Search Results

Search found 9426 results on 378 pages for 'monkey sort'.

Page 334/378 | < Previous Page | 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341  | Next Page >

• Top Tier, A-Game Talent - How to Land em'

  - by GeekAgilistMercenary

  Recently the question came up from a close friend of mine, "will my PhD help me attain a higher income in the north west?"  I had to tell him, that it might get him a little more, but it won't get him in the top income brackets for the occupation.  Another time, a few days later, someone else asked this too.  Then again, I see a job posting that requires a Bachelors Degree and some other nonsense.  The job posting even states they want "A-Game" talent. I am almost shocked at how poorly part of this industry doesn't realize how unimportant a degree is to getting real top tier, a-game talent.  (and yes, I get a little riled up about this matter) You Can't Make Good Software Developers.  No college out there is going to train someone to be in the top 10%, and absolutely not to be in the top 5% of skill levels.  Colleges can NOT do this.  It is up to the individual, and the individual alone.  If top tier talent seems to come from a college, one should check their premise and look at the motivations the individuals have to go to that school.  There is most likely a reason that top tier talent appears to be made there.  The college however, can only guide or assist, but I repeat that "top tier talent is a very individualistic endeavor". Some might say, well a group is needed, support is needed, this and that are needed.  True, an individual needs a support system and a college can provide that, but it generally ends there.  The support group helps, provides a sounding wall, and provides correlation to good ideas for the a-game top tier geek.  But again, the endeavor is the individuals desire. top tier talent is a very individualistic endeavor - Me Hiring Top Tier, A-Game Talent There are a few things when trying to hire this level of game player. The first thing is to not require a degree of any sort.  Sure, it looks good, but it won't dictate anything other than the individual was able to go through the regimented steps of college. List the skills and ideas that you would like to find in an individual.  Think of two people meeting for the first time, what do you want to know about the other individual.  Team fit is absolutely fundamental for top tier talent.  That support group that I mentioned above, top tier talent works best with a solid group of players. Keep your technology up to date, moving forward, and don't bore your top talent if you manage to get it.  If the company slows down, they will leave.  The more valuable they find out they are, the lower tolerance they'll have for this.  For managers, directors, and leaders in an organization this is THE challenge for them. Provide opportunities not just for advancement, but ways for them to advance their knowledge such as training, a book budget, or other means.  Even if some software they want to use isn't used ton the project, get it for them (within reason of course ? couple $100 or even a few $1000 for a good software license to MSDN, Tellerik, or other suite of software is ideal). Don't push them to, and don't let them overwork themselves into burnout.  This, as a leader in an organization is easy to do if one finds themselves actually hiring top talent.  Because top talent just provides results and more results.  But they are human, they will break, don't be the cause of that or you'll lose your talent. For now, that is it from me on this topic, back to the revenue, code, projects, and pushing forward. For the original entry, check out my personal blog with other juicy tech tidbits, rants, raves, and the like. Agilist Mercenary

  Read the article

• Create Custom Windows Key Keyboard Shortcuts in Windows

  - by Asian Angel

  Nearly everyone uses keyboard shortcuts of some sort on their Windows system but what if you could create new ones for your favorite apps or folders? You might just be amazed at how simple it can be with just a few clicks and no programming using WinKey. WinKey in Action During the installation process you will see this window that gives you a good basic idea of just what can be accomplished with this wonderful little app. As soon as the installation process has finished you will see the “Main App Window”. It provides a simple straightforward listing of all the keyboard shortcuts that it is currently managing. Note: WinKey will automatically add an entry to the “Startup Listing” in your “Start Menu” during installation. To see the regular built-in Windows keyboard shortcuts that it is managing click “Standard Shortcuts” to select it and then click on “Properties”. For those who are curious WinKey does have a “System Tray Icon” that can be disabled if desired. Now onto creating those new keyboard shortcuts… For our example we decided to create a keyboard shortcut for an app rather than a folder. To create a shortcut for an app click on the small “Paper Icon” as shown here. Once you have done that browse to the appropriate folder and select the exe file. The second step will be choosing which keyboard shortcut you would like to associate with that particular app. You can use the drop-down list to choose from a listing of available keyboard combinations. For our example we chose “Windows Key + A”. The final step is choosing the “Run Mode”. There are three options available in the drop-down list…choose the one that best suits your needs. Here is what our example looked like once finished. All that is left to do at this point is click “OK” to finish the process. And just like that your new keyboard shortcut is now listed in the “Main App Window”. Time to try out your new keyboard shortcut! One quick use of our new keyboard shortcut and Iron Browser opened right up. WinKey really does make creating new keyboard shortcuts as simple as possible. Conclusion If you have been wanting to create new keyboard shortcuts for your favorite apps and folders then it really does not get any simpler than with WinKey. This is definitely a recommended app for anyone who loves “get it done” software. Links Download WinKey at Softpedia Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Show Keyboard Shortcut Access Keys in Windows VistaCreate a Keyboard Shortcut to Access Hidden Desktop Icons and FilesKeyboard Ninja: 21 Keyboard Shortcut ArticlesAnother Desktop Cube for Windows XP/VistaHow-To Geek on Lifehacker: Control Your Computer with Shortcuts & Speed Up Vista Setup 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 Recycle ! Find That Elusive Icon with FindIcons Looking for Good Windows Media Player 12 Plug-ins? Find Out the Celebrity You Resemble With FaceDouble Whoa ! Use Printflush to Solve Printing Problems

  Read the article

• Monitoring the Application alongside SQL Server

  - by Tony Davis

  Sometimes, on Simple-Talk, it takes a while to spot strange and unexpected patterns of user activity, or small bugs. For example, one morning we spotted that an article’s comment count had leapt to 1485, but that only four were displayed. With some rooting around in Google Analytics, and the endlessly annoying Community Server admin-interface, we were able to work out that a few days previously the article had been subject to a spam attack and that the comment count was for some reason including both accepted and unaccepted comments (which in turn uncovered a bug in the SQL). This sort of incident made us a lot keener on monitoring Simple-talk website usage more effectively. However, the metrics we wanted are troublesome, because they are far too specific for Google Analytics to measure, and the SQL Server backend doesn’t keep sufficient information to enable us to plot trends. The latter could provide, for example, the total number of comments made on, or votes cast for, articles, over all time, but not the number that occur by hour over a set time. We lacked a baseline, in other words. We couldn’t alter the database, as it is a bought-in package. We had neither the resources nor inclination to build-in dedicated application monitoring. Possibly, we could investigate a third-party tool to do the job; but then it occurred to us that we were already using a monitoring tool (SQL Monitor) to keep an eye on the database. It stored data, made graphs and sent alerts. Could we get it to monitor some aspects of the application as well? Of course, SQL Monitor’s single purpose is to check and monitor SQL Server, over time, rather than to monitor applications that use SQL Server. However, how different is the business of gathering and plotting SQL Server Wait Stats, from gathering and plotting various aspects of user activity on the site? Not a lot, it turns out. The latest version allows us to write our own custom monitoring scripts, meaning that we could now monitor any metric in the application that returns an integer. It took little time to write a simple SQL Query that collects basic metrics of the total number of subscribers, votes cast, comments made, or views of articles, over time. The SQL Monitor database polls Simple-Talk every second or so in order to get the latest totals, and can then store and plot this information, or even correlate SQL Server usage to application usage. You can see the live data by visiting monitor.red-gate.com. Click the "Analysis" tab, and select one of the "Simple-talk:" entries in the "Show" box and an appropriate data range (e.g. last 30 days). It’s nascent, and we’re still working on it, but it’s already given us more confidence that we’ll spot quickly trends, bugs, or bursts of ‘abnormal’ activity. If there is a sudden rise in comments, we get an alert, and if it’s due to a spam attack, we can moderate or ban the perpetrator very quickly. We’ve often argued that a tool should perform a single job well rather than turn into a Swiss-army knife, but ironically we’ve rather appreciated being able to make best use of what’s there anyway for a slightly different purpose. Is this a good or common practice? What do you think? Cheers, Tony.

  Read the article

• Archiving SQLHelp tweets

  - by jamiet

  #SQLHelp is a Twitter hashtag that can be used by any Twitter user to get help from the SQL Server community. I think its fair to say that in its first year of being it has proved to be a very useful resource however Kendra Little (@kendra_little) made a very salient point yesterday when she tweeted: Is there a way to search the archives of #sqlhelp Trying to remember answer to a question I know I saw a couple months ago http://twitter.com/#!/Kendra_Little/status/15538234184441856 This highlights an inherent problem with Twitter’s search capability – it simply does not reach far enough back in time. I have made steps to remedy that situation by putting into place two initiatives to archive Tweets that contain the #sqlhelp hashtag. The Archivist http://archivist.visitmix.com/ is a free service that, quite simply, archives a history of tweets that contain a given search term by periodically polling Twitter’s search service with that search term and subsequently displaying a dashboard providing an aggregate view of those tweets for things like tweet volume over time, top users and top words (Archivist FAQ). I have set up an archive on The Archivist for “sqlhelp” which you can view at http://archivist.visitmix.com/jamiet/7. Here is a screenshot of the SQLHelp dashboard 36 minutes after I set it up: There is lots of good information in there, including the fact that Jonathan Kehayias (@SQLSarg) is the most active SQLHelp tweeter (I suspect as an answerer rather than a questioner ) and that SSIS has proven to be a rather (ahem) popular subject!! Datasift The Archivist has its uses though for our purposes it has a couple of downsides. For starters you cannot search through an archive (which is what Kendra was after) and nor can you export the contents of the archive for offline analysis. For those functions we need something a bit more heavyweight and for that I present to you Datasift. Datasift is a tool (currently an alpha release) that allows you to search for tweets and provide them through an object called a Datasift stream. That sounds very similar to normal Twitter search though it has one distinct advantage that other Twitter search tools do not – Datasift has access to Twitter’s Streaming API (aka the Twitter Firehose). In addition it has access to a lot of other rather nice features: It provides the Datasift API that allows you to consume the output of a Datasift stream in your tool of choice (bring on my favourite ultimate mashup tool J ) It has a query language (called Filtered Stream Definition Language – FSDL for short) A Datasift stream can consume (and filter) other Datasift streams Datasift can (and does) consume services other than Twitter If I refer to Datasift as “ETL for tweets” then you may get some sort of idea what it is all about. Just as I did with The Archivist I have set up a publicly available Datasift stream for “sqlhelp” at http://datasift.net/stream/1581/sqlhelp. Here is the FSDL query that provides the data: twitter.text contains "sqlhelp" Pretty simple eh? At the current time it provides little more than a rudimentary dashboard but as Datasift is currently an alpha release I think this may be worth keeping an eye on. The real value though is the ability to consume the output of a stream via Datasift’s RESTful API, observe: http://api.datasift.net/stream.xml?stream_identifier=c7015255f07e982afdeebdf1ae6e3c0d&username=jamiet&api_key=XXXXXXX (Note that an api_key is required during the alpha period so, given that I’m not supplying my api_key, this URI will not work for you) Just to prove that a Datasift stream can indeed consume data from another stream I have set up a second stream that further filters the first one for tweets containing “SSIS”. That one is at http://datasift.net/stream/1586/ssis-sqlhelp and here is the FSDL query: rule "414c9845685ff8d2548999cf3162e897" and (interaction.content contains "ssis") When Datasift moves beyond alpha I’ll re-assess how useful this is going to be and post a follow-up blog. @Jamiet

  Read the article

• Thinktecture.IdentityModel: Comparing Strings without leaking Timinig Information

  - by Your DisplayName here!

  Paul Hill commented on a recent post where I was comparing HMACSHA256 signatures. In a nutshell his complaint was that I am leaking timing information while doing so – or in other words, my code returned faster with wrong (or partially wrong) signatures than with the correct signature. This can be potentially used for timing attacks like this one. I think he got a point here, especially in the era of cloud computing where you can potentially run attack code on the same physical machine as your target to do high resolution timing analysis (see here for an example). It turns out that it is not that easy to write a time-constant string comparer due to all sort of (unexpected) clever optimization mechanisms in the CLR. With the help and feedback of Paul and Shawn I came up with this: Structure the code in a way that the CLR will not try to optimize it In addition turn off optimization (just in case a future version will come up with new optimization methods) Add a random sleep when the comparison fails (using Shawn’s and Stephen’s nice Random wrapper for RNGCryptoServiceProvider). You can find the full code in the Thinktecture.IdentityModel download. [MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.NoOptimization)] public static bool IsEqual(string s1, string s2) {     if (s1 == null && s2 == null)     {         return true;     }       if (s1 == null || s2 == null)     {         return false;     }       if (s1.Length != s2.Length)     {         return false;     }       var s1chars = s1.ToCharArray();     var s2chars = s2.ToCharArray();       int hits = 0;     for (int i = 0; i < s1.Length; i++)     {         if (s1chars[i].Equals(s2chars[i]))         {             hits += 2;         }         else         {             hits += 1;         }     }       bool same = (hits == s1.Length * 2);       if (!same)     {         var rnd = new CryptoRandom();         Thread.Sleep(rnd.Next(0, 10));     }       return same; }

  Read the article

• Creating and using VM Groups in VirtualBox

  - by Fat Bloke

  With VirtualBox 4.2 we introduced the Groups feature which allows you to organize and manage your guest virtual machines collectively, rather than individually. Groups are quite a powerful concept and there are a few nice features you may not have discovered yet, so here's a bit more information about groups, and how they can be used.... Creating a group Groups are just ad hoc collections of virtual machines and there are several ways of creating a group: In the VirtualBox Manager GUI: Drag one VM onto another to create a group of those 2 VMs. You can then drag and drop more VMs into that group; Select multiple VMs (using Ctrl or Shift and click) then  select the menu: Machine...Group; or   press Cmd+U (Mac), or Ctrl+U(Windows); or right-click the multiple selection and choose Group, like this: From the command line: Group membership is an attribute of the vm so you can modify the vm to belong in a group. For example, to put the vm "Ubuntu" into the group "TestGroup" run this command: VBoxManage modifyvm "Ubuntu" --groups "/TestGroup" Deleting a Group Groups can be deleted by removing a group attribute from all the VMs that constitute that group. To do this via the command-line the syntax is: VBoxManage modifyvm "Ubuntu" --groups "" In the VirtualBox Manager, this is more easily done by right-clicking on a group header and selecting "Ungroup", like this: Multiple Groups Now that we understand that Groups are just attributes of VMs, it can be seen that VMs can exist in multiple groups, for example, doing this: VBoxManage modifyvm "Ubuntu" --groups "/TestGroup","/ProjectX","/ProjectY" Results in: Or via the VirtualBox Manager, you can drag VMs while pressing the Alt key (Mac) or Ctrl (other platforms). Nested Groups Just like you can drag VMs around in the VirtualBox Manager, you can also drag whole groups around. And dropping a group within a group creates a nested group. Via the command-line, nested groups are specified using a path-like syntax, like this: VBoxManage modifyvm "Ubuntu" --groups "/TestGroup/Linux" ...which creates a sub-group and puts the VM in it. Navigating Groups In the VirtualBox Manager, Groups can be collapsed and expanded by clicking on the carat to the left in the Group Header. But you can also Enter and Leave groups too, either by using the right-arrow/left-arrow keys, or by clicking on the carat on the right hand side of the Group Header, like this: . ..leading to a view of just the Group contents. You can Leave or return to the parent in the same way. Don't worry if you are imprecise with your clicking, you can use a double click on the entire right half of the Group Header to Enter a group, and the left half to Leave a group. Double-clicking on the left half when you're at the top will roll-up or collapse the group.   Group Operations The real power of Groups is not simply in arranging them prettily in the Manager. Rather it is about performing collective operations on them, once you have grouped them appropriately. For example, let's say that you are working on a project (Project X) where you have a solution stack of: Database VM, Middleware/App VM, and  a couple of client VMs which you use to test your app. With VM Groups you can start the whole stack with one operation. Select the Group Header, and choose Start: The full list of operations that may be performed on Groups are: Start Starts from any state (boot or resume) Start VMs in headless mode (hold Shift while starting) Pause Reset Close Save state Send Shutdown signal Poweroff Discard saved state Show in filesystem Sort Conclusion Hopefully we've shown that the introduction of VM Groups not only makes Oracle VM VirtualBox pretty, but pretty powerful too.  - FB 

  Read the article

• Book review (Book 6) - Wikinomics

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for year. You can read my first book review here. The book I chose for November 2011 was: Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Don Tapscott   Why I chose this Book: I’ve heard a lot about this book - was one of the “must read” kind of business books (many of which are very “fluffy”) and supposedly deals with collaborating using technology - so I want to see what it says about collaborative efforts and how I can leverage them. What I learned: I really disliked this book. I’ve never been a fan of the latest “business book”, and sadly that’s what this felt like to me. A “business book” is what I call a work that has a fairly simple concept to get across, and then proceeds to use various made-up terms, analogies and other mechanisms to fill hundreds of pages doing it. This perception is at my own – the book is pretty old, and these things go stale quickly. The author’s general point (at least what I took away from it) was: Open Source is good, proprietary is bad. Collaboration is the hallmark of successful companies. In my mind, you can save yourself the trouble of reading this work if you get these two concepts down. Don’t get me wrong – open source is awesome, and collaboration is a good thing, especially in places where it fits. But it’s not a panacea as the author seems to indicate. For instance, he continuously uses the example of MySpace to show a “2.0” company, which I think means that you can enter text as well as read it on a web page. All well and good. But we all know what happened to MySpace, and of course he missed the point entirely about this new web environment: low barriers to entry often mean low barriers to exit. And the open, collaborative company being the best model – well, I think we all know a certain computer company famous for phones and music that is arguably quite successful, and is probably one of the most closed, non-collaborative (at least with its customers) on the planet. So that sort of takes away that argument. The reality of business is far more complicated. Collaboration is an amazing tool, and should be leveraged heavily. However, at the end of the day, after you do your research you need to pick a strategy and stick with it. Asking thousands of people to assist you in building your product probably will not work well. Open Source is great – but some proprietary products are quite functional as well, have a long track record, are well supported, and will probably be upgraded. Everything has its place, so use what works where it is needed. There is no single answer, sadly. So did I waste my time reading the book? Did I make a bad choice? Not at all! Reading the opinions and thoughts of others is almost always useful, and it’s important to consider opinions other than your own. If nothing else, thinking through the process either convinces you that you are wrong, or helps you understand better why you are right.

  Read the article

• Apache returns 304, I want it to ignore anything from client and send the page

  - by Ayman

  I am using Apache HTTPD 2.2 on Windows. mod_expires is commented out. Most other stuff are not changed from the defaults. gzip is on. I made some changes to my .js files. My client gets one 304 response for one of the .js files and never gets the rest. How can I force Apache to sort of flush everything and send all new files to the client? The main html file includes these scripts in the head section of the main page: <script src="js/jquery-1.7.1.min.js" type="text/javascript"> </script> <script src="js/jquery-ui-1.8.17.custom.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="js/trex.utils.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.core.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.codes.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.emv.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.b24xtokens.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.iso.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.span2.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.amex.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.abi.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.barclays.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.bnet.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.visa.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.atm.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.apacs.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.pstm.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.stm.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.thales.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.fps-saf.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.fps-iso.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/trex.app.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> Apache access log has the following: [07/Jul/2013:16:50:40 +0300] "GET /trex/index.html HTTP/1.1" 200 2033 "-" [07/Jul/2013:16:50:40 +0300] "GET /trex/js/trex.fps-iso.js HTTP/1.1" 304 [08/Jul/2013:07:54:35 +0300] "GET /trex/index.html HTTP/1.1" 304 - "-" [08/Jul/2013:07:54:35 +0300] "GET /trex/js/trex.iso.js HTTP/1.1" 200 12417 [08/Jul/2013:07:54:35 +0300] "GET /trex/js/trex.amex.js HTTP/1.1" 200 6683 [08/Jul/2013:07:54:35 +0300] "GET /trex/js/trex.fps-saf.js HTTP/1.1" 200 2925 [08/Jul/2013:07:54:35 +0300] "GET /trex/js/trex.fps-iso.js HTTP/1.1" 304 Chrome request headers are as below: THis file is ok, latest: Request URL:http://localhost/trex/js/trex.iso.js Request Method:GET Status Code:200 OK (from cache) THis file is ok, latest: Request URL:http://localhost/trex/js/trex.amex.js Request Method:GET Status Code:200 OK (from cache) This one is also ok: Request URL:http://localhost/trex/js/trex.fps-iso.js Request Method:GET Status Code:200 OK (from cache) The rest of the scrips all have 200 OK (from cache).

  Read the article

• SQLAuthority News – History of the Database – 5 Years of Blogging at SQLAuthority

  - by pinaldave

  Don’t miss the Contest:Participate in 5th Anniversary Contest   Today is this blog’s birthday, and I want to do a fun, informative blog post. Five years ago this day I started this blog. Intention – my personal web blog. I wrote this blog for me and still today whatever I learn I share here. I don’t want to wander too far off topic, though, so I will write about two of my favorite things – history and databases.  And what better way to cover these two topics than to talk about the history of databases. If you want to be technical, databases as we know them today only date back to the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, when computers began to keep records and store memories.  But the idea of memory storage didn’t just appear 40 years ago – there was a history behind wanting to keep these records. In fact, the written word originated as a way to keep records – ancient man didn’t decide they suddenly wanted to read novels, they needed a way to keep track of the harvest, of their flocks, and of the tributes paid to the local lord.  And that is how writing and the database began.  You could consider the cave paintings from 17,0000 years ago at Lascaux, France, or the clay token from the ancient Sumerians in 8,000 BC to be the first instances of record keeping – and thus databases. If you prefer, you can consider the advent of written language to be the first database.  Many historians believe the first written language appeared in the 37th century BC, with Egyptian hieroglyphics. The ancient Sumerians, not to be outdone, also created their own written language within a few hundred years. Databases could be more closely described as collections of information, in which case the Sumerians win the prize for the first archive.  A collection of 20,000 stone tablets was unearthed in 1964 near the modern day city Tell Mardikh, in Syria.  This ancient database is from 2,500 BC, and appears to be a sort of law library where apprentice-scribes copied important documents.  Further archaeological digs hope to uncover the palace library, and thus an even larger database. Of course, the most famous ancient database would have to be the Royal Library of Alexandria, the great collection of records and wisdom in ancient Egypt.  It was created by Ptolemy I, and existed from 300 BC through 30 AD, when Julius Caesar effectively erased the hard drives when he accidentally set fire to it.  As any programmer knows who has forgotten to hit “save” or has experienced a sudden power outage, thousands of hours of work was lost in a single instant. Databases existed in very similar conditions up until recently.  Cuneiform tablets gave way to papyrus, which led to vellum, and eventually modern paper and the printing press.  Someday the databases we rely on so much today will become another chapter in the history of record keeping.  Who knows what the databases of tomorrow will look like! Reference:  Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

  Read the article

• Developing an Implementation Plan with Iterations by Russ Pitts

  - by user535886

  Developing an Implementation Plan with Iterations by Russ Pitts  Ok, so you have come to grips with understanding that applying the iterative concept, as defined by OUM is simply breaking up the project effort you have estimated for each phase into one or more six week calendar duration blocks of work. Idea being the business user(s) or key recipient(s) of work product(s) being developed never go longer than six weeks without having some sort of review or prototyping of the work results for an iteration…”think-a-little”, “do-a-little”, and “show-a-little” in a six week or less timeframe…ideally the business user(s) or key recipients(s) are involved throughout. You also understand the OUM concept that you only plan for that which you have knowledge of. The concept further defined, a project plan initially is developed at a high-level, and becomes more detailed as project knowledge grows. Agreeing to this concept means you also have to admit to the fallacy that one can plan with precision beyond six weeks into a project…Anything beyond six weeks is a best guess in most cases when dealing with software implementation projects. Project planning, as defined by OUM begins with the Implementation Plan view, which is a very high-level perspective of the effort estimated for each of the five OUM phases, as well as the number of iterations within each phase. You might wonder how can you predict the number of iterations for each phase at this early point in the project. Remember project planning is not an exact science, and initially is high-level and abstract in nature, and then becomes more detailed and precise as the project proceeds. So where do you start in defining iterations for each phase for a project? The following are three easy steps to initially define the number of iterations for each phase: Step 1 => Start with identifying the known factors… …Prior to starting a project you should know: · The agreed upon time-period for an iteration (e.g 6 weeks, or 4 weeks, or…) within a phase (recommend keeping iteration time-period consistent within a phase, if not for the entire project) · The number of resources available for the project · The number of total number of man-day (effort) you have estimated for each of the five OUM phases of the project · The number of work days for a week Step 2 => Calculate the man-days of effort required for an iteration within a phase… Lets assume for the sake of this example there are 10 project resources, and you have estimated 2,536 man-days of work effort which will need to occur for the elaboration phase of the project. Let’s also assume a week for this project is defined as 5 business days, and that each iteration in the elaboration phase will last a calendar duration of 6 weeks. A simple calculation is performed to calculate the daily burn rate for a single iteration, which produces a result of… ((Number of resources * days per week) * duration of iteration) = Number of days required per iteration ((10 resources * 5 days/week) * 6 weeks) = 300 man days of effort required per iteration Step 3 => Calculate the number of iterations that can occur within a phase Next calculate the number of iterations that can occur for the amount of man-days of effort estimated for the phase being considered… (number of man-days of effort estimated / number of man-days required per iteration) = # of iterations for phase (2,536 man-days of estimated effort for phase / 300 man days of effort required per iteration) = 8.45 iterations, which should be rounded to a whole number such as 9 iterations* *Note - It is important to note this is an approximate calculation, not an exact science. This particular example is a simple one, which assumes all resources are utilized throughout the phase, including tech resources, etc. (rounding down or up to a whole number based on project factor considerations). It is also best in many cases to round up to higher number, as this provides some calendar scheduling contingency.

  Read the article

• Windows 8 Apps with HTML5 and JavaScript

  - by Stephen.Walther

  Last week, I finished writing Windows 8 Apps with HTML5 and JavaScript – Yikes! That is a long title. This book is all about writing apps for Windows 8 which can be added to the Windows Store. The book focuses on building apps using HTML5 and JavaScript. If you are already comfortable building websites, then building Windows Store apps is not a huge leap.  I explain how you can create productivity apps, like a Task List app, and games, like a simple arcade game. I also explain how you can publish your app to the Windows Store and make money. To celebrate the release of Windows 8, my publisher is offering a huge 40% discount on the book until November 30, 2012. If you want to take advantage of this discount, follow the link below and enter the discount code WINDEV40 during checkout. http://www.informit.com/promotions/promotion.aspx?promo=139036&walther So what’s in the book?  Here’s an overview of each of the chapters: Chapter 1 – Building Windows Store Apps Contains a walkthrough of creating a super simple Windows app for taking pictures from your webcam. Explains how to publish your app to the Windows Store. Chapter 2 – WinJS Fundamentals Provides an overview of the Windows Library for JavaScript which is the Microsoft library for creating Windows Store apps with JavaScript. Chapter 3 – Observables, Bindings, and Templates You learn how to display a list of items using a template. For example, you learn how to create a template which can be used to display a list of products. Chapter 4 – Using WinJS Controls Overview of the core set of JavaScript controls included with the WinJS library. You learn how to use the Tooltip, ToggleSwitch, Rating, DatePicker, TimePicker, and FlipView controls. Chapter 5 – Creating Forms This chapter explains how to take advantage of HTML5 forms to display specialized keyboards and perform form validation. Chapter 6 – Menus and Flyouts You learn how to display popups, menus, and toolbars using the JavaScript controls included with the WinJS library. Chapter 7 – Using the ListView Control This entire chapter is devoted to the ListView control which is the most important control in the WinJS library. You can use the ListView control to display, sort, filter, and edit a list of items. Chapter 8 – Creating Data Sources Learn how to use a ListView control to display data from the file system, a web service, and IndexedDB. Chapter 9 – App Events and States This chapter explains the standard application events which are raised in a Windows Store app such as the activated and checkpoint events. You also learn how to build apps which adapt automatically to different view states such as portrait and landscape. Chapter 10 – Page Fragments and Navigation This chapter discusses two subjects: You learn how to create custom WinJS controls with Page Controls and you learn how to build apps with multiple pages.  Chapter 11 – Using the Live Connect API Learn how to use Windows Live Services to authenticate users, interact with SkyDrive, and retrieve user profile information (such as a user’s birthday or profile picture). Chapter 12 – Graphics and Games This chapter is devoted to building the Brain Eaters app which is a simple arcade game. Navigate a maze and eat all of the food pellets while avoiding the brain-eating zombies to win the game. Learn how to create the game using HTML5 Canvas.   If you want to buy the book, remember to use the magic discount code WINDEV40 and visit the following link: http://www.informit.com/promotions/promotion.aspx?promo=139036&walther

  Read the article

• A quick look at: sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors

  - by Jonathan Allen

  SQL Server places data into cache as it reads it from disk so as to speed up future queries. This dmv lets you see how much data is cached at any given time and knowing how this changes over time can help you ensure your servers run smoothly and are adequately resourced to run your systems. This dmv gives the number of cached pages in the buffer pool along with the database id that they relate to: USE [tempdb] GO SELECT COUNT(*) AS cached_pages_count , CASE database_id WHEN 32767 THEN 'ResourceDb' ELSE DB_NAME(database_id) END AS Database_name FROM sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors GROUP BY DB_NAME(database_id) , database_id ORDER BY cached_pages_count DESC; This gives you results which are quite useful, but if you add a new column with the code: …to convert the pages value to show a MB value then they become more relevant and meaningful. To see how your server reacts to queries, start up SSMS and connect to a test server and database – mine is called AdventureWorks2008. Make sure you start from a know position by running: -- Only run this on a test server otherwise your production server's-- performance may drop off a cliff and your phone will start ringing. DBCC DROPCLEANBUFFERS GO Now we can run a query that would normally turn a DBA’s hair white: USE [AdventureWorks2008] go SELECT * FROM [Sales].[SalesOrderDetail] AS sod INNER JOIN [Sales].[SalesOrderHeader] AS soh ON [sod].[SalesOrderID] = [soh].[SalesOrderID] …and then check our cache situation: A nice low figure – not! Almost 2000 pages of data in cache equating to approximately 15MB. Luckily these tables are quite narrow; if this had been on a table with more columns then this could be even more dramatic. So, let’s make our query more efficient. After resetting the cache with the DROPCLEANBUFFERS and FREEPROCCACHE code above, we’ll only select the columns we want and implement a WHERE predicate to limit the rows to a specific customer. SELECT [sod].[OrderQty] , [sod].[ProductID] , [soh].[OrderDate] , [soh].[CustomerID] FROM [Sales].[SalesOrderDetail] AS sod INNER JOIN [Sales].[SalesOrderHeader] AS soh ON [sod].[SalesOrderID] = [soh].[SalesOrderID] WHERE [soh].[CustomerID] = 29722 …and check our effect cache: Now that is more sympathetic to our server and the other systems sharing its resources. I can hear you asking: “What has this got to do with logging, Jonathan?” Well, a smart DBA will keep an eye on this metric on their servers so they know how their hardware is coping and be ready to investigate anomalies so that no ‘disruptive’ code starts to unsettle things. Capturing this information over a period of time can lead you to build a picture of how a database relies on the cache and how it interacts with other databases. This might allow you to decide on appropriate schedules for over night jobs or otherwise balance the work of your server. You could schedule this job to run with a SQL Agent job and store the data in your DBA’s database by creating a table with: IF OBJECT_ID('CachedPages') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE CachedPages CREATE TABLE CachedPages ( cached_pages_count INT , MB INT , Database_Name VARCHAR(256) , CollectedOn DATETIME DEFAULT GETDATE() ) …and then filling it with: INSERT INTO [dbo].[CachedPages] ( [cached_pages_count] , [MB] , [Database_Name] ) SELECT COUNT(*) AS cached_pages_count , ( COUNT(*) * 8.0 ) / 1024 AS MB , CASE database_id WHEN 32767 THEN 'ResourceDb' ELSE DB_NAME(database_id) END AS Database_name FROM sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors GROUP BY database_id After this has been left logging your system metrics for a while you can easily see how your databases use the cache over time and may see some spikes that warrant your attention. This sort of logging can be applied to all sorts of server statistics so that you can gather information that will give you baseline data on how your servers are performing. This means that when you get a problem you can see what statistics are out of their normal range and target you efforts to resolve the issue more rapidly.

  Read the article

• A problem with conky in Gnome 3.4 [closed]

  - by Pranit Bauva

  Possible Duplicate: Conky not working in Gnome 3.4 My conky in Gnome 3.4 is not working. When I run a conky script nothing appears but the process is running. Please also see the debug code : pungi-man@pungi-man:~$ sh conky_startup.sh Conky: forked to background, pid is 3157 Conky: desktop window (c00023) is subwindow of root window (aa) Conky: window type - override Conky: drawing to created window (0x2200001) Conky: drawing to double buffer My conky script is : background yes update_interval 1 cpu_avg_samples 2 net_avg_samples 2 temperature_unit celsius double_buffer yes no_buffers yes text_buffer_size 2048 gap_x 10 gap_y 30 minimum_size 190 450 maximum_width 190 own_window yes own_window_type override own_window_transparent yes own_window_hints undecorate,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager,below border_inner_margin 0 border_outer_margin 0 alignment tr draw_shades no draw_outline no draw_borders no draw_graph_borders no override_utf8_locale yes use_xft yes xftfont caviar dreams:size=8 xftalpha 0.5 uppercase no default_color FFFFFF color1 DDDDDD color2 AAAAAA color3 888888 color4 666666 lua_load /home/pungi-man/.conky/conky_grey.lua lua_draw_hook_post main TEXT ${voffset 35} ${goto 95}${color4}${font ubuntu:size=22}${time %e}${color1}${offset -50}${font ubuntu:size=10}${time %A} ${goto 85}${color2}${voffset -2}${font ubuntu:size=9}${time %b}${voffset -2} ${color3}${font ubuntu:size=12}${time %Y}${font} ${voffset 80} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:bold}${color}CPU ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${top name 1}${alignr}${top cpu 1}% ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color2}${top name 2}${alignr}${top cpu 2}% ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color3}${top name 3}${alignr}${top cpu 3}% ${goto 90}${cpugraph 10,100 666666 666666} ${goto 90}${voffset -10}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color}${threads} process ${voffset 20} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:bold}${color}MEM ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${top_mem name 1} ${alignr}${top_mem mem 1}% ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color2}${top_mem name 2} ${alignr}${top_mem mem 2}% ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color3}${top_mem name 3} ${alignr}${top_mem mem 3}% ${voffset 15} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:bold}${color}DISKS ${goto 90}${diskiograph 30,100 666666 666666}${voffset -30} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color}used: ${fs_used /home} /home ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color}used: ${fs_used /} / ${voffset 10} ${goto 70}${font Ubuntu:size=18,weight:bold}${color3}NET${alignr}${color2}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:bold}${color1}${if_up eth0}eth ${addr eth0} ${endif}${if_up wlan0}wifi ${addr wlan0}${endif} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:bold}${color}open ports: ${alignr}${color2}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 count} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:bold}${color}${offset 10}IP${alignr}DPORT ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rip 0}${alignr 1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rport 0} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rip 1}${alignr 1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rport 1} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rip 2}${alignr 1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rport 2} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rip 3}${alignr 1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rport 3} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rip 4}${alignr 1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rport 4} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rip 5}${alignr 1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rport 5} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rip 6}${alignr 1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rport 6} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rip 7}${alignr 1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rport 7} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rip 8}${alignr 1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rport 8} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rip 9}${alignr 1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rport 9} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rip 10}${alignr 1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rport 10} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rip 11}${alignr 1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rport 11} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rip 12}${alignr 1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rport 12} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rip 13}${alignr 1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rport 13} ${goto 90}${font Ubuntu:size=7,weight:normal}${color1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rip 14}${alignr 1}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 rport 14} This script works fine with unity but faces problems in gnome 3.4 Can anyone please sort it out?

  Read the article

• OS Development. Only Few Particular Questions

  - by Total Anime Immersion

  I am new to this site as a member but have consulted its answers quite a lot of times. Besides my questions regarding OS Development hasn't been answered in any forum. In OS Dev. we make a bootloader. The org point is 7C00H. Why so? Why not 0000h? What are the last two signatures in the bootloader used for? People on every forum have answered that it is important for the system to recognize it as a bootable media. But I want a specific answer. What do each of those signatures do. I have the basic concept of a kernel. Point is.. it relates to different files required in a system. It sort of binds up everything that is individually developed. Now the thing is that that I have floating ideas in my mind regarding different aspects like keyboard, mouse, etc.. how do I put them all together? Which should I start with first? If possible please provide a step by step procedure of the startups of the kernel. Suppose I have developed my language entirely in C and Assembly. Now questions is will exe files work on my system.. if it doesn't then I have to create my own files and publish them. Which is a bad idea.. next step would be for me to go for a compiler for a language which I have designed myself. Now the point is.. How do I implement the compiler into my OS? After all this my final question is that.. How do you go about multitasking and multithreading? and I don't want to use int 21h as its dos specific.. how do I go about making files, renaming them, etc. and all assembly books teach 16 but programming.. how do i go about doing 32 bit or 64 bit with the knowledge I have.. if the basics and instructions are the same.. I don't mind.. but how do i go about otherwise? Don't tell me to give up the idea because I WON'T. And don't tell me it's too complex because I have a sharp knowledge of working of a system, C, Java, Assembly, C++ and python, C#, visual basic.. and not just basics but full fledged api developments.. but I really want to go deep into the systems part.. so I want professional help.. And I have gone through many OS project files but I want help particularly from this site as there are people with knowledge depth who can guide me the right way. And please don't suggest any books above 20$ and they should be available on flipkart as amazon charges massively for shipping and I prefer free shipping from flipkart.

  Read the article

• Part 9: EBS Customizations, how to track

  - by volker.eckardt(at)oracle.com

  In the previous blogs we were concentrating on the preparation tasks. We have defined standards, we know about the tools and techniques we will start with. Additionally, we have defined the modification strategy, and how to handle such topics best. Now we are ready to take the requirements! Such requirements coming over in spreadsheets, word files (like GAP documents), or in any other format. As we have to assign some attributes, we start numbering all that and assign a short name to each of these requirements (=CEMLI reference). We may also have already a Functional person assigned, and we might involve someone from the tech team to estimate, and we like to assign a status such as 'planned', 'estimated' etc. All these data are usually kept in spreadsheets, but I would put them into a database (yes, I am from Oracle :). If you don't have any good looking and centralized application already, please give a try with Oracle APEX. It should be up and running in a day and the imported sheets are than manageable concurrently!  For one of my clients I have created this CEMLI-DB; in between enriched with a lot of additional functionality, but initially it was just a simple centralized CEMLI tracking application. Why I am pointing out again the centralized method to manage such data? Well, your data quality will dramatically increase, if you let your project members see (also review and update) "your" data.  APEX allows you to filter, sort, print, and also export. And if you can spend some time to define proper value lists, everyone will gain from. APEX allows you to work in 'agile' mode, means you can improve your application step by step. Let's say you like to reference a document, or even upload the same, you can do that. Or, you need to classify the CEMLIs by release, just add this release field, same for business area or CEMLI type. One CEMLI record may then look like this: Prepare one or two (online) reports, to be ready to present your "workload" to the project management. Use such extracts also when you work offline (to prioritize etc.). But as soon as you are again connected, feed the data back into the central application. Note: I have combined this application with an additional issue tracker.  Here the most important element is the CEMLI reference, which acts as link to any other application (if you are not using APEX also as issue tracker :).  Please spend a minute to define such a reference (see blog Part 8: How to name Customizations).   Summary: Building the bridge from Gap analyse to the development has to be done in a controlled way. Usually the information is provided differently, but it is suggested to collect all requirements centrally. Oracle APEX is a great solution to enter and maintain such information in a structured, but flexible way. APEX helped me a lot to work with distributed development teams during the complete development cycle.

  Read the article

• Ubuntu 11.04 and 10.04 hang with black screen while installing from USB disk

  - by Bill

  I've been trying to install Ubuntu 11.04 from a USB flash stick and each time I try to boot from the USB key one of two things happen: A) The screen that asks you what you would like to do (e.g. run Ubuntu from the USB key or install it) shows up and the countdown to the default option starts to count down but as soon as I either touch the keyboard (sometimes I press enter or the arrow keys to select an option) or the countdown gets to zero the screen just locks up and nothing happens no matter how long I wait. B) When I boot from the USB key the screen will flicker for a second and then go black with a flashing white underscore at the top left corner of the screen. Again it doesn't matter how long I wait, nothing happens and pressing keys doesn't do a thing. The very first time I tried to install it I got a terminal-like screen that said something about a directory called 'casper' having an error of some sort. I have tried installing from USB using both 11.04 and 10.10. I'm about to try 10.04. I have read tons of forum posts about this but so far I haven't seen anything in the solutions that apply to me. My intention is to dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu. I must keep Windows as I am required to use Visual Studio for one of my college courses. Right now I'm using Wubi but I really want a full install. I can't use LVPM because it doesn't work with the version of Wubi I used. So now I'm thinking my best bet is to try to get a clean install working. I'd also convert Wubi to a full install too but there's no solution as far as I've read. So could someone tell me a reason why this is happening or if there's something I can do to get around the problem? I'm using a Gateway LT2802u netbook with and Intel Atom N455 processor, 1GB RAM, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150 graphics card, and a 250GB HDD. I don't have anything on my current Wubi install that I can't replace so keep in mind when answering that I don't care if I lose my current settings and files from Wubi. Thanks everyone! UPDATE I just answered my own question so in case anyone else is having this same problem using similar hardware, do the following: When I first tried installing 11.04 I used the recommended universal installer tool to create the USB live/installation disk. That caused the original problem. Note that I had already downloaded the 11.04 ISO and did not use the included downloader from the USB creator. After that failed I used the same USB creator but had it download 10.10 for me. It also failed with the same issue. I repeated this process with unetbootin as well for both versions. Finally, I downloaded the Ubuntu 10.04 ISO and used the recommended USB creator once again. There was an error while creating the USB live install so I reformatted the USB key as FAT32 and tried again. It created the USB key. I then booted from the USB flash drive and selected "Install Ubuntu" (exact wording was different). It worked! It took me through the process that you see shown in pictures on the Ubuntu website. I let it create the appropriate partitions for me and it simply worked. I did get a few errors while the system tried to restart after it installed. It hung on a terminal-like screen but I pressed ENTER and it restarted. I booted into Windows 7, it checked the disks as it sensed that I messed with a partition, then it booted into Windows normally. Now I'm going to uninstall Wubi and update my new full install of Ubuntu! I'm excited to get the benefits of a full install now. So in the end, hopefully someone can learn from what I did.

  Read the article

• Thoughts on Thoughts on TDD

  Brian Harry wrote a post entitled Thoughts on TDD that I thought I was going to let lie, but I find that I need to write a response. I find myself in agreement with Brian on many points in the post, but I disagree with his conclusion. Not surprisingly, I agree with the things that he likes about TDD. Focusing on the usage rather than the implementation is really important, and this is important whether you use TDD or not. And YAGNI was a big theme in my Seven Deadly Sins of Programming series. Now, on to what he doesnt like. He says that he finds it inefficient to have tests that he has to change every time he refactors. Here is where we part company. If you are having to do a lot of test rewriting (say, more than a couple of minutes work to get back to green) *often* when you are refactoring your code, I submit that either you are testing things that you dont need to test (internal details rather than external implementation), your code perhaps isnt as decoupled as it could be, or maybe you need a visit to refactorers anonymous. I also like to refactor like crazy, but as we all know, the huge downside of refactoring is that we often break things. Important things. Subtle things. Which makes refactoring risky. *Unless* we have a set of tests that have great coverage. And TDD (or Example-based Design, which I prefer as a term) gives those to us. Now, I dont know what sort of coverage Brian gets with the unit tests that he writes, but I do know that for the majority of the developers Ive worked with and I count myself in that bucket the coverage of unit tests written afterwards is considerably inferior to the coverage of unit tests that come from TDD. For me, it all comes down to the answer to the following question: How do you ensure that your code works now and will continue to work in the future? Im willing to put up with a little efficiency on the front side to get that benefit later. Its not the writing of the code thats the expensive part, its everything else that comes after. I dont think that stepping through test cases in the debugger gets you what you want. You can verify what the current behavior is, sure, and do it fairly cheaply, but you dont help the guy in the future who doesnt know what conditions were important if he has to change your code. His second part that he doesnt like backing into an architecture (go read to see what he means). Ive certainly had to work with code that was like this before, and its a nightmare the code that nobody wants to touch. But thats not at all the kind of code that you get with TDD, because if youre doing it right youre doing the write a failing tests, make it pass, refactor approach. Now, you may miss some useful refactorings and generalizations for this, but if you do, you can refactor later because you have the tests that make it safe to do so, and your code tends to be easy to refactor because the same things that make code easy to write unit tests for make it easy to refactor. I also think Brian is missing an important point. We arent all as smart as he is. Im reminded a bit of the lesson of Intentional Programming, Charles Simonyis paradigm for making programming easier. I played around with Intentional Programming when it was young, and came to the conclusion that it was a pretty good thing if you were as smart as Simonyi is, but it was pretty much a disaster if you were an average developer. In this case, TDD gives you a way to work your way into a good, flexible, and functional architecture when you dont have somebody of Brians talents to help you out. And thats a good thing.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.

  Read the article

• WebGrid Helper and Complex Types

  - by imran_ku07

      Introduction:           WebGrid helper makes it very easy to show tabular data. It was originally designed for ASP.NET Web Pages(WebMatrix) to display, edit, page and sort tabular data but you can also use this helper in ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC. When using this helper, sometimes you may run into a problem if you use complex types in this helper. In this article, I will show you how you can use complex types in WebGrid helper.       Description:             Let's say you need to show the employee data and you have the following classes,   public class Employee { public string Name { get; set; } public Address Address { get; set; } public List<string> ContactNumbers { get; set; } } public class Address { public string City { get; set; } }               The Employee class contain a Name, an Address and list of ContactNumbers. You may think that you can easily show City in WebGrid using Address.City, but no. The WebGrid helper will throw an exception at runtime if any Address property is null in the Employee list. Also, you cannot directly show ContactNumbers property. The easiest way to show these properties is to add some additional properties,   public Address NotNullableAddress { get { return Address ?? new Address(); } } public string Contacts { get { return string.Join("; ",ContactNumbers); } }               Now you can easily use these properties in WebGrid. Here is the complete code of this example,  @functions{ public class Employee { public Employee(){ ContactNumbers = new List<string>(); } public string Name { get; set; } public Address Address { get; set; } public List<string> ContactNumbers { get; set; } public Address NotNullableAddress { get { return Address ?? new Address(); } } public string Contacts { get { return string.Join("; ",ContactNumbers); } } } public class Address { public string City { get; set; } } } @{ var myClasses = new List<Employee>{ new Employee { Name="A" , Address = new Address{ City="AA" }, ContactNumbers = new List<string>{"021-216452","9231425651"}}, new Employee { Name="C" , Address = new Address{ City="CC" }}, new Employee { Name="D" , ContactNumbers = new List<string>{"045-14512125","21531212121"}} }; var grid = new WebGrid(source: myClasses); } @grid.GetHtml(columns: grid.Columns( grid.Column("NotNullableAddress.City", header: "City"), grid.Column("Name"), grid.Column("Contacts")))                    Summary:           You can use WebGrid helper to show tabular data in ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Web Forms and  ASP.NET Web Pages. Using this helper, you can also show complex types in the grid. In this article, I showed you how you use complex types with WebGrid helper. Hopefully you will enjoy this article too.  

  Read the article

• Simple task framework - building software from reusable pieces

  - by RuslanD

  I'm writing a web service with several APIs, and they will be sharing some of the implementation code. In order not to copy-paste, I would like to ideally implement each API call as a series of tasks, which are executed in a sequence determined by the business logic. One obvious question is whether that's the best strategy for code reuse, or whether I can look at it in a different way. But assuming I want to go with tasks, several issues arise: What's a good task interface to use? How do I pass data computed in one task to another task in the sequence that might need it? In the past, I've worked with task interfaces like: interface Task<T, U> { U execute(T input); } Then I also had sort of a "task context" object which had getters and setters for any kind of data my tasks needed to produce or consume, and it gets passed to all tasks. I'm aware that this suffers from a host of problems. So I wanted to figure out a better way to implement it this time around. My current idea is to have a TaskContext object which is a type-safe heterogeneous container (as described in Effective Java). Each task can ask for an item from this container (task input), or add an item to the container (task output). That way, tasks don't need to know about each other directly, and I don't have to write a class with dozens of methods for each data item. There are, however, several drawbacks: Each item in this TaskContext container should be a complex type that wraps around the actual item data. If task A uses a String for some purpose, and task B uses a String for something entirely different, then just storing a mapping between String.class and some object doesn't work for both tasks. The other reason is that I can't use that kind of container for generic collections directly, so they need to be wrapped in another object. This means that, based on how many tasks I define, I would need to also define a number of classes for the task items that may be consumed or produced, which may lead to code bloat and duplication. For instance, if a task takes some Long value as input and produces another Long value as output, I would have to have two classes that simply wrap around a Long, which IMO can spiral out of control pretty quickly as the codebase evolves. I briefly looked at workflow engine libraries, but they kind of seem like a heavy hammer for this particular nail. How would you go about writing a simple task framework with the following requirements: Tasks should be as self-contained as possible, so they can be composed in different ways to create different workflows. That being said, some tasks may perform expensive computations that are prerequisites for other tasks. We want to have a way of storing the results of intermediate computations done by tasks so that other tasks can use those results for free. The task framework should be light, i.e. growing the code doesn't involve introducing many new types just to plug into the framework.

  Read the article

• Silverlight Cream for May 27, 2010 -- #871

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Phil Middlemiss, Max Paulousky, Jeff Wilcox, David Anson, René Schulte, Xianzhong Zhu, Jeff Handley, John Papa, Jeremy Likness, and Marlon Grech. Shoutouts: SilverLaw has a great demo at the Expression Gallery, and we're all going to look forward to the blog post explaining it: Flexible Surface Effect SilverLaw> has another use for the above in this text morphing Effect: Morphing Text Effect Matthias Shapiro contributed a chapter for a book on Visualization and it's available as a free download: Free Chapter From Beautiful Visualization Andy Beaulieu has a demo up as almost a spoiler for a future Coding4Fun app... and how cool is this: Shuffleboard: A Windows Phone 7 Sample Game From SilverlightCream.com: Separating Content and Presentation with the ContentControl Phil Middlemiss' latest is out on SilverlightShow and is all about the ContentControl and separating layout and content ... demo project source included Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Silverlight Applications. Part 1 Max Paulousky has part one of a long series he's starting on a demo project to explain a bunch of MEF, MVVM, and WCF RIA concepts. This first one contains the overview and also discusses SEO. There is a link to the app and material in the post if you read Russian :) Updated Silverlight Unit Test Framework bits for Windows Phone and Silverlight 3 Jeff Wilcox has available updated Unit Test bits for Silverlight 3 -- read that as WP7... read the rest of the information on his post. Easily animate orientation changes for any Windows Phone application with this handy source code David Anson has some code up that you're going to want if you're programming WP7 ... just watch the video ... you'll be downloading the code just like I did :) SilverShader – Introduction to Silverlight and WPF Pixel Shaders René Schulte has a post up at Coding4Fun about PixelShaders... how to write them and an application that uses them... this is a great long tutorial... a must read. Developing Freecell Game Using Silverlight 3 Part 2 Xianzhong Zhu has part 2 of his FreeCell game development posted ... lots of detailed descriptions and code, plus all the code of course! Async Validation with RIA Services Jeff Handley has a post up that is sort of a follow-on to a year-old post on async validation with RIA services and DataForm and how it's all much easier now in SL4. Learning Blend with .toolbox (Silverlight TV #29) John Papa and Arturo Toledo discuss .toolbox in Silverlight TV #29 -- have you made yourself an avatar yet? ... well go get on-board with this great learning tool! Silverlight Out of Browser Dynamic Modules in Offline Mode OOB isn't difficult, dynamic modules can become a bit more, but what if you're OOB... ok what if you're OOB and offline? ... Jeremy Likness has a possible solution for this with an OfflineCatalog. MEFedMVVM v1.0 Explained Marlon Grech has a great into to MEFedMVVM in this post. If you're trying to get your head around MEF and MVVM in either WPF or Silverlight, here's a good starting point. 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

  Read the article

• Using Live Data in Database Development Work

  - by Phil Factor

  Guest Editorial for Simple-Talk Newsletter... in which Phil Factor reacts with some exasperation when coming across a report that a majority of companies were still using financial and personal data for both developing and testing database applications. If you routinely test your development work using real production data that contains personal or financial information, you are probably being irresponsible, and at worst, risking a heavy financial penalty for your company. Surprisingly, over 80% of financial companies still do this. Plenty of data breaches and fraud have happened from the use of real data for testing, and a data breach is a nightmare for any organisation that suffers one. The cost of each data breach averages out at around $7.2 million in the US in notification, escalation, credit monitoring, fines, litigation, legal costs, and lost business due to customer churn, £1.9 million in the UK. 70% of data breaches are done from within the organisation. Real data can be exploited in a number of ways for malicious or criminal purposes. It isn't just the obvious use of items such as name and address, date of birth, social security number, and credit card and bank account numbers: Data can be exploited in many subtle ways, so there are excellent reasons to ensure that a high priority is given to the detection and prevention of any data breaches. You'll never successfully guess all the ways that real data can be exploited maliciously, or the ease with which it can be accessed. It would be silly to argue that developers never need access to a copy of the database containing live data. Developers sometimes need to track a bug that can only be replicated on the data from the live database. However, it has to be done in a very restrictive harness. The law makes no distinction between development and production databases when a data breach occurs, so the data has to be held with all appropriate security measures in place. In Europe, the use of personal data for testing requires the explicit consent of the people whose data is being held. There are federal standards such as GLBA, PCI DSS and HIPAA, and most US States have privacy legislation. The task of ensuring compliance and tight security in such circumstances is an expensive and time-consuming overhead. The developer is likely to suffer investigation if a data breach occurs, even if the company manages to stay in business. Ironically, the use of copies of live data isn't usually the most effective way to develop or test your data. Data is usually time-specific and isn't usually current by the time it is used for testing, Existing data doesn't help much for new functionality, and every time the data is refreshed from production, any test data is likely to be overwritten. Also, it is not always going to test all the 'edge' conditions that are likely to flush out bugs. You still have the task of simulating the dynamics of actual usage of the database, and here you have no alternative to creating 'spoofed' data. Because of the complexities of relational data, It used to be that there was no realistic alternative to developing and testing with live data. However, this is no longer the case. Real data can be obfuscated, or it can be created entirely from scratch. The latter process used to be impractical, now that there are plenty of third-party tools to choose from. The process of obfuscation isn't risk free. The process must access the live data, and the success of the obfuscation process has to be carefully monitored. Database data security isn't an exciting topic to you or I, but to a hacker it can be an all-consuming obsession, especially if there is financial or political gain involved. This is not the sort of adversary one would wish for and it is far better to accept, and work with, security restrictions that exist for using live data in database development work, especially when the tools exist to create large realistic database test data that can be better for several aspects of testing.

  Read the article

• XNA 4.0 - Normal mapping shader - strange texture artifacts

  - by Taylor

  I recently started using custom shader. Shader can do diffuse and specular lighting and normal mapping. But normal mapping is causing really ugly artifacts (some sort of pixeling noise) for textures in greater distance. It looks like this: Image link This is HLSL code: // Matrix float4x4 World : World; float4x4 View : View; float4x4 Projection : Projection; //Textury texture2D ColorMap; sampler2D ColorMapSampler = sampler_state { Texture = <ColorMap>; MinFilter = Anisotropic; MagFilter = Linear; MipFilter = Linear; MaxAnisotropy = 16; }; texture2D NormalMap; sampler2D NormalMapSampler = sampler_state { Texture = <NormalMap>; MinFilter = Anisotropic; MagFilter = Linear; MipFilter = Linear; MaxAnisotropy = 16; }; // Light float4 AmbientColor : Color; float AmbientIntensity; float3 DiffuseDirection : LightPosition; float4 DiffuseColor : Color; float DiffuseIntensity; float4 SpecularColor : Color; float3 CameraPosition : CameraPosition; float Shininess; // The input for the VertexShader struct VertexShaderInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 TexCoord : TEXCOORD0; float3 Normal : NORMAL0; float3 Binormal : BINORMAL0; float3 Tangent : TANGENT0; }; // The output from the vertex shader, used for later processing struct VertexShaderOutput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 TexCoord : TEXCOORD0; float3 View : TEXCOORD1; float3x3 WorldToTangentSpace : TEXCOORD2; }; // The VertexShader. VertexShaderOutput VertexShaderFunction(VertexShaderInput input, float3 Normal : NORMAL) { VertexShaderOutput output; float4 worldPosition = mul(input.Position, World); float4 viewPosition = mul(worldPosition, View); output.Position = mul(viewPosition, Projection); output.TexCoord = input.TexCoord; output.WorldToTangentSpace[0] = mul(normalize(input.Tangent), World); output.WorldToTangentSpace[1] = mul(normalize(input.Binormal), World); output.WorldToTangentSpace[2] = mul(normalize(input.Normal), World); output.View = normalize(float4(CameraPosition,1.0) - worldPosition); return output; } // The Pixel Shader float4 PixelShaderFunction(VertexShaderOutput input) : COLOR0 { float4 color = tex2D(ColorMapSampler, input.TexCoord); float3 normalMap = 2.0 *(tex2D(NormalMapSampler, input.TexCoord)) - 1.0; normalMap = normalize(mul(normalMap, input.WorldToTangentSpace)); float4 normal = float4(normalMap,1.0); float4 diffuse = saturate(dot(-DiffuseDirection,normal)); float4 reflect = normalize(2*diffuse*normal-float4(DiffuseDirection,1.0)); float4 specular = pow(saturate(dot(reflect,input.View)), Shininess); return color * AmbientColor * AmbientIntensity + color * DiffuseIntensity * DiffuseColor * diffuse + color * SpecularColor * specular; } // Techniques technique Lighting { pass Pass1 { VertexShader = compile vs_2_0 VertexShaderFunction(); PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 PixelShaderFunction(); } } Any advice? Thanks!

  Read the article

• Serial plans: Threshold / Parallel_degree_limit = 1

  - by jean-pierre.dijcks

  As a very short follow up on the previous post. So here is some more on getting a serial plan and why that happens Another reason - compared to the auto DOP is not on as we looked at in the earlier post - and often more prevalent to get a serial plan is if the plan simply does not take long enough to consider a parallel path. The resulting plan and note looks like this (note that this is a serial plan!): explain plan for select count(1) from sales; SELECT PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.DISPLAY()); PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Plan hash value: 672559287 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Id  | Operation            | Name  | Rows  | Cost (%CPU)| Time     | Pstart| Pstop | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |   0 | SELECT STATEMENT     |       |     1 |     5   (0)| 00:00:01 |       |     | |   1 |  SORT AGGREGATE      |       |     1 |            |          |       |     | |   2 |   PARTITION RANGE ALL|       |   960 |     5   (0)| 00:00:01 |     1 |  16 | |   3 |    TABLE ACCESS FULL | SALES |   960 |     5   (0)| 00:00:01 |     1 |  16 | Note -----    - automatic DOP: Computed Degree of Parallelism is 1 because of parallel threshold 14 rows selected. The parallel threshold is referring to parallel_min_time_threshold and since I did not change the default (10s) the plan is not being considered for a parallel degree computation and is therefore staying with the serial execution. Now we go into the land of crazy: Assume I do want this DOP=1 to happen, I could set the parameter in the init.ora, but to highlight it in this case I changed it on the session: alter session set parallel_degree_limit = 1; The result I get is: ERROR: ORA-02097: parameter cannot be modified because specified value is invalid ORA-00096: invalid value 1 for parameter parallel_degree_limit, must be from among CPU IO AUTO INTEGER>=2 Which of course makes perfect sense...

  Read the article

• apt-get 403 Forbidden

  - by Lerp

  I've start a new job today and I am trying to set up my machine to run through their Windows server. I've managed to get a internet connection through the server now but now I can't run apt-get update as I get a "403 Forbidden" error. This is for every repo under my source list, apart from translations(?). I do have a proxy in apt.conf, if I don't have it I get a 407 Permission Denied error. Here's my apt.conf file (I have omitted my username and password) Acquire::http::proxy "http://username:[email protected]:8080/"; Here's my sources.list #deb cdrom:[Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS _Precise Pangolin_ - Release amd64 (20130213)]/ dists/precise/main/binary-i386/ #deb cdrom:[Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS _Precise Pangolin_ - Release amd64 (20130213)]/ dists/precise/restricted/binary-i386/ #deb cdrom:[Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS _Precise Pangolin_ - Release amd64 (20130213)]/ precise main restricted # See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to # newer versions of the distribution. deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise main restricted deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise main restricted ## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the ## distribution. deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates main restricted deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates main restricted ## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu ## team. Also, please note that software in universe WILL NOT receive any ## review or updates from the Ubuntu security team. deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise universe deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise universe deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates universe deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates universe ## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu ## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to ## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in ## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu ## security team. deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise multiverse deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise multiverse deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates multiverse deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates multiverse ## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as ## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes ## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features. ## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review ## or updates from the Ubuntu security team. deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-backports main restricted universe multiverse deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-backports main restricted universe multiverse deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security main restricted deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security main restricted deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security universe deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security universe deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security multiverse deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security multiverse ## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's ## 'partner' repository. ## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the ## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users. # deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise partner # deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise partner ## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by third-party ## developers who want to ship their latest software. deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main deb-src http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main I can sort-of fix this by changing all the http in sources.list to ftp but I still have issues with ppas

  Read the article

• Create and Track Your Own License Keys with PowerShell

  - by BuckWoody

  SQL Server used to have  cool little tool that would let you track your licenses. Microsoft didn’t use it to limit your system or anything, it was just a place on the server where you could put that this system used this license key. I miss those days – we don’t track that any more, and I want to make sure I’m up to date on my licensing, so I made my own. Now, there are a LOT of ways you could do this. You could add an extended property in SQL Server, add a table to a tracking database, use a text file, track it somewhere else, whatever. This is just the route I chose; if you want to use some other method, feel free. Just sharing here. Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall the operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk. And this is REALLY important. I include a disclaimer at the end of my scripts, but in this case you’re modifying your registry, and that could be EXTREMELY dangerous – only do this on a test server – and I’m just showing you how I did mine. It isn’t an endorsement or anything like that, and this is a “Buck Woody” thing, NOT a Microsoft thing. See this link first, and then you can read on. OK, here’s my script: # Track your own licenses # Write a New Key to be the License Location mkdir HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Buck   # Write the variables - one sets the type, the other sets the number, and the last one holds the key New-ItemProperty HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Buck -name "SQLServerLicenseType" -value "Processor" # Notice the Dword value here - this one is a number so it needs that. Keep this on one line! New-ItemProperty HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Buck -name "SQLServerLicenseNumber" -propertytype DWord -value 4 New-ItemProperty HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Buck -name "SQLServerLicenseKey" -value "ABCD1234"   # Read them all $LicenseKey = Get-Item HKCU:\Software\Buck $Licenses = Get-ItemProperty $LicenseKey.PSPath foreach ($License in $LicenseKey.Property) { $License + "=" + $Licenses.$License }   Script Disclaimer, for people who need to be told this sort of thing: Never trust any script, including those that you find here, until you understand exactly what it does and how it will act on your systems. Always check the script on a test system or Virtual Machine, not a production system. Yes, there are always multiple ways to do things, and this script may not work in every situation, for everything. It’s just a script, people. All scripts on this site are performed by a professional stunt driver on a closed course. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Offer good for a limited time only. Keep out of reach of small children. Do not operate heavy machinery while using this script. If you experience blurry vision, indigestion or diarrhea during the operation of this script, see a physician immediately. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341  | Next Page >