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• New Themes New Benefits (WinForms)

  We believe that working hard on something can be great fun at the end when everything is done and the seeds have resulted in the sweetest fruits. This is the case with the new Theming Mechanism and the new Visual Style Builder which we introduced as of Q1 2010.   I am not going to dive into any details on the new concepts behind all this stuff, but will simply focus on the numbers: both in terms of loading speed and memory usage. As you may already know, the new approach we use to style our controls uses the so called Style Repository which stores style settings that can be reused throughout the whole theme. As a result, we have estimated that the size of our themes has been significantly reduced. For instance, the size of all XML files of the Desert theme sums up to 1.83 MB. The case with the new version of the Desert theme is drastically different. Despite the fact that the new theme consists of more XML files compared to the old, its size is only 707 KB!   Furthermore, we have performed a simple performance test since the common sense tells us that such a great improvement in terms of memory footprint should be followed by a great improvement in terms of speed. We have estimated that loading and applying the new Desert theme to a form containing all RadControls for WinForms takes roughly 30% less time compared to the same operation with the old version of the Desert theme. The following screenshots briefly demonstrate the scenario which we used to estimate the loading time difference between the old and the new Desert theme:     Here, the old Desert theme is applied to all controls on the Form which takes almost 1,3 seconds.     Applying the new Desert theme (based on the new Theming Mechanism) takes about 0,78 seconds.   On top of all these great improvements, we can add the fact that the new Visual Style Builder significantly reduces the time needed to style a control by entirely changing the approach compared to the old version of this tool. You can be sure that we have already prepared some great new stuff for Q1 2010 SP1 that will simplify things further so that designing themes with the new VSB will become more fun than ever!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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• New Themes New Benefits (WinForms)

  We believe that working hard on something can be great fun at the end when everything is done and the seeds have resulted in the sweetest fruits. This is the case with the new Theming Mechanism and the new Visual Style Builder which we introduced as of Q1 2010.   I am not going to dive into any details on the new concepts behind all this stuff, but will simply focus on the numbers: both in terms of loading speed and memory usage. As you may already know, the new approach we use to style our controls uses the so called Style Repository which stores style settings that can be reused throughout the whole theme. As a result, we have estimated that the size of our themes has been significantly reduced. For instance, the size of all XML files of the Desert theme sums up to 1.83 MB. The case with the new version of the Desert theme is drastically different. Despite the fact that the new theme consists of more XML files compared to the old, its size is only 707 KB!   Furthermore, we have performed a simple performance test since the common sense tells us that such a great improvement in terms of memory footprint should be followed by a great improvement in terms of speed. We have estimated that loading and applying the new Desert theme to a form containing all RadControls for WinForms takes roughly 30% less time compared to the same operation with the old version of the Desert theme. The following screenshots briefly demonstrate the scenario which we used to estimate the loading time difference between the old and the new Desert theme:     Here, the old Desert theme is applied to all controls on the Form which takes almost 1,3 seconds.     Applying the new Desert theme (based on the new Theming Mechanism) takes about 0,78 seconds.   On top of all these great improvements, we can add the fact that the new Visual Style Builder significantly reduces the time needed to style a control by entirely changing the approach compared to the old version of this tool. You can be sure that we have already prepared some great new stuff for Q1 2010 SP1 that will simplify things further so that designing themes with the new VSB will become more fun than ever!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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• Book Review: Inside Windows Communicat?ion Foundation by Justin Smith

  - by Sam Abraham

  In gearing up for a new major project, I have taken it upon myself to research and review various aspects of our Microsoft stack of choice seeking new creative ways for us to leverage in our upcoming state-of-the-art solution projected to position us ahead of the competition. While I am a big supporter of search engines and online articles as a quick and usually reliable source of information, I have opted in my investigative quest to actually “hit the books”.  I have also made it a habit to provide quick reviews for material I go over hoping this can be of help to someone who may be looking for items others may have had success using for reference. I have started a few months ago by investigating better ways to implementing, profiling and troubleshooting SQL Server 2008. My reference of choice was Itzik Ben-Gan et al’s “Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2008” series. While it has been a month since my last book review, this by no means meant that I have been sitting idle. It has been pretty challenging to balance research with the continuous flow of projects and deadlines all while balancing that with my family duties which, of course, always comes first. In this post, I will be providing a quick review of my latest reading: Inside Windows Communication Foundation by Justin Smith. This book has been on my reading list for a very long time and I am proud to have finally tackled it. Justin’s book presents a great coverage of WCF internals. His simple, concise and well-worded style has simplified the relatively complex internals of WCF and made it comprehensible. Justin opted to organize the book into three parts: an introduction to WCF, coverage of the Channel Layer and a look at WCF internals at the ServiceModel layer. Part I introduced the concepts and made the case behind WCF while covering a simplified version of WCF’s message patterns, endpoints and contracts. In Part II, Justin provided a thorough coverage of the internals of Messages, Channels and Channel Managers. Part III concluded this nice reading with coverage of Bindings, Contracts, Dispatchers and Clients. While one would not likely need to extend WCF at that low level of the API, an understanding of the inner-workings of WCF is a must to avoid pitfalls mainly caused by misinformation or erroneous assumptions. Problems can quickly arise in high-traffic hosted solutions, but most can be easily avoided with some minimal time investment and education. My next goal is to pay a closer look at WCF from the programmer’s API perspective now that I have acquired a better understanding of its inner working.   Many thanks to the O’Reilly User Group Program and its support of our West Palm Beach Developers’ Group.   Stay tuned for more… All the best, --Sam

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• Portal And Content - Content Integration - Best Practices

  - by Stefan Krantz

  Lately we have seen an increase in projects that have failed to either get user friendly content integration or non satisfactory performance. Our intention is to mitigate any knowledge gap that our previous post might have left you with, therefore this post will repeat some recommendation or reference back to old useful post. Moreover this post will help you understand ground up how to design, architect and implement business enabled, responsive and performing portals with complex requirements on business centric information publishing. Design the Information Model The key to successful portal deployments is Information modeling, it's a key task to understand the use case you designing for, therefore I have designed a set of question you need to ask yourself or your customer: Question: Who will own the content, IT or Business? Answer: BusinessQuestion: Who will publish the content, IT or Business? Answer: BusinessQuestion: Will there be multiple publishers? Answer: YesQuestion: Are the publishers computer scientist?Answer: NoQuestion: How often do the information changes, daily, weekly, monthly?Answer: Daily, weekly If your answers to the questions matches at least 2, we strongly recommend you design your content with following principles: Divide your pages in to logical sections, where each section is marked with its purpose Assign capabilities to each section, does it contain text, images, formatting and/or is it static and is populated through other contextual information Select editor/design element type WYSIWYG - Rich Text Plain Text - non-format text Image - Image object Static List - static list of formatted informationDynamic Data List - assembled information from multiple data files through CMIS query The result of such design map could look like following below examples: Based on the outcome of the required elements in the design column 3 from the left you will now simply design a data model in WebCenter Content - Site Studio by creating a Region Definition structure matching your design requirements.For more information on how to create a Region definition see following post: Region Definition Post - note see instruction 7 for details. Each region definition can now be used to instantiate data files, a data file will hold the actual data for each element in the region definition. Another way you can see this is to compare the region definition as an extension to the metadata model in WebCenter Content for each data file item. Design content templates With a solid dependable information model we can now proceed to template creation and page design, in this phase focuses on how to place the content sections from the region definition on the page via a Content Presenter template. Remember by creating content presenter templates you will leverage the latest and most integrated technology WebCenter has to offer. This phase is much easier since the you already have the information model and design wire-frames to base the logic on, however there is still few considerations to pay attention to: Base the template on ADF and make only necessary exceptions to markup when required Leverage ADF design components for Tabs, Accordions and other similar components, this way the design in the content published areas will comply with other design areas based on custom ADF taskflows There is no performance impact when using meta data or region definition based data All data access regardless of type, metadata or xml data it can be accessed via the Content Presenter - Node. See below for applied examples on how to access data Access metadata property from Document - #{node.propertyMap['myProp'].value}myProp in this example can be for instance (dDocName, dDocTitle, xComments or any other available metadata) Access element data from data file xml - #{node.propertyMap['[Region Definition Name]:[Element name]'].asTextHtml}Region Definition Name is the expect region definition that the current data file is instantiatingElement name is the element value you like to grab from the data file I recommend you read following  useful post on content template topic:CMIS queries and template creation - note see instruction 9 for detailsStatic List template rendering For more information on templates:Single Item Content TemplateMulti Item Content TemplateExpression Language Internationalization Considerations When integrating content assets via content presenter you by now probably understand that the content item/data file is wired to the page, what is also pretty common at this stage is that the content item/data file only support one language since its not practical or business friendly to mix that into a complex structure. Therefore you will be left with a very common dilemma that you will have to either build a complete new portal for each locale, which is not an good option! However with little bit of information modeling and clear naming convention this can be addressed. Basically you can simply make sure that all content item/data file are named with a predictable naming convention like "Content1_EN" for the English rendition and "Content1_ES" for the Spanish rendition. This way through simple none complex customizations you will be able to dynamically switch the actual content item/data file just before rendering. By following proposed approach above you not only enable a simple mechanism for internationalized content you also preserve the functionality in the content presenter to support business accessible run-time publishing of information on existing and new pages. I recommend you read following useful post on Internationalization topics:Internationalize with Content Presenter Integrate with Review & Approval processes Today the Review and approval functionality and configuration is based out of WebCenter Content - Criteria Workflows. Criteria Workflows uses the metadata of the checked in document to evaluate if the document is under any review/approval process. So for instance if a Criteria Workflow is configured to force any documents with Version = "2" or "higher" and Content Type is "Instructions", any matching content item version on check in will now enter the workflow before getting released for general access. Few things to consider when configuring Criteria Workflows: Make sure to not trigger on version one for Content Items that are Data Files - if you trigger on version 1 you will not only approve an empty document you will also have a content presenter pointing to a none existing document - since the document will only be available after successful completion of the workflow Approval workflows sometimes requires more complex criteria, the recommendation if that is the case is that the meta data triggering such criteria is automatically populated, this can be achieved through many approaches including Content Profiles Criteria workflows are configured and managed in WebCenter Content Administration Applets where you can configure one or more workflows. When you configured Criteria workflows the Content Presenter will support the editors with the approval process directly inline in the "Contribution mode" of the portal. In addition to approve/reject and details of the task, the content presenter natively support the user to view the current and future version of the change he/she is approving. See below for example: Architectural recommendation To support review&approval processes - minimize the amount of data files per page Each CMIS query can consume significant time depending on the complexity of the query - minimize the amount of CMIS queries per page Use Content Presenter Templates based on ADF - this way you minimize the design considerations and optimize the usage of caching Implement the page in as few Data files as possible - simplifies publishing process, increases performance and simplifies release process Named data file (node) or list of named nodes when integrating to pages increases performance vs. querying for data Named data file (node) or list of named nodes when integrating to pages enables business centric page creation and publishing and reduces the need for IT department interaction Summary Just because one architectural decision solves a business problem it doesn't mean its the right one, when designing portals all architecture has to be in harmony and not impacting each other. For instance the most technical complex solution is not always the best since it will most likely defeat the business accessibility, performance or both, therefore the best approach is to first design for simplicity that even a non-technical user can operate, after that consider the performance impact and final look at the technology challenges these brings and workaround them first with out-of-the-box features, after that design and develop functions to complement the short comings.

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• Silverlight Cream for May 04, 2010 -- #855

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: John Papa, Adam Kinney, Mike Taulty, Kirupa, Gunnar Peipman, Mike Snow(-2-, -3-), Jesse Liberty, and Lee. Shoutout: Jeff Wilcox announced Silverlight Unit Test Framework: New version in the April 2010 Silverlight Toolkit From SilverlightCream.com: Silverlight TV 23: MVP Q&A with WWW (Wildermuth, Wahlin and Ward) John Papa has Silverlight 23 up which is a panel discussion between Shawn Wildermuth, Dan Wahlin, Ward Bell and John... wow... what a crew! Design-time Resources in Expression Blend 4 RC Adam Kinney reports on the new feature of Expresseion Blend RC to load resources at design time. Adam also has a project available to demonstrate the concepts he's explaining. Silverlight and WCF RIA Services (1 - Overview) Mike Taulty is starting a series on WCF RIA Services. This first one is an overview and looks to be a good series as expected. Introduction to Sample Data - Page 1 Kirupa has a great 5-part post up about sample data in Expression Blend. Windows Phone 7 development: Using WebBrowser control Gunnar Peipman posted about using the web browser control in WP7 to display RSS data. Good stuff, and all the code too. Silverlight Tip of the Day #10 – Converting Client IP to Geographical Location Mike Snow's Tip #10 is about taking an IP address and getting a geographical location from it. Combine this with his Tip #9 that retrieves the IP address. Silverlight Tip of the Day #11 – Deploying Silverlight Applications with WCF web services. Mike Snow's Tip #11 is much bigger than most ... it's almost an end-to-end solution for creating and deploying a WCF service, including resolving problems. Silverlight Tip of the Day #12 – Getting an Images Source File Name Mike Snow also has tip #12 up, and it's a quick one on getting the original source file name for an image you've loaded. Screen Scraping – When All You Have Is A Hammer… Jesse Liberty posted his solution to a self-imposed problem and ended up writing a 'mini tutorial on using Silverlight for creating desk-top utilities' ... all with source. RIA services and combobox lookups Lee has a post up about RIA Services and setting up comboboxes for lookups. Lots of source in the post and full project download. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• User Group Meeting Summary - April 2010

  - by Michael Stephenson

  Thanks to everyone who could make it to what turned out to be an excellent SBUG event.  First some thanks to:  Speakers: Anthony Ross and Elton Stoneman Host: The various people at Hitachi who helped to organise and arrange the venue.   Session 1 - Getting up and running with Windows Mobile and the Windows Azure Service Bus In this session Anthony discussed some considerations for using Windows Mobile and the Windows Azure Service Bus from a real-world project which Hitachi have been working on with EasyJet.  Anthony also walked through a simplified demo of the concepts which applied on the project.   In addition to the slides and demo it was also very interesting to discuss with the guys involved on this project to hear about their real experiences developing with the Azure Service Bus and some of the limitations they have had to work around in Windows Mobiles ability to interact with the service bus.   On the back of this session we will look to do some further activities around this topic and the guys offered to share their wish list of features for both Windows Mobile and Windows Azure which we will look to share for user group discussion.   Another interesting point was the cost aspects of using the ISB which were very low.   Session 2 - The Enterprise Cache In the second session Elton used a few slides which are based around one of his customer scenario's where they are looking into the concept of an Enterprise Cache within the organisation.  Elton discusses this concept and also a codeplex project he is putting together which allows you to take advantage of a cache with various providers such as Memcached, AppFabric Caching and Ncache.   Following the presentation it was interesting to hear peoples thoughts on various aspects such as the enterprise cache versus an out of process application cache.  Also there was interesting discussion around how people would like to search the cache in the future.   We will again look to put together some follow-up activity on this   Meeting Summary Following the meeting all slide decks are saved in the skydrive location where we keep content from all meetings: http://cid-40015ea59a1307c8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public/SBUG/SBUG%20Meetings/2010%20April   Remember that the details of all previous events are on the following page. http://uksoabpm.org/Events.aspx   Competition We had three copies of the Windows Identity Foundation Patterns and Practices book that were raffles on the night, it would be great to hear any feedback on the book from those who won it.   Recording The user group meeting was recorded and we will look to make this available online sometime soon.   UG Business The following things were discussed as general UG topics:   We will change the name of the user group to the UK Connected Systems User Group to we are more inline with other user groups who cover similar topics and we believe this will help us to attract more members.  The content or focus of the user group is not expected to change.   The next meeting is 26th May and can be registered at the following link: http://sbugmay2010.eventbrite.com/

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• SQL SERVER – Find Referenced or Referencing Object in SQL Server using sys.sql_expression_dependencies

  - by pinaldave

  A very common question which I often receive are: How do I find all the tables used in a particular stored procedure? How do I know which stored procedures are using a particular table? Both are valid question but before we see the answer of this question – let us understand two small concepts – Referenced and Referencing. Here is the sample stored procedure. CREATE PROCEDURE mySP AS SELECT * FROM Sales.Customer GO Reference: The table Sales.Customer is the reference object as it is being referenced in the stored procedure mySP. Referencing: The stored procedure mySP is the referencing object as it is referencing Sales.Customer table. Now we know what is referencing and referenced object. Let us run following queries. I am using AdventureWorks2012 as a sample database. If you do not have SQL Server 2012 here is the way to get SQL Server 2012 AdventureWorks database. Find Referecing Objects of a particular object Here we are finding all the objects which are using table Customer in their object definitions (regardless of the schema). USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT referencing_schema_name = SCHEMA_NAME(o.SCHEMA_ID), referencing_object_name = o.name, referencing_object_type_desc = o.type_desc, referenced_schema_name, referenced_object_name = referenced_entity_name, referenced_object_type_desc = o1.type_desc, referenced_server_name, referenced_database_name --,sed.* -- Uncomment for all the columns FROM sys.sql_expression_dependencies sed INNER JOIN sys.objects o ON sed.referencing_id = o.[object_id] LEFT OUTER JOIN sys.objects o1 ON sed.referenced_id = o1.[object_id] WHERE referenced_entity_name = 'Customer' The above query will return all the objects which are referencing the table Customer. Find Referenced Objects of a particular object Here we are finding all the objects which are used in the view table vIndividualCustomer. USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT referencing_schema_name = SCHEMA_NAME(o.SCHEMA_ID), referencing_object_name = o.name, referencing_object_type_desc = o.type_desc, referenced_schema_name, referenced_object_name = referenced_entity_name, referenced_object_type_desc = o1.type_desc, referenced_server_name, referenced_database_name --,sed.* -- Uncomment for all the columns FROM sys.sql_expression_dependencies sed INNER JOIN sys.objects o ON sed.referencing_id = o.[object_id] LEFT OUTER JOIN sys.objects o1 ON sed.referenced_id = o1.[object_id] WHERE o.name = 'vIndividualCustomer' The above query will return all the objects which are referencing the table Customer. I am just glad to write above query. There are more to write to this subject. In future blog post I will write more in depth about other DMV which also aids in finding referenced data. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DMV, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL, Technology

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• Book review: Microsoft System Center Enterprise Suite Unleashed

  - by BuckWoody

  I know, I know – what’s a database guy doing reading a book on System Center? Well, I need it from time to time. System Center is actually a collection of about 7 different products that you can use to manage and monitor your software and hardware, from drive space through Microsoft Office, UNIX systems, and yes, SQL Server. It’s that last part I care about the most, and so I’ve dealt with Data Protection Manager and System Center Operations Manager (I call it SCOM) in SQL Server. But I wasn’t familiar with the rest of the suite nor was I as familiar as I needed to be with the “Essentials” release – a separate product that groups together the main features of System Center into a single offering for smaller organizations. These companies usually run with a smaller IT shop, so they sometimes opt for this product to help them monitor everything, including SQL Server. So I picked up “Microsoft System Center Enterprise Suite Unleashed” by Chris Amaris and a cast of others. I don’t normally like to get a technical book by multiple authors – I just find that most of the time it’s quite jarring to switch from author to author, but I think this group did pretty well here.  The first chapter on introducing System Center has helped me talk with others about what the product does, and which pieces fit well together with SQL Server. The writing is well done, and I didn’t find a jump from author to author as I went along. The information is sequential, meaning that they lead you from install to configuration and then use. It’s very much a concepts-and-how-to book, and a big one at that – over 950 pages of learning! It was a pretty quick read, though, since I skipped the installation parts and there are lots of screenshots. While I’m not sure you’d be an expert on the product when you finish reading this book, but I would say you’re more than halfway there. I would say it suits someone that learns through examples the best, since they have a lot of step-by-step examples I do recommend that you take a look if you have to interact with this product, or even if you are a smaller shop and you’re the primary IT resource. The last few chapters deal with System Center Essentials, and honestly it was the best part of the book for me. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• SQL SERVER – Public Training and Private Training – Differences and Similarities

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier this year, I was on Road SQL Server Seminars. I did many SQL Server Performance Trainings and SQL Server Performance Consultations throughout the year but I feel the most rewarding exercise is always the one when instructor learns something from students, too. I was just talking to my wife, Nupur – she manages my logistics and administration related activities – and she pointed out that this year I have done 62% consultations and 38% trainings. I was bit surprised as I thought the numbers would be reversed. Every time I review the year, I think of training done at organizations. Well, I cannot argue with reality, I have done more consultations (some would call them projects) than training. I told my wife that I enjoy consultations more than training. She promptly asked me a question which was not directly related but made me think for long time, and in the end resulted in this blog post. Nupur asked me: what do I enjoy the most, public training or private training? I had a long conversation with her on this subject. I am not going to write long blog post which can change your life here. This is rather a small post condensing my one hour discussion into 200 words. Public Training is fun because… There are lots of different kinds of attendees There are always vivid questions Lots of questions on questions Less interest in theory and more interest in demos Good opportunity of future business Private Training is fun because… There is a focused interest One question is discussed deeply because of existing company issues More interest in “how it happened” concepts – under the hood operations Good connection with attendees This is also a good opportunity of future business Here I will stop my monologue and I want to open up this question to all of you: Question to Attendees - Which one do you enjoy the most – Public Training or Private Training? Question to Trainers - What do you enjoy the most – Public Training or Private Training? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Optimization, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide – A Comprehensive Whitepaper – (454 pages – 9 MB)

  - by pinaldave

  Microsoft has just released SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide. This guide is very comprehensive and covers the subject of upgrade in-depth. This is indeed a helpful detailed white paper. Even writing a summary of this white paper would take over 100 pages. This further proves that SQL Server 2012 is quite an important release from Microsoft. This white paper discusses how to upgrade from SQL Server 2008/R2 to SQL Server 2012. I love how it starts with the most interesting and basic discussion of upgrade strategies: 1) In-place upgrades, 2) Side by side upgrade, 3) One-server, and 4) Two-server. This whitepaper is not just pure theory but is also an excellent source for some tips and tricks. Here is an example of a good tip from the paper: “If you want to upgrade just one database from a legacy instance of SQL Server and not upgrade the other databases on the server, use the side-by-side upgrade method instead of the in-place method.” There are so many trivia, tips and tricks that make creating the list seems humanly impossible given a short period of time. My friend Vinod Kumar, an SQL Server expert, wrote a very interesting article on SQL Server 2012 Upgrade before. In that article, Vinod addressed the most interesting and practical questions related to upgrades. He started with the fundamentals of how to start backup before upgrade and ended with fail-safe strategies after the upgrade is over. He covered end-to-end concepts in his blog posts in simple words in extremely precise statements. A successful upgrade uses a cycle of: planning, document process, testing, refine process, testing, planning upgrade window, execution, verifying of upgrade and opening for business. If you are at Vinod’s blog post, I suggest you go all the way down and collect the gold mine of most important links. I have bookmarked the blog by blogging about it and I suggest that you bookmark it as well with the way you prefer. Vinod Kumar’s blog post on SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide is a detailed resource that’s also available online for free. Each chapter was carefully crafted and explained in detail. Here is a quick list of the chapters included in the whitepaper. Before downloading the guide, beware of its size of 9 MB and 454 pages. Here’s the list of chapters: Chapter 1: Upgrade Planning and Deployment Chapter 2: Management Tools Chapter 3: Relational Databases Chapter 4: High Availability Chapter 5: Database Security Chapter 6: Full-Text Search Chapter 7: Service Broker Chapter 8: SQL Server Express Chapter 9: SQL Server Data Tools Chapter 10: Transact-SQL Queries Chapter 11: Spatial Data Chapter 12: XML and XQuery Chapter 13: CLR Chapter 14: SQL Server Management Objects Chapter 15: Business Intelligence Tools Chapter 16: Analysis Services Chapter 17: Integration Services Chapter 18: Reporting Services Chapter 19: Data Mining Chapter 20: Other Microsoft Applications and Platforms Appendix 1: Version and Edition Upgrade Paths Appendix 2: SQL Server 2012: Upgrade Planning Checklist Download SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide [454 pages and 9 MB] Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, DBA, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL White Papers, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• Looking into ASP.Net MVC 4.0 Mobile Development - part 2

  - by nikolaosk

  In this post I will be continuing my discussion on ASP.Net MVC 4.0 mobile development. You can have a look at my first post on the subject here . Make sure you read it and understand it well before you move one reading the remaining of this post. I will not be writing any code in this post. I will try to explain a few concepts related to the MVC 4.0 mobile functionality. In this post I will be looking into the Browser Overriding feature in ASP.Net MVC 4.0. By that I mean that we override the user agent for a given user session. This is very useful feature for people who visit a site through a device and they experience the mobile version of the site, but what they really want is the option to be able to switch to the desktop view. "Why they might want to do that?", you might wonder.Well first of all the users of our ASP.Net MVC 4.0 application will appreciate that they have the option to switch views while some others will think that they will enjoy more the contents of our website with the "desktop view" since the mobile device they view our site has a quite large display.  Obviously this is only one site. These are just different views that are rendered.To put it simply, browser overriding lets our application treat requests as if they were coming from a different browser rather than the one they are actually from. In order to do that programmatically we must have a look at the System.Web.WebPages namespace and the classes in it. Most specifically the class BrowserHelpers. Have a look at the picture below   In this class we see some extension methods for HttpContext class.These methods are called extensions-helpers methods and we use them to switch to one browser from another thus overriding the current/actual browser. These APIs have effect on layout,views and partial views and will not affect any other ASP.Net Request.Browser related functionality.The overridden browser is stored in a cookie. Let me explain what some of these methods do. SetOverriddenBrowser() -  let us set the user agent string to specific value GetOverriddenBrowser() -  let us get the overridden value ClearOverriddenBrowser() -  let us remove any overridden user agent for the current request   To recap, in our ASP.Net MVC 4.0 applications when our application is viewed in our mobile devices, we can have a link like "Desktop View" for all those who desperately want to see the site with in full desktop-browser version.We then can specify a browser type override. My controller class (snippet of code) that is responsible for handling the switching could be something like that. public class SwitchViewController : Controller{ public RedirectResult SwitchView(bool mobile, string returnUrl){if (Request.Browser.IsMobileDevice == mobile)HttpContext.ClearOverriddenBrowser();elseHttpContext.SetOverriddenBrowser(mobile ? BrowserOverride.Mobile : BrowserOverride.Desktop);return Redirect(returnUrl);}} Hope it helps!!!!

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• Introduction to Lean Software Development and Kanban Systems

  - by Ben Griswold

  Last year I took myself through a crash course on Lean Software Development and Kanban Systems in preparation for an in-house presentation.  I learned a bunch.  In this series, I’ll be sharing what I learned with you.   If your career looks anything like mine, you have probably been affiliated with a company or two which pushed requirements gathering and documentation to the nth degree. To add insult to injury, they probably added planning process (documentation, requirements, policies, meetings, committees) to the extent that it possibly retarded any progress. In my opinion, the typical company resembles the quote from Tom DeMarco. It isn’t enough just to do things right – we also had to say in advance exactly what we intended to do and then do exactly that. In the 1980s, Toyota turned the tables and revolutionize the automobile industry with their approach of “Lean Manufacturing.” A massive paradigm shift hit factories throughout the US and Europe. Mass production and scientific management techniques from the early 1900’s were questioned as Japanese manufacturing companies demonstrated that ‘Just-in-Time’ was a better paradigm. The widely adopted Japanese manufacturing concepts came to be known as ‘lean production’. Lean Thinking capitalizes on the intelligence of frontline workers, believing that they are the ones who should determine and continually improve the way they do their jobs. Lean puts main focus on people and communication – if people who produce the software are respected and they communicate efficiently, it is more likely that they will deliver good product and the final customer will be satisfied. In time, the abstractions behind lean production spread to logistics, and from there to the military, to construction, and to the service industry. As it turns out, principles of lean thinking are universal and have been applied successfully across many disciplines. Lean has been adopted by companies including Dell, FedEx, Lens Crafters, LLBean, SW Airlines, Digital River and eBay. Lean thinking got its name from a 1990’s best seller called The Machine That Changed the World : The Story of Lean Production. This book chronicles the movement of automobile manufacturing from craft production to mass production to lean production. Tom and Mary Poppendieck, that is.  Here’s one of their books: Implementing Lean Software Thinking: From Concept to Cash Our in-house presentations are supposed to run no more than 45 minutes.  I really cranked and got through my 87 slides in just under an hour. Of course, I had to cheat a little – I only covered the 7 principles and a single practice. In the next part of the series, we’ll dive into Principle #1: Eliminate Waste. And I am going to be a little obnoxious about listing my Lean and Kanban references with every series post.  The references are great and they deserve this sort of attention. 

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• How to become a solid python web developer [closed]

  - by Estarius

  Possible Duplicate: How do I learn Python from zero to web development? I have started Python recently with the goal to become a solid developer to make a web application eventually. However, as time goes by I am wondering if I am being optimal about how I will achieve my goal. I would compare it to a game for example, to be better you must spend time playing and trying new things... However, if you just log in and sit in the lobby chatting you are most likely not progressing. So far, this is my plan (feel free to comment or judge it): Review basic programmation concepts Start coding slowly in Python Once comfortable in Python, learn about web development in Python Learn about those things we heard about: SQLAlchemy, MVC, TDD, Git, Agile (Group project) To achieve these things, I started the Learn python the hard way exercises, which I am doing at the rate of 5 per days. I also started to read Think Python at the same time and planning to move on with Dive into python. As far as my research goes, these documentations along with Python documentation is usually what is the most recommended to learn Python. I consider this to get my point 1 and 2 done. While learning Python is really great, my goal remains to do quality web development. I know there are books about Django etc. however I would like to become comfortable with any Python web development. This means without Framework and with Framework... Any framework, then be able to choose the one which best fits our needs. For this I would like to know if some people have suggestions. Should I just get a book on Django and it should apply to everything ? What would be the best method to go from Python to Web Python and not end up creating crappy code which would turn into nightmares for other programmers ? Then finally, those "things we hear about". While I understand what they all do basically, I am fairly sure that like everything, there are good and wrong ways of making use of them. Should I go through at least a whole book on each before starting to use them or keep it at their respective online documentation ? Are there some kind of documentation which links their use to Python ? Also, from looking at Django and Pyramid they seems to use something else than MVC, while the Django model looks similar, the Pyramid one seems to cut a whole part of it... Is learning MVC still worth it ? Sorry for the wall of text, Thanks in advance !

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• Inside Red Gate - Ricky Leeks

  - by Simon Cooper

  So, one of our profilers has a problem. Red Gate produces two .NET profilers - ANTS Performance Profiler (APP) and ANTS Memory Profiler (AMP). Both products help .NET developers solve problems they are virtually guaranteed to encounter at some point in their careers - slow code, and high memory usage, respectively. Everyone understands slow code - the symptoms are very obvious (an operation takes 2 hours when it should take 10 seconds), you know when you've solved it (the same operation now takes 15 seconds), and everyone understands how you can use a profiler like APP to help solve your particular problem. High memory usage is a much more subtle and misunderstood concept. How can .NET have memory leaks? The garbage collector, and how the CLR uses and frees memory, is one of the most misunderstood concepts in .NET. There's hundreds of blog posts out there covering various aspects of the GC and .NET memory, some of them helpful, some of them confusing, and some of them are just plain wrong. There's a lot of misconceptions out there. And, if you have got an application that uses far too much memory, it can be hard to wade through all the contradictory information available to even get an idea as to what's going on, let alone trying to solve it. That's where a memory profiler, like AMP, comes into play. Unfortunately, that's not the end of the issue. .NET memory management is a large, complicated, and misunderstood problem. Even armed with a profiler, you need to understand what .NET is doing with your objects, how it processes them, and how it frees them, to be able to use the profiler effectively to solve your particular problem. And that's what's wrong with AMP - even with all the thought, designs, UX sessions, and research we've put into AMP itself, some users simply don't have the knowledge required to be able to understand what AMP is telling them about how their application uses memory, and so they have problems understanding & solving their memory problem. Ricky Leeks This is where Ricky Leeks comes in. Created by one of the many...colourful...people in Red Gate, he headlines and promotes several tutorials, pages, and articles all with information on how .NET memory management actually works, with the goal to help educate developers on .NET memory management. And educating us all on how far you can push various vegetable-based puns. This, in turn, not only helps them understand and solve any memory issues they may be having, but helps them proactively code against such memory issues in their existing code. Ricky's latest outing is an interview on .NET Rocks, providing information on the Top 5 .NET Memory Management Gotchas, along with information on a free ebook on .NET Memory Management. Don't worry, there's loads more vegetable-based jokes where those came from...

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• C#: LINQ vs foreach - Round 1.

  - by James Michael Hare

  So I was reading Peter Kellner's blog entry on Resharper 5.0 and its LINQ refactoring and thought that was very cool.  But that raised a point I had always been curious about in my head -- which is a better choice: manual foreach loops or LINQ?    The answer is not really clear-cut.  There are two sides to any code cost arguments: performance and maintainability.  The first of these is obvious and quantifiable.  Given any two pieces of code that perform the same function, you can run them side-by-side and see which piece of code performs better.   Unfortunately, this is not always a good measure.  Well written assembly language outperforms well written C++ code, but you lose a lot in maintainability which creates a big techncial debt load that is hard to offset as the application ages.  In contrast, higher level constructs make the code more brief and easier to understand, hence reducing technical cost.   Now, obviously in this case we're not talking two separate languages, we're comparing doing something manually in the language versus using a higher-order set of IEnumerable extensions that are in the System.Linq library.   Well, before we discuss any further, let's look at some sample code and the numbers.  First, let's take a look at the for loop and the LINQ expression.  This is just a simple find comparison:       // find implemented via LINQ     public static bool FindViaLinq(IEnumerable<int> list, int target)     {         return list.Any(item => item == target);     }         // find implemented via standard iteration     public static bool FindViaIteration(IEnumerable<int> list, int target)     {         foreach (var i in list)         {             if (i == target)             {                 return true;             }         }           return false;     }   Okay, looking at this from a maintainability point of view, the Linq expression is definitely more concise (8 lines down to 1) and is very readable in intention.  You don't have to actually analyze the behavior of the loop to determine what it's doing.   So let's take a look at performance metrics from 100,000 iterations of these methods on a List<int> of varying sizes filled with random data.  For this test, we fill a target array with 100,000 random integers and then run the exact same pseudo-random targets through both searches.                       List<T> On 100,000 Iterations     Method      Size     Total (ms)  Per Iteration (ms)  % Slower     Any         10       26          0.00046             30.00%     Iteration   10       20          0.00023             -     Any         100      116         0.00201             18.37%     Iteration   100      98          0.00118             -     Any         1000     1058        0.01853             16.78%     Iteration   1000     906         0.01155             -     Any         10,000   10,383      0.18189             17.41%     Iteration   10,000   8843        0.11362             -     Any         100,000  104,004     1.8297              18.27%     Iteration   100,000  87,941      1.13163             -   The LINQ expression is running about 17% slower for average size collections and worse for smaller collections.  Presumably, this is due to the overhead of the state machine used to track the iterators for the yield returns in the LINQ expressions, which seems about right in a tight loop such as this.   So what about other LINQ expressions?  After all, Any() is one of the more trivial ones.  I decided to try the TakeWhile() algorithm using a Count() to get the position stopped like the sample Pete was using in his blog that Resharper refactored for him into LINQ:       // Linq form     public static int GetTargetPosition1(IEnumerable<int> list, int target)     {         return list.TakeWhile(item => item != target).Count();     }       // traditionally iterative form     public static int GetTargetPosition2(IEnumerable<int> list, int target)     {         int count = 0;           foreach (var i in list)         {             if(i == target)             {                 break;             }               ++count;         }           return count;     }   Once again, the LINQ expression is much shorter, easier to read, and should be easier to maintain over time, reducing the cost of technical debt.  So I ran these through the same test data:                       List<T> On 100,000 Iterations     Method      Size     Total (ms)  Per Iteration (ms)  % Slower     TakeWhile   10       41          0.00041             128%     Iteration   10       18          0.00018             -     TakeWhile   100      171         0.00171             88%     Iteration   100      91          0.00091             -     TakeWhile   1000     1604        0.01604             94%     Iteration   1000     825         0.00825             -     TakeWhile   10,000   15765       0.15765             92%     Iteration   10,000   8204        0.08204             -     TakeWhile   100,000  156950      1.5695              92%     Iteration   100,000  81635       0.81635             -     Wow!  I expected some overhead due to the state machines iterators produce, but 90% slower?  That seems a little heavy to me.  So then I thought, well, what if TakeWhile() is not the right tool for the job?  The problem is TakeWhile returns each item for processing using yield return, whereas our for-loop really doesn't care about the item beyond using it as a stop condition to evaluate. So what if that back and forth with the iterator state machine is the problem?  Well, we can quickly create an (albeit ugly) lambda that uses the Any() along with a count in a closure (if a LINQ guru knows a better way PLEASE let me know!), after all , this is more consistent with what we're trying to do, we're trying to find the first occurence of an item and halt once we find it, we just happen to be counting on the way.  This mostly matches Any().       // a new method that uses linq but evaluates the count in a closure.     public static int TakeWhileViaLinq2(IEnumerable<int> list, int target)     {         int count = 0;         list.Any(item =>             {                 if(item == target)                 {                     return true;                 }                   ++count;                 return false;             });         return count;     }     Now how does this one compare?                         List<T> On 100,000 Iterations     Method         Size     Total (ms)  Per Iteration (ms)  % Slower     TakeWhile      10       41          0.00041             128%     Any w/Closure  10       23          0.00023             28%     Iteration      10       18          0.00018             -     TakeWhile      100      171         0.00171             88%     Any w/Closure  100      116         0.00116             27%     Iteration      100      91          0.00091             -     TakeWhile      1000     1604        0.01604             94%     Any w/Closure  1000     1101        0.01101             33%     Iteration      1000     825         0.00825             -     TakeWhile      10,000   15765       0.15765             92%     Any w/Closure  10,000   10802       0.10802             32%     Iteration      10,000   8204        0.08204             -     TakeWhile      100,000  156950      1.5695              92%     Any w/Closure  100,000  108378      1.08378             33%     Iteration      100,000  81635       0.81635             -     Much better!  It seems that the overhead of TakeAny() returning each item and updating the state in the state machine is drastically reduced by using Any() since Any() iterates forward until it finds the value we're looking for -- for the task we're attempting to do.   So the lesson there is, make sure when you use a LINQ expression you're choosing the best expression for the job, because if you're doing more work than you really need, you'll have a slower algorithm.  But this is true of any choice of algorithm or collection in general.     Even with the Any() with the count in the closure it is still about 30% slower, but let's consider that angle carefully.  For a list of 100,000 items, it was the difference between 1.01 ms and 0.82 ms roughly in a List<T>.  That's really not that bad at all in the grand scheme of things.  Even running at 90% slower with TakeWhile(), for the vast majority of my projects, an extra millisecond to save potential errors in the long term and improve maintainability is a small price to pay.  And if your typical list is 1000 items or less we're talking only microseconds worth of difference.   It's like they say: 90% of your performance bottlenecks are in 2% of your code, so over-optimizing almost never pays off.  So personally, I'll take the LINQ expression wherever I can because they will be easier to read and maintain (thus reducing technical debt) and I can rely on Microsoft's development to have coded and unit tested those algorithm fully for me instead of relying on a developer to code the loop logic correctly.   If something's 90% slower, yes, it's worth keeping in mind, but it's really not until you start get magnitudes-of-order slower (10x, 100x, 1000x) that alarm bells should really go off.  And if I ever do need that last millisecond of performance?  Well then I'll optimize JUST THAT problem spot.  To me it's worth it for the readability, speed-to-market, and maintainability.

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• Personal Development : Time, Planning , Repairs & Maintenance

  - by Rajesh Pillai

  Personal Development : Time, Planning, Repairs & Maintenance These are just my thoughts, but some you may find something interesting in it. Please think over it. We may know many things, but still we always keeps procrastinating it. I have written this as I have heard many people coming back and saying they don’t have time to do things they like. These are my thoughts buy may be useful to someone else too. Certain things in life needs periodic repairs and maintenance. To cite some examples , your CAR, your HOUSE, your personal laptop/desktop, your health etc. Likewise there are certain other things in professional life that requires repair/ maintenance /or some kind of polishing, so that you always stay on top of it. But they are not always obvious. Some of them are - Improving your communication skills - Increasing your vocabulary - Upgrading your technical skills - Pursuing your hobby - Increasing your knowledge/awareness etc… etc… And then there are certain things that we are always short of…. one is TIME. We all know TIME is one of the most precious things in life and yet we all are very miserable at managing it. Remember you can only manage it and not control it. You can only control which you own or which you create. In theory time is infinite. So, there should be abundant of it. But remember one thing, you know this, it’s not reversible. Once it has elapsed you cannot live it again. Think over it. So, how do find that golden 25th hour every day. To find the 25th hour you need to reflect back on your current daily activities. Analyze them and see where you are spending most of your time and is it really important. Even the 8 hours that you spent in the office, is it spent fruitfully. At the end of the day is the 8 precious hour that you spent was worth it. Just reflect back on your activities. Did you learn something? If yes did you make a point to NOTE IT. If you didn’t NOTED it then was the time you spent really worth it. Just ponder over it. Some calculations of your daily activities where most of the time is spent. Let’s start (in no particular order though) - Sleep (6.5 hours) [Remember you only require 6 good hours of sleep every day]. Some may thing it is 8, but it’s a myth.   o To achive 6 hours of sleep and be in good health you can practice 15 minutes of daily meditation. So effectively you can    round it to 6.5 hours. - Morning chores(2 hours) : Some may need to prepare breakfast and all other things. - Office commuting (avg. to and fro 3 hours) - Office Work (avg 9.5 hours) Total Hours: 21 hours effective time which is spent irrespective of what you do. There may be some variations here and there. Still you have 3 hours EXTRA. Where do these 3 hours go? If you can find it, then you may get that golden 25th hour out of these 3 hours. Let’s discount 2 hours for contingencies, still you have 1 hour with you. If you can’t find it then you are living a direction less life. As you can see, the 25th Hour lies within the 24 hours of the day. It’s upto each one of us to find and make use of it. Now what can you do with that 25th hour i.e. 1 hour extra of your life. Imagine the possibility. Again some calculations 1 hour daily * 30 days = 30 hours every month 30 hours pm * 12 month = 360 hours every year. 360 hours every year seems very promising. Let’s add some contingencies, say, let’s be optimistic and say 50 % contingency. Still you have 180 hours every year. That leaves with 30 minutes every day of extra time. That’s hell a lot of time, if you could manage it. These may sound like a high talk [yes, it is, unless you apply these simple rules and rationalize your everyday living and stop procrastinating]. NOTE: I haven’t taken weekend, holidays and leaves into account. So, that leaves us with a lot of buffer time. You can meet family friends, relatives, other tasks, and yet have these 180 pure hours of joy every year. Do whatever you want to do with it. So, how important is this 180 hours per year to you? Just think over it. You may use it the way you like - 50 hours [pursue your hobby like drawing, crafting, learn dance, learn juggling, learn swimming, travelling hmm.. anything you like doing and you didn’t had time to do it.] - 30 hours you can learn a new programming language or technology (i.e. you can get comfortable with it) - 50 hours [improve existing skills] - 20 hours [improve you communication skill]. Do some light reading. - 30 hours [YOU DECIDE WHAT TO DO]? So, if you had done this for one year you would have learnt a new programming language, upgraded existing skills, improved you communication etc.. If you had done this for two years.. imagine the level of personal development or growth which you may have attained….. If you had done this for three years….. NOW I think I don’t need to mention this… So, you still have TIME, as they say TIME is infinite. So, make judicious use of this precious thing. And never ever comeback saying “I don’t have time”. So, if you are RICH in TIME, everything else will be automatically taken care of, as those things may just be a byproduct of how you spend your time… So, happy TIMING your TIME everyday.

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• SQLAuthority News – Weekend Experiment with NuoDB – Points to Pondor and Whitepaper

  - by pinaldave

  This weekend I have downloaded the latest beta version of NuoDB. I found it much improved and better UI. I was very much impressed as the installation was very smooth and I was up and running in less than 5 minutes with the product. The tools which are related to the Administration of the NuoDB seems to get makeover during this beta release. As per the claim they support now Solaris platform and have improved the native MacOS installation. I neither have Mac nor Solaris – I wish I would have experimented with the same. I will appreciate if anyone out there can confirm how the installations goes on these platforms. I have previously blogged about my experiment with NuoDB here: SQL SERVER – Weekend Project – Experimenting with ACID Transactions, SQL Compliant, Elastically Scalable Database SQL SERVER – Beginning NuoDB – Who will Benefit and How to Start SQL SERVER – Follow up on Beginning NuoDB – Who will Benefit and How to Start – Part 2 I am very impressed with the product so far and I have decided to understand the product further deep. Here are few of the questions which I am going to try to find answers with regards to NuoDB. Just so it is clear – NuoDB is not NOSQL, matter of the fact, it is following all the ACID properties of the database. If ACID properties are crucial why many NoSQL products are not adhering to it? (There are few out there do follow ACID but not all). I do understand the scalability of the database however does elasticity is crucial for the database and if yes how? (Elasticity is where the workload on the database is heavily fluctuating and the need of more than a single database server is coming up). How NuoDB has built scalable, elastic and 100% ACID compliance database which supports multiple platforms? How is NOSQL compared to NuoDB’s new architecture? In the next coming weeks, I am going to explore above concepts and dive deeper into the understanding of the same. Meanwhile I have read following white paper written by Experts at University of California at Santa Barbara. Very interesting read and great starter on the subject Database Scalability, Elasticity, and Autonomy in the Cloud. Additionally, my questions are also talking about NoSQL, this weekend I have started to learn about NoSQL from Pluralsight‘s online learning library. I will share my experience very soon. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL White Papers, T SQL, Technology Tagged: NuoDB

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• Freshen the RTS genre

  - by William Michael Thorley

  This isn't really a question, but a request for feedback. RPS (Rock, Paper, Scissors) RTS (Real Time Strategy) Demo version is out: The game is simple. It is an RTS. Why has it been made? Many if not most RTS’s are about economy and large numbers of unit types. The genre hasn’t actually developed the gameplay drastically from the very first RTS’s produced, some lesson have been learned, but the games are really very similar to how they have always been. RPS brings new gameplay to the RTS genre. Through three means: • New combat mechanics: RPS has two unique modes (as well as the old favourite) of resolving weapon fire. These change how combat happens, and make application of the correct units vital to success. From this comes the requirement to run Intel on your enemies. • Fixed Resource Economy: Each player has a fixed amount of energy, This means that there is a definite end to the game. You can attrition your enemy and try to outlast them, or try to outspend your opponent and destroy them. There is a limit to how fast ships can be built, through the generation of construction blocks, but energy is the fast limit on economy. • Game Modes: Game modes add victory conditions and new game pieces. The game is overseen by a controller which literally runs the game. Games are no longer line them up, gun them down. This means that new tactics must be played making skirmish games fresh with novel tactics without adding huge amounts of new game units to learn. I’ve produced RPS from the ground. I will be running a kickstarter in the near future, but right now I want feedback and input from the game developing community. Regarding the concepts, where RPS is going, the game modes, the combat mechanics. How it plays. RPS will give fresh gameplay to the genre so it must be right. It works over the internet or a LAN and supports single player games. Get it. Play it. Tell me about your games. Thank you Demo: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/51850113/RPS%20Playtest.zip Tutorials: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/51850113/RPSGamePlay.zip

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• BigData and Customer Experience: Happy Together

  - by Isabel F. Peñuelas

  The two big buzzes of the year may lay closer than it appears. Both concepts intersect at various points: BigData and Return of Investment of Marketing Campaigns On a recent post Big Data Is The Future Of Marketing Jeff Dachis explains very clearly how “Big data analytics finally allows marketers to identify, measure, and manage what is positively impacting their Brand”. Regression analysis applied to big data volumes coming from social media will substitute the failed attempts to justify marketing investments on social media in terms of followers and likes, he continues, “the measurement models applied by marketers on TV Campaigns don´t work on social”, we need to study the data with fresh eyes and maybe then we will start understanding and measuring brand engagemet. Social CRM and BigData The real value of Social CRM start by analyzing mass of big data from social media in order of applying social intelligence techniques that allow us to classify new customer niches and communities and define appropriated strategies to contact potential customers. Gartner Says that the Market for Social CRM is on pace to surpass $1 Billion in Revenue by Year-End 2012 but in words of Zach Hofer-Shall, Analyst at Forrester Research “Social customer relationship management is hard” (The Social CRM Arms Race Heats ). To succeed brands need three things: Investing in new social tools, investing in consultancy and investing in infrastructure for massive data storage and analysis. Neither CeX or BigData are easy and cheap wins. But what are the customer benefits of such investments? Big Data and Brand Engagement Time is the most valuable asset of todays consumers: tired of information overload, exhausted by the terabytes of offering, anxious because of not having the same fast multichannel experience with their services’ marketers or preferred goods providers than the one they found on their social media. Yes, I know you have read this before- me too. But is real. The motto of the Customer Experience philosophy of providing a consistent experience through multiple touchpoints that makes the relationship customer/brand easier and valuable finds it basis on understanding customer/s preferences and context for which BigData analysis is another imperative. In summary, I believe that using BigData Analysis in combination with appropriated CeX strategies and technologies is a promising direction for achieving: efficiency and marketing cost-savings; growing the customer base; and increasing customer conversion and retention. In a world: The Direction of Future Marketing.

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• Big Data Matters with ODI12c

  - by Madhu Nair

  contributed by Mike Eisterer On October 17th, 2013, Oracle announced the release of Oracle Data Integrator 12c (ODI12c).  This release signifies improvements to Oracle’s Data Integration portfolio of solutions, particularly Big Data integration. Why Big Data = Big Business Organizations are gaining greater insights and actionability through increased storage, processing and analytical benefits offered by Big Data solutions.  New technologies and frameworks like HDFS, NoSQL, Hive and MapReduce support these benefits now. As further data is collected, analytical requirements increase and the complexity of managing transformations and aggregations of data compounds and organizations are in need for scalable Data Integration solutions. ODI12c provides enterprise solutions for the movement, translation and transformation of information and data heterogeneously and in Big Data Environments through: The ability for existing ODI and SQL developers to leverage new Big Data technologies. A metadata focused approach for cataloging, defining and reusing Big Data technologies, mappings and process executions. Integration between many heterogeneous environments and technologies such as HDFS and Hive. Generation of Hive Query Language. Working with Big Data using Knowledge Modules  ODI12c provides developers with the ability to define sources and targets and visually develop mappings to effect the movement and transformation of data.  As the mappings are created, ODI12c leverages a rich library of prebuilt integrations, known as Knowledge Modules (KMs).  These KMs are contextual to the technologies and platforms to be integrated.  Steps and actions needed to manage the data integration are pre-built and configured within the KMs.  The Oracle Data Integrator Application Adapter for Hadoop provides a series of KMs, specifically designed to integrate with Big Data Technologies.  The Big Data KMs include: Check Knowledge Module Reverse Engineer Knowledge Module Hive Transform Knowledge Module Hive Control Append Knowledge Module File to Hive (LOAD DATA) Knowledge Module File-Hive to Oracle (OLH-OSCH) Knowledge Module  Nothing to beat an Example: To demonstrate the use of the KMs which are part of the ODI Application Adapter for Hadoop, a mapping may be defined to move data between files and Hive targets.  The mapping is defined by dragging the source and target into the mapping, performing the attribute (column) mapping (see Figure 1) and then selecting the KM which will govern the process.  In this mapping example, movie data is being moved from an HDFS source into a Hive table.  Some of the attributes, such as “CUSTID to custid”, have been mapped over. Figure 1  Defining the Mapping Before the proper KM can be assigned to define the technology for the mapping, it needs to be added to the ODI project.  The Big Data KMs have been made available to the project through the KM import process.   Generally, this is done prior to defining the mapping. Figure 2  Importing the Big Data Knowledge Modules Following the import, the KMs are available in the Designer Navigator. v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US ZH-TW X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Figure 3  The Project View in Designer, Showing Installed IKMs Once the KM is imported, it may be assigned to the mapping target.  This is done by selecting the Physical View of the mapping and examining the Properties of the Target.  In this case MOVIAPP_LOG_STAGE is the target of our mapping. Figure 4  Physical View of the Mapping and Assigning the Big Data Knowledge Module to the Target Alternative KMs may have been selected as well, providing flexibility and abstracting the logical mapping from the physical implementation.  Our mapping may be applied to other technologies as well. The mapping is now complete and is ready to run.  We will see more in a future blog about running a mapping to load Hive. To complete the quick ODI for Big Data Overview, let us take a closer look at what the IKM File to Hive is doing for us.  ODI provides differentiated capabilities by defining the process and steps which normally would have to be manually developed, tested and implemented into the KM.  As shown in figure 5, the KM is preparing the Hive session, managing the Hive tables, performing the initial load from HDFS and then performing the insert into Hive.  HDFS and Hive options are selected graphically, as shown in the properties in Figure 4. Figure 5  Process and Steps Managed by the KM What’s Next Big Data being the shape shifting business challenge it is is fast evolving into the deciding factor between market leaders and others. Now that an introduction to ODI and Big Data has been provided, look for additional blogs coming soon using the Knowledge Modules which make up the Oracle Data Integrator Application Adapter for Hadoop: Importing Big Data Metadata into ODI, Testing Data Stores and Loading Hive Targets Generating Transformations using Hive Query language Loading Oracle from Hadoop Sources For more information now, please visit the Oracle Data Integrator Application Adapter for Hadoop web site, http://www.oracle.com/us/products/middleware/data-integration/hadoop/overview/index.html Do not forget to tune in to the ODI12c Executive Launch webcast on the 12th to hear more about ODI12c and GG12c. Normal 0 false false false EN-US ZH-TW X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";}

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• Exciting product releases (and one disappointing thing) with Mix10

  - by Jeff

  Sadly, I'm not at Mix this year, for the first time in a few years. It's a little harder to go if you work for Microsoft, oddly enough. And then there's this little guy next to me, who at ten days old really needs his daddy to be around! But oh, the excitement of what Microsoft has in store! It's great to finally see all of these major releases coming together for Microsoft developer products. There is a great deal of excitement among people internally no matter where you work, because there is so much cool stuff in the pipe. In case you live under a rock...Visual Studio 2010 - Great to see all of the positive feedback on the Twitter and what not. I've been using it on one of my home products for awhile, and I really like it. The newer nightly builds of ReSharper also seem to be gaining speed in quality as well. I like the new debugging features, and the text readability is not imagined. Love it.Silverlight 4 - I've been running a couple of minor SL3 apps on my personal sites for awhile now, and I'm thrilled with the platform. With a couple of key concepts down, .NET folk like you and me can do some stellar things with this, and if you're a Mac nerd (like me), it's all kinds of awesome to be able to build stuff for it without the agony of Objective-C and X Code.Windows Phone 7 Series - A few weeks ago you got to see the shiny new UI that went beyond the icon grid, and now you've got the developer story as well. That I can adapt my existing Silverlight apps with minimal effort to work on the phone is pretty powerful. Millions of .NET devs just because phone developers, using the tools they already know. How great is that?ASP.NET MVC2 - The final bits shipped last week, and there was much rejoicing. I love this framework because of the testability and the real ability to get to the true mechanics of HTTP. The other cool thing is the speed at which the framework has evolved. v2 in less than a year is pretty "un-Microsoft" in a lot of eyes.The video of keynotes and sessions is starting to appear on the Mix site, but for reasons I can't understand, they're WMV downloads. For real? Not that helpful for Mac folk. Why wouldn't they be using a Silverlight player?In any case, the thing that continues to motivate me is that getting what you imagine on to the Internet gets easier every year. This is not a new revelation for me. I've only been at Microsoft for four months, but I've felt this way for years. I'm thrilled to be a part of it.

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• Mexico leading in Business Transformation Strategies:

  - by [email protected]

  By John Burke Group Vice President Oracle Applications Business Unit     I recently completed a business tour in Mexico, and was surprised by both the economic vibrancy of the country and the thought leadership expressed by many of the customers I met.  An example of the economic vibrancy of the country: across the street from my hotel was the local Bentley dealership, Coach Store, Yves Saint Laurent and of course a Starbucks.  I only made it to Starbucks.  Both the Coach Store and YSL had a line of folks waiting to get in... As for thought leadership, there were several illustrations only on the first day. I had the opportunity to meet with a branch of the Mexican Federal Government. Their questions were not about clerical task automation, far from it! We discussed citizen on-line access to fees and services - for example looking up the duty on an international goods shipment, or tracking that my taxes have been received, or the status of my request for a certain service.  Eligibility, policies and status.  Having an integrated rules or policy automation system that would allow businesses and citizens to access accurate information and ensure the proper collection of fees and payment for 3rd party provided services.    Then in the afternoon, I met with the owner of a roofing company (note: most roofs in Mexico are flat and made of cement).  This CEO started discussing how he wanted to transform his business from a cement products company to a service company and market 5-10-15 year service contracts which would guarantee the structural integrity of the roof and of course that the roof would remain waterproof.  Although his products were guaranteed, they required an annual inspection and most home owners never schedule that inspection until it is too late and water damage has occurred.  These emergency calls reduce his margin and reduce customer satisfaction.  This lead to a discussion of business models in general and why long term differentiation can only come from service, not just for the music or news industries, but also for roofing companies!    I completely agreed with the transformational concepts described in both meetings and quickly understood why there is a Bentley dealership near my hotel.    

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• Array Multiplication and Division

  - by Narfanator

  I came across a question that (eventually) landed me wondering about array arithmetic. I'm thinking specifically in Ruby, but I think the concepts are language independent. So, addition and subtraction are defined, in Ruby, as such: [1,6,8,3,6] + [5,6,7] == [1,6,8,3,6,5,6,7] # All the elements of the first, then all the elements of the second [1,6,8,3,6] - [5,6,7] == [1,8,3] # From the first, remove anything found in the second and array * scalar is defined: [1,2,3] * 2 == [1,2,3,1,2,3] But What, conceptually, should the following be? None of these are (as far as I can find) defined: Array x Array: [1,2,3] * [1,2,3] #=> ? Array / Scalar: [1,2,3,4,5] / 2 #=> ? Array / Scalar: [1,2,3,4,5] % 2 #=> ? Array / Array: [1,2,3,4,5] / [1,2] #=> ? Array / Array: [1,2,3,4,5] % [1,2] #=> ? I've found some mathematical descriptions of these operations for set theory, but I couldn't really follow them, and sets don't have duplicates (arrays do). Edit: Note, I do not mean vector (matrix) arithmetic, which is completely defined. Edit2: If this is the wrong stack exchange, tell me which is the right one and I'll move it. Edit 3: Add mod operators to the list. Edit 4: I figure array / scalar is derivable from array * scalar: a * b = c => a = b / c [1,2,3] * 3 = [1,2,3]+[1,2,3]+[1,2,3] = [1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3] => [1,2,3] = [1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3] / 3 Which, given that programmer's division ignore the remained and has modulus: [1,2,3,4,5] / 2 = [[1,2], [3,4]] [1,2,3,4,5] % 2 = [5] Except that these are pretty clearly non-reversible operations (not that modulus ever is), which is non-ideal. Edit: I asked a question over on Math that led me to Multisets. I think maybe extensible arrays are "multisets", but I'm not sure yet.

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• More Great Improvements to the Windows Azure Management Portal

  - by ScottGu

  Over the last 3 weeks we’ve released a number of enhancements to the new Windows Azure Management Portal.  These new capabilities include: Localization Support for 6 languages Operation Log Support Support for SQL Database Metrics Virtual Machine Enhancements (quick create Windows + Linux VMs) Web Site Enhancements (support for creating sites in all regions, private github repo deployment) Cloud Service Improvements (deploy from storage account, configuration support of dedicated cache) Media Service Enhancements (upload, encode, publish, stream all from within the portal) Virtual Networking Usability Enhancements Custom CNAME support with Storage Accounts All of these improvements are now live in production and available to start using immediately.  Below are more details on them: Localization Support The Windows Azure Portal now supports 6 languages – English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Japanese. You can easily switch between languages by clicking on the Avatar bar on the top right corner of the Portal: Selecting a different language will automatically refresh the UI within the portal in the selected language: Operation Log Support The Windows Azure Portal now supports the ability for administrators to review the “operation logs” of the services they manage – making it easy to see exactly what management operations were performed on them.  You can query for these by selecting the “Settings” tab within the Portal and then choosing the “Operation Logs” tab within it.  This displays a filter UI that enables you to query for operations by date and time: As of the most recent release we now show logs for all operations performed on Cloud Services and Storage Accounts.  You can click on any operation in the list and click the “Details” button in the command bar to retrieve detailed status about it.  This now makes it possible to retrieve details about every management operation performed. In future updates you’ll see us extend the operation log capability to apply to all Windows Azure Services – which will enable great post-mortem and audit support. Support for SQL Database Metrics You can now monitor the number of successful connections, failed connections and deadlocks in your SQL databases using the new “Dashboard” view provided on each SQL Database resource: Additionally, if the database is added as a “linked resource” to a Web Site or Cloud Service, monitoring metrics for the linked SQL database are shown along with the Web Site or Cloud Service metrics in the dashboard. This helps with viewing and managing aggregated information across both resources in your application. Enhancements to Virtual Machines The most recent Windows Azure Portal release brings with it some nice usability improvements to Virtual Machines: Integrated Quick Create experience for Windows and Linux VMs Creating a new Windows or Linux VM is now easy using the new “Quick Create” experience in the Portal: In addition to Windows VM templates you can also now select Linux image templates in the quick create UI: This makes it incredibly easy to create a new Virtual Machine in only a few seconds. Enhancements to Web Sites Prior to this past month’s release, users were forced to choose a single geographical region when creating their first site.  After that, subsequent sites could only be created in that same region.  This restriction has now been removed, and you can now create sites in any region at any time and have up to 10 free sites in each supported region: One of the new regions we’ve recently opened up is the “East Asia” region.  This allows you to now deploy sites to North America, Europe and Asia simultaneously.  Private GitHub Repository Support This past week we also enabled Git based continuous deployment support for Web Sites from private GitHub and BitBucket repositories (previous to this you could only enable this with public repositories).  Enhancements to Cloud Services Experience The most recent Windows Azure Portal release brings with it some nice usability improvements to Cloud Services: Deploy a Cloud Service from a Windows Azure Storage Account The Windows Azure Portal now supports deploying an application package and configuration file stored in a blob container in Windows Azure Storage. The ability to upload an application package from storage is available when you custom create, or upload to, or update a cloud service deployment. To upload an application package and configuration, create a Cloud Service, then select the file upload dialog, and choose to upload from a Windows Azure Storage Account: To upload an application package from storage, click the “FROM STORAGE” button and select the application package and configuration file to use from the new blob storage explorer in the portal. Configure Windows Azure Caching in a caching enabled cloud service If you have deployed the new dedicated cache within a cloud service role, you can also now configure the cache settings in the portal by navigating to the configuration tab of for your Cloud Service deployment. The configuration experience is similar to the one in Visual Studio when you create a cloud service and add a caching role.  The portal now allows you to add or remove named caches and change the settings for the named caches – all from within the Portal and without needing to redeploy your application. Enhancements to Media Services You can now upload, encode, publish, and play your video content directly from within the Windows Azure Portal.  This makes it incredibly easy to get started with Windows Azure Media Services and perform common tasks without having to write any code. Simply navigate to your media service and then click on the “Content” tab.  All of the media content within your media service account will be listed here: Clicking the “upload” button within the portal now allows you to upload a media file directly from your computer: This will cause the video file you chose from your local file-system to be uploaded into Windows Azure.  Once uploaded, you can select the file within the content tab of the Portal and click the “Encode” button to transcode it into different streaming formats: The portal includes a number of pre-set encoding formats that you can easily convert media content into: Once you select an encoding and click the ok button, Windows Azure Media Services will kick off an encoding job that will happen in the cloud (no need for you to stand-up or configure a custom encoding server).  When it’s finished, you can select the video in the “Content” tab and then click PUBLISH in the command bar to setup an origin streaming end-point to it: Once the media file is published you can point apps against the public URL and play the content using Windows Azure Media Services – no need to setup or run your own streaming server.  You can also now select the file and click the “Play” button in the command bar to play it using the streaming endpoint directly within the Portal: This makes it incredibly easy to try out and use Windows Azure Media Services and test out an end-to-end workflow without having to write any code.  Once you test things out you can of course automate it using script or code – providing you with an incredibly powerful Cloud Media platform that you can use. Enhancements to Virtual Network Experience Over the last few months, we have received feedback on the complexity of the Virtual Network creation experience. With these most recent Portal updates, we have added a Quick Create experience that makes the creation experience very simple. All that an administrator now needs to do is to provide a VNET name, choose an address space and the size of the VNET address space. They no longer need to understand the intricacies of the CIDR format or walk through a 4-page wizard or create a VNET / subnet. This makes creating virtual networks really simple: The portal also now has a “Register DNS Server” task that makes it easy to register DNS servers and associate them with a virtual network. Enhancements to Storage Experience The portal now lets you register custom domain names for your Windows Azure Storage Accounts.  To enable this, select a storage resource and then go to the CONFIGURE tab for a storage account, and then click MANAGE DOMAIN on the command bar: Clicking “Manage Domain” will bring up a dialog that allows you to register any CNAME you want: Summary The above features are all now live in production and available to use immediately.  If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using them today.  Visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. One of the other cool features that is now live within the portal is our new Windows Azure Store – which makes it incredibly easy to try and purchase developer services from a variety of partners.  It is an incredibly awesome new capability – and something I’ll be doing a dedicated post about shortly. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• SQL SERVER – Validating Spatial Object with IsValidDetailed Function

  - by pinaldave

  What do you prefer – error or warning indicating error may happen with the reason for the error. While writing the previous statement I remember the movie “Minory Report”. This blog post is not about minority report but I will still cover the concept in a single statement “Let us predict the future and prevent the crime which is about to happen in future”. (Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong about the movie concept, I really do not want to hurt your sentiment if you are dedicated fan). Let us switch to the SQL Server world. Spatial data types are interesting concepts. I love writing about spatial data types because it allows me to be creative with shapes (just like toddlers). When working with Spatial Datatypes it is all good when the spatial object works fine. However, when the spatial object has issue or it is created with invalid coordinates it used to give a simple error that there is an issue with the object but did not provide much information. This made it very difficult to debug. If this spatial object was used in the big procedure and while this big procedural error out because of the invalid spatial object, it is indeed very difficult to debug it. I always wished that the more information provided regarding what is the problem with spatial datatype. SQL Server 2012 has introduced the new function IsValidDetailed(). This function has made my life very easy. In simple words this function will check if the spatial object passed is valid or not. If it is valid it will give information that it is valid. If the spatial object is not valid it will return the answer that it is not valid and the reason for the same. This makes it very easy to debug the issue and make the necessary correction. DECLARE @p GEOMETRY = 'Polygon((2 2, 6 6, 4 2, 2 2))' SELECT @p.IsValidDetailed() GO DECLARE @p GEOMETRY = 'Polygon((2 2, 3 3, 4 4, 5 5, 6 6, 2 2))' SELECT @p.IsValidDetailed() GO DECLARE @p GEOMETRY = 'Polygon((2 2, 4 4, 4 2, 2 3, 2 2))' SELECT @p.IsValidDetailed() GO DECLARE @p GEOMETRY = 'CIRCULARSTRING(2 2, 4 4, 0 0)' SELECT @p.IsValidDetailed() GO DECLARE @p GEOMETRY = 'CIRCULARSTRING(2 2, 4 4, 0 0)' SELECT @p.IsValidDetailed() GO DECLARE @p GEOMETRY = 'LINESTRING(2 2, 4 4, 0 0)' SELECT @p.IsValidDetailed() GO Here is the resultset of the above query. You can see any valid query and some invalid query. If the query is invalid it also demonstrates the reason along with the error message. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Spatial Database, SQL Spatial

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