook 2007Enhance Your Gmail Account in ChromeFigure out which Online accounts are selling your email to spammersAdd Social Bookmarking (Digg This!) Links to your Wordpress BlogFix for New Contact Group Button Not Displaying in Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Easily Search Food Recipes With Recipe Chimp Tech Fanboys Field Guide Check these Awesome Chrome Add-ons iFixit Offers Gadget Repair Manuals Online Vista style sidebar for Windows 7 Create Nice Charts With These Web Based Tools

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ASP.NET MVC, Web API, Razor and Open Source

- by ScottGu

Microsoft has made the source code of ASP.NET MVC available under an open source license since the first V1 release. We’ve also integrated a number of great open source technologies into the product, and now ship jQuery, jQuery UI, jQuery Mobile, jQuery Validation, Modernizr.js, NuGet, Knockout.js and JSON.NET as part of it. I’m very excited to announce today that we will also release the source code for ASP.NET Web API and ASP.NET Web Pages (aka Razor) under an open source license (Apache 2.0), and that we will increase the development transparency of all three projects by hosting their code repositories on CodePlex (using the new Git support announced last week). Doing so will enable a more open development model where everyone in the community will be able to engage and provide feedback on code checkins, bug-fixes, new feature development, and build and test the products on a daily basis using the most up-to-date version of the source code and tests. We will also for the first time allow developers outside of Microsoft to submit patches and code contributions that the Microsoft development team will review for potential inclusion in the products. We announced a similar open development approach with the Windows Azure SDK last December, and have found it to be a great way to build an even tighter feedback loop with developers – and ultimately deliver even better products as a result. Very importantly - ASP.NET MVC, Web API and Razor will continue to be fully supported Microsoft products that ship both standalone as well as part of Visual Studio (the same as they do today). They will also continue to be staffed by the same Microsoft developers that build them today (in fact, we have more Microsoft developers working on the ASP.NET team now than ever before). Our goal with today’s announcement is to increase the feedback loop on the products even more, and allow us to deliver even better products. We are really excited about the improvements this will bring. Learn More You can now browse, sync and build the source tree of ASP.NET MVC, Web API, and Razor on the http://aspnetwebstack.codeplex.com web-site. The Git repository on the site is the live RC milestone development tree that the team has been working on the last several weeks, and the tree contains both the runtime sources + tests, and is buildable and testable by anyone. Because the binaries produced are bin-deployable, this allows you to compile your own builds and try product updates out as soon as they are checked-in. You can also now contribute directly to the development of the products by reviewing and sending feedback on code checkins, submitting bugs and helping us verify fixes as they are checked in, suggesting and giving feedback on new features as they are implemented, as well as by submitting code fixes or code contributions of your own. Note that all code submissions will be rigorously reviewed and tested by the ASP.NET MVC Team, and only those that meet an extremely high bar for both quality and design/roadmap appropriateness will be merged into the source. Summary All of us on the team are really excited about today’s announcement – it has been something we’ve been working toward for many years. The tighter feedback loop is going to enable us to build even better products, and take ASP.NET to the next level in terms of innovation and customer focus. Thanks, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I use Twitter to-do quick posts and share links. My Twitter handle is: @scottgu

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Remove Programs from the Open With Menu in Explorer

- by Matthew Guay

Would you like to clean up the Open with menu in Windows Explorer? Here’s how you can remove program entries you don’t want in this menu on any version of Windows. Have you ever accidently opened an mp3 with Notepad, or a zip file with Word? If so, you’re also likely irritated that these programs now show up in the Open with menu in Windows Explorer every time you select one of those files. Whenever you open a file type with a particular program, Windows will add an entry for it to the Open with menu. Usually this is helpful, but it can also clutter up the menu with wrong entries. On our computer, we have tried to open a PDF file with Word and Notepad, neither which can actually view the PDF itself. Let’s remove these entries. To do this, we need to remove the registry entries for these programs. Enter regedit in your Start menu search or in the Run command to open the Registry editor. Backup your registry first just in case, so you can roll-back any changes you make if you accidently delete the wrong value. Now, browse to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Software \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion \ Explorer \FileExts\ Here you’ll see a list of all the file extensions that are registered on your computer. Browse to the file extension you wish to edit, click the white triangle beside it to see the subfolders, and select OpenWithList. In our test, we want to change the programs associated with PDF files, so we select the OpenWithList folder under .pdf. Notice the names of the programs under the Data column on the right. Right-click the value for the program you don’t want to see in the Open With menu and select Delete. Click Yes at the prompt to confirm that you want to delete this value. Repeat these steps with all the programs you want to remove from this file type’s Open with menu. You can go ahead and remove entries from other file types as well if you wish. Once you’ve removed the entries you didn’t want to see, check out the Open with menu in Explorer again. Now it will be much more streamlined and will only show the programs you want to see. Conclusion This simple trick can help you keep your Open with menu tidy, and only show the programs you want in the list. It can be irritating to accidently open files in programs that can’t even read them. This trick works in all versions of Windows, including 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Remove ISP Text or Corporate Branding from Internet Explorer Title BarRemove the Username From the Start Menu in XPKeep Start Menu From Closing After Opening ApplicationsRemove PartyPoker (Or Other Items) from the Internet Explorer Tools MenuUninstall, Disable, or Delete Internet Explorer 8 from Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 OpenDNS Guide Google TV The iPod Revolution Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app

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Who should ‘own’ the Enterprise Architecture?

- by Michael Glas

I recently had a discussion around who should own an organization’s Enterprise Architecture. It was spawned by an article titled “Busting CIO Myths” in CIO magazine1 where the author interviewed Jeanne Ross, director of MIT's Center for Information Systems Research and co-author of books on enterprise architecture, governance and IT value.In the article Jeanne states that companies need to acknowledge that "architecture says everything about how the company is going to function, operate, and grow; the only person who can own that is the CEO". "If the CEO doesn't accept that role, there really can be no architecture."The first question that came up when talking about ownership was whether you are talking about a person, role, or organization (there are pros and cons to each, but in general, I like to assign accountability to as few people as possible). After much thought and discussion, I came to the conclusion that we were answering the wrong question. Instead of talking about ownership we were talking about responsibility and accountability, and the answer varies depending on the particular role of the organization’s Enterprise Architecture and the activities of the enterprise architect(s).Instead of looking at just who owns the architecture, think about what the person/role/organization should do. This is one possible scenario (thanks to Bob Covington): The CEO should own the Enterprise Strategy which guides the business architecture. The Business units should own the business processes and information which guide the business, application and information architectures. The CIO should own the technology, IT Governance and the management of the application and information architectures/implementations. The EA Governance Team owns the EA process. If EA is done well, the governance team consists of both IT and the business. While there are many more roles and responsibilities than listed here, it starts to provide a clearer understanding of ‘ownership’. Now back to Jeanne’s statement that the CEO should own the architecture. If you agree with the statement about what the architecture is (and I do agree), then ultimately the CEO does need to own it. However, what we ended up with was not really ownership, but more statements around roles and responsibilities tied to aspects of the enterprise architecture. You can debate the semantics of ownership vs. responsibility and accountability, but in the end the important thing is to come to a clearer understanding that is easily communicated (and hopefully measured) around the question “Who owns the Enterprise Architecture”.The next logical step . . . create a RACI matrix that details the findings . . . but that is a step that each organization needs to do on their own as it will vary based on current EA maturity, company culture, and a variety of other factors. Who ‘owns’ the Enterprise Architecture in your organization? 1 CIO Magazine Article (Busting CIO Myths): http://www.cio.com/article/704943/Busting_CIO_Myths Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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Add Spell Checking to Your Favorite Windows Apps

- by Asian Angel

Some but not all Windows apps have built-in spell checking of some sort. If you want to add spell checking to all of your apps (or a select group) then join us as we look at tinySpell. Note: There is a paid version of this software (tinySpell+) available as well for those who want extra functionality. tinySpell in Action The installation process is simple and straightforward…as soon as you have finished installing tinySpell you will see your new “System Tray Icon”. You can see tinySpell’s “Context Menu” here. Before going any further you may want to have a look through the settings to make any desired display modifications. During our tests we found it very helpful to modify the Spelling Tip options…it will make for a much nicer and easier to read display when you have a spelling error. Clicking on the Applications… Command in the Context Menu will bring up the following window. You can really finesse how active tinySpell will be here: Create a special list of apps that tinySpell will not monitor Create a custom list of apps that tinySpell will monitor If you have any particular or unique words that you would like to add to tinySpell’s Dictionary ahead of time you can do that by clicking on the Dictionary… Command in the Context Menu. Want to check the spelling of a word ahead of time or find that you are just curious about how it is spelled? Click on Open spelling window in the Context Menu to access a special spell check window. For our example we misspelled “spelling” on purpose…notice that the word has turned red. Clicking on the Check Mark Button will open a drop-down list with suggested spellings for the word that you are inquiring about. Click on the appropriate listing if you intend to copy and paste the word. Next we moved on to Notepad. As we were typing tinySpell alerted us when we typed the word “app”. You will hear a small default system sound and see a small popup as shown here if tinySpell thinks a word has been misspelled. The System Tray Icon will also change to a yellow color. You can access the list of suggested spellings by either left clicking on the small popup or the System Tray Icon. If the word is a properly spelled “abbreviation” (or special/custom) like our word here you can select Add to dictionary. Going further in our text document we once again purposely misspelled “spelling”… Left clicking on the popup gave us access to the drop-down list of suggested spellings… And clicking on the correct spelling automatically inserted it into our document in place of the misspelled word. As you can see here tinySpell was even monitoring file names when we went to save the document. Very thorough indeed. Conclusion If your favorite app does not have built-in spell checking, then tinySpell will definitely be a welcome (and very helpful) addition to your Windows system. They offer a portable version as well so you can take it with you to any PC. Links Download tinySpell *Note: The download link is located approximately half-way down the page. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Quick Tip: Spell Check Firefox Text Input FieldsEdit the Windows Live Writer Custom DictionaryAccess Your Favorite Google Services in Chrome the Easy WayLaunch External Apps from FirefoxNinite Makes Installing Software Incredibly Simple TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 OpenDNS Guide Google TV The iPod Revolution Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app

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SQL SERVER – How to Ignore Columnstore Index Usage in Query

- by pinaldave

Earlier I wrote about SQL SERVER – Fundamentals of Columnstore Index and very first question I received in email was as following. “We are using SQL Server 2012 CTP3 and so far so good. In our data warehouse solution we have created 1 non-clustered columnstore index on our large fact table. We have very unique situation but your article did not cover it. We are running few queries on our fact table which is working very efficiently but there is one query which earlier was running very fine but after creating this non-clustered columnstore index this query is running very slow. We dropped the columnstore index and suddenly this one query is running fast but other queries which were benefited by this columnstore index it is running slow. Any workaround in this situation?” In summary the question in simple words “How can we ignore using columnstore index in selective queries?” Very interesting question – you can use I can understand there may be the cases when columnstore index is not ideal and needs to be ignored the same. You can use the query hint IGNORE_NONCLUSTERED_COLUMNSTORE_INDEX to ignore the columnstore index. SQL Server Engine will use any other index which is best after ignoring the columnstore index. Here is the quick script to prove the same. We will first create sample database and then create columnstore index on the same. Once columnstore index is created we will write simple query. This query will use columnstore index. We will then show the usage of the query hint. USE AdventureWorks GO -- Create New Table CREATE TABLE [dbo].[MySalesOrderDetail]( [SalesOrderID] [int] NOT NULL, [SalesOrderDetailID] [int] NOT NULL, [CarrierTrackingNumber] [nvarchar](25) NULL, [OrderQty] [smallint] NOT NULL, [ProductID] [int] NOT NULL, [SpecialOfferID] [int] NOT NULL, [UnitPrice] [money] NOT NULL, [UnitPriceDiscount] [money] NOT NULL, [LineTotal] [numeric](38, 6) NOT NULL, [rowguid] [uniqueidentifier] NOT NULL, [ModifiedDate] [datetime] NOT NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] GO -- Create clustered index CREATE CLUSTERED INDEX [CL_MySalesOrderDetail] ON [dbo].[MySalesOrderDetail] ( [SalesOrderDetailID]) GO -- Create Sample Data Table -- WARNING: This Query may run upto 2-10 minutes based on your systems resources INSERT INTO [dbo].[MySalesOrderDetail] SELECT S1.* FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail S1 GO 100 -- Create ColumnStore Index CREATE NONCLUSTERED COLUMNSTORE INDEX [IX_MySalesOrderDetail_ColumnStore] ON [MySalesOrderDetail] (UnitPrice, OrderQty, ProductID) GO Now we have created columnstore index so if we run following query it will use for sure the same index. -- Select Table with regular Index SELECT ProductID, SUM(UnitPrice) SumUnitPrice, AVG(UnitPrice) AvgUnitPrice, SUM(OrderQty) SumOrderQty, AVG(OrderQty) AvgOrderQty FROM [dbo].[MySalesOrderDetail] GROUP BY ProductID ORDER BY ProductID GO We can specify Query Hint IGNORE_NONCLUSTERED_COLUMNSTORE_INDEX as described in following query and it will not use columnstore index. -- Select Table with regular Index SELECT ProductID, SUM(UnitPrice) SumUnitPrice, AVG(UnitPrice) AvgUnitPrice, SUM(OrderQty) SumOrderQty, AVG(OrderQty) AvgOrderQty FROM [dbo].[MySalesOrderDetail] GROUP BY ProductID ORDER BY ProductID OPTION (IGNORE_NONCLUSTERED_COLUMNSTORE_INDEX) GO Let us clean up the database. -- Cleanup DROP INDEX [IX_MySalesOrderDetail_ColumnStore] ON [dbo].[MySalesOrderDetail] GO TRUNCATE TABLE dbo.MySalesOrderDetail GO DROP TABLE dbo.MySalesOrderDetail GO Again, make sure that you use hint sparingly and understanding the proper implication of the same. Make sure that you test it with and without hint and select the best option after review of your administrator. Here is the question for you – have you started to use SQL Server 2012 for your validation and development (not on production)? It will be interesting to know the answer. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Index, SQL Optimization, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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