best practices - Page 364

Windows: Extract MP3 Audio from FLV file

- by Gilean

What is the best way to extract the audio track from a FLV video file, preferably in MP3?

I would like to replace four aging physical servers with one virtual server. What is the best way to insure the VM server is sized correctly? The requirements of the apps that will be running on the four servers are APPLICATION SERVERS - QTY 3 - These will run the application layer for the web server, Business Objects Business Intelligence app, and various other small client server apps. The three most heavy hitting apps each have the following server requirements. So, if I bought three physical servers, this would be the requirements for each of them Processor - Dual 2.83 GHZ (or faster) Ram - 4 GB Raid 5 - 50-100GB usable space NIC - 1 GB Web Server - this will run one asp.net e-business app that will talk to our dedicated SQL server and the three app servers above. The E-Business software has these requirements for the web server Processor - Quad 2.83 GHZ (or faster) Ram - 8 GB Raid 5 - 50-100GB usable space NIC - 1 GB What is the best tool to determine what I need from a hardware standpoing in a virtual server? I am planning on using VMWare.

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Preventing brute force attacks

- by nitins

What are the best tools to prevent Brute force attacks on Linux servers ?

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How much detail is in a good UI regression test?

- by GlenPeterson

We use a detailed step-by-step user-interface regression test for our commercial web application. It has a "backbone" test for the most used / most important parts of the system, with optional tests for specific areas of functionality. Using this plan has definitely helped us ensure high quality software. But, having very specific tests can be counter-productive. The tester concentrates on following the test and will completely miss usability issues, or not notice fairly obvious problems such as the bottom part of a page that is missing. By contrast, some of the best UI testing happens when building a demo of a new feature. I often do my own best testing by pretending to demonstrate the system to an imaginary prospect. Yet when I tell the testers, "Just demonstrate the system to yourself" they don't cover nearly as much functionality as they do with a detailed point-by-point test. I'm repeatedly asked to provide more and more detail in the test plan so that a new untrained tester can test with it without asking any questions. Yet details seem to be counter-productive. How much detail do you put in a regression test to make it effective? What techniques make the tester to focus more on the system than on checking off items on the test?

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Is Joel Test really a good gauging tool?

- by henry

I just learned about Joel Test. I have been computer programmer for 22 years, but somehow never heard about it before. I consider my best job so far to be this small investment managing company with 30 employees and only 3 people in IT department. I am no longer with them but I had being working there for 5 years – my longest streak with any given company. To my surprise they scored extremely poor on Joel Test. The only two questions I would answer “yes” are #4: Do you have a bug database? And #9: Do you use the best tools money can buy? Everything else is either “sometimes” or straight “no”. Here is what I liked about the company however: a) Good pay, they bragged about it to my face and I bragged about it to their face, so it was almost like a family environment. b) I always knew big picture. When writing a code to solve particular problem there were no ambiguity about the business nature of that problem. Even though we did not always had written specs we could ask business users a question anytime, often yelling it across the floor. I could even talk to executives any time I felt like doing it: no appointment necessary. c) Immediate feedback. Once we implement a solution and make business users happy they immediately let us know that, we (programmers) become heroes of the moment. d) No red tape. I could always buy any tools I deem necessary, and design solutions the way my professional judgment dictates. e) Flexibility. If I had mid-day dental appointment that is near my house rather than near the office, I would send email to the company: "FYI: I work from home today". As long as one of 3 IT guys was on the floor (to help traders in case their monitors go dark) they did not care where 2 others are. So the question thus becomes how valuable Joel Test is? Why bother with it?

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Managing JS and CSS for a static HTML web application

- by Josh Kelley

I'm working on a smallish web application that uses a little bit of static HTML and relies on JavaScript to load the application data as JSON and dynamically create the web page elements from that. First question: Is this a fundamentally bad idea? I'm unclear on how many web sites and web applications completely dispense with server-side generation of HTML. (There are obvious disadvantages of JS-only web apps in the areas of graceful degradation / progressive enhancement and being search engine friendly, but I don't believe that these are an issue for this particular app.) Second question: What's the best way to manage the static HTML, JS, and CSS? For my "development build," I'd like non-minified third-party code, multiple JS and CSS files for easier organization, etc. For the "release build," everything should be minified, concatenated together, etc. If I was doing server-side generation of HTML, it'd be easy to have my web framework generate different development versus release HTML that includes multiple verbose versus concatenated minified code. But given that I'm only doing any static HTML, what's the best way to manage this? (I realize I could hack something together with ERB or Perl, but I'm wondering if there are any standard solutions.) In particular, since I'm not doing any server-side HTML generation, is there an easy, semi-standard way of setting up my static HTML so that it contains code like <script src="js/vendors/jquery.js"></script> <script src="js/class_a.js"></script> <script src="js/class_b.js"></script> <script src="js/main.js"></script> at development time and <script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.2/jquery.min.js"></script> <script src="js/entire_app.min.js"></script> for release?

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SEO for Country & Language Specific content.

- by kecebongsoft

Currently I am creating a website which has a common topic for an article, but it's going to be different content for each country, and also, each of that content will be provided in several languages. And this mechanism exists in most of the parts in the website. For example, I have an article about tax. This article has to be different for each country, for example china. And tax content for china should be written in china AND english language (for non china-speaker). What is the best URL pattern to handle this? What I've been thinking is, using a sub folder (/country-code/language-code/) such as: www.example.com/cn/cn/tax www.example.com/cn/en/tax Or using top level domain such as: www.example.cn/cn/tax www.example.cn/en/tax Or subdomain such as cn.example.com/cn/tax cn.example.com/en/tax I think I will not prefer the last option since I might need to use subdomain for other purpose. Which left only subfolder and TLDN. I've read some articles saying that TLDN is good for localized content (language-specific content), but in my case, my TLDN will also has english contents (for non local speaker) which is specific only to that particular country (also the purpose of this is to let people from other country easily search it through google). What is the best pattern to pick and why?.

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Writing cross-platforms Types, Interfaces and Classes/Methods in C++

- by user827992

I'm looking for the best solution to write cross-platform software, aka code that I write and that I have to interface with different libraries and platforms each time. What I consider the easiest part, correct me if I'm wrong, is the definition of new types, all I have to do is to write an hpp file with a list of typedefs, I can keep the same names for each new type across the different platforms so my codebase can be shared without any problem. typedefs also helps me to redefine a better scope for my types in my code. I will probably end up having something like this: include |-windows | |-types.hpp |-linux | |-types.hpp |-mac |-types.hpp For the interfaces I'm thinking about the same solution used for the types, a series of hpp files, probably I will write all the interfaces only once since they rely on the types and all "cross-platform portability" is ensured by the work done on the types. include | |-interfaces.hpp | |-windows | |-types.hpp |-linux | |-types.hpp |-mac | |-types.hpp For classes and methods I do not have a real answer, I would like to avoid 2 things: the explicit use of pointers the use of templates I want to avoid the use of the pointers because they can make the code less readable for someone and I want to avoid templates just because if I write them, I can't separate the interface from the definition. What is the best option to hide the use of the pointers? I would also like some words about macros and how to implement some OS-specifics calls and definitions.

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One page using querystring or many folders and pages?

- by ClarkeyBoy

I have an application where I have the 'core' code in one folder for which there is a virtual directory in the root, such that I can include any core files using /myApp/core/bla.asp. I then have two folders outside of this with a default.asp which currently use the querystring to define what page should be displayed. One page is for general users, the other will only be accessible to users who have permission to manage users / usergroups / permissions. The core code checks the querystring and then checks the permissions for that user. An example of this as it is now is default.asp?action=view&viewtype=list&objectid=server. I am not worried about SEO as this is an internal app and uses Windows Auth. My question is, is it better the way it is now or would it be better to have something like the following: /server/view/list/ /server/view/?id=123 /server/create/ /server/edit/?id=123 /server/remove/?id=123 In the above folders I would have a home page which defines all the variables which are currently determined by the querystring - in /server/create/ for example, I would define the action as 'create', object name as 'server' and so on. In terms of future development, I really have no idea which method would be best. I think the 2nd method would be best in terms of following what page does what but this is such a huge change to make at this stage that I would really like some opinions, preferably based on experience. PS Sorry if the tags are wrong - I am new to this forum and thought this was a bit too much of a discussion for StackOverflow as that is very much right / wrong answer based. I got the idea SE is more discussion based.

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SCVMM upgrade scenario

- by pigeon

I've read some information on TechNet about upgrading SCVMM 2008 - 2012 but can't quite figure out the best way to approach this. The current setup is that we've got SCVMM 2008 R2 installed but against best practice it was actually installed on the Hyper-V host machine since its a small scale deployment its just a single server setup with SCVMM existing on the same host rather than be in a VM. So from what I've read an in-place should be possible which will incur a restart but also don't have the luxury of another server to shift the VMs onto whilst doing this or want to risk anything happening to the Hyper-V role. Ideally I would probably prefer just to get SCVMM 2012 into a VM of its own and remove the 2008 version from the host machine. Anyone done an upgrade on this or have any recommendations about how to approach this?

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how to stop outgoing email spam

- by James

running an email system using roundcube, with about 200 people using it. 99% of them do as they are told and only email clients they have already spoken to, however 1% of them decide to bulk spam bcc emails, which then tripped an aol filter and almost got us banned from our host. I have disabled the guys account but I am worried about something similar happening in the future, what would be the best way to stop this? I read that if aol recieve 3 emails within 60 seconds from the same ip address then its an instant ban, so i am guessing with the big companies like google, their email accounts must have different ip addresses? and if so is there any way to implement a similar feature? Also i have spam assasin enabled, in this case what would be the best configuration for it?

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FTP server ubuntu

- by Uffo

Can you recommend me a good FTP server for ubuntu 9 64bit and also how to install it? Best Regards,

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Set Up Anti-Brick Protection to Safeguard and Supercharge Your Wii

- by Jason Fitzpatrick

We’ve shown you how to hack your Wii for homebrew software, emulators, and DVD playback, now it’s time to safeguard your Wii against bricking and fix some annoyances—like that stupid “Press A” health screen. The thing about console modding and jailbreaking—save for the rare company like Amazon that doesn’t seem to care—is companies will play a game of cat and mouse to try and knock modded console out of commission, undo your awesome mods, or even brick your device. Although extreme moves like bricktacular-updates are rare once you modify your device you have to be vigilante in protecting it against updates that could hurt your sweet setup. Today we’re going to walk you through hardening your Wii and giving it the best brick protection available Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Our Favorite Tech: What We’re Thankful For at How-To Geek Snowy Christmas House Personas Theme for Firefox The Mystic Underground Tunnel Wallpaper Ubunchu! – The Ubuntu Manga Available in Multiple Languages Breathe New Life into Your PlayStation 2 Peripherals by Hooking Them Up to Your Computer Move the Window Control Buttons to the Left Side in Windows Fun and Colorful Firefox Theme for Windows 7

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FoxTales: Behind the Scenes at Fox Software by Kerry Nietz

Flash backs from the past! It's truly amazing to discover that software development from freshman to senior level as well as project management hasn't changed that much. Kerry Nietz describes his memoir from his final year at college to his first job at Fox Software to 'an early retirement' at Microsoft. This title also brought his other fictional novels to my attention. Once again here is the review I published on Amazon: Built to last! I have been around in software development for more than a decade now but honestly I have to admit it is only now that I took the opportunity to read about the history of my used to be primary programming language. In fact, I started with Visual FoxPro 6 back in 1999 and went only down to FoxPro for Windows 2.6 during migration projects - long after the stories described in this title. It is really interesting to see how they actually managed to create a great product with such a small team of developers. "Create the best Report Writer in the world, out of only sawdust, bubblegum, and dreams." - That's the best sentence I'm going to quote from this title in the future. An inspiration to achieve the impossible, only by taking small steps. Just begin the journey - one step after the next one. If you fall, stand up and continue to walk. Kerry takes the reader on an amazing trip through almost 4 years working at a small software company in Perrysburg, Ohio. That went from a another 'look-alike' of the mighty Ashton-Tate dBase to the leading force in database development, long before Microsoft Access (project name: Cirrus) was even finished. It survived Borland Paradox and even nowadays Visual FoxPro is still in daily use in thousands of companies world-wide. Actually, I'm glad that I had the chance to foster my programming knowledge with Visual FoxPro. After his excellent work in software development, Kerry went for a second career as a writer. I'm looking forward to read his other titles soon:

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Is my first employer expecting too much?

- by priyank patel

This is my first job as a programmer. I am working using the followig technologies: ASP.NET C# HTML CSS Javascript JQuery I work for a firm which develops software for small banking firms. Currently they have their software running in 100 firms. Their software is developed in Visual Fox Pro. I was hired to develop an online version of this software. I am the only developer. My boss is another developer, the only other developer in the firm. Therefore, my employer has a total of two developers. My boss does not have any experience with .NET development. I have been working on this project for 8 months. The progress is there, but has been very slow. I try my best to do what my boss asks. But the project just seems too ambitious for me. The company has not done have any planning for the project. They just ask me to develop what their older software provides. So I have to deal with front end, back end, review code, design architecture, and more. I have decided to give my best. I try a lot. But the project sometimes just seems to be overwhelming. Question: Is it normal for a beginner programmer to be in this place? Are my employers just expecting too much of a new programmer? As a programmer, am I lacking skills one needs to deal with this? I always feel the need to work in at least a small team, if not big one. I am just not able judge my condition. Also I am paid very low salary. I do work on Saturday as well. Please, help to clarify my judgment. Any suggestions are welcome.

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Here's your chance: MOS Feedback Sessions @OOW

- by cwarticki

Bring your questions, comments, concerns, opinions, recommendations, enhancement requests and any emotional outbursts! As I travel the world and speak to thousands of customers, I receive plenty of feedback about My Oracle support. Come hear directly from the source. Meet Dennis Reno, VP of Customer Portal Experience. The Customer Portal Experience team will host a My Oracle Support Tips and Techniques session and three roundtable feedback sessions at this year’s Oracle OpenWorld. The sessions will include a Hardware Support component, as well as best practices that are sure to benefit all My Oracle Support users. The events planned will give our users the opportunity to learn more about how the My Oracle Support customer portal adds value to the support process and to their business needs. The roundtable feedback sessions will allow customers to meet, give feedback, and share their experiences directly with the team responsible for the customer portal experience. Date Time (PT) Session Name Mon, Oct 1 01:45 PM My Oracle Support: Tips and Techniques for Getting the Best Hardware Support Possible (Session #CON9745) Tue, Oct 2 11:00 AM Roundtable - My Oracle Support General Feedback Wed, Oct 3 11:00 AM Roundtable - My Oracle Support Community Feedback Thr, Oct 4 11:00 AM Roundtable - My Oracle Support General Feedback Customers can find more information, including specific details about how to attend, by accessing My Oracle Support at OpenWorld (Article ID 1484508.1). Enjoy OpenWorld everyone! -Chris Warticki Global Customer Management

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Is Your Desktop Printer More Expensive Than Printing Services?

- by Eric Z Goodnight

While many users see desktop printers as the best way to print photos, compared to cheap printing services, they may be more expensive. In this simple How-To, learn how to compare the cost per print to commercial options. Readers may not think of desktop printers as “convenient,” however manufacturers are largely selling the convenience of being able to print at home. Many commercial printers may offer services that are cheaper, even at small quantities. See how a few free downloads, some internet research, and some math can save you money over the holidays Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor The Brothers Mario – Epic Gangland Style Mario Brothers Movie Trailer [Video] Score Awesome Games on the Cheap with the Humble Indie Bundle Add a Colorful Christmas Theme to Your Windows 7 Desktop This Windows Hack Changes the Blue Screen of Death to Red Edit Images Quickly in Firefox with Pixlr Grabber Zoho Writer, Sheet, and Show Now Available in Chrome Web Store

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Benchmark an SSD

- by Taylor Huston

What is the best way to test/benchmark an SSD to make sure it's doing it's job. I invested in an SSD, have my OS on it, want to make sure I am getting my money's worth. I have heard some people making claims along the lines of: "I've had my SSD for X months and my read/write speeds have dropped Y%'. What is the best way to test for things like that (and what are good numbers to look for)? For reference I have a Samsung 830 128gb.

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Why does SEO based code tips not appear to affect ranking?

- by Ben

I've been researching various methods for SEO where pages have precise titles, keywords are highlighted with h tags and tick the many boxes stated in good page mark up for SEO. However when looking at some top ranked search sites on google for key terms they have terrible SEO based mark up. Really long page titles, no tags, limited appearance of keywords in the text and so on. SEO analysis services rate them lower than other sites, yet these sites rank really high. Even with a low number of back-links they are high, so I don't understand how these sites earn the position when they appear inferior to those below them which have better mark up and links. I don't want to cause trouble my mentioning sites or keywords etc. but looking in google at 'executive search' the roughly 5th placed site makes no sense why it should be highly rank, especially with all the added .swfs. The same applies for the top of 'Japan Executive Search'. My main point is that these sites seem to not have all the important structural rules stated in seo page rating applications and general suggested best practice, nor do they show large back-links. It makes me feel like there is no point bothering to write decent mark up if it really doesn't matter. Can anyone explain how sites with such mark-up, and low back-links can outrank well written and structured sites with greater linkage? Sorry if this is a fuzzy question, I want to avoid singling out any sites for example, but it really has me perplexed that sites which appear to ignore the suggested best practices rank so well.

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Evolution of an Application: how to manage and improve core engine?

- by Phil Carter

The web application I work on has been live for a year now, but it's time for it to evolve and one of the ways in which it is evolving is into a multi-brand application - in this case several different companies using the application, different templates/content and some slight business logic changes between them. The problem I'm facing is implementing a best practice across the site where there are differences in business logic for each brand. These will mostly be very superficial, using a an alternative mailing list provider or capturing some extra data in a form. I don't want to have if(brand === x) { ... } else { ... } all over the site especially as most of what needs to be changed can be handled with extending the existing class. I've thought of several methods that could be used to instantiate the correct class, but I'm just not sure which is going to be best especially as some seem to lead to duplication of more code than should be necessary. Here's what I've considered: 1) Use a Static Loader similar to Zend_Loader which can take the class being requested, and has knowledge of the Brand and can then return the correct object. $class = App_Loader::getObject('User', $brand); 2) Factory classes. We use these in the application already for Products but we could utilise them here also to provide a transparent interface to the class. 3) Routing the page request to a specific brand controller. This however seems like it would duplicate a lot of code/logic. Is there a pattern or something else I should be considering to solve this problem? 4) How to manage a growing project that has multiple custom instances in production? Update This is a PHP application so the decisions on which class to load are made per request. There could be upwards of 100+ different 'brands' running.

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Proper Data Structure for Commentable Comments

- by Wesley

Been struggling with this on an architectural level. I have an object which can be commented on, let's call it a Post. Every post has a unique ID. Now I want to comment on that Post, and I can use ID as a foreign key, and each PostComment has an ItemID field which correlates to the Post. Since each Post has a unique ID, it is very easy to assign "Top Level" comments. When I comment on a comment however, I feel like I now need a PostCommentComment, which attaches to the ID of the PostComment. Since ID's are assigned sequentially, I can no longer simply use ItemID to differentiate where in the tree the comment is assigned. I.E. both a Post and a Post Comment might have an ID of '5', so my foreign key relationship is invalid. This seems like it could go on infinitely, with PostCommentCommentComment's etc... What's the best way to solve this? Should I have a field in the comment called "IsPostComment" or something of the like to know which collection to attach the ID to? This strikes me as the best solution I've seen so far, but now I feel like I need to make recursive DataBase calls which start to get expensive. Meaning, I get a Post and get all PostComments where ItemID == Post.ID && where IsPostComment == true Then I take that as a collection, gather all the ID's of the PostComments, and do another search where ItemID == PostComment[all].ID && where IsPostComment == false, then repeat infinitely. This means I make a call for every layer, and if I'm calling 100 Posts, I might make 1000 DB calls to get 10 layers of comments each. What is the right way to do this?

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How to recover data from a failing hard drive?

- by intuited

An external 3½" HDD seems to be in danger of failing — it's making ticking sounds when idle. I've acquired a replacement drive, and want to know the best strategy to get the data off of the dubious drive with the best chance of saving as much as possible. There are some directories that are more important than others. However, I'm guessing that picking and choosing directories is going to reduce my chances of saving the whole thing. I would also have to mount it, dump a file listing, and then unmount it in order to be able to effectively prioritize directories. Adding in the fact that it's time-consuming to do this, I'm leaning away from this approach. I've considered just using dd, but I'm not sure how it would handle read errors or other problems that might prevent only certain parts of the data from being rescued, or which could be overcome with some retries, but not so many that they endanger other parts of the drive from being saved. I guess ideally it would do a single pass to get as much as possible and then go back to retry anything that was missed due to errors. Is it possible that copying more slowly — e.g. pausing every x MB/GB — would be better than just running the operation full tilt, for example to avoid any overheating issues? For the "where is your backup" crowd: this actually is my backup drive, but it also contains some non-critical and bulky stuff, like music, that aren't backups, i.e. aren't backed up. The drive has not exhibited any clear signs of failure other than this somewhat ominous sound. I did have to fsck a few errors recently — orphaned inodes, incorrect free blocks/inodes counts, inode bitmap differences, zero dtime on deleted inodes; about 20 errors in all. The filesystem of the partition is ext3.

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A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune) [Super Retro Classic Sci-Fi Video]

- by Asian Angel

If you are into retro sci-fi movies, then you will definitely want to have a look at this French classic from 1902. This silent movie is only 10.5 minutes long, but is well worth watching and makes for a fun romp through the early days of sci-fi. From YouTube: A Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la lune) is a 1902 French black and white silent science fiction film. It is loosely based on two popular novels of the time: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells. The film was written and directed by Georges Melies, assisted by his brother Gaston. The film runs 14 minutes if projected at 16 frames per second, which was the standard frame rate at the time the film was produced. It was extremely popular at the time of its release and is the best-known of the hundreds of fantasy films made by Melies. A Trip to the Moon is the first science fiction film, and utilizes innovative animation and special effects, including the iconic shot of the rocketship landing in the Moon’s eye. A Trip to the Moon / Le Voyage dans la lune – 1902 [via 20 best designs in sci-fi movies - Page 3 (Creative Bloq)] How to Use an Xbox 360 Controller On Your Windows PC Download the Official How-To Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic

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Which e-reader for O'Reilly books?

- by Tim

Most of my programming books are from O'Reilly. Several of them need to be updated, and I'm thinking of going for an e-reader this time. O'Reilly sell their e-books as a multi-format bundle (PDF, EPUB and Mobipocket (Kindle)). Has anyone done a comparison of the formats as for suitability on a small e-reader screen? In Europe, the Kindle DX is not (yet?) available, so I'm not sure whether a Kindle or a Sony (or some other reader) is best suited for these books. Disregarding other advantages/disadvantages of the different readers for now, which one in your opinion gives the best experience with O'Reilly books in particular (or programming books in general)?

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A tale from a Stalker

- by Peter Larsson

Today I thought I should write something about a stalker I've got. Don't get me wrong, I have way more fans than stalkers, but this stalker is particular persistent towards me. It all started when I wrote about Relational Division with Sets late last year(http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/peterl/archive/2010/07/02/Proper-Relational-Division-With-Sets.aspx) and no matter what he tried, he didn't get a better performing query than me. But this I didn't click until later into this conversation. He must have saved himself for 9 months before posting to me again. Well... Some days ago I get an email from someone I thought i didn't know. Here is his first email Hi, I want a proper solution for achievement the result. The solution must be standard query, means no using as any native code like TOP clause, also the query should run in SQL Server 2000 (no CTE use). We have a table with consecutive keys (nbr) that is not exact sequence. We need bringing all values related with nearest key in the current key row. See the DDL: CREATE TABLE Nums(nbr INTEGER NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY, val INTEGER NOT NULL); INSERT INTO Nums(nbr, val) VALUES (1, 0),(5, 7),(9, 4); See the Result: pre_nbr pre_val nbr val nxt_nbr nxt_val ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- NULL NULL 1 0 5 7 1 0 5 7 9 4 5 7 9 4 NULL NULL The goal is suggesting most elegant solution. I would like see your best solution first, after that I will send my best (if not same with yours) Notice there is no name, no please or nothing polite asking for my help. So, on the top of my head I sent him two solutions, following the rule "Work on SQL Server 2000 and only standard non-native code". -- Peso 1 SELECT pre_nbr, ( SELECT x.val FROM dbo.Nums AS x WHERE x.nbr = d.pre_nbr ) AS pre_val, d.nbr, d.val, d.nxt_nbr, ( SELECT x.val FROM dbo.Nums AS x WHERE x.nbr = d.nxt_nbr ) AS nxt_val FROM ( SELECT ( SELECT MAX(x.nbr) AS nbr FROM dbo.Nums AS x WHERE x.nbr < n.nbr ) AS pre_nbr, n.nbr, n.val, ( SELECT MIN(x.nbr) AS nbr FROM dbo.Nums AS x WHERE x.nbr > n.nbr ) AS nxt_nbr FROM dbo.Nums AS n ) AS d -- Peso 2 CREATE TABLE #Temp ( ID INT IDENTITY(1, 1) PRIMARY KEY, nbr INT, val INT ) INSERT #Temp ( nbr, val ) SELECT nbr, val FROM dbo.Nums ORDER BY nbr SELECT pre.nbr AS pre_nbr, pre.val AS pre_val, t.nbr, t.val, nxt.nbr AS nxt_nbr, nxt.val AS nxt_val FROM #Temp AS pre RIGHT JOIN #Temp AS t ON t.ID = pre.ID + 1 LEFT JOIN #Temp AS nxt ON nxt.ID = t.ID + 1 DROP TABLE #Temp Notice there are no indexes on #Temp table yet. And here is where the conversation derailed. First I got this response back Now my solutions: --My 1st Slt SELECT T2.*, T1.*, T3.* FROM Nums AS T1 LEFT JOIN Nums AS T2 ON T2.nbr = (SELECT MAX(nbr) FROM Nums WHERE nbr < T1.nbr) LEFT JOIN Nums AS T3 ON T3.nbr = (SELECT MIN(nbr) FROM Nums WHERE nbr > T1.nbr); --My 2nd Slt SELECT MAX(CASE WHEN N1.nbr > N2.nbr THEN N2.nbr ELSE NULL END) AS pre_nbr, (SELECT val FROM Nums WHERE nbr = MAX(CASE WHEN N1.nbr > N2.nbr THEN N2.nbr ELSE NULL END)) AS pre_val, N1.nbr AS cur_nbr, N1.val AS cur_val, MIN(CASE WHEN N1.nbr < N2.nbr THEN N2.nbr ELSE NULL END) AS nxt_nbr, (SELECT val FROM Nums WHERE nbr = MIN(CASE WHEN N1.nbr < N2.nbr THEN N2.nbr ELSE NULL END)) AS nxt_val FROM Nums AS N1, Nums AS N2 GROUP BY N1.nbr, N1.val; /* My 1st Slt Table 'Nums'. Scan count 7, logical reads 14 My 2nd Slt Table 'Nums'. Scan count 4, logical reads 23 Peso 1 Table 'Nums'. Scan count 9, logical reads 28 Peso 2 Table '#Temp'. Scan count 0, logical reads 7 Table 'Nums'. Scan count 1, logical reads 2 Table '#Temp'. Scan count 3, logical reads 16 */ To this, I emailed him back asking for a scalability test What if you try with a Nums table with 100,000 rows? His response to that started to get nasty. I have to say Peso 2 is not acceptable. As I said before the solution must be standard, ORDER BY is not part of standard SELECT. Try this without ORDER BY: Truncate Table Nums INSERT INTO Nums (nbr, val) VALUES (1, 0),(9,4), (5, 7) So now we have new rules. No ORDER BY because it's not standard SQL! Of course I asked him Why do you have that idea? ORDER BY is not standard? To this, his replies went stranger and stranger Standard Select = Set-based (no any cursor) It’s free to know, just refer to Advanced SQL Programming by Celko or mail to him if you accept comments from him. What the stalker probably doesn't know, is that I and Mr Celko occasionally are involved in some conversation and thus we exchange emails. I don't know if this reference to Mr Celko was made to intimidate me either. So I answered him, still polite, this What do you mean? The SELECT itself has a ”cursor under the hood”. Now the stalker gets rude But however I mean the solution must no containing any order by, top... No problem, I do not like Peso 2, it’s very non-intelligent and elementary. Yes, Peso 2 is elementary but most performing queries are... And now is the time where I started to feel the stalker really wanted to achieve something else, so I wrote to him So what is your goal? Have a query that performs well, or a query that is super-portable? My Peso 2 outperforms any of your code with a factor of 100 when using more than 100,000 rows. While I awaited his answer, I posted him this query Ok, here is another one -- Peso 3 SELECT MAX(CASE WHEN d = 1 THEN nbr ELSE NULL END) AS pre_nbr, MAX(CASE WHEN d = 1 THEN val ELSE NULL END) AS pre_val, MAX(CASE WHEN d = 0 THEN nbr ELSE NULL END) AS nbr, MAX(CASE WHEN d = 0 THEN val ELSE NULL END) AS val, MAX(CASE WHEN d = -1 THEN nbr ELSE NULL END) AS nxt_nbr, MAX(CASE WHEN d = -1 THEN val ELSE NULL END) AS nxt_val FROM ( SELECT nbr, val, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY nbr) AS SeqID FROM dbo.Nums ) AS s CROSS JOIN ( VALUES (-1), (0), (1) ) AS x(d) GROUP BY SeqID + x.d HAVING COUNT(*) > 1 And here is the stats Table 'Nums'. Scan count 1, logical reads 2, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0. It beats the hell out of your queries…. Now I finally got a response from my stalker and now I also clicked who he was. This is his reponse Why you post my original method with a bit change under you name? I do not like it. See: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic468501-362-14.aspx ;WITH C AS ( SELECT seq_nbr, k, DENSE_RANK() OVER(ORDER BY seq_nbr ASC) + k AS grp_fct FROM [Sample] CROSS JOIN (VALUES (-1), (0), (1) ) AS D(k) ) SELECT MIN(seq_nbr) AS pre_value, MAX(CASE WHEN k = 0 THEN seq_nbr END) AS current_value, MAX(seq_nbr) AS next_value FROM C GROUP BY grp_fct HAVING min(seq_nbr) < max(seq_nbr); These posts: Posted Tuesday, April 12, 2011 10:04 AM Posted Tuesday, April 12, 2011 1:22 PM Why post a solution where will not work in SQL Server 2000? Wait a minute! His own solution is using both a CTE and a ranking function so his query will not work on SQL Server 2000! Bummer... The reference to "Me not like" are my exact words in a previous topic on SQLTeam.com and when I remembered the phrasing, I also knew who he was. See this topic http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=159262 where he writes a query and posts it under my name, as if I wrote it. So I answered him this (less polite). Like I keep track of all topics in the whole world… J So you think you are the only one coming up with this idea? Besides, “M S solution” doesn’t work. This is the result I get pre_value current_value next_value 1 1 5 1 5 9 5 9 9 And I did nothing like you did here, where you posted a solution which you “thought” I should write http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=159262 So why are you yourself using ranking function when this was not allowed per your original email, and no cte? You use CTE in your link above, which do not work in SQL Server 2000. All this makes no sense to me, other than you are trying your best to once in a lifetime create a better performing query than me? After a few hours I get this email back. I don't fully understand it, but it's probably a language barrier. >>Like I keep track of all topics in the whole world… J So you think you are the only one coming up with this idea?<< You right, but do not think you are the first creator of this. >>Besides, “M S Solution” doesn’t work. This is the result I get << Why you get so unimportant mistake? See this post to correct it: Posted 4/12/2011 8:22:23 PM >> So why are you yourself using ranking function when this was not allowed per your original email, and no cte? You use CTE in your link above, which do not work in SQL Server 2000. << Again, why you get some unimportant incompatibility? You offer that solution for current goals not me >> All this makes no sense to me, other than you are trying your best to once in a lifetime create a better performing query than me? << No, I only wanted to know who you will solve it. Now I know you do not have a special solution. No problem. No problem for me either. So I just answered him I am not the first, and you are not the first to come up with this idea. So what is your problem? I am pretty sure other people have come up with the same idea before us. I used this technique all the way back to 2007, see http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=93911 Let's see if he returns... He did! >> So what is your problem? << Nothing Thanks for all replies; maybe we have some competitions in future, maybe. Also I like you but you do not attend it. Your behavior with me is not friendly. Not any meeting… Regards //Peso

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