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• Using Dependency Walker

  - by Valter Minute

  Dependency Walker is a very useful tool that can be used to find dependencies of a Portable Executable module. The PE format is used also on Windows CE and this means that Dependency Walker can be used to analyze also Windows CE/Windows Embedded Compact module. On Win32 it can be used also to monitor modules loaded by an application during runtime, this feature is not supported on CE. You can download dependency walker for free here: http://dependencywalker.com/. To analyze the dependencies of a Windows CE/Windows Embedded Compact 7 module you can just open it using Dependency Walker. If you want to check if a specific module can run on a Windows CE/Windows Compact 7 OS Image you can copy the executable in the same directory that contains your OS binaries (FLATRELEASEDIR). In this way Dependency Walker will highlight missing dlls or missing entry points inside existing dlls. Let’s do a quick sample. You need to check if myapp.exe (an application from a third party) can run on an image generated with your Test01 OSDesign. Copy Myapp.exe to the flat release directory of your OS Design. Launch depends.exe and use the File\Open option of its main menu to open the application executable file you just copied. You may receive an error if some of the modules required by your applications are missing. Before you analyze the module dependencies is important to configure Dependency Walker to check DLL in the same folder where your application file is stored. This is needed because some Windows CE DLLs have the same name of Win32 system DLLs but different entry points. To configure the DLL search path select “Options\Configure Module Search Order…” from Depenency Walker main menu. Select “The application directory” from the “Current Search Order” list, select it, and move it to the top of the list using the “Move Up” button. The system will ask to refresh the window contents to reflect your configuration change, click on “Yes” to proceed. Now you can inspect myapp.exe dependencies. Some DLLs are missing (XAMLRUNTIME.DLL and TILEENGINE.DLL) and OLE32.DLL exists but does not export the “CoInitialize” entry point that is required by myapp.exe. The bad news is that MyApp.exe will not run on your OS Image, the good news is that now you know what’s missing and you can add the required modules to your OS Design and fix the problem!

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• Unity DontDestroyOnLoad causing scenes to stay open

  - by jkrebsbach

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/jkrebsbach/archive/2014/08/11/unity-dontdestroyonload-causing-scenes-to-stay-open.aspxMy Unity project has a class (ClientSettings) where most of the game state & management properties are stored.  Among these are some utility functions that derive from MonoBehavior.  However, between every scene this object was getting recreated and I was losing all sorts of useful data.  I learned that with DontDestroyOnLoad, I can persist this entity between scenes.  Super.Persisting information between scenesThe problem with adding DontDestroyOnLoad to my "ClientSettings" was suddenly my previous scene would stay alive, and continue to execute its update routines.  An important part of the documentation helps shed light to my issues:"If the object is a component or game object then its entire transform hierarchy will not be destroyed either."My ClientSettings script was attached to the main camera on my first scene.  Because of this, the Main Camera was part of the hierarchy of the component, and therefore was also not able to destroy when switching scenes.  Now the first scene's main camera Update routine continues to execute after the second scene is running - causing me to have some very nasty bugs.Suddenly I wasn't sure how I should be creating a persistent entity - so I created a new sandbox project and tested different approaches until I found one that works:In the main scene: Create an empty Game Object:  "GameManager" - and attach the ClientSettings script to this game object.  Set any properties to the clientsettings script as appropriate.Create a prefab, using the GameManager.Remove the Game Object from the main scene.In the Main Camera, I created a script:  Main Script.  This is my primary script for the main scene.<code> public GameObject[] prefabs; private ClientSettings _clientSettings; // Use this for initialization void Start () { GameObject res = (GameObject)Instantiate(prefabs[0]); }</code>Now go back out to scene view, and add the new GameManager prefab to the prefabs collection of MainScript.When the main scene loads, the GameManager is set up, but is not part of the main scene's hierarchy, so the two are no longer tied up together.Now in our second scene, we have a script - SecondScript - and we can get a reference to the ClientSettings we created in the previous scene like so:<code>private ConnectionSettings _clientSettings; // Use this for initialization void Start () { _clientSettings = FindObjectOfType<ConnectionSettings> (); }</code>And the scenes can start and finish without creating strange long-running scene side effects.

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• The 2010 Life Insurance Conference - Washington, DC

  - by [email protected]

  How ironic to be in Washington, DC on April 15 - TAX DAY! Fortunately, I avoided IRS offices and attended the much more enjoyable 2010 Life Insurance Conference, presented by LIMRA, LOMA SOA and ACLI. This year's conference offered a variety of tracks focused on the Life Industry including Distribution/Marketing Marketing, Administration, Actuarial/Product Development, Regulatory, Reinsurance and Strategic Management. President and CEO of the ACLI, Frank Keating, opened the event by moderating a session titled "Executive Viewpoint on new Opportunities." Guest speakers included Ted Mathas, President and CEO of NY Life, and John Walters, President and CEO of Hartford Life. Both speakers were insightful as they shared the challenges and opportunities each company faces and the key role life insurance companies play in our society and the global economy. There were several key themes that were reiterated in multiple sessions throughout the conference - the economy is on the rebound, optimism is growing, consumer spending is up and an uptick in employment is likely to follow. The threat of a double dip recession has seemed to passed. Good news for our industry, and welcomed by all in attendance. Of special interest to me, given my background, was some research shared by both The Nolan Group and Novarica in separate sessions. Both firms indicate that policy administration upgrades/replacement projects remain a top priority in 2010. Carriers continue to invest in modern technology. Modern ultra-configurable systems enable carriers to switch from a waterfall to an agile project methodology, which often entails a "culture change" within an organization. Other themes heard throughout the two-day event: Virtually all sessions focused on People, Process and Technology! Product innovation, agility and speed to market are as important as ever. Social Networks and Twitter are becoming more popular ways of communicating with both field and dispersed staff. Several sessions focused on the application, new business and underwriting process. Companies continue looking for ways to increase market agility, accelerate speed to market, address cost issues and improve service levels across the process. They recognize the need to ease the way to do business with both producers and consumers. Author and economic futurist Jeff Thredgold presented an entertaining, informative and humorous general session on Wednesday afternoon that focused on the US and global economies, financial markets and retirement outlook. Thredgold did not disappoint anyone with his message! The Thursday morning general session was keynoted by Therese Vaughan (CEO - NAIC) and Thomas Crawford (President of C2 Group). Both speakers gave a poignant view of the recent financial crisis and discussed "Putting the Pieces Back Together." Therese spoke of the recent financial turmoil and likely changes to regulations to the financial services sector. Tom's topics focused on economic recovery and the political environment in Washington, and how that impacts our industry. Next year's event will be April 11-13, 2011 in Las Vegas. Roger A.Soppe, CLU, LUTCF, is the Senior Director of Insurance Strategy, Oracle Insurance.

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• The Kids Are Alright. With Facebook and SMS. But Not Twitter

  - by ultan o'broin

  I delivered a lecture to business and technology freshmen (late teens, I reckon) in Trinity College Dublin recently. I spoke about user experience in enterprise applications, trends that UX pros need to be aware of such as social media, community support, mobile and tablet platforms and a bunch of nuances around those areas (data and device security, privacy, reputation, branding, and so on). It was all fairly high level stuff given the audience, and I included lots of colorful screenshots. Irish-related examples helped to get the message across. During the lecture I did a quick poll. “How many students here use Twitter?” Answer: None. “How many use Facebook?” All (pretty much). So what do these guys like to use instead of Twitter? Easy - text messaging (or SMS if you like). They all had phones. Perhaps I should not have been so surprised about Twitter, but it’s always great to have research validated by some guerilla UX research on the street. There’s already quite a bit of research about teen uptake (or lack) of Twitter, telling us young adults don’t tweet. Twitter is seen as something for er, older people. Affordable devices and data plans that allow students to text really quickly are also popular (BlackBerry, for example). Younger people just luuurve to text each other. A lot.  Facebook versus Twitter for younger folks? Well, we know the story. No contest. I would love to engage more with students like these. I’ll plan for it. It will also be interesting to see if Twitter becomes more important to them over time. There were a few other interesting observations about the lack of uptake of Foursquare, Gowalla and mobile apps like that. I  don’t think there’s a huge uptake in these kind of apps in Ireland anyway, but maybe students have different priorities anyway?   I’ll return to that another day. Technorati Tags: Gowalla,FourSquare,Twitter,UX,user experience,user assistance,Trinity College Dublin

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• Make the Firefox Awesome Bar Semi-Transparent Like Google Chrome

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like to make the Firefox Awesome Bar drop-down menu semi-transparent like in Google Chrome?  Here’s a quick trick that can make your Firefox Awesome Bar a bit more awesome. When you type an address or search query into the address bar in Google Chrome, the drop-down list of history and search suggestions that appears is slightly transparent.  Nothing extreme, but it adds a nice touch. Firefox’s Awesome bar, on the other hand, is fully opaque by default. We can change that with a simple change.  Exit Firefox, then open your Firefox profile folder by entering the following in the address bar in Explorer or in the Run command: %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ Open the default folder, and then open the Chrome folder in it. Now, open the userChrome.css file in an editor such as Notepad.  If you do not have a userChrome.css file, open the userChrome-example.css file instead. Now, add the following to the end of the file: #PopupAutoCompleteRichResult[type="autocomplete-richlistbox"]{    opacity: 0.9 !important;} You can change the opacity value, but 0.9 seemed the closest to Chrome’s transparency while keeping the text readable. Save the file as userChrome.css in that same folder.  If you’re editing with Notepad, make sure to select to save as All Files so the file won’t be saved with a .txt extension. Open Firefox, and now your Awesome Bar’s drop-down list will be transparent.  Actually, it may look even more awesome than Google Chrome’s address bar! Conclusion With this simple trick, you can make your Firefox Awesome bar a bit more awesome.  With tweaks like this, it’s no wonder Firefox is still so popular. Special thanks to Daniel Spiewak for the tip! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Stupid Geek Tricks: Compare Your Browser’s Memory Usage with Google ChromeHow to Make Google Chrome Your Default BrowserEnable Vista Black Style Theme for Google Chrome in XPMake your Gnome Terminal Background (mostly)Transparent on UbuntuStop YouTube Videos from Automatically Playing in Chrome TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Use ILovePDF To Split and Merge PDF Files TimeToMeet is a Simple Online Meeting Planning Tool Easily Create More Bookmark Toolbars in Firefox Filevo is a Cool File Hosting & Sharing Site Get a free copy of WinUtilities Pro 2010 World Cup Schedule

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• How to Write an E-Book

  A few days ago my attention was drawn to a tweet spat between Karl Seguin and Scott Hanselman around the relaunch of ASP.NET and the title element in HTML. Tempest in a teapot of course, but worthwhile as I did some googling on Karl and found his blog at codebetter.com. From there it was a short jump to his free e-book, The Foundations of Programming. This short book is distinguished by its orientation, opinionated, its tone, mentoring and its honesty, which is refreshing. In Foundations, Karl covers what he considers the basics of programming and good design, including test driven development, dependency injection and domain driven design. Karl is opinionated, as the topics suggest, and doesnt bother to pretend that he doesnt think what hes suggesting is the better way, not just another way. He is aligned with ALT.NET, and gives an excellent overview of what that means; an overview more enlightening than the ALT.NET site. ALT.NET has its critics, but presenting a strong opinion grabbed my attention as a reader. It is a short walk from opinionated to hectoring,  but Karl held my attention without insulting me. He takes the time to explain, with examples, from the ground up, the problems that test driven development and dependency injection solve. So for dependency injection he builds it up from no DI, to a hand crafted approach, to a full fledged DI framework. This approach is more persuasive than just proscriptive and engaged me as the reader to follow along with his train of thought. Foundations is not as pedantic as I am making it sound. The final ingredient in Karls mix is honesty. He acknowledges that sometimes unit testing does cost more up front and take more time. He admits that sometimes he designs something a certain way just to be testable. He also warns that focusing too much on DI and loose coupling can lead to the poor design you are trying to avoid. These points add depth to his argument as I could tell hes speaking from experience, with some hard won lessons. I enjoyed The Foundations of Programming. When I was done with it, I was amazed how much I got a lot out of its 80 some pages. It is a rarity to come across something worthwhile that is longer then a tweet, but shorter than a tome these days. Well done Karl.   -- Relevant Links -- The now titled and newly relaunched page in question: http://www.asp.net/ The pleasantly confusing ALT.NET homepage: http://altdotnet.org/ A longer review, with details, chapter listings and all that important stuff: http://accidentaltechnologist.com/book-reviews/book-review-foundations-of-programming-by-karl-seguin/Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Customer Experience Online Forum

  - by Christie Flanagan

  Missed Oracle’s Customer Experience Online Forum?  Don’t worry. You can still catch the sessions at your convenience. Watch the Customer Experience Online Forum on demand to hear from Bruce Tempkin, a leading expert in customer experience, as well as other thought leaders and they delve into topics such as the ROI of customer experience and strategies for winning over customers.  Simply register to gain access to these sessions and more: The Customer Experience RevolutionCustomer experience has become the most important and defensible differentiator for your business. The customer experience is a journey that transcends all customer touchpoints and stages of the customer lifecycle. Discover where you are in the journey, identify how to begin optimizing the experience you deliver your customers, and join the Revolution.The ROI of Customer ExperienceBruce Temkin, Customer Experience Transformist & Managing Partner, Temkin GroupResearch of US and UK customers demonstrates a high correlation between a positive customer experience and loyalty. A successful customer interaction increases the willingness to buy more and to recommend your company. US companies can gain $380 million over three years by providing an optimized customer experience. This session will help companies determine the business impact that customer experience has on their specific business. Integrating Marketing and Loyalty to Deliver Great Customer ExperiencesNew devices and channels, such as mobile, social and web, are creating radical shifts in the customer buying process and the ways your company can reach and communicate with existing and potential customers. Learn how leading brands are using Oracle's marketing solutions to harness big data and better understand their customers, extend their marketing reach into social channels, and retain their high value customers through more rewarding customer experience.Where to Start Your Organization's RevolutionThe process of crafting a great customer experience starts with understanding customers and their goals. This session helps you to begin mapping a sound customer experience strategy, describing the intended experience and kinds of processes that create differentiation. The ROI of Customer Experience: A Tempkin Group Insight Report Did you know that customer experience leaders have more than a 16 percentage point advantage over customer experience laggards in consumers’ willingness to buy more, their reluctance to switch business away, and their likelihood to recommend? Did you know that even a modest increase in customer experience can translate into millions of dollars gained? Learn more about the ROI of customer experience in this free report.

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• How to setup Dual Head with "radeon" driver for R770?

  - by user1709408

  I want to make dual head setup without xrandr but with Xinerama. I put "Screen 1" line into xorg.conf, but card still show identical output on DVI-2 and DVI-3 It is important to use xinerama for me (to glue three monitors), that's why i decide not to use ranrd (randr is incompatible with xinerama as i read somewhere) Here is my videocard (HD 4850 X2): lspci | grep R700 03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI R700 [Radeon HD 4850] 04:00.0 Display controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI R700 [Radeon HD 4850] Here is how monitors are connected: grep "DVI" /var/log/Xorg.0.log [ 1210.002] (II) RADEON(0): Output DVI-0 using monitor section Monitor0 [ 1210.048] (II) RADEON(0): Output DVI-1 has no monitor section [ 1210.079] (II) RADEON(0): EDID for output DVI-0 [ 1210.080] (II) RADEON(0): Printing probed modes for output DVI-0 [ 1210.128] (II) RADEON(0): EDID for output DVI-1 [ 1210.128] (II) RADEON(0): Output DVI-0 connected [ 1210.128] (II) RADEON(0): Output DVI-1 disconnected [ 1210.128] (II) RADEON(0): Output DVI-0 using initial mode 1920x1200 [ 1210.160] (II) RADEON(1): Output DVI-2 using monitor section Monitor2 [ 1210.215] (II) RADEON(1): Output DVI-3 has no monitor section [ 1210.246] (II) RADEON(1): EDID for output DVI-2 [ 1210.247] (II) RADEON(1): Printing probed modes for output DVI-2 [ 1210.299] (II) RADEON(1): EDID for output DVI-3 [ 1210.300] (II) RADEON(1): Printing probed modes for output DVI-3 [ 1210.300] (II) RADEON(1): Output DVI-2 connected [ 1210.300] (II) RADEON(1): Output DVI-3 connected [ 1210.300] (II) RADEON(1): Output DVI-2 using initial mode 1920x1200 [ 1210.300] (II) RADEON(1): Output DVI-3 using initial mode 1920x1200 Here is my /etc/X11/xorg.conf Section "ServerFlags" Option "RandR" "0" Option "Xinerama" "1" EndSection Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Three Head Layout" Screen "MyPrecious0" Screen "MyPrecious2" RightOf "MyPrecious0" Screen "MyPrecious3" LeftOf "MyPrecious0" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "MyPrecious0" Monitor "Monitor0" Device "Device300" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "MyPrecious2" Monitor "Monitor2" Device "Device400" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "MyPrecious3" Monitor "Monitor3" Device "Device401" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device300" BusID "PCI:3:0:0" Screen 0 Driver "radeon" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device400" BusID "PCI:4:0:0" Screen 0 Driver "radeon" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device401" BusID "PCI:4:0:0" Screen 1 Driver "radeon" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor0" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor2" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor3" EndSection I tried to switch to vesa driver (didn't work for me) I tried to add options like Option "ZaphodHeads" "DVI-2" and Option "ZaphodHeads" "DVI-3" into sections "Device 400" and "Device 401" (this didn't help because "ZaphodHeads" option is for ranrd, and randr is disabled by decision) I tried to merge sections "Device 400" and "Device 401" into one section and add Option "ZaphodHeads" "DVI-2,DVI-3" (see comment about randr above) single section setup helps to change log line RADEON(1): Output DVI-3 has no monitor section into RADEON(1): Output DVI-3 using monitor section Monitor3 but nothing was enough to switch from screen cloning to separate screens. This problem (lack of documentation on radeon driver) is similar to these: Radeon display driver clones monitors while using Xinerama (moderators decision to close that problem was wrong) Ubuntu 12.10 multi-monitor setup isn't working The problem is solvable, because this hardware worked as three headed for me earlier with gentoo/xorg-server-1.3 Xorg -configure creates setup for the first monitor on the first GPU Please don't advise to use fglrx/aticonfig/amdcccle (this goes against my religion beliefs)

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• Music before bells and whistles

  - by Tony Davis

  Why is it that Windows has so much difficulty in finding content on its file system? This is not an insurmountable technical problem; on my laptop, I have a database within which I can instantly find text or names within millions of records, within 300 milliseconds. I have a copy of Google Desktop that can find phrases within emails or documents, almost as quickly. It is an important, though mundane, part of an operating system to be able to find files. The first thing I notice within Windows is that the facility to find files or text within files is called 'search' rather than 'find'. Hmm. This doesn’t bode well. What’s this? It does a brute-force search for file names? Here we are in an age when we can breed mice that glow in the dark, and manufacture computers that fit in our shirt pockets, and we find an operating system that is still entirely innocent of managing and indexing content in hierarchical data. I can actually read the files of my PC into a database, mimic the directory/folder hierarchies and then find files in a flash; but when I do the same with Windows Vista, we are suddenly back in a 1960s time warp. Finding files based on their name is bad enough, but finding files based on the content that they contain is more or less asking for an opportunity to wait 20 minutes in order to see a "file not found" message. Sadly, with Windows 7, Microsoft seems to have fallen into the familiar trap of adding bells and whistles before finishing the song. It's certainly true that Microsoft has added new features and a certain polish to Windows Search 4.0, the latest incarnation. It works more like a web search and offers a new search syntax, called Advanced Query Syntax, which allows you to search on file author, file size, date ranges (e.g. date:=7/4/09still does not work reliably. I've experienced first-hand its stubborn refusal, despite a full index, to acknowledge the existence of a file I know exists, based on a search for a specific term within that file that I know is in there somewhere; a file that Google Desktop search, or old wingrep, finds in seconds. When users hark back to the halcyon days of Windows XP search, you know something is seriously amiss. Shouldn't applications get the functionality right before applying animated menus and Teletubby graphics, or is advancing age making me grumpy? I’d be pleased to hear your views, as always. Cheers, Tony.

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• Cloud Computing : publication du volet 3 du Syntec Numérique

  - by Eric Bezille

  Une vision client/fournisseur réunie autour d'une ébauche de cadre contractuel Lors de la Cloud Computing World Expo qui se tenait au CNIT la semaine dernière, j'ai assisté à la présentation du nouveau volet du Syntec numérique sur le Cloud Computing et les "nouveaux modèles" induits : modèles économiques, contrats, relations clients-fournisseurs, organisation de la DSI. L'originalité de ce livre blanc vis à vis de ceux déjà existants dans le domaine est de s'être attaché à regrouper l'ensemble des acteurs clients (au travers du CRIP) et fournisseurs, autour d'un cadre de formalisation contractuel, en s'appuyant sur le modèle e-SCM. Accélération du passage en fournisseur de Services et fin d'une IT en silos ? Si le Cloud Computing permet d'accélérer le passage de l'IT en fournisseur de services (dans la suite d'ITIL v3), il met également en exergue le challenge pour les DSI d'un modèle en rupture nécessitant des compétences transverses permettant de garantir les qualités attendues d'un service de Cloud Computing : déploiement en mode "self-service" à la demande, accès standardisé au travers du réseau,  gestion de groupes de ressources partagées,  service "élastique" : que l'on peut faire croitre ou diminuer rapidement en fonction de la demande mesurable On comprendra bien ici, que le Cloud Computing va bien au delà de la simple virtualisation de serveurs. Comme le décrit fort justement Constantin Gonzales dans son blog ("Three Enterprise Principles for Building Clouds"), l'important réside dans le respect du standard de l'interface d'accès au service. Ensuite, la façon dont il est réalisé (dans le nuage), est de la charge et de la responsabilité du fournisseur. A lui d'optimiser au mieux pour être compétitif, tout en garantissant les niveaux de services attendus. Pour le fournisseur de service, bien entendu, il faut maîtriser cette implémentation qui repose essentiellement sur l'intégration et l'automatisation des couches et composants nécessaires... dans la durée... avec la prise en charge des évolutions de chacun des éléments. Pour le client, il faut toujours s'assurer de la réversibilité de la solution au travers du respect des standards... Point également abordé dans le livre blanc du Syntec, qui rappelle les points d'attention et fait un état des lieux de l'avancement des standards autour du Cloud Computing. En vous souhaitant une bonne lecture...

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• How Microsoft listens

  - by Stacy Vicknair

  This being my freshman year as an MVP, I had a realization that I perhaps should be embarrassed hasn’t happened sooner. The realization comes much like the iconic M&Ms commercial where the M&Ms run into Santa and exclaim, “He does exist!” My personal realization arguably has a greater implication: Microsoft does listen. This is the most important lesson that I received this year attending the MVP Summit. My hope is that I can convince you that we are empowered to make a difference. Instead of using “Man I hate how this works / doesn’t work!” as cooler conversation, we can use it as true interaction with Microsoft. We as customers to Microsoft need to stop asking the question “Will this work for me?” and instead ask “How can this work for me?” There are three quick resources that the average developer has access to today that they can use to be heard by the product teams, and by no means should you think twice if you have a concern that you’d like a real response on. MVPs MVPs are members of your community who have a deep relationship with Microsoft and will have connections to their associated product group. Don’t think of them as just a resource for answers, but also as your ambassador for getting your experiences heard. You can find your local MVPs by browsing the directory at: https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/mvp.aspx Evangelists Evangelists are employees of Microsoft who work to foster and grow communities in their assigned region. They are first-class citizens of Microsoft and are often deeply involved with the product groups. As a result, they will be more than glad to direct your questions or concerns to those who can answer them most expertly. With that said, evangelists are also very busy people (who do amazing things for the community) and might not be able to get you that conversation as quickly as a local MVP. You can find your local evangelist at the following website: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/bb905078.aspx Microsoft Connect This is one of the resources that I haven’t used enough, but it cannot be understated. Connect is the starting point of the social conversation that happens between Microsoft and the community daily. Connect acts as a portal where you can provide new feedback as well as comment and rate the feedback provided by others. Power is in numbers when it comes to Connect, so the exposure that your feedback can get not only lets you know that you aren’t the only one who wants change, but also lets Microsoft know the same. https://connect.microsoft.com   Technorati Tags: Microsoft,MVP,Feedback,Connect

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• Solaris 11 pkg fix is my new friend

  - by user12611829

  While putting together some examples of the Solaris 11 Automated Installer (AI), I managed to really mess up my system, to the point where AI was completely unusable. This was my fault as a combination of unfortunate incidents left some remnants that were causing problems, so I tried to clean things up. Unsuccessfully. Perhaps that was a bad idea (OK, it was a terrible idea), but this is Solaris 11 and there are a few more tricks in the sysadmin toolbox. Here's what I did. # rm -rf /install/* # rm -rf /var/ai # installadm create-service -n solaris11-x86 --imagepath /install/solaris11-x86 \ -s [email protected] Warning: Service svc:/network/dns/multicast:default is not online. Installation services will not be advertised via multicast DNS. Creating service from: [email protected] DOWNLOAD PKGS FILES XFER (MB) SPEED Completed 1/1 130/130 264.4/264.4 0B/s PHASE ITEMS Installing new actions 284/284 Updating package state database Done Updating image state Done Creating fast lookup database Done Reading search index Done Updating search index 1/1 Creating i386 service: solaris11-x86 Image path: /install/solaris11-x86 So far so good. Then comes an oops..... setup-service[168]: cd: /var/ai//service/.conf-templ: [No such file or directory] ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is where you generally say a few things to yourself, and then promise to quit deleting configuration files and directories when you don't know what you are doing. Then you recall that the new Solaris 11 packaging system has some ability to correct common mistakes (like the one I just made). Let's give it a try. # pkg fix installadm Verifying: pkg://solaris/install/installadm ERROR dir: var/ai Group: 'root (0)' should be 'sys (3)' dir: var/ai/ai-webserver Missing: directory does not exist dir: var/ai/ai-webserver/compatibility-configuration Missing: directory does not exist dir: var/ai/ai-webserver/conf.d Missing: directory does not exist dir: var/ai/image-server Group: 'root (0)' should be 'sys (3)' dir: var/ai/image-server/cgi-bin Missing: directory does not exist dir: var/ai/image-server/images Group: 'root (0)' should be 'sys (3)' dir: var/ai/image-server/logs Missing: directory does not exist dir: var/ai/profile Missing: directory does not exist dir: var/ai/service Group: 'root (0)' should be 'sys (3)' dir: var/ai/service/.conf-templ Missing: directory does not exist dir: var/ai/service/.conf-templ/AI_data Missing: directory does not exist dir: var/ai/service/.conf-templ/AI_files Missing: directory does not exist file: var/ai/ai-webserver/ai-httpd-templ.conf Missing: regular file does not exist file: var/ai/service/.conf-templ/AI.db Missing: regular file does not exist file: var/ai/image-server/cgi-bin/cgi_get_manifest.py Missing: regular file does not exist Created ZFS snapshot: 2012-12-11-21:09:53 Repairing: pkg://solaris/install/installadm Creating Plan (Evaluating mediators): | DOWNLOAD PKGS FILES XFER (MB) SPEED Completed 1/1 3/3 0.0/0.0 0B/s PHASE ITEMS Updating modified actions 16/16 Updating image state Done Creating fast lookup database Done In just a few moments, IPS found the missing files and incorrect ownerships/permissions. Instead of reinstalling the system, or falling back to an earlier Live Upgrade boot environment, I was able to create my AI services and now all is well. # installadm create-service -n solaris11-x86 --imagepath /install/solaris11-x86 \ -s [email protected] Warning: Service svc:/network/dns/multicast:default is not online. Installation services will not be advertised via multicast DNS. Creating service from: [email protected] DOWNLOAD PKGS FILES XFER (MB) SPEED Completed 1/1 130/130 264.4/264.4 0B/s PHASE ITEMS Installing new actions 284/284 Updating package state database Done Updating image state Done Creating fast lookup database Done Reading search index Done Updating search index 1/1 Creating i386 service: solaris11-x86 Image path: /install/solaris11-x86 Refreshing install services Warning: mDNS registry of service solaris11-x86 could not be verified. Creating default-i386 alias Setting the default PXE bootfile(s) in the local DHCP configuration to: bios clients (arch 00:00): default-i386/boot/grub/pxegrub Refreshing install services Warning: mDNS registry of service default-i386 could not be verified. # installadm create-service -n solaris11u1-x86 --imagepath /install/solaris11u1-x86 \ -s [email protected] Warning: Service svc:/network/dns/multicast:default is not online. Installation services will not be advertised via multicast DNS. Creating service from: [email protected] DOWNLOAD PKGS FILES XFER (MB) SPEED Completed 1/1 514/514 292.3/292.3 0B/s PHASE ITEMS Installing new actions 661/661 Updating package state database Done Updating image state Done Creating fast lookup database Done Reading search index Done Updating search index 1/1 Creating i386 service: solaris11u1-x86 Image path: /install/solaris11u1-x86 Refreshing install services Warning: mDNS registry of service solaris11u1-x86 could not be verified. # installadm list Service Name Alias Of Status Arch Image Path ------------ -------- ------ ---- ---------- default-i386 solaris11-x86 on i386 /install/solaris11-x86 solaris11-x86 - on i386 /install/solaris11-x86 solaris11u1-x86 - on i386 /install/solaris11u1-x86 This is way way better than pkgchk -f in Solaris 10. I'm really beginning to like this new IPS packaging system.

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• Cutting Paper through Visualization and Collaboration

  - by [email protected]

  It's hard not to hear about "Going Green" these days. Many are working to be more environmentally conscious in their personal lives, and this has extended to the corporate world as well. I know I'm always looking for new ways. Environmental responsibility is important at Oracle too, and we have an entire section of our website dedicated to our solutions around the Eco-Enterprise. You can check it out here: http://www.oracle.com/green/index.html Perhaps the biggest and most obvious challenge in the world of business is the fact that we use so much paper. There are many good reasons why we print today too. For example: Printing off a document, spreadsheet, or CAD design that will be reviewed and marked up while on a plane Having a printout of a facility when a field engineer performs on-site maintenance During a multi-party design review where a number of people will review a drawing in a meeting room, scribbling onto a large scale drawing print to provide their collaborative comments These are just a few potential use cases, and they're valid ones. However, there's a way in which you can turn these paper processes into digital ones. AutoVue allows you to view, mark-up, and collaborate on all the data you would print. Indeed, this is the core of what AutoVue does. So if we take the examples above, we could address each as follows: Allow you to view the document, spreadsheet, or CAD drawing in AutoVue on your laptop. Even if you originally had this data vaulted in some time of system of record (like an ECM solution) and view your data from there, AutoVue allows you to "Work Offline" and take the documents you need to review on your laptop. From there, the many annotation tools in AutoVue will give you what you need to comment upon the documents that you are reviewing. The challenge with the mobile workforce is always access to information. People who perform maintenance and repair operations often are in locations with little to no Internet connectivity. However, technology is coming to these people in the form of laptops, tablet PCs, and other portable devices too. AutoVue can address situations with limited bandwidth through our streaming technology for viewing, meaning that the most up to date information can be pulled up from the central server - without the need for large data transfer. When there is no connectivity at all, the "Work Offline" option will handle this. For a design review session, the Real-Time Collaboration capabilities of AutoVue will let all the participants view the same document in a synchronized view, allowing each person to be able to mark-up the document at the same time. Since this is done in a web-based manner, not only is it not necessary to print the document, but you benefit by reducing the travel needed for these sessions. Not only are trees spared, but jet fuel as well. There are many steps involved with "Going Green", but each step is a necessary one. What we do today will directly influence our future generations, and we're looking to help.

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• mysql completely removing

  - by Dmitry Teplyakov

  I broke my mysql and now I want to completely reinstall it. I tried: $ sudo apt-get install --reinstall mysql-server $ sudo apt-get remove --purge mysql-client mysql-server But always I see popup with proposal to change root password, I change it and got an error that I can change it.. $ sudo apt-get remove --purge mysql-client mysql-server Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Package mysql-client is not installed, so not removed Package mysql-server is not installed, so not removed The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: libmygpo-qt1 libqtscript4-network libqtscript4-gui libtag-extras1 libqtscript4-sql libqtscript4-xml amarok-utils amarok-common libqtscript4-uitools liblastfm0 libloudmouth1-0 libqtscript4-core Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them. 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. 1 not fully installed or removed. After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used. Setting up mysql-server-5.5 (5.5.28-0ubuntu0.12.04.2) ... 121114 19:04:03 [Note] Plugin 'FEDERATED' is disabled. 121114 19:04:03 InnoDB: The InnoDB memory heap is disabled 121114 19:04:03 InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use GCC atomic builtins 121114 19:04:03 InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.3.4 121114 19:04:03 InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, size = 128.0M 121114 19:04:03 InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool InnoDB: Error: auto-extending data file ./ibdata1 is of a different size InnoDB: 0 pages (rounded down to MB) than specified in the .cnf file: InnoDB: initial 640 pages, max 0 (relevant if non-zero) pages! 121114 19:04:03 InnoDB: Could not open or create data files. 121114 19:04:03 InnoDB: If you tried to add new data files, and it failed here, 121114 19:04:03 InnoDB: you should now edit innodb_data_file_path in my.cnf back 121114 19:04:03 InnoDB: to what it was, and remove the new ibdata files InnoDB created 121114 19:04:03 InnoDB: in this failed attempt. InnoDB only wrote those files full of 121114 19:04:03 InnoDB: zeros, but did not yet use them in any way. But be careful: do not 121114 19:04:03 InnoDB: remove old data files which contain your precious data! 121114 19:04:03 [ERROR] Plugin 'InnoDB' init function returned error. 121114 19:04:03 [ERROR] Plugin 'InnoDB' registration as a STORAGE ENGINE failed. 121114 19:04:03 [ERROR] Unknown/unsupported storage engine: InnoDB 121114 19:04:03 [ERROR] Aborting 121114 19:04:03 [Note] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Shutdown complete start: Job failed to start invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action "start" failed. dpkg: error processing mysql-server-5.5 (--configure): subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 Errors were encountered while processing: mysql-server-5.5 E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) It is good for me that I have not any important databases, but..

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• JCP.Next - Early Adopters of JCP 2.8

  - by Heather VanCura

  JCP.Next is a series of three JSRs (JSR 348, JSR 355 and JSR 358), to be defined through the JCP process itself, with the JCP Executive Committee serving as the Expert Group. The proposed JSRs will modify the JCP's processes  - the Process Document and Java Specification Participation Agreement (JSPA) and will apply to all new JSRs for all Java platforms.   The first - JCP.next.1, or more formally JSR 348, Towards a new version of the Java Community Process - was completed and put into effect in October 2011 as JCP 2.8. This focused on a small number of simple but important changes to make our process more transparent and to enable broader participation. We're already seeing the benefits of these changes as new and existing JSRs adopt the new requirements. The second - JSR 355, Executive Committee Merge, is also Final. You can read the JCP 2.9 Process Document .  As part of the JSR 355 Final Release, the JCP Executive Committee published revisions to the JCP Process Document (version 2.9) and the EC Standing Rules (version 2.2).  The changes went into effect following the 2012 EC Elections in November. The third JSR 358, A major revision of the Java Community Process was submitted in June 2012.  This JSR will modify the Java Specification Participation Agreement (JSPA) as well as the Process Document, and will tackle a large number of complex issues, many of them postponed from JSR 348. For these reasons, the JCP EC (acting as the Expert Group for this JSR), expects to spend a considerable amount of time working on. The JSPA is defined by the JCP as "a one-year, renewable agreement between the Member and Oracle. The success of the Java community depends upon an open and transparent JCP program.  JSR 358, A major revision of the Java Community Process, is now in process and can be followed on java.net. The following JSRs and Spec Leads were the early adopters of JCP 2.8, who voluntarily migrated their JSRs from JCP 2.x to JCP 2.8 or above.  More candidates for 2012 JCP Star Spec Leads! JSR 236, Concurrency Utilities for Java EE (Anthony Lai/Oracle), migrated April 2012 JSR 308, Annotations on Java Types (Michael Ernst, Alex Buckley/Oracle), migrated September 2012 JSR 335, Lambda Expressions for the Java Programming Language (Brian Goetz/Oracle), migrated October 2012 JSR 337, Java SE 8 Release Contents (Mark Reinhold/Oracle) – EG Formation, migrated September 2012 JSR 338, Java Persistence 2.1 (Linda DeMichiel/Oracle), migrated January 2012 JSR 339, JAX-RS 2.0: The Java API for RESTful Web Services (Santiago Pericas-Geertsen, Marek Potociar/Oracle), migrated July 2012 JSR 340, Java Servlet 3.1 Specification (Shing Wai Chan, Rajiv Mordani/Oracle), migrated August 2012 JSR 341, Expression Language 3.0 (Kin-man Chung/Oracle), migrated August 2012 JSR 343, Java Message Service 2.0 (Nigel Deakin/Oracle), migrated March 2012 JSR 344, JavaServer Faces 2.2 (Ed Burns/Oracle), migrated September 2012 JSR 345, Enterprise JavaBeans 3.2 (Marina Vatkina/Oracle), migrated February 2012 JSR 346, Contexts and Dependency Injection for Java EE 1.1 (Pete Muir/RedHat) – migrated December 2011

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• Oracle SOA Security for OUAF Web Services

  - by Anthony Shorten

  With the ability to use Oracle SOA Suite 11g with the Oracle Utilities Application Framework based products, an additional consideration needs to be configured to ensure correct integration. That additional consideration is security. By default, SOA Suite propagates any credentials from the calling application through to the interfacing applications. In most cases, this behavior is not appropriate as the calling application may use different credential stores and also some interfaces are “disconnected” from a calling application (for example, a file based load using the File Adapter). These situations require that the Web Service calls to the Oracle Utilities Application Framework based products have their own valid credentials. To do this the credentials must be attached at design time or at run time to provide the necessary credentials for the call. There are a number of techniques that can be used to do this: At design time, when integrating a Web Service from an Oracle Utilities Application Framework based product you can attach the security policy “oracle/wss_username_token_client_policy” in the composite.xml view. In this view select the Web Service you want to attach the policy to and right click to display the context menu and select “Configure WS Policies” and select the above policy from the list. If you are using SSL then you can use “oracle/wss_username_token_over_ssl_client_policy” instead. At design time, you can also specify the credential key (csf-key) associated with the above policy by selecting the policy and clicking “Edit Config Override Properties”. You name the key appropriately. Everytime the SOA components are deployed the credential configuration is also sent. You can also do this after deployment, or what I call at “runtime”, by specifying the policy and credential key in the Fusion Middleware Control. Refer to the Fusion Middleware Control documentation on how to do this. To complete the configuration you need to add a map and the key specified earlier to the credential store in the Oracle WebLogic instance used for Oracle SOA Suite. From Fusion Middleware Control, you do this by selecting the domain the SOA Suite is installed in a select “Credentials” from the context menu. You now need to add the credentials by adding the map “oracle.wsm.security” (the name is IMPORTANT) and creating a key with the necessary valid credentials. The example below added a key called “mdm.key”. The name I used is for example only. You can name the key anything you like as long as it corresponds to the key you specified in the design time component. Note: I used SYSUSER as an example credentials in the example, in real life you would use another credential as SYSUSER is not appropriate for production use. This key can be reused for other Oracle Utilities Application Framework Web Service integrations or you can use other keys for individual Web Service calls. Once the key is created and the SOA Suite components deployed the transactions should be able to be called as necessary. If you need to change the password for the credentials it can be done using the Fusion Middleware Control functionality.

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• How To: Automatically Remove www from a Domain in IIS7

  I recently moved the DevMavens.com site from one server to another and needed to ensure that the www.devmavens.com domain correctly redirected to simply devmavens.com.  This is important for SEO reasons (you dont want multiple domains to refer to the same content) and its generally better to use the shorter URL (www is so 20th century) rather than wasting 4 characters for zero gain. My friend and IIS guru Scott Forsyth pointed me to his blog post on how to set up IIS URL Rewriting.  To get started, you simply install IIS Rewrite from this link using the super awesome Web Platform Installer.  You should get something like this when youre done with the install: If you already have IIS Manager open, you may need to close it and re-open it before you see the URL Rewrite module.  Once you do, you should see it listed for any given Site under the IIS section: Double click on the URL Rewrite icon, and then choose the Add Rule(s) action.  You can simply create a blank rule, and name it Redirect from www to domain.com.  Essentially were following the instructions from Scott Forsyths post, but in reverse since hes showing how to add 4 useless characters to the URL and Im interested in removing them. After adding the name, well set the Match Url sections Using dropdown to Wildcards and specify a pattern of simply * to match anything. In the Conditions section we need to add a new condition with an Input of {HTTP_HOST} such that it should match the pattern www.devmavens.com (replace this with your domain). Ignore the Server Variables section. Set the action to Redirect and the Redirect URL to http://devmavens.com/{R:0} (replace with your domain).  The {R:0} will be replaced with whatever the user had entered.  So if they were going to http://www.devmavens.com/default.aspx theyll now be going to http://devmavens.com/default.aspx. The complete Inbound Rule should look like this: Thats it!  Test it out and make sure you havent accidentally used my exact URLs and started sending all of your users to devmavens.com! :)  Be sure to read Scotts post for more information on how to use regular expressions for your rules, and how to set them up via web.config rather than IIS manager. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Development processes, the use of version control, and unit-testing

  - by ct01

  Preface I've worked at quite a few "flat" organizations in my time. Most of the version control policy/process has been "only commit after it's been tested". We were constantly committing at each place to "trunk" (cvs/svn). The same was true with unit-testing - it's always been a "we need to do this" mentality but it never really materializes in a substantive form b/c there is no institutional knowledge base to do it - no mentorship. Version Control The emphasis for version control management at one place was a very strict protocol for commit messages (format & content). The other places let employees just do "whatever". The branching, tagging, committing, rolling back, and merging aspect of things was always ill defined and almost never used. This sort of seems to leave the version control system in the position of being a fancy file-storage mechanism with a meta-data component that never really gets accessed/utilized. (The same was true for unit testing and committing code to the source tree) Unit tests It seems there's a prevailing "we must/should do this" mentality in most places I've worked. As a policy or standard operating procedure it never gets implemented because there seems to be a very ill-defined understanding about what that means, what is going to be tested, and how to do it. Summary It seems most places I've been to think version control and unit testing is "important" b/c the trendy trade journals say it is but, if there's very little mentorship to use these tools or any real business policies, then the full power of version control/unit testing is never really expressed. So grunts, like myself, never really have a complete understanding of the point beyond that "it's a good thing" and "we should do it". Question I was wondering if there are blogs, books, white-papers, or online journals about what one could call the business process or "standard operating procedures" or uses cases for version control and unit testing? I want to know more than the trade journals tell me and get serious about doing these things. PS: @Henrik Hansen had a great comment about the lack of definition for the question. I'm not interested in a specific unit-testing/versioning product or methodology (like, XP) - my interest is more about work-flow at the individual team/developer level than evangelism. This is more-or-less a by product of the management situation I've operated under more than a lack of reading software engineering books or magazines about development processes. A lot of what I've seen/read is more marketing oriented material than any specifically enumerated description of "well, this is how our shop operates".

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• Nokia vs. The World

  - by Michael B. McLaughlin

  I’m looking forward to the launch of the Nokia Lumia 920. Why? Well, it stacks up better than the competition for one thing. Then there’s also that security problem that certain other phones have. Mostly, though, it’s because I love my Lumia 900 and the 920, with Windows Phone 8, will be even better. Before I got my Lumia 900, I just took it as given that smart phone cameras couldn’t be good. The Lumia taught me that smart phone cameras can be good if the manufacturer treats them as an important component worth spending time and money on (rather than some thing that consumers expect such that they’d better throw one in). I’m extremely pleased with the quality of pictures that my Lumia 900 gives me as well as the range of settings it provides (you can delve in to tell it a film speed, an f-stop, and a whole range of other settings). And the image stabilization features in the Lumia 920 deliver far better results than the others. Nokia has had great maps for a long time and they continue to improve. Even better, they made a deal that puts many of their excellent maps into Windows Phone 8 itself. There are still Nokia-exclusive features such as Nokia City Lens, of course. But by giving the core OS a great set of fundamental map data and technologies, they help ensure that customers know that buying a Windows Phone 8 will give them a great map experience no matter who made the phone. I’ll be getting a 920, myself, but the HTC and Samsung devices that have been announced have some compelling features, too, and it’s great to know that people who buy one of these won’t need to worry about where their maps might lead them. I’m looking forward to the NFC capabilities and Qi wireless charging my Lumia 920 will have. With the availability of DirectX and C++ programming on Windows Phone 8, I’m also excited about all the great games that will be added to the Windows Phone environment. I love my Xbox Phone. I love my Office phone. I love my Facebook phone. I love my GPS phone. I love my camera phone. I love my SkyDrive phone. In short, I love my Windows Phone!

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• Big Data – Interacting with Hadoop – What is PIG? – What is PIG Latin? – Day 16 of 21

  - by Pinal Dave

  In yesterday’s blog post we learned the importance of the HIVE in Big Data Story. In this article we will understand what is PIG and PIG Latin in Big Data Story. Yahoo started working on Pig for their application deployment on Hadoop. The goal of Yahoo to manage their unstructured data. What is Pig and What is Pig Latin? Pig is a high level platform for creating MapReduce programs used with Hadoop and the language we use for this platform is called PIG Latin. The pig was designed to make Hadoop more user-friendly and approachable by power-users and nondevelopers. PIG is an interactive execution environment supporting Pig Latin language. The language Pig Latin has supported loading and processing of input data with series of transforming to produce desired results. PIG has two different execution environments 1) Local Mode – In this case all the scripts run on a single machine. 2) Hadoop – In this case all the scripts run on Hadoop Cluster. Pig Latin vs SQL Pig essentially creates set of map and reduce jobs under the hoods. Due to same users does not have to now write, compile and build solution for Big Data. The pig is very similar to SQL in many ways. The Ping Latin language provide an abstraction layer over the data. It focuses on the data and not the structure under the hood. Pig Latin is a very powerful language and it can do various operations like loading and storing data, streaming data, filtering data as well various data operations related to strings. The major difference between SQL and Pig Latin is that PIG is procedural and SQL is declarative. In simpler words, Pig Latin is very similar to SQ Lexecution plan and that makes it much easier for programmers to build various processes. Whereas SQL handles trees naturally, Pig Latin follows directed acyclic graph (DAG). DAGs is used to model several different kinds of structures in mathematics and computer science. DAG Tomorrow In tomorrow’s blog post we will discuss about very important components of the Big Data Ecosystem – Zookeeper. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• The Work Order Printing Challenge

  - by celine.beck

  One of the biggest concerns we've heard from maintenance practitioners is the ability to print and batch print work order details along with its accompanying attachments. Indeed, maintenance workers traditionally rely on work order packets to complete their job. A standard work order packet can include a variety of information like equipment documentation, operating instructions, checklists, end-of-task feedback forms and the likes. Now, the problem is that most Asset Lifecycle Management applications do not provide a simple and efficient solution for process printing with document attachments. Work order forms can be easily printed but attachments are usually left out of the printing process. This sounds like a minor problem, but when you are processing high volume of work orders on a regular basis, this inconvenience can result in important inefficiencies. In order to print work order and its related attachments, maintenance personnel need to print the work order details and then go back to the work order and open each individual attachment using the proper authoring application to view and print each document. The printed output is collated into a work order packet. The AutoVue Document Print Service products that were just released in April 2010 aim at helping organizations address the work order printing challenge. Customers and partners can leverage the AutoVue Document Print Services to build a complete printing solution that complements their existing print server solution with AutoVue's document- and platform-agnostic document print services. The idea is to leverage AutoVue's printing services to invoke printing either programmatically or manually directly from within the work order management application, and efficiently process the printing of complete work order packets, including all types of attachments, from office files to more advanced engineering documents like 2D CAD drawings. Oracle partners like MIPRO Consulting, specialists in PeopleSoft implementations, have already expressed interest in the AutoVue Document Print Service products for their ability to offer print services to the PeopleSoft ALM suite, so that customers are able to print packages of documents for maintenance personnel. For more information on the subject, please consult MIPRO Consulting's article entitled Unsung Value: Primavera and AutoVue Integration into PeopleSoft posted on their blog. The blog post entitled Introducing AutoVue Document Print Service provides additional information on how the solution works. We would also love to hear what your thoughts are on the topic, so please do not hesitate to post your comments/feedback on our blog. Related Articles: Introducing AutoVue Document Print Service Print Any Document Type with AutoVue Document Print Services

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• Open World Day 1 Continued

  - by Antony Reynolds

  A Day in the Life of an Oracle OpenWorld Attendee Part II A couple of things I forgot to mention about yesterdays OpenWorld. First I attended a presentation on SOA Suite and Virtualization which explained how Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder (OVAB) can be used to accelerate the deployment of an Enterprise Deployment Guide (EDG) compliant SOA Suite infrastructure.  OVAB provides the ability to introspect a deployed software component such as WebLogic Server, SOA Suite or other components and extract the configuration and package it up for rapid deployment into an Oracle Virtual Machine.  OVAB allows multiple machines to be configured and connections made between the machines and outside resources such as databases.  That by itself is pretty cool and has been available for a while in OVAB.  What is new is that Oracle has done this for an EDG compliant installations and made it available as an OVAB assembly for customers to use, significantly accelerating the deployment of an EDG deployment.  A real help for customers standing up EDG environments, particularly in test, dev and QA environments. The other thing I forgot to mention was the most memorable demo I saw at OpenWorld.  This was done by my co-author Matt Wright who was showcasing the products of his company Rubicon Red.  They showed a really cool application called OneSpot which puts all the information about a single users business processes in one spot!  Apparently a customer suggested the name.  It allows business flows to be defined that map onto events.  As events occur the status of the business flow is updated to reflect the change.  The interface is strongly reminiscent of social media sites and provides a graphical view of business flows.  So how does this differ from BPEL and BPM process flows?  The OneSpot process flow is more like a BAM process flow, it is based on events arriving from multiple sources, and is focused on the clients view of the process, not the actual business process.  This is important because it allows an end user to get a view of where his current business flow is and what actions, if any, are required of him.  This by itself is great, but better still is that OneSpot has a real time updating view of events that have occurred (BAM style no need to refresh the browser).  This means that as new events occur the end user can see them and jump to the business flow or take other appropriate actions.  Under the covers OneSpot makes use of Oracle Human Workflow to provide a forms interface, but this is not the HWF GUI you know!  The HWF GUI screens are much prettier and have more of a social media feel about them due to their use of images and pulling in relevant related information.  If you are at OOW I strongly recommend you visit Matt or John at the Rubicon Red stand and ask, no demand a demo of OneSpot!

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• Oracle Tutor: Are Documented Policies and Procedures Necessary?

  - by emily.chorba(at)oracle.com

  People refer to policies and procedures with a variety of expressions including business process documentation, standard operating procedures (SOPs), department operating procedures (DOPs), work instructions, specifications, and so on. For our purpose here, policies and procedures mean a set of documents that describe an organization's policies (rules) for operation and the procedures (containing tasks performed by individuals) to fulfill the policies. When an organization documents policies and procedures properly, they can be the strategic link between an organization's vision and its daily operations. Policies and procedures are often necessary because of some external requirement, such as environmental compliance or other governmental regulations. One example of an external requirement would be the American Sarbanes-Oxley Act, requiring full openness in accounting practices. Here are a few other examples of business issues that necessitate writing policies and procedures: Operational needs -- policies and procedures ensure fundamental processes are performed in a consistent way that meets the organization's needs. Risk management -- policies and procedures are identified by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) as a control activity needed to manage risk. Continuous improvement -- Procedures can improve processes by building important internal communication practices. Compliance -- Well-defined and documented processes (i.e. procedures, training materials) along with records that demonstrate process capability can demonstrate an effective internal control system compliant with regulations and standards. In addition to helping with the above business issues, policies and procedures can support the basic needs of employees and management. Well documented and easy to access policies and procedures: allow employees to understand their roles and responsibilities within predefined limits and to stay on the accepted path indentified by the organization's management provide clarity to the reader when dealing with accountability issues or activities that are of critical importance allow management to guide operations without constant intervention allow managers to control events in advance and prevent employees from making costly mistakes Can you think of another way organizations can meet the above needs of management and their employees in place of documented Policies and Procedures? Probably not, but we would love your feedback on this question. And that my friends, is why documented policies and procedures are very necessary. Learn MoreFor more information about Tutor, visit Oracle.com or the Tutor Blog. Post your questions at the Tutor Forum. Emily ChorbaPrinciple Product Manager Oracle Tutor & BPM

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• SQL SERVER – Three Puzzling Questions – Need Your Answer

  - by pinaldave

  Last week I had asked three questions on my blog. I got very good response to the questions. I am planning to write summary post for each of three questions next week. Before I write summary post and give credit to all the valid answers. I was wondering if I can bring to notice of all of you this week. Why SELECT * throws an error but SELECT COUNT(*) does not This is indeed very interesting question as not quite many realize that this kind of behavior SQL Server demonstrates out of the box. Once you run both the code and read the explanation it totally makes sense why SQL Server is behaving how it is behaving. Also there is connect item is associated with it. Also read the very first comment by Rob Farley it also shares very interesting detail. Statistics are not Updated but are Created Once This puzzle has multiple right answer. I am glad to see many of the correct answer as a comment to this blog post. Statistics are very important and it really helps SQL Server Engine to come up with optimal execution plan. DBA quite often ignore statistics thinking it does not need to be updated, as they are automatically maintained if proper database setting is configured (auto update and auto create). Well, in this question, we have scenario even though auto create and auto update statistics are ON, statistics is not updated. There are multiple solutions but what will be your solution in this case? When to use Function and When to use Stored Procedure This question is rather open ended question – there is no right or wrong answer. Everybody developer has always used functions and stored procedures. Here is the chance to justify when to use Stored Procedure and when to use Functions. I want to acknowledge that they can be used interchangeably but there are few reasons when one should not do that. There are few reasons when one is better than other. Let us discuss this here. Your opinion matters. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Sharing your ETL Resources Across Applications with Ease

  - by pinaldave

  Frequently an organization will find that the same resources are used in multiple ETL applications, for example, the same database, general purpose processing logic, or file system locations.  Creating an easy way to reuse these resources across multiple applications would increase efficiency and reduce errors.  Moreover, not every ETL developer has the same skill set, and it is likely that one developer will be more adept at writing code while another is more comfortable configuring database connections.  Real productivity gains will come when these developers are able to work independently while still making their work available to others assigned to the same project.  These are the benefits of a centralized version control system. Of course, most version control systems could be used to store and serve files, but the real need is to store and serve entire ETL applications so that each developer’s ongoing work can immediately benefit from another developer’s completed work.  In other words, the version control system needs to be tightly integrated with the tools used to develop the ETL application. The following screen shot shows such a tool. Desktop ETL tool that tightly integrates with a central version control system Developers can checkout or commit entire projects or just a single artifact.  Each artifact may be managed independently so if you need to go back to an earlier version of one artifact, changes you may have made to other artifacts are not lost.  By being tightly integrated into the graphical environment used to create and edit the project artifacts, it is extremely easy and straight-forward to move your files to and from the version control system and there is no dependency on another vendor’s version control system.  The built in version control system is optimized for managing the artifacts of ETL applications. It is equally important that the version control system supports all of the actions one typically performs such as rollbacks, locking and unlocking of files, and the ability to resolve conflicts.  Note that this particular ETL tool also has the capability to switch back and forth between multiple version control systems. It also needs to be easy to determine the status of an artifact.  Not just that it has been committed or modified, but when and by whom.  Generally you must query the version control system for this information, but having it displayed within the development environment is more desirable. Who’s ETL tool works in this fashion?  Last month I mentioned the data integration solution offered by expressor software.  The version control features I described in this post are all available in their just released expressor 3.1 Standard Edition through the integration of their expressor Studio development environment with a centralized metadata repository and version control system. You can download their Studio application, which is free, or evaluate the full Standard Edition on your own hardware.  It may be worth your time. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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