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  • Problem with the hosts file in Windows XP

    - by waldev
    I have a computer with Windows XP SP2 with a weird problem. The hosts file doesn't work. No matter what I do, adding or removing entries in the file doesn't make any difference, pinging the added names times out. I tried flushing the DNS cache (using ipconfig /flushdns) but that didn't work, I even tried to restart the DNS client service but that made no difference too. Removing entries also has no effect, I ping the names and I get a reply. Help!!! Edit: Thanks for your answer guys, but the problem is more complicated than this. It seems I'll have to reinstall Windows.

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  • How to get the Date in a batch file in a predictable format?

    - by AngryHacker
    In a batch file I need to extract a month, day, year from the date command. So I used the following, which essentially parses the Date command to extract its sub strings into a variable: set Day=%Date:~3,2% set Mth=%Date:~0,2% set Yr=%Date:~6,4% This is all great, but if I deploy this batch file to a machine with a different regional/country settings, it fails because month, day and year are in different locations. How can I extract month, day and year regardless of the date format?

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  • How to determine which request nginx sends to a proxy and which it serves?

    - by Zxaos
    I currently have nginx proxying for Thin, but set up to serve static files for the app that Thin is serving instead of proxying the request. What I'd like to know is how I can check that the rules are set up correctly. Since Thin doesn't log requests, I would need to set up nginx logs in such a way that it shows which requests were served as files and which were passed to Thin. Is this even possible? If so, how?

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  • psql editor setting on Ubuntu

    - by dezso
    The situation is the following. This is an Ubuntu box: Linux ns3mx3 2.6.32-41-server #89-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 27 22:33:31 UTC 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux Which means that when I first issue \e in psql, I'm asked to choose an editor. Then there is the .selected_editor file, which contains # Generated by /usr/bin/select-editor SELECTED_EDITOR="/usr/bin/mcedit-debian" So far this is OK (it's my problem that I consider this completely useless, but never mind). Then I set up a .psqlrc file: \set PSQL_EDITOR /usr/bin/vim \set EDITOR /usr/bin/vim \set VISUAL /usr/bin/vim As you can see, I wanted to be sure not to miss a candidate variable for editor setting. The file is used as expected: test=# \echo :EDITOR /usr/bin/vim But when I issue the \e command, none of these is used - I fall back to SELECTED_EDITOR. The situation remains just the same if I append an \unset SELECTED_EDITOR to the .psqlrc file. Now how can I make .psqlrc setting win over the default editor? (PostgreSQL version id 9.1.4)

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  • "Clear Text Credential Access Enabled" field

    - by Dave
    Searching for answers about the "Clear Text Credential Access Enabled" field, I found a question on an oracle forum that was my exactly what I was trying to find out. Thinking that my answer would soon be found, I happily click on the link only to find zero replies. All hope was lost. I am posting the question here, hoping that someone on this site will know the answer. Can somebody please explain the usage of "Clear Text Credential Access Enabled" checkbox under "-Security-Advanced tab for Weblogic 11g? What is the difference if we set or unset this flag? If I dont set this flag I get an exception like "Access to sensitive attribute in clear text is not allowed due to the setting of ClearTextCredentialAccessEnabled attribute in SecurityConfigurationMBean" when I try to set a value for the "Credential" field. But what should be the value for "Credential" field if I dont set the "Clear Text Credential Access Enabled"flag?

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  • Mysql Replication out of sync? What commands do I run to sync it back up?

    - by Alex
    I have a master-master replication system. However, due to an auto-increment issue, I got an error in replication...and it stopped replicating. Someone told me to do: stop slave; SET GLOBAL SQL_SLAVE_SKIP_COUNTER = 1; start slave; It didn't work. Then they told me to do: SET GLOBAL SQL_SLAVE_SKIP_COUNTER = 2; It didn't work. Then to test it out, I did: SET GLOBAL SQL_SLAVE_SKIP_COUNTER = 99999; It starts, but it is not updating. I created a table on DB1...and it is not showing up on DB2... Below are the SHOW STATUS for both my DB1 and DB2 (I hit them together): mysql> show master status\G *************************** 1. row *************************** File: mysql-bin.000605 Position: 2019727 Binlog_Do_DB: Binlog_Ignore_DB: 1 row in set (0.00 sec) mysql> show slave status\G; *************************** 1. row *************************** Slave_IO_State: Waiting for master to send event Master_Host: Master_User: Master_Port: Connect_Retry: 60 Master_Log_File: mysql-bin.000605 Read_Master_Log_Pos: 2008810 Relay_Log_File: mysqld-relay-bin.001731 Relay_Log_Pos: 10176595 Relay_Master_Log_File: mysql-bin.000470 Slave_IO_Running: Yes Slave_SQL_Running: Yes Replicate_Do_DB: Replicate_Ignore_DB: Replicate_Do_Table: Replicate_Ignore_Table: Replicate_Wild_Do_Table: Replicate_Wild_Ignore_Table: Last_Errno: 0 Last_Error: Skip_Counter: 4255373725 Exec_Master_Log_Pos: 10176458 Relay_Log_Space: 135062517347 Until_Condition: None Until_Log_File: Until_Log_Pos: 0 Master_SSL_Allowed: No Master_SSL_CA_File: Master_SSL_CA_Path: Master_SSL_Cert: Master_SSL_Cipher: Master_SSL_Key: Seconds_Behind_Master: 1376343 1 row in set (0.00 sec) How do I fix it so that they sync back up again? Thank you.

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  • Why do 2 excel (2003) files that are exactly the same have different file size?

    - by meme
    I have two excel files that are exactly the same (in terms of the content of the file) but differ by quite a margin on filesize. One file is 37.5Kb while the other is 56Kb. The only difference I can see is the filename's. I don't know why there is such a big difference. Is there some sort of history or something that is stored with the file that is not visible to the user? If so, how would you delete this? Thanks for your help.

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  • Mac OS X Server DNS Questions

    - by kreativefinally
    Just for a new mac server in the office, initially it was for my personal use as a web development box but now the boss wants me to set it up with all the bells and whistles it comes with. I'm having some issues with the following... Lets just say my business is example.com I want the server's actual address to be labs.example.com and accessible to the world. What do I need to set up at my domain registrar to let the domain know where to go, and what do I need to set up with my hosting company to make this work, and finally what do I need to set up in the server admin panel to get it to work. It seems that DNS not working is first hurdle I need to jump but the documentation around the internet is pretty terrible. Thank you community.

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  • XNA: Camera's Rotation and Translation matrices seem to interfere with each other

    - by Danjen
    I've been following the guide here for how to create a custom 2D camera in XNA. It works great, I've implemented it before, but for some reason, the matrix math is throwing me off. public sealed class Camera2D { public Vector2 Origin { get; set; } public Vector2 Position { get; set; } public float Scale { get; set; } public float Rotation { get; set; } } It might be easier to just show you a picture of my problem: http://i.imgur.com/H1l6LEx.png What I want to do is allow the camera to pivot around any given point. Right now, I have the rotations mapped to my shoulder buttons on a gamepad, and if I press them, it should rotate around the point the camera is currently looking at. Then, I use the left stick to move the camera around. The problem is that after it's been rotated, pressing "up" results in it being used relative to the rotation, creating the image above. I understand that matrices have to be applied in a certain order, and that I have to offset the thing to be rotated around the world origin and move it back, but it just won't work! public Matrix GetTransformationMatrix() { Matrix mRotate = Matrix.Identity * Matrix.CreateTranslation(-Origin.X, -Origin.Y, 0.00f) * // Move origin to world center Matrix.CreateRotationZ(MathHelper.ToRadians(Rotation)) * // Apply rotation Matrix.CreateTranslation(+Origin.X, +Origin.Y, 0.00f); // Undo the move operation Matrix mTranslate = Matrix.Identity * Matrix.CreateTranslation(-Position.X, Position.Y, 0.00f); // Apply the actual translation return mRotate * mTranslate; } So to recap, it seems I can have it rotate around an arbitrary point and lose the ability to have "up" move the camera straight up, or I can rotate it around the world origin and have the camera move properly, but not both.

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  • Dependency Injection in ASP.NET MVC NerdDinner App using Unity 2.0

    - by shiju
    In my previous post Dependency Injection in ASP.NET MVC NerdDinner App using Ninject, we did dependency injection in NerdDinner application using Ninject. In this post, I demonstrate how to apply Dependency Injection in ASP.NET MVC NerdDinner App using Microsoft Unity Application Block (Unity) v 2.0.Unity 2.0Unity 2.0 is available on Codeplex at http://unity.codeplex.com . In earlier versions of Unity, the ObjectBuilder generic dependency injection mechanism, was distributed as a separate assembly, is now integrated with Unity core assembly. So you no longer need to reference the ObjectBuilder assembly in your applications. Two additional Built-In Lifetime Managers - HierarchicalifetimeManager and PerResolveLifetimeManager have been added to Unity 2.0.Dependency Injection in NerdDinner using UnityIn my Ninject post on NerdDinner, we have discussed the interfaces and concrete types of NerdDinner application and how to inject dependencies controller constructors. The following steps will configure Unity 2.0 to apply controller injection in NerdDinner application. Step 1 – Add reference for Unity Application BlockOpen the NerdDinner solution and add  reference to Microsoft.Practices.Unity.dll and Microsoft.Practices.Unity.Configuration.dllYou can download Unity from at http://unity.codeplex.com .Step 2 – Controller Factory for Unity The controller factory is responsible for creating controller instances.We extend the built in default controller factory with our own factory for working Unity with ASP.NET MVC. public class UnityControllerFactory : DefaultControllerFactory {     protected override IController GetControllerInstance(RequestContext reqContext, Type controllerType)     {         IController controller;         if (controllerType == null)             throw new HttpException(                     404, String.Format(                         "The controller for path '{0}' could not be found" +         "or it does not implement IController.",                     reqContext.HttpContext.Request.Path));           if (!typeof(IController).IsAssignableFrom(controllerType))             throw new ArgumentException(                     string.Format(                         "Type requested is not a controller: {0}",                         controllerType.Name),                         "controllerType");         try         {             controller = MvcUnityContainer.Container.Resolve(controllerType)                             as IController;         }         catch (Exception ex)         {             throw new InvalidOperationException(String.Format(                                     "Error resolving controller {0}",                                     controllerType.Name), ex);         }         return controller;     }   }   public static class MvcUnityContainer {     public static IUnityContainer Container { get; set; } }  Step 3 – Register Types and Set Controller Factory private void ConfigureUnity() {     //Create UnityContainer               IUnityContainer container = new UnityContainer()     .RegisterType<IFormsAuthentication, FormsAuthenticationService>()     .RegisterType<IMembershipService, AccountMembershipService>()     .RegisterInstance<MembershipProvider>(Membership.Provider)     .RegisterType<IDinnerRepository, DinnerRepository>();     //Set container for Controller Factory     MvcUnityContainer.Container = container;     //Set Controller Factory as UnityControllerFactory     ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(                         typeof(UnityControllerFactory));            } Unity 2.0 provides a fluent interface for type configuration. Now you can call all the methods in a single statement.The above Unity configuration specified in the ConfigureUnity method tells that, to inject instance of DinnerRepositiry when there is a request for IDinnerRepositiry and  inject instance of FormsAuthenticationService when there is a request for IFormsAuthentication and inject instance of AccountMembershipService when there is a request for IMembershipService. The AccountMembershipService class has a dependency with ASP.NET Membership provider. So we configure that inject the instance of Membership Provider.After the registering the types, we set UnityControllerFactory as the current controller factory. //Set container for Controller Factory MvcUnityContainer.Container = container; //Set Controller Factory as UnityControllerFactory ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(                     typeof(UnityControllerFactory)); When you register a type  by using the RegisterType method, the default behavior is for the container to use a transient lifetime manager. It creates a new instance of the registered, mapped, or requested type each time you call the Resolve or ResolveAll method or when the dependency mechanism injects instances into other classes. The following are the LifetimeManagers provided by Unity 2.0ContainerControlledLifetimeManager - Implements a singleton behavior for objects. The object is disposed of when you dispose of the container.ExternallyControlledLifetimeManager - Implements a singleton behavior but the container doesn't hold a reference to object which will be disposed of when out of scope.HierarchicalifetimeManager - Implements a singleton behavior for objects. However, child containers don't share instances with parents.PerResolveLifetimeManager - Implements a behavior similar to the transient lifetime manager except that instances are reused across build-ups of the object graph.PerThreadLifetimeManager - Implements a singleton behavior for objects but limited to the current thread.TransientLifetimeManager - Returns a new instance of the requested type for each call. (default behavior)We can also create custome lifetime manager for Unity container. The following code creating a custom lifetime manager to store container in the current HttpContext. public class HttpContextLifetimeManager<T> : LifetimeManager, IDisposable {     public override object GetValue()     {         return HttpContext.Current.Items[typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName];     }     public override void RemoveValue()     {         HttpContext.Current.Items.Remove(typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName);     }     public override void SetValue(object newValue)     {         HttpContext.Current.Items[typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName]             = newValue;     }     public void Dispose()     {         RemoveValue();     } }  Step 4 – Modify Global.asax.cs for configure Unity container In the Application_Start event, we call the ConfigureUnity method for configuring the Unity container and set controller factory as UnityControllerFactory void Application_Start() {     RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);       ViewEngines.Engines.Clear();     ViewEngines.Engines.Add(new MobileCapableWebFormViewEngine());     ConfigureUnity(); }Download CodeYou can download the modified NerdDinner code from http://nerddinneraddons.codeplex.com

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  • ASP.NET MVC ‘Extendable-hooks’ – ControllerActionInvoker class

    - by nmarun
    There’s a class ControllerActionInvoker in ASP.NET MVC. This can be used as one of an hook-points to allow customization of your application. Watching Brad Wilsons’ Advanced MP3 from MVC Conf inspired me to write about this class. What MSDN says: “Represents a class that is responsible for invoking the action methods of a controller.” Well if MSDN says it, I think I can instill a fair amount of confidence into what the class does. But just to get to the details, I also looked into the source code for MVC. Seems like the base class Controller is where an IActionInvoker is initialized: 1: protected virtual IActionInvoker CreateActionInvoker() { 2: return new ControllerActionInvoker(); 3: } In the ControllerActionInvoker (the O-O-B behavior), there are different ‘versions’ of InvokeActionMethod() method that actually call the action method in question and return an instance of type ActionResult. 1: protected virtual ActionResult InvokeActionMethod(ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor, IDictionary<string, object> parameters) { 2: object returnValue = actionDescriptor.Execute(controllerContext, parameters); 3: ActionResult result = CreateActionResult(controllerContext, actionDescriptor, returnValue); 4: return result; 5: } I guess that’s enough on the ‘behind-the-screens’ of this class. Let’s see how we can use this class to hook-up extensions. Say I have a requirement that the user should be able to get different renderings of the same output, like html, xml, json, csv and so on. The user will type-in the output format in the url and should the get result accordingly. For example: http://site.com/RenderAs/ – renders the default way (the razor view) http://site.com/RenderAs/xml http://site.com/RenderAs/csv … and so on where RenderAs is my controller. There are many ways of doing this and I’m using a custom ControllerActionInvoker class (even though this might not be the best way to accomplish this). For this, my one and only route in the Global.asax.cs is: 1: routes.MapRoute("RenderAsRoute", "RenderAs/{outputType}", 2: new {controller = "RenderAs", action = "Index", outputType = ""}); Here the controller name is ‘RenderAsController’ and the action that’ll get called (always) is the Index action. The outputType parameter will map to the type of output requested by the user (xml, csv…). I intend to display a list of food items for this example. 1: public class Item 2: { 3: public int Id { get; set; } 4: public string Name { get; set; } 5: public Cuisine Cuisine { get; set; } 6: } 7:  8: public class Cuisine 9: { 10: public int CuisineId { get; set; } 11: public string Name { get; set; } 12: } Coming to my ‘RenderAsController’ class. I generate an IList<Item> to represent my model. 1: private static IList<Item> GetItems() 2: { 3: Cuisine cuisine = new Cuisine { CuisineId = 1, Name = "Italian" }; 4: Item item = new Item { Id = 1, Name = "Lasagna", Cuisine = cuisine }; 5: IList<Item> items = new List<Item> { item }; 6: item = new Item {Id = 2, Name = "Pasta", Cuisine = cuisine}; 7: items.Add(item); 8: //... 9: return items; 10: } My action method looks like 1: public IList<Item> Index(string outputType) 2: { 3: return GetItems(); 4: } There are two things that stand out in this action method. The first and the most obvious one being that the return type is not of type ActionResult (or one of its derivatives). Instead I’m passing the type of the model itself (IList<Item> in this case). We’ll convert this to some type of an ActionResult in our custom controller action invoker class later. The second thing (a little subtle) is that I’m not doing anything with the outputType value that is passed on to this action method. This value will be in the RouteData dictionary and we’ll use this in our custom invoker class as well. It’s time to hook up our invoker class. First, I’ll override the Initialize() method of my RenderAsController class. 1: protected override void Initialize(RequestContext requestContext) 2: { 3: base.Initialize(requestContext); 4: string outputType = string.Empty; 5:  6: // read the outputType from the RouteData dictionary 7: if (requestContext.RouteData.Values["outputType"] != null) 8: { 9: outputType = requestContext.RouteData.Values["outputType"].ToString(); 10: } 11:  12: // my custom invoker class 13: ActionInvoker = new ContentRendererActionInvoker(outputType); 14: } Coming to the main part of the discussion – the ContentRendererActionInvoker class: 1: public class ContentRendererActionInvoker : ControllerActionInvoker 2: { 3: private readonly string _outputType; 4:  5: public ContentRendererActionInvoker(string outputType) 6: { 7: _outputType = outputType.ToLower(); 8: } 9: //... 10: } So the outputType value that was read from the RouteData, which was passed in from the url, is being set here in  a private field. Moving to the crux of this article, I now override the CreateActionResult method. 1: protected override ActionResult CreateActionResult(ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor, object actionReturnValue) 2: { 3: if (actionReturnValue == null) 4: return new EmptyResult(); 5:  6: ActionResult result = actionReturnValue as ActionResult; 7: if (result != null) 8: return result; 9:  10: // This is where the magic happens 11: // Depending on the value in the _outputType field, 12: // return an appropriate ActionResult 13: switch (_outputType) 14: { 15: case "json": 16: { 17: JavaScriptSerializer serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer(); 18: string json = serializer.Serialize(actionReturnValue); 19: return new ContentResult { Content = json, ContentType = "application/json" }; 20: } 21: case "xml": 22: { 23: XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(actionReturnValue.GetType()); 24: using (StringWriter writer = new StringWriter()) 25: { 26: serializer.Serialize(writer, actionReturnValue); 27: return new ContentResult { Content = writer.ToString(), ContentType = "text/xml" }; 28: } 29: } 30: case "csv": 31: controllerContext.HttpContext.Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=items.csv"); 32: return new ContentResult 33: { 34: Content = ToCsv(actionReturnValue as IList<Item>), 35: ContentType = "application/ms-excel" 36: }; 37: case "pdf": 38: string filePath = controllerContext.HttpContext.Server.MapPath("~/items.pdf"); 39: controllerContext.HttpContext.Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", 40: "attachment; filename=items.pdf"); 41: ToPdf(actionReturnValue as IList<Item>, filePath); 42: return new FileContentResult(StreamFile(filePath), "application/pdf"); 43:  44: default: 45: controllerContext.Controller.ViewData.Model = actionReturnValue; 46: return new ViewResult 47: { 48: TempData = controllerContext.Controller.TempData, 49: ViewData = controllerContext.Controller.ViewData 50: }; 51: } 52: } A big method there! The hook I was talking about kinda above actually is here. This is where different kinds / formats of output get returned based on the output type requested in the url. When the _outputType is not set (string.Empty as set in the Global.asax.cs file), the razor view gets rendered (lines 45-50). This is the default behavior in most MVC applications where-in a view (webform/razor) gets rendered on the browser. As you see here, this gets returned as a ViewResult. But then, for an outputType of json/xml/csv, a ContentResult gets returned, while for pdf, a FileContentResult is returned. Here are how the different kinds of output look like: This is how we can leverage this feature of ASP.NET MVC to developer a better application. I’ve used the iTextSharp library to convert to a pdf format. Mike gives quite a bit of detail regarding this library here. You can download the sample code here. (You’ll get an option to download once you open the link). Verdict: Hot chocolate: $3; Reebok shoes: $50; Your first car: $3000; Being able to extend a web application: Priceless.

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  • SQL SERVER – Precision of SMALLDATETIME – A 1 Minute Precision

    - by pinaldave
    I am myself surprised that I am writing this post today. I am going to present one of the very known facts of SQL Server SMALLDATETIME datatype. Even though this is a very well-known datatype, many a time, I have seen developers getting confused with precision of the SMALLDATETIME datatype. The precision of the datatype SMALLDATETIME is 1 minute. It discards the seconds by rounding up or rounding down any seconds greater than zero. Let us see the following example DECLARE @varSDate AS SMALLDATETIME SET @varSDate = '1900-01-01 12:12:01' SELECT @varSDate C_SDT SET @varSDate = '1900-01-01 12:12:29' SELECT @varSDate C_SDT SET @varSDate = '1900-01-01 12:12:30' SELECT @varSDate C_SDT SET @varSDate = '1900-01-01 12:12:59' SELECT @varSDate C_SDT Following is the result of the above script and note that any value between 0 (zero) and 59 is converted up or down. The part that confuses the developers is the value of the seconds in the display. I think if it is not maintained or recorded, it should not be displayed as well. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DateTime, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • How do I fix "bzr: ERROR: Unable to determine your name. "?

    - by Daniel
    I am trying to quickly create my first app and am getting gtk errors when I try to run or create an application. Here is a copy of what I executed and what results I got: daniel@laptop:~/PyDevelopment$ quickly create ubuntu-application app001 Creating project directory app001 Creating bzr repository and committing Launching your newly created project! /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/overrides/Gtk.py:391: Warning: g_object_set_property: construct property "type" for object `Window' can't be set after construction Gtk.Window.__init__(self, type=type, **kwds) /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/overrides/Gtk.py:391: Warning: g_object_set_property: construct property "type" for object `App001Window' can't be set after construction Gtk.Window.__init__(self, type=type, **kwds) Congrats, your new project is setup! cd /home/daniel/PyDevelopment/app001/ to start hacking. daniel@laptop:~/PyDevelopment$ cd app001 daniel@laptop:~/PyDevelopment/app001$ quickly design daniel@laptop:~/PyDevelopment/app001$ quickly rub ERROR: No rub command found in template ubuntu-application. Candidate commands are: add, commands, configure, create, debug, design, edit, getstarted, help, license, package, quickly, release, run, save, share, submitubuntu, test, tutorial, upgrade daniel@laptop:~/PyDevelopment/app001$ quickly run /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/overrides/Gtk.py:391: Warning: g_object_set_property: construct property "type" for object `Window' can't be set after construction Gtk.Window.__init__(self, type=type, **kwds) /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/overrides/Gtk.py:391: Warning: g_object_set_property: construct property "type" for object `App001Window' can't be set after construction Gtk.Window.__init__(self, type=type, **kwds) daniel@laptop:~/PyDevelopment/app001$ quickly package .......Ubuntu packaging created in debian/ ....... ---------------------------------- Command returned some ERRORS: ---------------------------------- bzr: ERROR: Unable to determine your name. ---------------------------------- ERROR: can't create or update ubuntu package ERROR: package command failed Aborting

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  • Productivity Tips

    - by Brian T. Jackett
    A few months ago during my first end of year review at Microsoft I was doing an assessment of my year.  One of my personal goals to come out of this reflection was to improve my personal productivity.  While I hear many people say “I wish I had more hours in the day so that I could get more done” I feel like that is the wrong approach.  There is an inherent assumption that you are being productive with your time that you already have and thus more time would allow you to be as productive given more time.    Instead of wishing I could add more hours to the day I’ve begun adopting a number of processes or behavior changes in my personal life to make better use of my time with the goal of improving productivity.  The areas of focus are as follows: Focus Processes Tools Personal health Email Note: A number of these topics have spawned from reading Scott Hanselman’s blog posts on productivity, reading of David Allen’s book Getting Things Done, and discussions with friends and coworkers who had great insights into this topic.   Focus Pre-reading / viewing: Overcome your work addiction Millennials paralyzed by choice Its Not What You Read Its What You Ignore (Scott Hanselman video)    I highly recommend Scott Hanselman’s video above and this post before continuing with this article.  It is well worth the 40+ mins price of admission for the video and couple minutes for article.  One key takeaway for me was listing out my activities in an average week and realizing which ones held little or no value to me.  We all have a finite amount of time to work each day.  Do you know how much time and effort you spend on various aspects of your life (family, friends, religion, work, personal happiness, etc.)?  Do your actions and commitments reflect your priorities?    The biggest time consumers with little value for me were time spent on social media services (Twitter and Facebook), playing an MMO video game, and watching TV.  I still check up on Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft internal chat forums, and other services to keep contact with others but I’ve reduced that time significantly.  As for TV I’ve cut the cord and no longer subscribe to cable TV.  Instead I use Netflix, RedBox, and over the air channels but again with reduced time consumption.  With the time I’ve freed up I’m back to working out 2-3 times a week and reading 4 nights a week (both of which I had been neglecting previously).  I’ll mention a few tools for helping measure your time in the Tools section.   Processes    Do not multi-task.  I’ll say it again.  Do not multi-task.  There is no such thing as multi tasking.  The human brain is optimized to work on one thing at a time.  When you are “multi-tasking” you are really doing 2 or more things at less than 100%, usually by a wide margin.  I take pride in my work and when I’m doing something less than 100% the results typically degrade rapidly.    Now there are some ways of bending the rules of physics for this one.  There is the notion of getting a double amount of work done in the same timeframe.  Some examples would be listening to podcasts / watching a movie while working out, using a treadmill as your work desk, or reading while in the bathroom.    Personally I’ve found good results in combining one task that does not require focus (making dinner, playing certain video games, working out) and one task that does (watching a movie, listening to podcasts).  I believe this is related to me being a visual and kinesthetic (using my hands or actually doing it) learner.  I’m terrible with auditory learning.  My fiance and I joke that sometimes we talk and talk to each other but never really hear each other.   Goals / Tasks    Goals can give us direction in life and a sense of accomplishment when we complete them.  Goals can also overwhelm us and give us a sense of failure when we don’t complete them.  I propose that you shift your perspective and not dwell on all of the things that you haven’t gotten done, but focus instead on regularly setting measureable goals that are within reason of accomplishing.    At the end of each time frame have a retrospective to review your progress.  Do not feel guilty about what you did not accomplish.  Feel proud of what you did accomplish and readjust your goals for the next time frame to more attainable goals.  Here is a sample schedule I’ve seen proposed by some.  I have not consistently set goals for each timeframe, but I do typically set 3 small goals a day (this blog post is #2 for today). Each day set 3 small goals Each week set 3 medium goals Each month set 1 large goal Each year set 2 very large goals   Tools    Tools are an extension of our human body.  They help us extend beyond what we can physically and mentally do.  Below are some tools I use almost daily or have found useful as of late. Disclaimer: I am not getting endorsed to promote any of these products.  I just happen to like them and find them useful. Instapaper – Save internet links for reading later.  There are many tools like this but I’ve found this to be a great one.  There is even a “read it later” JavaScript button you can add to your browser so when you navigate to a site it will then add this to your list. Stacks for Instapaper – A Windows Phone 7 app for reading my Instapaper articles on the go.  It does require a subscription to Instapaper (nominal $3 every three months) but is easily worth the cost.  Alternatively you can set up your Kindle to sync with Instapaper easily but I haven’t done so. SlapDash Podcast – Apps for Windows Phone and  Windows 8 (possibly other platforms) to sync podcast viewing / listening across multiple devices.  Now that I have my Surface RT device (which I love) this is making my consumption easier to manage. Feed Reader – Simple Windows 8 app for quickly catching up on my RSS feeds.  I used to have hundreds of unread items all the time.  Now I’m down to 20-50 regularly and it is much easier and faster to consume on my Surface RT.  There is also a free version (which I use) and I can’t see much different between the free and paid versions currently. Rescue Time – Have you ever wondered how much time you’ve spent on websites vs. email vs. “doing work”?  This service tracks your computer actions and then lets you report on them.  This can help you quantitatively identify areas where your actions are not in line with your priorities. PowerShell – Windows automation tool.  It is now built into every client and server OS.  This tool has saved me days (and I mean the full 24 hrs worth) of time and effort in the past year alone.  If you haven’t started learning PowerShell and you administrating any Windows OS or server product you need to start today. Various blogging tools – I wrote a post a couple years ago called How I Blog about my blogging process and tools used.  Almost all of it still applies today.   Personal Health    Some of these may be common sense or debatable, but I’ve found them to help prioritize my daily activities. Get plenty of sleep on a regular basis.  Sacrificing sleep too many nights a week negatively impacts your cognition, attitude, and overall health. Exercise at least three days.  Exercise could be lifting weights, taking the stairs up multiple flights of stairs, walking for 20 mins, or a number of other "non-traditional” activities.  I find that regular exercise helps with sleep and improves my overall attitude. Eat a well balanced diet.  Too much sugar, caffeine, junk food, etc. are not good for your body.  This is not a matter of losing weight but taking care of your body and helping you perform at your peak potential.   Email    Email can be one of the biggest time consumers (i.e. waster) if you aren’t careful. Time box your email usage.  Set a meeting invite for yourself if necessary to limit how much time you spend checking email. Use rules to prioritize your email.  Email from external customers, my manager, or include me directly on the To line go into my inbox.  Everything else goes a level down and I have 30+ rules to further sort it, mostly distribution lists. Use keyboard shortcuts (when available).  I use Outlook for my primary email and am constantly hitting Alt + S to send, Ctrl + 1 for my inbox, Ctrl + 2 for my calendar, Space / Tab / Shift + Tab to mark items as read, and a number of other useful commands.  Learn them and you’ll see your speed getting through emails increase. Keep emails short.  No one Few people like reading through long emails.  The first line should state exactly why you are sending the email followed by a 3-4 lines to support it.  Anything longer might be better suited as a phone call or in person discussion.   Conclusion    In this post I walked through various tips and tricks I’ve found for improving personal productivity.  It is a mix of re-focusing on the things that matter, using tools to assist in your efforts, and cutting out actions that are not aligned with your priorities.  I originally had a whole section on keyboard shortcuts, but with my recent purchase of the Surface RT I’m finding that touch gestures have replaced numerous keyboard commands that I used to need.  I see a big future in touch enabled devices.  Hopefully some of these tips help you out.  If you have any tools, tips, or ideas you would like to share feel free to add in the comments section.         -Frog Out   Links Scott Hanselman Productivity posts http://www.hanselman.com/blog/CategoryView.aspx?category=Productivity Overcome your work addiction http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/05/overcome-your-work-addiction.html?awid=5512355740280659420-3271   Millennials paralyzed by choice http://priyaparker.com/blog/millennials-paralyzed-by-choice   Its Not What You Read Its What You Ignore (video) http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ItsNotWhatYouReadItsWhatYouIgnoreVideoOfScottHanselmansPersonalProductivityTips.aspx   Cutting the cord – Jeff Blankenburg http://www.jeffblankenburg.com/2011/04/06/cutting-the-cord/   Building a sitting standing desk – Eric Harlan http://www.ericharlan.com/Everything_Else/building-a-sitting-standing-desk-a229.html   Instapaper http://www.instapaper.com/u   Stacks for Instapaper http://www.stacksforinstapaper.com/   Slapdash Podcast Windows Phone -  http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/slapdash-podcasts/90e8b121-080b-e011-9264-00237de2db9e Windows 8 - http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/slapdash-podcasts/0c62e66a-f2e4-4403-af88-3430a821741e/m/ROW   Feed Reader http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/feed-reader/d03199c9-8e08-469a-bda1-7963099840cc/m/ROW   Rescue Time http://www.rescuetime.com/   PowerShell Script Center http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/bb410849.aspx

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  • 10 Useful CSS Tips And Tutorials

    - by Jyoti
    CSS is a technology that web designers use everyday, but yet it is something that most struggle with as well. Whether it’s keeping stylesheets for large sites manageable or creating image effects that are cross browser compatible, there are plenty of things to cause frustration. This article is an attempt to provide you with a few resources that might help you with your CSS or introduce you to a few tricks you didn’t know about. Organizing Your Stylesheet Using CSS Edit: Rob Soule of Viget Labs shows you how to organize your style sheets using CSS Edit, a powerful CSS editor built exclusively for the mac. Tips For Organizing Your CSS: A set of practical tips for organizing your style sheets. Write A Well Structured CSS File: A detailed and well written post about how to write a well structured CSS file. Expandable CSS Tabs Tutorials: A tutorial on creating expandable CSS tabs. Simple Round CSS Buttons: Learn how to create rounded corner buttons with only One Image and One CSS file. Beautiful CSS Buttons With Icons Set: Learn how to create a clean set of buttons with CSS and an icon set. Scalable CSS Buttons Using PNG And Background Colors: Create Resizing Thumbnails Using Overflow Property: Learn how to create a cool resizing thumbnail effect. CSS Decorative Gallery: Decorate your images and photo galleries without editing the source images. Placing Text Over Image Using CSS Position Property: A simple technique for placing text over an image.

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  • ASP.NET MVC localization DisplayNameAttribute alternatives: a good way

    - by Brian Schroer
    The ASP.NET MVC HTML helper methods like .LabelFor and .EditorFor use model metadata to autogenerate labels for model properties. By default it uses the property name for the label text, but if that’s not appropriate, you can use a DisplayName attribute to specify the desired label text: [DisplayName("Remember me?")] public bool RememberMe { get; set; } I’m working on a multi-language web site, so the labels need to be localized. I tried pointing the DisplayName attribute to a resource string: [DisplayName(MyResource.RememberMe)] public bool RememberMe { get; set; } …but that results in the compiler error "An attribute argument must be a constant expression, typeof expression or array creation expression of an attribute parameter type”. I got around this by creating a custom LocalizedDisplayNameAttribute class that inherits from DisplayNameAttribute: 1: public class LocalizedDisplayNameAttribute : DisplayNameAttribute 2: { 3: public LocalizedDisplayNameAttribute(string resourceKey) 4: { 5: ResourceKey = resourceKey; 6: } 7:   8: public override string DisplayName 9: { 10: get 11: { 12: string displayName = MyResource.ResourceManager.GetString(ResourceKey); 13:   14: return string.IsNullOrEmpty(displayName) 15: ? string.Format("[[{0}]]", ResourceKey) 16: : displayName; 17: } 18: } 19:   20: private string ResourceKey { get; set; } 21: } Instead of a display string, it takes a constructor argument of a resource key. The DisplayName method is overridden to get the display string from the resource file (line 12). If the key is not found, I return a formatted string containing the key (e.g. “[[RememberMe]]”) so I can tell by looking at my web pages which resource keys I haven’t defined yet (line 15). The usage of my custom attribute in the model looks like this: [LocalizedDisplayName("RememberMe")] public bool RememberMe { get; set; } That was my first attempt at localized display names, and it’s a technique that I still use in some cases, but in my next post I’ll talk about the method that I now prefer, a custom DataAnnotationsModelMetadataProvider class…

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  • Begin the Clone Wars Have!

    - by Antony Reynolds
    Creating a New Virtual Machine from an Existing Virtual Disk In previous posts I described how I set up an OEL6 machine under VirtualBox that can run an 11gR2 database and FMW 11.1.1.5.  That is great if you want the DB and FMW running in the same virtual image and it has served me well for some proof of concepts and also for some testing of different JVMs.  However I also wanted to run some testing of FMW with the database running on a separate physical machine.  So in this post I will show how to take a VirtualBox image and create a new image based on the disks from that original image. What are my Options? There is more than one way to skin a cat, or in this case to create two separate VMs that can run on different hardware.  Some of the options include: Create new virtual disk images for each new VM. Clone the existing disk images and point the new VM at the cloned images. Point the new VM at the existing snapshots. #1 is too much like hard work, install OEL twice, install a database again, install FMW again, run RCU again!  Life is too short! #2 is probably the safest way of doing things.  VirtualBox allows you to clone a disk image for use in a separate machine.  However this of course duplicates the disk and means that it is now occupying 3 times the space, once for the original disk and twice more for the two clones I would need. #3 is the most space efficient way of doing things.  It does mean however that I can only run the new “cloned” images if I have access to the original image because that is where the base snapshots reside.  However this is not a problem for me as long as I remember to keep all threee images together.  So this is the approach we will follow. Snapshot, What Snapshot? As we are going to create new virtual machines based on existing snapshots we need to figure out which snapshot to use.  We do this by opening the “Media Manager” from within VirtualBox and moving the mouse over the snapshot images until we find the snapshots we want – the snapshot name is identified in the “Attached to:” comment.  In my case I wanted the FMW installed snapshot because that had a database configured for FMW alongside the FMW software.  I made a note of the filename of that snapshot (actually I just noted the first 5 characters as that was all that was needed to uniquely identify the snapshot file). When we create the new machines we will point them at the snapshot filename we have just checked. Network or NotWork? Because we want the two new machines to communicate with each other when hosted in different physical machines we can’t use the default NAT networking mode without a lot of hassle.  But at the same time we need them to have fixed IP addresses relative to each other so that they can see each other whilst also being able to see the outside world. To achieve all these requirements I created two network adapters for each machine.  Adapter 1 was a standard NAT mapping.  This will allow each machine to get a dynamic IP address (10.0.2.15 by default) that can be used to access the external world through the VBox provided NAT gateway.  This is the same as the existing configuration. The second adapter I created as a bridged adapter.  This gives the virtual machine direct access to the host network card and by using fixed IP addresses each machine can see the other.  It is important to choose fixed IP addresses that are not routable across your internal network so you don’t get any clashes with other machines on your network.  Of course you could always get proper fixed IP addresses from your network people, but I have serveral people using my images and as long as I don’t have two instances of the same VM on the same network segment this is easier and avoids reconfiguring the network every time someone wants a copy of my VM.  If it is available I would suggest using the 10.0.3.* network as 10.0.2.* is the default NAT network.  You can check availability by pinging 10.0.3.1 and 10.0.3.2 from your host machine.  If it times out then you are probably safe to use that. Creating the New VMs Now that I had collected the data that I needed I went ahead and created the new VMs. When asked for a “Boot Hard Disk” I used the “Choose a virtual hard disk file…” link to find the snapshot I had previously selected and set that to be the existing hard disk.  I chose the previously existing SOA 11.1.1.5 install for both the new DB and FMW machines because that snapshot had the database with the RCU completed that I wanted for my DB machine and it had the SOA software installed which I wanted for my FMW machine. After the initial creation of the virtual machine go into the network setting section and enable a second adapter which will be bridged.  Make a note of the MAC addresses (the last four digits should be sufficient) of the two adapters so that you can later set the bridged adapter to use fixed IP and the NAT adapter to use DHCP. We are now ready to start the VMs and reconfigure Linux. Reconfiguring Linux Because I now have two new machines I need to change their network configuration.  In particular I need to change the hostname, update the hosts file and change the network settings. Changing the Hostname I renamed both hosts by running the hostname command as root: hostname vboxfmw.oracle.com I also edited the /etc/sysconfig file and set the correct hostname in there. HOSTNAME=vboxfmw.oracle.com Changing the Network Settings I needed to change the network configuration to give the bridged network a fixed IP address.  I first explicitly set the MAC addresses of the two adapters, because the order of the virtual adapters in the VirtualBox Manager is not necessarily the same as the order of the adapters in the guest OS.  So I went in to the System->Preferences->Network Connections screen and explicitly set the “Device MAC address” for the two adapters. Having correctly mapped the Linux adapters to the VirtualBox adapters I then set the Bridged adapter to use fixed IP addressing rather than DHCP.  There is no need for additional routing or default gateways because we expect the two machine to be on the same LAN segment. Updating the Hosts File Having renamed the machines and reconfigured the network I then updated the /etc/hosts file to refer to the new machine name add a new line to the hosts file to provide an additional IP address for my server (the new fixed IP address) add a new line for the fixed IP address of the other virtual machine 10.0.3.101      vboxdb.oracle.com       vboxdb  # Added by NetworkManager 10.0.2.15       vboxdb.oracle.com       vboxdb  # Added by NetworkManager 10.0.3.102      vboxfmw.oracle.com      vboxfmw # Added by NetworkManager 127.0.0.1       localhost.localdomain   localhost ::1     vboxdb.oracle.com       vboxdb  localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6 To make sure everything takes effect I restarted the server. Reconfiguring the Database on the DB Machine Because we changed the hostname the listener and the EM console no longer start so I need to modify the listener.ora to use the new hostname and I also need to rebuild the EM configuration because it also relies on the hostname. I edited the $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin/listener.ora and changed the listening address to the new hostname:       (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = vboxdb.oracle.com)(PORT = 1521)) After changing the listener.ora I was able to start the listener using: lsnrctl start I also had to reconfigure the EM database control.  I first deconfigured it using the command: emca -deconfig dbcontrol db -repos drop This drops the repository and removes any existing registered dbcontrols. I then re-configured it using the following command: emca -config dbcontrol db -repos create This creates the EM repository and then configures and starts dbcontrol. Now my database machine is ready so I can close it down and take a snapshot. Disabling the Database on the FMW Machine I set up the database to start automatically by creating a service called “dbora”.  On the FMW machine I do not need the database running so I can prevent it auto-starting by running the following command: chkconfig –del dbora Note that because I am using a snapshot it is not a waste of disk space to have the DB installed but not used.  As long as I don’t run it, it won’t cost me anything. I can now close the FMW machine down and take a snapshot. Creating a New Domain The FMW machine is now ready to create a new domain.  When creating the domain I can point it at the second machine which is running the database.  I can potentially run these machines on two separate physical machines as long as I have the original virtual machine available to both of the physical machines. Gotchas in Snapshotting VirtualBox does not support the concept of linked machines in a network like some virtualization technologies so when creating a snapshot it is a good idea to shut both VMs down and then take a snapshot on both of them.  This is because we want to keep the database in sync with the middleware.  One way to make sure that this happens would be to place all the domain configuration files on the database server via an NFS share, this would mean that all we would need to snapshot would be the database machine because that would hold all the state and configuration. The Sky’s the Limit We have covered a simple case of having just two machines.  I have a more complicated configuration in which two machine run a RAC database off the same base OS image, and two more machines run a SOA cluster based on the same OS image.  Just remember what machine holds state and what are the consequences of taking a snapshot.

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  • How to push changes from Test server to Live server?

    - by anonymous
    As a beginner, I finally noticed the issue with making changes to the live server I've been working on, now that I have a couple users on it, since I bring it down so often. I created an EC2 image of my live server and set up a separate instance on EC2, so now I have 2 EC2 instances, Stage and Production. I set up GitHub and push changes to stage and test my code there, and when it's all done and working, I push it to the production branch, and everything is good. And there is a slight issue here since I name my files config_stage.js and config_production.js and set up .gitignore on each server, and in my code, I would have it read the ENV flags and set up the appropriate configs, is this the correct approach? And my main question is: how do you keep track of non-code changes to the server? For example, I installed HAProxy, Stunnel, Redis, MongoDB and several other things onto the Stage server for testing and now that it's all working and good, how do I deploy them to production? Right now, I'm just keeping track of everything I installed and copying configuration files over, which is very tedious and I'm afraid I may have missed a step somewhere. Is there a better way to port these changes over from my test server to my live server?

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  • Why does Ubuntu reset brightness settings at the loading screen?

    - by leugim
    Since I first installed Ubuntu 11.10, I noticed that volume and screen brightness get reset every time Ubuntu starts. Why is this so? And what ways are there to keep brightness and volume levels after rebooting? I have found some scripts that change the screen-brightness at login. But this is not a good solution since login is slower because it seems to wait until the screen brightness is at the level specified by the script. After entering the password I see the screen brightness go down gradually. Only after this is complete (~1 or 2 seconds) does the background disappear and Unity come up. The screenbrightness is not remembered but instead redefined at login. So it gets remembered for the first part of the boot, then set to MAX and then again re-set to normal value by the script. My boot process is as follows: desired brightness: 2 (13,33%) / Max brightness: 15 (100%) Bios / brightness: OK GRUB (violet background color, white text) / brightness: OK Ubuntu loading screen with the dots / brightness: MAX (win7 loads with OK-brightness) User Login / brightness: MAX Unity starts / brightness: OK It seems to be more like a temporary patch than a actual solution. I'm looking for solutions that set the desired brightness permanently and consistently throughout the whole boot-process After updating to 12.04 the behavior is the same. I tried setpci -s 02:00.0 F4.B=XX The value of F4.B is always '0' regardless of what value I try to set it to (tried 0, ff, f, 5, etc) The solution in this answer does not have any noticeable effect: Desktop doesn't remember brightness settings after a reboot The variables at /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/ get changed if I use Fn+UP and Fn+DOWN Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

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  • SQL SERVER – 2011 – SEQUENCE is not IDENTITY

    - by pinaldave
    Yesterday I posted blog post on the subject SQL SERVER – 2011 – Introduction to SEQUENCE – Simple Example of SEQUENCE and I received comment where user was not clear about difference between SEQUENCE and IDENTITY. The reality is that SEQUENCE not like IDENTITY. There is very clear difference between them. Identity is about single column. Sequence is always incrementing and it is not dependent on any table. Here is the quick example of the same. USE AdventureWorks2008R2 GO CREATE SEQUENCE [Seq] AS [int] START WITH 1 INCREMENT BY 1 MAXVALUE 20000 GO -- Run five times SELECT NEXT VALUE FOR Seq AS SeqNumber; SELECT NEXT VALUE FOR Seq AS SeqNumber; SELECT NEXT VALUE FOR Seq AS SeqNumber; SELECT NEXT VALUE FOR Seq AS SeqNumber; SELECT NEXT VALUE FOR Seq AS SeqNumber; GO -- Clean Up DROP SEQUENCE [Seq] GO Here is the resultset. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Capturing Wait Types and Wait Stats Information at Interval – Wait Type – Day 5 of 28

    - by pinaldave
    Earlier, I have tried to cover some important points about wait stats in detail. Here are some points that we had covered earlier. DMV related to wait stats reset when we reset SQL Server services DMV related to wait stats reset when we manually reset the wait types However, at times, there is a need of making this data persistent so that we can take a look at them later on. Sometimes, performance tuning experts do some modifications to the server and try to measure the wait stats at that point of time and after some duration. I use the following method to measure the wait stats over the time. -- Create Table CREATE TABLE [MyWaitStatTable]( [wait_type] [nvarchar](60) NOT NULL, [waiting_tasks_count] [bigint] NOT NULL, [wait_time_ms] [bigint] NOT NULL, [max_wait_time_ms] [bigint] NOT NULL, [signal_wait_time_ms] [bigint] NOT NULL, [CurrentDateTime] DATETIME NOT NULL, [Flag] INT ) GO -- Populate Table at Time 1 INSERT INTO MyWaitStatTable ([wait_type],[waiting_tasks_count],[wait_time_ms],[max_wait_time_ms],[signal_wait_time_ms], [CurrentDateTime],[Flag]) SELECT [wait_type],[waiting_tasks_count],[wait_time_ms],[max_wait_time_ms],[signal_wait_time_ms], GETDATE(), 1 FROM sys.dm_os_wait_stats GO ----- Desired Delay (for one hour) WAITFOR DELAY '01:00:00' -- Populate Table at Time 2 INSERT INTO MyWaitStatTable ([wait_type],[waiting_tasks_count],[wait_time_ms],[max_wait_time_ms],[signal_wait_time_ms], [CurrentDateTime],[Flag]) SELECT [wait_type],[waiting_tasks_count],[wait_time_ms],[max_wait_time_ms],[signal_wait_time_ms], GETDATE(), 2 FROM sys.dm_os_wait_stats GO -- Check the difference between Time 1 and Time 2 SELECT T1.wait_type, T1.wait_time_ms Original_WaitTime, T2.wait_time_ms LaterWaitTime, (T2.wait_time_ms - T1.wait_time_ms) DiffenceWaitTime FROM MyWaitStatTable T1 INNER JOIN MyWaitStatTable T2 ON T1.wait_type = T2.wait_type WHERE T2.wait_time_ms > T1.wait_time_ms AND T1.Flag = 1 AND T2.Flag = 2 ORDER BY DiffenceWaitTime DESC GO -- Clean up DROP TABLE MyWaitStatTable GO If you notice the script, I have used an additional column called flag. I use it to find out when I have captured the wait stats and then use it in my SELECT query to SELECT wait stats related to that time group. Many times, I select more than 5 or 6 different set of wait stats and I find this method very convenient to find the difference between wait stats. In a future blog post, we will talk about specific wait stats. Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DMV, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #003

    - by pinaldave
    Here is the list of curetted articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2006 This was the first year of my blogging and lots of new things I was learning as I go. I was indeed an infant in blogging a few years ago. However, as time passed by I have learned a lot. This year was year of experiments and new learning. 2007 Working as a full time DBA I often encoutered various errors and I started to learn how to avoid those error and document the same. ERROR Msg 5174 Each file size must be greater than or equal to 512 KB Whenever I see this error I wonder why someone is trying to attempt a database which is extremely small. Anyway, it does not matter what I think I keep on seeing this error often in industries. Anyway the solution of the error is equally interesting – just created larger database. Dilbert Humor This was very first encounter with database humor and I started to love it. It does not matter how many time we read this cartoon it does not get old. Generate Script with Data from Database – Database Publishing Wizard Generating schema script with data is one of the most frequently performed tasks among SQL Server Data Professionals. There are many ways to do the same. In the above article I demonstrated that how we can use the Database Publishing Wizard to accomplish the same. It was new to me at that time but I have not seen much of the adoption of the same still in the industry. Here is one of my videos where I demonstrate how we can generate data with schema. 2008 Delete Backup History – Cleanup Backup History Deleting backup history is important too but should be done carefully. If this is not carried out at regular interval there is good chance that MSDB will be filled up with all the old history. Every organization is different. Some would like to keep the history for 30 days and some for a year but there should be some limit. One should regularly archive the database backup history. South Asia MVP Open Days 2008 This was my very first year Microsoft MVP. I had Indeed big blast at the event and the fun was incredible. After this event I have attended many different MVP events but the fun and learning this particular event presented was amazing and just like me many others are not able to forget the same. Here are other links related to the event: South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 1 South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 2 South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 3 2009 Enable or Disable Constraint  This is very simple script but I personally keep on forgetting it so I had blogged it. Till today, I keep on referencing this again and again as sometime a very little thing is hard to remember. Policy Based Management – Create, Evaluate and Fix Policies This article will cover the most spectacular feature of SQL 2008 – Policy-based management and how the configuration of SQL Server with policy-based management architecture can make a powerful difference. Policy based management is loaded with several advantages. It can help you implement various policies for reliable configuration of the system. It also provides additional administrative assistance to DBAs and helps them effortlessly manage various tasks of SQL Server across the enterprise. SQLPASS 2009 – My Very First SQPASS Experience Just Brilliant! I never had an experience such a thing in my life. SQL SQL and SQL – all around SQL! I am listing my own reasons here in order of importance to me. Networking with SQL fellows and experts Putting face to the name or avatar Learning and improving my SQL skills Understanding the structure of the largest SQL Server Professional Association Attending my favorite training sessions Since last time I have never missed a single time this event. This event is my favorite event and something keeps me going. Here are additional post related SQLPASS 2009. SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 1 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 2 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 3 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 4 2010 Get All the Information of Database using sys.databases Even though we believe that we know everything about our database, we do not know a lot of things about our database. This little script enables us to know so many details about databases which we may not be familiar with. Run this on your server today and see how much you know your database. Reducing CXPACKET Wait Stats for High Transactional Database While engaging in a performance tuning consultation for a client, a situation occurred where they were facing a lot of CXPACKET Waits Stats. The client asked me if I could help them reduce this huge number of wait stats. I usually receive this kind of request from other client as well, but the important thing to understand is whether this question has any merits or benefits, or not. I discusses the same in this article – a bit long but insightful for sure. Error related to Database in Use There are so many database management operations in SQL Server which requires exclusive access to the database and it is not always possible to get it. When any database is online in SQL Server it either applications or system thread often accesses them. This means database can’t have exclusive access and the operations which required this access throws an error. There is very easy method to overcome this minor issue – a single line script can give you exclusive access to the database. Difference between DATETIME and DATETIME2 Developers have found the root reason of the problem when dealing with Date Functions – when data time values are converted (implicit or explicit) between different data types, which would lose some precision, so the result cannot match each other as expected. In this blog post I go over very interesting details and difference between DATETIME and DATETIME2 History of SQL Server Database Encryption I recently met Michael Coles and Rodeney Landrum the author of one of the kind book Expert SQL Server 2008 Encryption at SQLPASS in Seattle. During the conversation we ended up how Microsoft is evolving encryption technology. The same discussion lead to talking about history of encryption tools in SQL Server. Michale pointed me to page 18 of his book of encryption. He explicitly gave me permission to re-produce relevant part of history from his book. 2011 Functions FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause and ORDER BY Some time an interesting feature and smart audience make a total difference in places. From last two days, I have been writing on SQL Server 2012 feature FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE. I created a puzzle which was very interesting and got many people attempt to resolve it. It was based on following two articles: Introduction to FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE Introduction to FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause I even provided the hint about how one can solve this problem. The best part was many people solved the problem without using hints! Try your luck!  A Real Story of Book Getting ‘Out of Stock’ to A 25% Discount Story Available This is a great problem and everybody would love to have it. We had it and we loved it. Our book got out of stock in 48 hours of releasing and stocks were empty. We faced many issues and learned many valuable lessons. Some we were able to avoid in the future and some we are still facing it as those problems have no solutions. However, since that day – our books never gone out of stock. This inspiring learning story for us and I am confident that you will love to read it as well. Introduction to LEAD and LAG – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical function LEAD() and LAG(). This function accesses data from a subsequent row (for lead) and previous row (for lag) in the same result set without the use of a self-join . It will be very difficult to explain this in words so I will attempt small example to explain you this function. I had a fantastic time writing this blog post and I am very confident when you read it, you will like the same. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • Investigation: Can different combinations of components effect Dataflow performance?

    - by jamiet
    Introduction The Dataflow task is one of the core components (if not the core component) of SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) and often the most misunderstood. This is not surprising, its an incredibly complicated beast and we’re abstracted away from that complexity via some boxes that go yellow red or green and that have some lines drawn between them. Example dataflow In this blog post I intend to look under that facade and get into some of the nuts and bolts of the Dataflow Task by investigating how the decisions we make when building our packages can affect performance. I will do this by comparing the performance of three dataflows that all have the same input, all produce the same output, but which all operate slightly differently by way of having different transformation components. I also want to use this blog post to challenge a common held opinion that I see perpetuated over and over again on the SSIS forum. That is, that people assume adding components to a dataflow will be detrimental to overall performance. Its not surprising that people think this –it is intuitive to think that more components means more work- however this is not a view that I share. I have always been of the opinion that there are many factors affecting dataflow duration and the number of components is actually one of the less important ones; having said that I have never proven that assertion and that is one reason for this investigation. I have actually seen evidence that some people think dataflow duration is simply a function of number of rows and number of components. I’ll happily call that one out as a myth even without any investigation!  The Setup I have a 2GB datafile which is a list of 4731904 (~4.7million) customer records with various attributes against them and it contains 2 columns that I am going to use for categorisation: [YearlyIncome] [BirthDate] The data file is a SSIS raw format file which I chose to use because it is the quickest way of getting data into a dataflow and given that I am testing the transformations, not the source or destination adapters, I want to minimise external influences as much as possible. In the test I will split the customers according to month of birth (12 of those) and whether or not their yearly income is above or below 50000 (2 of those); in other words I will be splitting them into 24 discrete categories and in order to do it I shall be using different combinations of SSIS’ Conditional Split and Derived Column transformation components. The 24 datapaths that occur will each input to a rowcount component, again because this is the least resource intensive means of terminating a datapath. The test is being carried out on a Dell XPS Studio laptop with a quad core (8 logical Procs) Intel Core i7 at 1.73GHz and Samsung SSD hard drive. Its running SQL Server 2008 R2 on Windows 7. The Variables Here are the three combinations of components that I am going to test:     One Conditional Split - A single Conditional Split component CSPL Split by Month of Birth and income category that will use expressions on [YearlyIncome] & [BirthDate] to send each row to one of 24 outputs. This next screenshot displays the expression logic in use: Derived Column & Conditional Split - A Derived Column component DER Income Category that adds a new column [IncomeCategory] which will contain one of two possible text values {“LessThan50000”,”GreaterThan50000”} and uses [YearlyIncome] to determine which value each row should get. A Conditional Split component CSPL Split by Month of Birth and Income Category then uses that new column in conjunction with [BirthDate] to determine which of the same 24 outputs to send each row to. Put more simply, I am separating the Conditional Split of #1 into a Derived Column and a Conditional Split. The next screenshots display the expression logic in use: DER Income Category         CSPL Split by Month of Birth and Income Category       Three Conditional Splits - A Conditional Split component that produces two outputs based on [YearlyIncome], one for each Income Category. Each of those outputs will go to a further Conditional Split that splits the input into 12 outputs, one for each month of birth (identical logic in each). In this case then I am separating the single Conditional Split of #1 into three Conditional Split components. The next screenshots display the expression logic in use: CSPL Split by Income Category         CSPL Split by Month of Birth 1& 2       Each of these combinations will provide an input to one of the 24 rowcount components, just the same as before. For illustration here is a screenshot of the dataflow containing three Conditional Split components: As you can these dataflows have a fair bit of work to do and remember that they’re doing that work for 4.7million rows. I will execute each dataflow 10 times and use the average for comparison. I foresee three possible outcomes: The dataflow containing just one Conditional Split (i.e. #1) will be quicker There is no significant difference between any of them One of the two dataflows containing multiple transformation components will be quicker Regardless of which of those outcomes come to pass we will have learnt something and that makes this an interesting test to carry out. Note that I will be executing the dataflows using dtexec.exe rather than hitting F5 within BIDS. The Results and Analysis The table below shows all of the executions, 10 for each dataflow. It also shows the average for each along with a standard deviation. All durations are in seconds. I’m pasting a screenshot because I frankly can’t be bothered with the faffing about needed to make a presentable HTML table. It is plain to see from the average that the dataflow containing three conditional splits is significantly faster, the other two taking 43% and 52% longer respectively. This seems strange though, right? Why does the dataflow containing the most components outperform the other two by such a big margin? The answer is actually quite logical when you put some thought into it and I’ll explain that below. Before progressing, a side note. The standard deviation for the “Three Conditional Splits” dataflow is orders of magnitude smaller – indicating that performance for this dataflow can be predicted with much greater confidence too. The Explanation I refer you to the screenshot above that shows how CSPL Split by Month of Birth and salary category in the first dataflow is setup. Observe that there is a case for each combination of Month Of Date and Income Category – 24 in total. These expressions get evaluated in the order that they appear and hence if we assume that Month of Date and Income Category are uniformly distributed in the dataset we can deduce that the expected number of expression evaluations for each row is 12.5 i.e. 1 (the minimum) + 24 (the maximum) divided by 2 = 12.5. Now take a look at the screenshots for the second dataflow. We are doing one expression evaluation in DER Income Category and we have the same 24 cases in CSPL Split by Month of Birth and Income Category as we had before, only the expression differs slightly. In this case then we have 1 + 12.5 = 13.5 expected evaluations for each row – that would account for the slightly longer average execution time for this dataflow. Now onto the third dataflow, the quick one. CSPL Split by Income Category does a maximum of 2 expression evaluations thus the expected number of evaluations per row is 1.5. CSPL Split by Month of Birth 1 & CSPL Split by Month of Birth 2 both have less work to do than the previous Conditional Split components because they only have 12 cases to test for thus the expected number of expression evaluations is 6.5 There are two of them so total expected number of expression evaluations for this dataflow is 6.5 + 6.5 + 1.5 = 14.5. 14.5 is still more than 12.5 & 13.5 though so why is the third dataflow so much quicker? Simple, the conditional expressions in the first two dataflows have two boolean predicates to evaluate – one for Income Category and one for Month of Birth; the expressions in the Conditional Split in the third dataflow however only have one predicate thus they are doing a lot less work. To sum up, the difference in execution times can be attributed to the difference between: MONTH(BirthDate) == 1 && YearlyIncome <= 50000 and MONTH(BirthDate) == 1 In the first two dataflows YearlyIncome <= 50000 gets evaluated an average of 12.5 times for every row whereas in the third dataflow it is evaluated once and once only. Multiply those 11.5 extra operations by 4.7million rows and you get a significant amount of extra CPU cycles – that’s where our duration difference comes from. The Wrap-up The obvious point here is that adding new components to a dataflow isn’t necessarily going to make it go any slower, moreover you may be able to achieve significant improvements by splitting logic over multiple components rather than one. Performance tuning is all about reducing the amount of work that needs to be done and that doesn’t necessarily mean use less components, indeed sometimes you may be able to reduce workload in ways that aren’t immediately obvious as I think I have proven here. Of course there are many variables in play here and your mileage will most definitely vary. I encourage you to download the package and see if you get similar results – let me know in the comments. The package contains all three dataflows plus a fourth dataflow that will create the 2GB raw file for you (you will also need the [AdventureWorksDW2008] sample database from which to source the data); simply disable all dataflows except the one you want to test before executing the package and remember, execute using dtexec, not within BIDS. If you want to explore dataflow performance tuning in more detail then here are some links you might want to check out: Inequality joins, Asynchronous transformations and Lookups Destination Adapter Comparison Don’t turn the dataflow into a cursor SSIS Dataflow – Designing for performance (webinar) Any comments? Let me know! @Jamiet

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  • Oracle 64-bit assembly throws BadImageFormatException when running unit tests

    - by pjohnson
    We recently upgraded to the 64-bit Oracle client. Since then, Visual Studio 2010 unit tests that hit the database (I know, unit tests shouldn't hit the database--they're not perfect) all fail with this error message:Test method MyProject.Test.SomeTest threw exception: System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. ---> System.BadImageFormatException: Could not load file or assembly 'Oracle.DataAccess, Version=4.112.3.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89b483f429c47342' or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format.I resolved this by changing the test settings to run tests in 64-bit. From the Test menu, go to Edit Test Settings, and pick your settings file. Go to Hosts, and change the "Run tests in 32 bit or 64 bit process" dropdown to "Run tests in 64 bit process on 64 bit machine". Now your tests should run.This fix makes me a little nervous. Visual Studio 2010 and earlier seem to change that file for no apparent reason, add more settings files, etc. If you're not paying attention, you could have TestSettings1.testsettings through TestSettings99.testsettings sitting there and never notice the difference. So it's worth making a note of how to change it in case you have to redo it, and being vigilant about files VS tries to add.I'm not entirely clear on why this was even a problem. Isn't that the point of an MSIL assembly, that it's not specific to the hardware it runs on? An IL disassembler can open the Oracle.DataAccess.dll in question, and in its Runtime property, I see the value "v4.0.30319 / x64". So I guess the assembly was specifically build to target 64-bit platforms only, possibly due to a 64-bit-specific difference in the external Oracle client upon which it depends. Most other assemblies, especially in the .NET Framework, list "msil", and a couple list "x86". So I guess this is another entry in the long list of ways Oracle refuses to play nice with Windows and .NET.If this doesn't solve your problem, you can read others' research into this error, and where to change the same test setting in Visual Studio 2012.

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