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• How to track a projects extraneous quirks

  - by Steerpike

  Hello, It's possible that the answer to this question may just be standard bug tracking software like jira or fogbugz, but I'm kind of hoping someone out there knows a better system for what I'm describing. My most current project is requiring a lot of setup quirkiness to get into a position where I can actually start a coding section. For example: A series of convoluted internal company commands before I can insitgate an SSH. Making sure any third party classes that make external calls have internal company proxy options setup - while also making sure these setting wont be set up when installed on a production environment Making sure the proxy is set before trying to install pear packages. Other similar things, mostly involving internal IT security and getting it to work with modules and packages. Individually none of these things is a huge deal, and I've written extensive notes to myself regarding exact commands and aditions I've made, but they're currently in a general text document and it's going to be hard to remember exactly where what I need is far down the line. We also have several new staff starting soon and I' rather give them an easier time of setting up their programming environments. Like I said, they aren't 'programming quirks' exactly, but just the constant fiddling that comes about before programming starts in earnest. Any thoughts on the best way to documents these things for my own and future generations sanity?

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• Which DVCS would work best on Windows for my scenario?

  - by PoorLuzer

  At work I use ClearCase and SourceSafe, but have found some time to do some time to code for myself enroute thanks to a disposable laptop. However, I wish I had a lightweight VCS on my system using which I would be able to make changes to my code during the commute and then push/grab them from my Linux systems. I use git on my home system, but I can't really get it working on Windows. I don't want all that cygwin hack. If it does not run natively on Windows, it just won't do. What have you guys tried on your Windows system? Something that YOU use. The big player at the moment seems to be Mercurial? What would be best for a one (or maybe two) man team? I just need to maintain : Versioned copies of source code. Checking in and out should be as less obtrusive as possible. I am looking forward to a multiple Undo kind of feature (like that in an EMacs buffer) but persistent. I really like the way git keeps track of lines moving between files in a source code set I should be able to move part(s)/sub tree(s) of the source tree (each sub tree implies a module/plugin to my the main software I am building) to an archival system either completly or partially and restore them back from the archive as and when required and the system should track any changes to this tree as well. I actually want to experiment with my code as much as possible without me manually keeping track of what I modified and what I need to undo once I try out some idea, so that I am back to where I want to continue from. Notes : A similar topic came up a year ago : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4670/dvcs-choices-whats-good-for-windows I hope things have changed, and I really want people to share their own, real life experiences. Not something they recommend without using it or they think will work.

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• SQL: Limit rows linked to each joined row

  - by SolidSnakeGTI

  Hello, I've certain situation that requires certain result set from MySQL query, let's see the current query first & then ask my question: SELECT thread.dateline AS tdateline, post.dateline AS pdateline, MIN(post.dateline) FROM thread AS thread LEFT JOIN post AS post ON(thread.threadid = post.threadid) LEFT JOIN forum AS forum ON(thread.forumid = forum.forumid) WHERE post.postid != thread.firstpostid AND thread.open = 1 AND thread.visible = 1 AND thread.replycount >= 1 AND post.visible = 1 AND (forum.options & 1) AND (forum.options & 2) AND (forum.options & 4) AND forum.forumid IN(1,2,3) GROUP BY post.threadid ORDER BY tdateline DESC, pdateline ASC As you can see, mainly I need to select dateline of threads from 'thread' table, in addition to dateline of the second post of each thread, that's all under the conditions you see in the WHERE CLAUSE. Since each thread has many posts, and I need only one result per thread, I've used GROUP BY CLAUSE for that purpose. This query will return only one post's dateline with it's related unique thread. My questions are: How to limit returned threads per each forum!? Suppose I need only 5 threads -as a maximum- to be returned for each forum declared in the WHERE CLAUSE 'forum.forumid IN(1,2,3)', how can this be achieved. Is there any recommendations for optimizing this query (of course after solving the first point)? Notes: I prefer not to use sub-queries, but if it's the only solution available I'll accept it. Double queries not recommended. I'm sure there's a smart solution for this situation. I'm using MySQL 4.1+, but if you know the answer for another engine, just share. Appreciated advice in advance :)

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• Learning Java and logic using debugger. Did I cheat?

  - by centr0

  After a break from coding in general, my way of thinking logically faded (as if it was there to begin with...). I'm no master programmer. Intermediate at best. I decided to see if i can write an algorithm to print out the fibonacci sequence in Java. I got really frustrated because it was something so simple, and used the debugger to see what was going on with my variables. solved it in less than a minute with the help of the debugger. Is this cheating? When I read code either from a book or someone else's, I now find that it takes me a little more time to understand. If the alghorithm is complex (to me) i end up writing notes as to whats going on in the loop. A primitive debugger if you will. When you other programmers read code, do you also need to write things down as to whats the code doing? Or are you a genius and and just retain it?

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• Setting pixel values in Nvidia NPP ImageCPU objects?

  - by solvingPuzzles

  In the Nvidia Performance Primitives (NPP) image processing examples in the CUDA SDK distribution, images are typically stored on the CPU as ImageCPU objects, and images are stored on the GPU as ImageNPP objects. boxFilterNPP.cpp is an example from the CUDA SDK that uses these ImageCPU and ImageNPP objects. When using a filter (convolution) function like nppiFilter, it makes sense to define a filter as an ImageCPU object. However, I see no clear way setting the values of an ImageCPU object. npp::ImageCPU_32f_C1 hostKernel(3,3); //allocate space for 3x3 convolution kernel //want to set hostKernel to [-1 0 1; -1 0 1; -1 0 1] hostKernel[0][0] = -1; //this doesn't compile hostKernel(0,0) = -1; //this doesn't compile hostKernel.at(0,0) = -1; //this doesn't compile How can I manually put values into an ImageCPU object? Notes: I didn't actually use nppiFilter in the code snippet; I'm just mentioning nppiFilter as a motivating example for writing values into an ImageCPU object. The boxFilterNPP.cpp example doesn't involve writing directly to an ImageCPU object, because nppiFilterBox is a special case of nppiFilter that uses a built-in gaussian smoothing filter (probably something like [1 1 1; 1 1 1; 1 1 1]).

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• what are good ways to implement search and search results using ajax?

  - by Amr ElGarhy

  i have some text box in a page and in the same page there will be a table 'grid' like for holding the search result. When the user start editing and of the textbox above, the search must start by sending all textboxs values to the server 'ajax', and get back with the results to fill the below grid. Notes: This grid should support paging, sorting by clicking on headers and it will contains some controls beside the results such as checkboxs for boolean values and links for opening details in another page. I know many ways to do this some of them are: 1- updatepanel around all of these controls and thats it "fast dirty solution" 2- send the search criteria using ajax request using JQuery post function for example and get back the JSON result, and using a template will draw the grid "clean but will take time to finish and will be harder to edit later". 3- .... My question is: What do you think will be the best choice to implement this scenario? because i face this scenario too much, and want to know which implementation will be better regarding performance, optimization, and time to finish. I just want to know your thoughts about this issue.

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• How do I choose what and when to cache data with ob_start rather than query the database?

  - by Tim Santeford

  I have a home page that has several independent dynamic parts. The parts consist of a list of recent news from the company, a site statistics panel, and the online status of certain employees. The recent news changes monthly, site statistics change daily, and online statuses change on a per minute bases. I would like to cache these panels so that the db is not hit on every page load. Is using ob_start() then ob_get_contents() to cache these parts to a file the correct way to do this or is there a better method in PHP5 for doing this? In asking this question I'm trying to answer these additional questions: How can I determine the correct approach for caching this data without doing extensive benchmarking? Does it make sense to cache these parts in different files and then join them together per requests or should I re-query the data and cache once per minute? I'm looking for a rule of thumb for planning pages and for situations where doing testing is not cost effective (The client is not paying enough for it I mean). Thanks!

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• Notification 7 Days Before Payment PHP No Error Message

  - by user1858672

  So I have PHP script running on cron daily. It is suppose to check the date and send an email if it is 7 days before any payments as a reminder. I haven't used PHP in a long time so sorry if the way I did it was ridiculous or something. Thanks a lot. I would say what the problem is but I don't get any error message or anything.. <?php mysqli_connect("xxxxxx", "xxxxxxx", "xxxxxxxxx") or die(mysqli_error()); mysqli_select_db("xxxxxxxxx") or die(mysqli_error()); //Retrieve original payment dates and enter them into an array $result = mysqli_query("SELECT DateCreated FROM UserTable"); $payment_dates = mysqli_fetch_array($result); //Puts original payment date into month-day format $md_payment_dates = substr($payment_dates, 5); //Gets todays date in m-d format and adds 7 days to it $due_date = mktime(0, 0, 0, date("m"), date("d")+7); //Checks if any payment days match today's date. If there are none it script will stop. if (count(preg_grep($due_date, $md_payment_dates)) > 0) { //Retrieves usernames of users that have an invoice due. $users_to_pay = mysqli_fetch_array("SELECT Username IN UserTable WHERE DateCreated = $date"); //Notifies you via email $to = "[email protected]"; $subject = "7 Day Payment Reminder"; $message = "Hi, <br /> The following owe a payment in 7 days : " + $users_to_pay ".<br/> Their payments are due on " + $md_payment_dates " of this year."; mail($to, $subject, $message); exit(); }else{ exit(); } ?>

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• Save many-to-one relationship from JSON into Core Data

  - by Snow Crash

  I'm wanting to save a Many-to-one relationship parsed from JSON into Core Data. The code that parses the JSON and does the insert into Core Data looks like this: for (NSDictionary *thisRecipe in recipes) { Recipe *recipe = [NSEntityDescription insertNewObjectForEntityForName:@"Recipe" inManagedObjectContext:insertionContext]; recipe.title = [thisRecipe objectForKey:@"Title"]; NSDictionary *ingredientsForRecipe = [thisRecipe objectForKey:@"Ingredients"]; NSArray *ingredientsArray = [ingredientsForRecipe objectForKey:@"Results"]; for (NSDictionary *thisIngredient in ingredientsArray) { Ingredient *ingredient = [NSEntityDescription insertNewObjectForEntityForName:@"Ingredient" inManagedObjectContext:insertionContext]; ingredient.name = [thisIngredient objectForKey:@"Name"]; } } NSSet *ingredientsSet = [NSSet ingredientsArray]; [recipe setIngredients:ingredientsSet]; Notes: "setIngredients" is a Core Data generated accessor method. There is a many-to-one relationship between Ingredients and Recipe However, when I run this I get the following error: NSCFDictionary managedObjectContext]: unrecognized selector sent to instance If I remove the last line (i.e. [recipe setIngredients:ingredientsSet];) then, taking a peek at the SQLite database, I see the Recipe and Ingredients have been stored but no relationship has been created between Recipe and Ingredients Any suggestions as to how to ensure the relationship is stored correctly?

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• UIWebView loading/randering error after resize

  - by user1343869

  I have a screen with 2 UIWebView. The user can drag the views left and right to make the right and left view bigger (respectively) and the other one smaller (like UISplitView but customized and self made). I'm loading .html pages from strings and local .css files. After resizing the UIWebView If I load a new page there will be a black or white stripe on the right side of the UIWebView. This stripe is part of the web view (not a space between the views), and if I scroll the webView up and then down, the stripe will vanish and the page will be presented correctly. This issue occurs only in iOS 6 and only on the device (on the simulator it doesn't occur). Some notes: - The .css file contains elements with fixed position. Changing to absolute position didn't solve the problem but changed it: the black stripre occured during the drag. - As slower the drag is, the stripe will be bigger. - After resize the page is presented correctly, only when I load a new page the stripe is shown. - The time between resizing the web view and loading a page doesn't matter, it can be straight away or after couple of minutes. Now, as a workaround I create a new UIWebView and copy the old properties to the new. But than I need to reload the presented page which make a white blink... Any idea why does it happens, and how to fix it?

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• Improved technique to store a filename in a variable?

  - by SDGuero

  Greetings, I need to store the filename of a log into a variable so my script can perform some checks on the daily log files. These logs always have a different name because they have a timestamp in the name. Currently I'm using a hodge podged method that pipes an ls command to sed, sort, cut, and tail in order to get the name out. CRON_LOG=$(ls -1 $LOGS_DIR/fetch_cron_{true,false}_$CRON_DATE*.log 2> /dev/null | sed 's/^[^0-9][^0-9]*\([0-9][0-9]*\).*/\1 &/' | sort -n | cut -d ' ' -f2- | tail -1 ) UPDATE: $CRON_DATE is supplied as an argument to the script. It is the date (to the day) that the log was created on. Sometimes multiple logs will exist for the same day so I want this to get the most recent one. A typical filename is fetch_cron_false_031810090452.log I'm pretty sure I kluged this together from some stuff I found google a few months ago. it works now but I'm not really happy with the technique. I have some ideas about how to do this better but I have had great success on this site before and thought it might be best to refer to the stackoverflow gods first. All answers are greatly appreciated. Thanks, Ryan

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• CodeGolf: Find the Unique Paths

  - by st0le

  Here's a pretty simple idea, in this pastebin I've posted some pair of numbers. These represent Nodes of a directed graph. The input to stdin will be of the form, (they'll be numbers, i'll be using an example here) c d q r a b b c d e p q so x y means x is connected to y (not viceversa) There are 2 paths in that example. a->b->c->d->e and p->q->r. You need to print all the unique paths from that graph The output should be of the format a->b->c->d->e p->q->r Notes You can assume the numbers are chosen such that one path doesn't intersect the other (one node belongs to one path) The pairs are in random order. They are more than 1 paths, they can be of different lengths. All numbers are less than 1000. If you need more details, please leave a comment. I'll amend as required. Shameless-Plug For those who enjoy Codegolf, please Commit at Area51 for its very own site:) (for those who don't enjoy it, please support it as well, so we'll stay out of your way...)

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• retrieving and restoring textview information from sharedpreferences

  - by user1742524

  I have an activity that allows user to enter notes and store them in dynamically created textviews. However, when the use leaves the activity and returns, all the created textviews disappear. How can i store store or retrieve all of these created textviews, whenever i return to the activity? Also, i think that my sharedpreferences will be overwriting each time a new textview is added. Any suggestions? public class DocNoteActivity extends Activity { private LinearLayout nLayout; private EditText etDocNote; private Button btnAdd1; public static final String PREFS_NAME = "MyPrefsFile"; @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.adddocnote); etDocNote = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.editDocNote); btnAdd1 = (Button) findViewById(R.id.btnAdd1); nLayout = (LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.linearLayout); TextView tvNote = new TextView(this); tvNote.setText(""); btnAdd1.setOnClickListener(onClick()); } private OnClickListener onClick() { // TODO Auto-generated method stub return new OnClickListener(){ public void onClick(View v) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub String newDocNote = etDocNote.getText().toString(); nLayout.addView(createNewTextView(newDocNote)); getSharedPreferences("myprefs", 0).edit().putString("etDocNote", newDocNote).commit(); } }; } private TextView createNewTextView(String newText) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub LayoutParams lparams = new LayoutParams(LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT); TextView tvNote = new TextView(this); tvNote.setLayoutParams(lparams); tvNote.setText(newText); return tvNote; } }

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• Why is this giving me an infinite loop?

  - by Chase Yuan

  I was going through a code used to calculate investments until it has doubled and I received an infinite loop that I can't seem to solve. Can anyone figure out why this is giving me an infinite loop? I've gone through myself but I can't seem to find the problem. The "period" referred is how many times per year the interest is compounded. double account = 0; //declares the variables to be used double base = 0; double interest = 0; double rate = 0; double result = 0; double times = 0; int years = 0; int j; System.out.println("This is a program that calculates interest."); Scanner kbReader = new Scanner(System.in); //enters in all data System.out.print("Enter account balance: "); account = kbReader.nextDouble(); System.out.print("Enter interest rate (as decimal): "); rate = kbReader.nextDouble(); System.out.println(" " + "Years to double" + " " + "Ending balance"); base = account; result = account; for (j=0; j<3; j++){ System.out.print("Enter period: "); times = kbReader.nextDouble(); while (account < base*2){ interest = account * rate / times; account = interest + base; years++; } account = (((int)(account * 100))/100.0); //results System.out.print(" " + i + " " + account + "\n"); account = result; } The code should ask for three "periods", or three different times the entered data is compounded per year (ex annually, monthly, daily etc.) Thanks a lot!

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• Is it possible to Store Enum value in String?

  - by Narasimham K

  Actally my java progrem like... public class Schedule{ public static enum RepeatType { DAILY, WEEKLY, MONTHLY; } public static enum WeekdayType { MONDAY(Calendar.MONDAY), TUESDAY(Calendar.TUESDAY), WEDNESDAY( Calendar.WEDNESDAY), THURSDAY(Calendar.THURSDAY), FRIDAY( Calendar.FRIDAY), SATURDAY(Calendar.SATURDAY), SUNDAY( Calendar.SUNDAY); private int day; private WeekdayType(int day) { this.day = day; } public static List<Date> generateSchedule(RepeatType repeatType,List<WeekdayType> repeatDays) { ----------------------------- ----------------------------//hear some logic i wrote }//Method } And i'm calling the method into my Business class like following... @RemotingInclude public void createEvent(TimetableVO timetableVO) { if ("repeatDays".equals(timetableVO.getSearchKey())) { List<Date> repeatDaysList=Schedule.generateSchedule(timetableVO.getRepeatType(),timetableVO.getRepeatDays()); } } And Finally TimetableVO is @Entity @Table(name="EC_TIMETABLE") public class TimetableVO extends AbstractVO{ ----- private RepeatType repeatType; private List<WeekdayType> repeatDays;//But in this case the method generateSchedule(-,-) was not calling. ----- } So my Question is Which one is Better Statement in the Following... private List<WeekdayType> repeatDays; (or) private String repeatDays;//if we give like this `How to Convert Enum type to String` because generateSchedule() method taking enum type value....

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• DB Strategy for inserting into a high read table (Sql Server)

  - by Tom

  Looking for strategies for a very large table with data maintained for reporting and historical purposes, a very small subset of that data is used in daily operations. Background: We have Visitor and Visits tables which are continuously updated by our consumer facing site. These tables contain information on every visit and visitor, including bots and crawlers, direct traffic that does not result in a conversion, etc. Our back end site allows management of the visitor's (leads) from the front end site. Most of the management occurs on a small subset of our visitors (visitors that become leads). The vast majority of the data in our visitor and visit tables is maintained only for a much smaller subset of user activity (basically reporting type functionality). This is NOT an indexing problem, we have done all we can with indexing and keeping our indexes clean, small, and not fragmented. ps: We do not currently have the budget or expertise for a data warehouse. The problem: We would like the system to be more responsive to our end users when they are querying, for instance, the list of their assigned leads. Currently the query is against a huge data set of mostly irrelevant data. I am pondering a few ideas. One involves new tables and a fairly major re-architecture, I'm not asking for help on that. The other involves creating redundant data, (for instance a Visitor_Archive and a Visitor_Small table) where the larger visitor and visit tables exist for inserts and history/reporting, the smaller visitor1 table would exist for managing leads, sending lead an email, need leads phone number, need my list of leads, etc.. The reason I am reaching out is that I would love opinions on the best way to keep the Visitor_Archive and the Visitor_Small tables in sync... Replication? Can I use replication to replicate only data with a certain column value (FooID = x) Any other strategies?

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• SQLAuthority News – TechEd India – April 12-14, 2010 Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – An Op

  - by pinaldave

  TechEd India was one of the largest Technology events in India led by Microsoft. This event was attended by more than 3,000 technology enthusiasts, making it one of the most well-organized events of the year. Though I attempted to attend almost all the technology events here, I have not seen any bigger or better event in Indian subcontinents other than this. There are 21 Technical Tracks at Tech·Ed India 2010 that span more than 745 learning opportunities. I was fortunate enough to be a part of this whole event as a speaker and a delegate, as well. TechEd India Speaker Badge and A Token of Lifetime Hotel Selection I presented three different sessions at TechEd India and was also a part of panel discussion. (The details of the sessions are given at the end of this blog post.) Due to extensive traveling, I stay away from my family occasionally. For this reason, I took my wife – Nupur and daughter Shaivi (8 months old) to the event along with me. We stayed at the same hotel where the event was organized so as to maximize my time bonding with my family and to have more time in networking with technology community, at the same time. The hotel Lalit Ashok is the largest and most luxurious venue one can find in Bangalore, located in the middle of the city. The cost of the hotel was a bit pricey, but looking at all the advantages, I had decided to ask for a booking there. Hotel Lalit Ashok Nupur Dave and Shaivi Dave Arrival Day – DAY 0 – April 11, 2010 I reached the event a day earlier, and that was one wise decision for I was able to relax a bit and go over my presentation for the next day’s course. I am a kind of person who likes to get everything ready ahead of time. I was also able to enjoy a pleasant evening with several Microsoft employees and my family friends. I even checked out the location where I would be doing presentations the next day. I was fortunate enough to meet Bijoy Singhal from Microsoft who helped me out with a few of the logistics issues that occured the day before. I was not aware of the fact that the very next day he was going to be “The Man” of the TechEd 2010 event. Vinod Kumar from Microsoft was really very kind as he talked to me regarding my subsequent session. He gave me some suggestions which were really helpful that I was able to incorporate them during my presentation. Finally, I was able to meet Abhishek Kant from Microsoft; his valuable suggestions and unlimited passion have inspired many people like me to work with the Community. Pradipta from Microsoft was also around, being extremely busy with logistics; however, in those busy times, he did find some good spare time to have a chat with me and the other Community leaders. I also met Harish Ranganathan and Sachin Rathi, both from Microsoft. It was so interesting to listen to both of them talking about SharePoint. I just have no words to express my overwhelmed spirit because of all these passionate young guys - Pradipta,Vinod, Bijoy, Harish, Sachin and Ahishek (of course!). Map of TechEd India 2010 Event Day 1 – April 12, 2010 From morning until night time, today was truly a very busy day for me. I had two presentations and one panel discussion for the day. Needless to say, I had a few meetings to attend as well. The day started with a keynote from S. Somaseger where he announced the launch of Visual Studio 2010. The keynote area was really eye-catching because of the very large, bigger-than- life uniform screen. This was truly one to show. The title music of the keynote was very interesting and it featured Bijoy Singhal as the model. It was interesting to talk to him afterwards, when we laughed at jokes together about his modeling assignment. TechEd India Keynote Opening Featuring Bijoy TechEd India 2010 Keynote – S. Somasegar Time: 11:15pm – 11:45pm Session 1: True Lies of SQL Server – SQL Myth Buster Following the excellent keynote, I had my very first session on the subject of SQL Server Myth Buster. At first, I was a bit nervous as right after the keynote, for this was my very first session and during my presentation I saw lots of Microsoft Product Team members. Well, it really went well and I had a really good discussion with attendees of the session. I felt that a well begin was half-done and my confidence was regained. Right after the session, I met a few of my Community friends and had meaningful discussions with them on many subjects. The abstract of the session is as follows: In this 30-minute demo session, I am going to briefly demonstrate few SQL Server Myths and their resolutions as I back them up with some demo. This demo presentation is a must-attend for all developers and administrators who would come to the event. This is going to be a very quick yet fun session. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch with Somasegar After the session I went to see my daughter, and then I headed right away to the lunch with S. Somasegar – the keynote speaker and senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. I really thank to Abhishek who made it possible for us. Because of his efforts, all the MVPs had the opportunity to meet such a legendary person and had to talk with them on Microsoft Technology. Though Somasegar is currently holding such a high position in Microsoft, he is very polite and a real gentleman, and how I wish that everybody in industry is like him. Believe me, if you spread love and kindness, then that is what you will receive back. As soon as lunch time was over, I ran to the session hall as my second presentation was about to start. Time: 2:30pm – 3:30pm Session 2: Master Data Services in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence is a subject which was widely talked about at TechEd. Everybody was interested in this subject, and I did not excuse myself from this great concept as well. I consider myself fortunate as I was presenting on the subject of Master Data Services at TechEd. When I had initially learned this subject, I had a bit of confusion about the usage of this tool. Later on, I decided that I would tackle about how we all developers and DBAs are not able to understand something so simple such as this, and even worst, creating confusion about the technology. During system designing, it is very important to have a reference material or master lookup tables. Well, I talked about the same subject and presented the session keeping that as my center talk. The session went very well and I received lots of interesting questions. I got many compliments for talking about this subject on the real-life scenario. I really thank Rushabh Mehta (CEO, Solid Quality Mentors India) for his supportive suggestions that helped me prepare the slide deck, as well as the subject. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: SQL Server Master Data Services will ship with SQL Server 2008 R2 and will improve Microsoft’s platform appeal. This session provides an in-depth demonstration of MDS features and highlights important usage scenarios. Master Data Services enables consistent decision-making process by allowing you to create, manage and propagate changes from a single master view of your business entities. Also, MDS – Master Data-hub which is a vital component, helps ensure the consistency of reporting across systems and deliver faster and more accurate results across the enterprise. We will talk about establishing the basis for a centralized approach to defining, deploying, and managing master data in the enterprise. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The day was still not over for me. I had ran into several friends but we were not able keep our enthusiasm under control about all the rumors saying that SQL Server 2008 R2 was about to be launched tomorrow in the keynote. I then ran to my third and final technical event for the day- a panel discussion with the top technologies of India. Time: 5:00pm – 6:00pm Panel Discussion: Harness the power of Web – SEO and Technical Blogging As I have delivered two technical sessions by this time, I was a bit tired but  not less enthusiastic when I had to talk about Blog and Technology. We discussed many different topics there. I told them that the most important aspect for any blog is its content. We discussed in depth the issues with plagiarism and how to avoid it. Another topic of discussion was how we technology bloggers can create awareness in the Community about what the right kind of blogging is and what morally and technically wrong acts are. A couple of questions were raised about what type of liberty a person can have in terms of writing blogs. Well, it was generically agreed that a blog is mainly a representation of our ideas and thoughts; it should not be governed by external entities. As long as one is writing what they really want to say, but not providing incorrect information or not practicing plagiarism, a blogger should be allowed to express himself. This panel discussion was supposed to be over in an hour, but the interest of the participants was remarkable and so it was extended for 30 minutes more. Finally, we decided to bring to a close the discussion and agreed that we will continue the topic next year. TechEd India Panel Discussion on Web, Technology and SEO Surprisingly, the day was just beginning after doing all of these. By this time, I have almost met all the MVP who arrived at the event, as well as many Microsoft employees. There were lots of Community folks present, too. I decided that I would go to meet several friends from the Community and continue to communicate with me on SQLAuthority.com. I also met Abhishek Baxi and had a good talk with him regarding Win Mobile and Twitter. He also took a very quick video of me wherein I spoke in my mother’s tongue, Gujarati. It was funny that I talked in Gujarati almost all the day, but when I was talking in the interview I could not find the right Gujarati words to speak. I think we all think in English when we think about Technology, so as to address universality. After meeting them, I headed towards the Speakers’ Dinner. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Speakers Dinner The Speakers’ dinner was indeed a wonderful opportunity for all the speakers to get together and relax. We talked so many different things, from XBOX to Hindi Movies, and from SQL to Samosas. I just could not express how much fun I had. After a long evening, when I returned tmy room and met Shaivi, I just felt instantly relaxed. Kids are really gifts from God. Today was a really long but exciting day. So many things happened in just one day: Visual Studio Lanch, lunch with Somasegar, 2 technical sessions, 1 panel discussion, community leaders meeting, speakers dinner and, last but not leas,t playing with my child! A perfect day! Day 2 – April 13, 2010 Today started with a bang with the excellent keynote by Kamal Hathi who launched SQL Server 2008 R2 in India and demonstrated the power of PowerPivot to all of us. 101 Million Rows in Excel brought lots of applause from the audience. Kamal Hathi Presenting Keynote at TechEd India 2010 The day was a bit easier one for me. I had no sessions today and no events planned. I had a few meetings planned for the second day of the event. I sat in the speaker’s lounge for half a day and met many people there. I attended nearly 9 different meetings today. The subjects of the meetings were very different. Here is a list of the topics of the Community-related meetings: SQL PASS and its involvement in India and subcontinents How to start community blogging Forums and developing aptitude towards technology Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar User Groups and their developments SharePoint and SQL Business Meeting – a client meeting Business Meeting – a potential performance tuning project Business Meeting – Solid Quality Mentors (SolidQ) And family friends Pinal Dave at TechEd India The day passed by so quickly during this meeting. In the evening, I headed to Partners Expo with friends and checked out few of the booths. I really wanted to talk about some of the products, but due to the freebies there was so much crowd that I finally decided to just take the contact details of the partner. I will now start sending them with my queries and, hopefully, I will have my questions answered. Nupur and Shaivi had also one meeting to attend; it was with our family friend Vijay Raj. Vijay is also a person who loves Technology and loves it more than anybody. I see him growing and learning every day, but still remaining as a ‘human’. I believe that if someone acquires as much knowledge as him, that person will become either a computer or cyborg. Here, Vijay is still a kind gentleman and is able to stay as our close family friend. Shaivi was really happy to play with Uncle Vijay. Pinal Dave and Vijay Raj Renuka Prasad, a Microsoft MVP, impressed me with his passion and knowledge of SQL. Every time he gives me credit for his success, I believe that he is very humble. He has way more certifications than me and has worked many more years with SQL compared to me. He is an excellent photographer as well. Most of the photos in this blog post have been taken by him. I told him if ever he wants to do a part time job, he can do the photography very well. Pinal Dave and Renuka Prasad I also met L Srividya from Microsoft, whom I was looking forward to meet. She is a bundle of knowledge that everyone would surely learn a lot from her. I was able to get a few minutes from her and well, I felt confident. She enlightened me with SQL Server BI concepts, domain management and SQL Server security and few other interesting details. I also had a wonderful time talking about SharePoint with fellow Solid Quality Mentor Joy Rathnayake. He is very passionate about SharePoint but when you talk .NET and SQL with him, he is still overwhelmingly knowledgeable. In fact, while talking to him, I figured out that the recent training he delivered was on SQL Server 2008 R2. I told him a joke that it hurts my ego as he is more popular now in SQL training and consulting than me. I am sure all of you agree that working with good people is a gift from God. I am fortunate enough to work with the best of the best Industry experts. It was a great pleasure to hang out with my Community friends – Ahswin Kini, HimaBindu Vejella, Vasudev G, Suprotim Agrawal, Dhananjay, Vikram Pendse, Mahesh Dhola, Mahesh Mitkari,  Manu Zacharia, Shobhan, Hardik Shah, Ashish Mohta, Manan, Subodh Sohani and Sanjay Shetty (of course!) .  (Please let me know if I have met you at the event and forgot your name to list here). Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Community Leaders Dinner After lots of meetings, I headed towards the Community Leaders dinner meeting and met almost all the folks I met in morning. The discussion was almost the same but the real good thing was that we were enjoying it. The food was really good. Nupur was invited in the event, but Shaivi could not come. When Nupur tried to enter the event, she was stopped as Shaivi did not have the pass to enter the dinner. Nupur expressed that Shaivi is only 8 months old and does not eat outside food as well and could not stay by herself at this age, but the door keeper did not agree and asked that without the entry details Shaivi could not go in, but Nupur could. Nupur called me on phone and asked me to help her out. By the time, I was outside; the organizer of the event reached to the door and happily approved Shaivi to join the party. Once in the party, Shaivi had lots of fun meeting so many people. Shaivi Dave and Abhishek Kant Dean Guida (Infragistics President and CEO) and Pinal Dave (SQLAuthority.com) Day 3 – April 14, 2010 Though, it was last day, I was very much excited today as I was about to present my very favorite session. Query Optimization and Performance Tuning is my domain expertise and I make my leaving by consulting and training the same. Today’s session was on the same subject and as an additional twist, another subject about Spatial Database was presented. I was always intrigued with Spatial Database and I have enjoyed learning about it; however, I have never thought about Spatial Indexing before it was decided that I will do this session. I really thank Solid Quality Mentor Dr. Greg Low for his assistance in helping me prepare the slide deck and also review the content. Furthermore, today was really what I call my ‘learning day’ . So far I had not attended any session in TechEd and I felt a bit down for that. Everybody spends their valuable time & money to learn something new and exciting in TechEd and I had not attended a single session at the moment thinking that it was already last day of the event. I did have a plan for the day and I attended two technical sessions before my session of spatial database. I attended 2 sessions of Vinod Kumar. Vinod is a natural storyteller and there was no doubt that his sessions would be jam-packed. People attended his sessions simply because Vinod is syhe speaker. He did not have a single time disappointed audience; he is truly a good speaker. He knows his stuff very well. I personally do not think that in India he can be compared to anyone for SQL. Time: 12:30pm-1:30pm SQL Server Query Optimization, Execution and Debugging Query Performance I really had a fun time attending this session. Vinod made this session very interactive. The entire audience really got into the presentation and started participating in the event. Vinod was presenting a small problem with Query Tuning, which any developer would have encountered and solved with their help in such a fashion that a developer feels he or she have already resolved it. In one question, I was the only one who was ready to answer and Vinod told me in a light tone that I am now allowed to answer it! The audience really found it very amusing. There was a huge crowd around Vinod after the session. Vinod – A master storyteller! Time: 3:45pm-4:45pm Data Recovery / consistency with CheckDB This session was much heavier than the earlier one, and I must say this is my most favorite session I EVER attended in India. In this TechEd I have only attended two sessions, but in my career, I have attended numerous technical sessions not only in India, but all over the world. This session had taken my breath away. One by one, Vinod took the different databases, and started to corrupt them in different ways. Each database has some unique ways to get corrupted. Once that was done, Vinod started to show the DBCC CEHCKDB and demonstrated how it can solve your problem. He finally fixed all the databases with this single tool. I do have a good knowledge of this subject, but let me honestly admit that I have learned a lot from this session. I enjoyed and cheered during this session along with other attendees. I had total satisfaction that, just like everyone, I took advantage of the event and learned something. I am now TECHnically EDucated. Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar After two very interactive and informative SQL Sessions from Vinod Kumar, the next turn me presenting on Spatial Database and Indexing. I got once again nervous but Vinod told me to stay natural and do my presentation. Well, once I got a huge stage with a total of four projectors and a large crowd, I felt better. Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm Session 3: Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spatial Indexing Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 I kicked off this session with Michael J Swart‘s beautiful spatial image. This session was the last one for the day but, to my surprise, I had more than 200+ attendees. Slowly, the rain was starting outside and I was worried that the hall would not be full; despite this, there was not a single seat available in the first five minutes of the session. Thanks to all of you for attending my presentation. I had demonstrated the map of world (and India) and quickly explained what  Geographic and Geometry data types in Spatial Database are. This session had interesting story of Indexing and Comparison, as well as how different traditional indexes are from spatial indexing. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Due to the heavy rain during this event, the power went off for about 22 minutes (just an accident – nobodies fault). During these minutes, there were no audio, no video and no light. I continued to address the mass of 200+ people without any audio device and PowerPoint. I must thank the audience because not a single person left from the session. They all stayed in their place, some moved closure to listen to me properly. I noticed that the curiosity and eagerness to learn new things was at the peak even though it was the very last session of the TechEd. Everybody wanted get the maximum knowledge out of this whole event. I was touched by the support from audience. They listened and participated in my session even without any kinds of technology (no ppt, no mike, no AC, nothing). During these 22 minutes, I had completed my theory verbally. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 After a while, we got the projector back online and we continued with some exciting demos. Many thanks to Microsoft people who worked energetically in background to get the backup power for project up. I had a very interesting demo wherein I overlaid Bangalore and Hyderabad on the India Map and find their aerial distance between them. After finding the aerial distance, we browsed online and found that SQL Server estimates the exact aerial distance between these two cities, as compared to the factual distance. There was a huge applause from the crowd on the subject that SQL Server takes into the count of the curvature of the earth and finds the precise distances based on details. During the process of finding the distance, I demonstrated a few examples of the indexes where I expressed how one can use those indexes to find these distances and how they can improve the performance of similar query. I also demonstrated few examples wherein we were able to see in which data type the Index is most useful. We finished the demos with a few more internal stuff. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Despite all issues, I was mostly satisfied with my presentation. I think it was the best session I have ever presented at any conference. There was no help from Technology for a while, but I still got lots of appreciation at the end. When we ended the session, the applause from the audience was so loud that for a moment, the rain was not audible. I was truly moved by the dedication of the Technology enthusiasts. Pinal Dave After Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers new spatial data types that enable you to consume, use, and extend location-based data through spatial-enabled applications. Attend this session to learn how to use spatial functionality in next version of SQL Server to build and optimize spatial queries. This session outlines the new geography data type to store geodetic spatial data and perform operations on it, use the new geometry data type to store planar spatial data and perform operations on it, take advantage of new spatial indexes for high performance queries, use the new spatial results tab to quickly and easily view spatial query results directly from within Management Studio, extend spatial data capabilities by building or integrating location-enabled applications through support for spatial standards and specifications and much more. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Dinner by Sponsors After the lively session during the day, there was another dinner party courtesy of one of the sponsors of TechEd. All the MVPs and several Community leaders were present at the dinner. I would like to express my gratitude to Abhishek Kant for organizing this wonderful event for us. It was a blast and really relaxing in all angles. We all stayed there for a long time and talked about our sweet and unforgettable memories of the event. Pinal Dave and Bijoy Singhal It was really one wonderful event. After writing this much, I say that I have no words to express about how much I enjoyed TechEd. However, it is true that I shared with you only 1% of the total activities I have done at the event. There were so many people I have met, yet were not mentioned here although I wanted to write their names here, too . Anyway, I have learned so many things and up until now, I am not able to get over all the fun I had in this event. Pinal Dave at TechEd India 2010 The Next Days – April 15, 2010 – till today I am still not able to get my mind out of the whole experience I had at TechEd India 2010. It was like a whole Microsoft Family working together to celebrate a happy occasion. TechEd India – Truly An Unforgettable Experience! Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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• SQLAuthority News – TechEd India – April 12-14, 2010 Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – An Op

  - by pinaldave

  TechEd India was one of the largest Technology events in India led by Microsoft. This event was attended by more than 3,000 technology enthusiasts, making it one of the most well-organized events of the year. Though I attempted to attend almost all the technology events here, I have not seen any bigger or better event in Indian subcontinents other than this. There are 21 Technical Tracks at Tech·Ed India 2010 that span more than 745 learning opportunities. I was fortunate enough to be a part of this whole event as a speaker and a delegate, as well. TechEd India Speaker Badge and A Token of Lifetime Hotel Selection I presented three different sessions at TechEd India and was also a part of panel discussion. (The details of the sessions are given at the end of this blog post.) Due to extensive traveling, I stay away from my family occasionally. For this reason, I took my wife – Nupur and daughter Shaivi (8 months old) to the event along with me. We stayed at the same hotel where the event was organized so as to maximize my time bonding with my family and to have more time in networking with technology community, at the same time. The hotel Lalit Ashok is the largest and most luxurious venue one can find in Bangalore, located in the middle of the city. The cost of the hotel was a bit pricey, but looking at all the advantages, I had decided to ask for a booking there. Hotel Lalit Ashok Nupur Dave and Shaivi Dave Arrival Day – DAY 0 – April 11, 2010 I reached the event a day earlier, and that was one wise decision for I was able to relax a bit and go over my presentation for the next day’s course. I am a kind of person who likes to get everything ready ahead of time. I was also able to enjoy a pleasant evening with several Microsoft employees and my family friends. I even checked out the location where I would be doing presentations the next day. I was fortunate enough to meet Bijoy Singhal from Microsoft who helped me out with a few of the logistics issues that occured the day before. I was not aware of the fact that the very next day he was going to be “The Man” of the TechEd 2010 event. Vinod Kumar from Microsoft was really very kind as he talked to me regarding my subsequent session. He gave me some suggestions which were really helpful that I was able to incorporate them during my presentation. Finally, I was able to meet Abhishek Kant from Microsoft; his valuable suggestions and unlimited passion have inspired many people like me to work with the Community. Pradipta from Microsoft was also around, being extremely busy with logistics; however, in those busy times, he did find some good spare time to have a chat with me and the other Community leaders. I also met Harish Ranganathan and Sachin Rathi, both from Microsoft. It was so interesting to listen to both of them talking about SharePoint. I just have no words to express my overwhelmed spirit because of all these passionate young guys - Pradipta,Vinod, Bijoy, Harish, Sachin and Ahishek (of course!). Map of TechEd India 2010 Event Day 1 – April 12, 2010 From morning until night time, today was truly a very busy day for me. I had two presentations and one panel discussion for the day. Needless to say, I had a few meetings to attend as well. The day started with a keynote from S. Somaseger where he announced the launch of Visual Studio 2010. The keynote area was really eye-catching because of the very large, bigger-than- life uniform screen. This was truly one to show. The title music of the keynote was very interesting and it featured Bijoy Singhal as the model. It was interesting to talk to him afterwards, when we laughed at jokes together about his modeling assignment. TechEd India Keynote Opening Featuring Bijoy TechEd India 2010 Keynote – S. Somasegar Time: 11:15pm – 11:45pm Session 1: True Lies of SQL Server – SQL Myth Buster Following the excellent keynote, I had my very first session on the subject of SQL Server Myth Buster. At first, I was a bit nervous as right after the keynote, for this was my very first session and during my presentation I saw lots of Microsoft Product Team members. Well, it really went well and I had a really good discussion with attendees of the session. I felt that a well begin was half-done and my confidence was regained. Right after the session, I met a few of my Community friends and had meaningful discussions with them on many subjects. The abstract of the session is as follows: In this 30-minute demo session, I am going to briefly demonstrate few SQL Server Myths and their resolutions as I back them up with some demo. This demo presentation is a must-attend for all developers and administrators who would come to the event. This is going to be a very quick yet fun session. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch with Somasegar After the session I went to see my daughter, and then I headed right away to the lunch with S. Somasegar – the keynote speaker and senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. I really thank to Abhishek who made it possible for us. Because of his efforts, all the MVPs had the opportunity to meet such a legendary person and had to talk with them on Microsoft Technology. Though Somasegar is currently holding such a high position in Microsoft, he is very polite and a real gentleman, and how I wish that everybody in industry is like him. Believe me, if you spread love and kindness, then that is what you will receive back. As soon as lunch time was over, I ran to the session hall as my second presentation was about to start. Time: 2:30pm – 3:30pm Session 2: Master Data Services in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence is a subject which was widely talked about at TechEd. Everybody was interested in this subject, and I did not excuse myself from this great concept as well. I consider myself fortunate as I was presenting on the subject of Master Data Services at TechEd. When I had initially learned this subject, I had a bit of confusion about the usage of this tool. Later on, I decided that I would tackle about how we all developers and DBAs are not able to understand something so simple such as this, and even worst, creating confusion about the technology. During system designing, it is very important to have a reference material or master lookup tables. Well, I talked about the same subject and presented the session keeping that as my center talk. The session went very well and I received lots of interesting questions. I got many compliments for talking about this subject on the real-life scenario. I really thank Rushabh Mehta (CEO, Solid Quality Mentors India) for his supportive suggestions that helped me prepare the slide deck, as well as the subject. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: SQL Server Master Data Services will ship with SQL Server 2008 R2 and will improve Microsoft’s platform appeal. This session provides an in-depth demonstration of MDS features and highlights important usage scenarios. Master Data Services enables consistent decision-making process by allowing you to create, manage and propagate changes from a single master view of your business entities. Also, MDS – Master Data-hub which is a vital component, helps ensure the consistency of reporting across systems and deliver faster and more accurate results across the enterprise. We will talk about establishing the basis for a centralized approach to defining, deploying, and managing master data in the enterprise. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The day was still not over for me. I had ran into several friends but we were not able keep our enthusiasm under control about all the rumors saying that SQL Server 2008 R2 was about to be launched tomorrow in the keynote. I then ran to my third and final technical event for the day- a panel discussion with the top technologies of India. Time: 5:00pm – 6:00pm Panel Discussion: Harness the power of Web – SEO and Technical Blogging As I have delivered two technical sessions by this time, I was a bit tired but  not less enthusiastic when I had to talk about Blog and Technology. We discussed many different topics there. I told them that the most important aspect for any blog is its content. We discussed in depth the issues with plagiarism and how to avoid it. Another topic of discussion was how we technology bloggers can create awareness in the Community about what the right kind of blogging is and what morally and technically wrong acts are. A couple of questions were raised about what type of liberty a person can have in terms of writing blogs. Well, it was generically agreed that a blog is mainly a representation of our ideas and thoughts; it should not be governed by external entities. As long as one is writing what they really want to say, but not providing incorrect information or not practicing plagiarism, a blogger should be allowed to express himself. This panel discussion was supposed to be over in an hour, but the interest of the participants was remarkable and so it was extended for 30 minutes more. Finally, we decided to bring to a close the discussion and agreed that we will continue the topic next year. TechEd India Panel Discussion on Web, Technology and SEO Surprisingly, the day was just beginning after doing all of these. By this time, I have almost met all the MVP who arrived at the event, as well as many Microsoft employees. There were lots of Community folks present, too. I decided that I would go to meet several friends from the Community and continue to communicate with me on SQLAuthority.com. I also met Abhishek Baxi and had a good talk with him regarding Win Mobile and Twitter. He also took a very quick video of me wherein I spoke in my mother’s tongue, Gujarati. It was funny that I talked in Gujarati almost all the day, but when I was talking in the interview I could not find the right Gujarati words to speak. I think we all think in English when we think about Technology, so as to address universality. After meeting them, I headed towards the Speakers’ Dinner. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Speakers Dinner The Speakers’ dinner was indeed a wonderful opportunity for all the speakers to get together and relax. We talked so many different things, from XBOX to Hindi Movies, and from SQL to Samosas. I just could not express how much fun I had. After a long evening, when I returned tmy room and met Shaivi, I just felt instantly relaxed. Kids are really gifts from God. Today was a really long but exciting day. So many things happened in just one day: Visual Studio Lanch, lunch with Somasegar, 2 technical sessions, 1 panel discussion, community leaders meeting, speakers dinner and, last but not leas,t playing with my child! A perfect day! Day 2 – April 13, 2010 Today started with a bang with the excellent keynote by Kamal Hathi who launched SQL Server 2008 R2 in India and demonstrated the power of PowerPivot to all of us. 101 Million Rows in Excel brought lots of applause from the audience. Kamal Hathi Presenting Keynote at TechEd India 2010 The day was a bit easier one for me. I had no sessions today and no events planned. I had a few meetings planned for the second day of the event. I sat in the speaker’s lounge for half a day and met many people there. I attended nearly 9 different meetings today. The subjects of the meetings were very different. Here is a list of the topics of the Community-related meetings: SQL PASS and its involvement in India and subcontinents How to start community blogging Forums and developing aptitude towards technology Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar User Groups and their developments SharePoint and SQL Business Meeting – a client meeting Business Meeting – a potential performance tuning project Business Meeting – Solid Quality Mentors (SolidQ) And family friends Pinal Dave at TechEd India The day passed by so quickly during this meeting. In the evening, I headed to Partners Expo with friends and checked out few of the booths. I really wanted to talk about some of the products, but due to the freebies there was so much crowd that I finally decided to just take the contact details of the partner. I will now start sending them with my queries and, hopefully, I will have my questions answered. Nupur and Shaivi had also one meeting to attend; it was with our family friend Vijay Raj. Vijay is also a person who loves Technology and loves it more than anybody. I see him growing and learning every day, but still remaining as a ‘human’. I believe that if someone acquires as much knowledge as him, that person will become either a computer or cyborg. Here, Vijay is still a kind gentleman and is able to stay as our close family friend. Shaivi was really happy to play with Uncle Vijay. Pinal Dave and Vijay Raj Renuka Prasad, a Microsoft MVP, impressed me with his passion and knowledge of SQL. Every time he gives me credit for his success, I believe that he is very humble. He has way more certifications than me and has worked many more years with SQL compared to me. He is an excellent photographer as well. Most of the photos in this blog post have been taken by him. I told him if ever he wants to do a part time job, he can do the photography very well. Pinal Dave and Renuka Prasad I also met L Srividya from Microsoft, whom I was looking forward to meet. She is a bundle of knowledge that everyone would surely learn a lot from her. I was able to get a few minutes from her and well, I felt confident. She enlightened me with SQL Server BI concepts, domain management and SQL Server security and few other interesting details. I also had a wonderful time talking about SharePoint with fellow Solid Quality Mentor Joy Rathnayake. He is very passionate about SharePoint but when you talk .NET and SQL with him, he is still overwhelmingly knowledgeable. In fact, while talking to him, I figured out that the recent training he delivered was on SQL Server 2008 R2. I told him a joke that it hurts my ego as he is more popular now in SQL training and consulting than me. I am sure all of you agree that working with good people is a gift from God. I am fortunate enough to work with the best of the best Industry experts. It was a great pleasure to hang out with my Community friends – Ahswin Kini, HimaBindu Vejella, Vasudev G, Suprotim Agrawal, Dhananjay, Vikram Pendse, Mahesh Dhola, Mahesh Mitkari,  Manu Zacharia, Shobhan, Hardik Shah, Ashish Mohta, Manan, Subodh Sohani and Sanjay Shetty (of course!) .  (Please let me know if I have met you at the event and forgot your name to list here). Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Community Leaders Dinner After lots of meetings, I headed towards the Community Leaders dinner meeting and met almost all the folks I met in morning. The discussion was almost the same but the real good thing was that we were enjoying it. The food was really good. Nupur was invited in the event, but Shaivi could not come. When Nupur tried to enter the event, she was stopped as Shaivi did not have the pass to enter the dinner. Nupur expressed that Shaivi is only 8 months old and does not eat outside food as well and could not stay by herself at this age, but the door keeper did not agree and asked that without the entry details Shaivi could not go in, but Nupur could. Nupur called me on phone and asked me to help her out. By the time, I was outside; the organizer of the event reached to the door and happily approved Shaivi to join the party. Once in the party, Shaivi had lots of fun meeting so many people. Shaivi Dave and Abhishek Kant Dean Guida (Infragistics President and CEO) and Pinal Dave (SQLAuthority.com) Day 3 – April 14, 2010 Though, it was last day, I was very much excited today as I was about to present my very favorite session. Query Optimization and Performance Tuning is my domain expertise and I make my leaving by consulting and training the same. Today’s session was on the same subject and as an additional twist, another subject about Spatial Database was presented. I was always intrigued with Spatial Database and I have enjoyed learning about it; however, I have never thought about Spatial Indexing before it was decided that I will do this session. I really thank Solid Quality Mentor Dr. Greg Low for his assistance in helping me prepare the slide deck and also review the content. Furthermore, today was really what I call my ‘learning day’ . So far I had not attended any session in TechEd and I felt a bit down for that. Everybody spends their valuable time & money to learn something new and exciting in TechEd and I had not attended a single session at the moment thinking that it was already last day of the event. I did have a plan for the day and I attended two technical sessions before my session of spatial database. I attended 2 sessions of Vinod Kumar. Vinod is a natural storyteller and there was no doubt that his sessions would be jam-packed. People attended his sessions simply because Vinod is syhe speaker. He did not have a single time disappointed audience; he is truly a good speaker. He knows his stuff very well. I personally do not think that in India he can be compared to anyone for SQL. Time: 12:30pm-1:30pm SQL Server Query Optimization, Execution and Debugging Query Performance I really had a fun time attending this session. Vinod made this session very interactive. The entire audience really got into the presentation and started participating in the event. Vinod was presenting a small problem with Query Tuning, which any developer would have encountered and solved with their help in such a fashion that a developer feels he or she have already resolved it. In one question, I was the only one who was ready to answer and Vinod told me in a light tone that I am now allowed to answer it! The audience really found it very amusing. There was a huge crowd around Vinod after the session. Vinod – A master storyteller! Time: 3:45pm-4:45pm Data Recovery / consistency with CheckDB This session was much heavier than the earlier one, and I must say this is my most favorite session I EVER attended in India. In this TechEd I have only attended two sessions, but in my career, I have attended numerous technical sessions not only in India, but all over the world. This session had taken my breath away. One by one, Vinod took the different databases, and started to corrupt them in different ways. Each database has some unique ways to get corrupted. Once that was done, Vinod started to show the DBCC CEHCKDB and demonstrated how it can solve your problem. He finally fixed all the databases with this single tool. I do have a good knowledge of this subject, but let me honestly admit that I have learned a lot from this session. I enjoyed and cheered during this session along with other attendees. I had total satisfaction that, just like everyone, I took advantage of the event and learned something. I am now TECHnically EDucated. Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar After two very interactive and informative SQL Sessions from Vinod Kumar, the next turn me presenting on Spatial Database and Indexing. I got once again nervous but Vinod told me to stay natural and do my presentation. Well, once I got a huge stage with a total of four projectors and a large crowd, I felt better. Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm Session 3: Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spatial Indexing Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 I kicked off this session with Michael J Swart‘s beautiful spatial image. This session was the last one for the day but, to my surprise, I had more than 200+ attendees. Slowly, the rain was starting outside and I was worried that the hall would not be full; despite this, there was not a single seat available in the first five minutes of the session. Thanks to all of you for attending my presentation. I had demonstrated the map of world (and India) and quickly explained what  Geographic and Geometry data types in Spatial Database are. This session had interesting story of Indexing and Comparison, as well as how different traditional indexes are from spatial indexing. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Due to the heavy rain during this event, the power went off for about 22 minutes (just an accident – nobodies fault). During these minutes, there were no audio, no video and no light. I continued to address the mass of 200+ people without any audio device and PowerPoint. I must thank the audience because not a single person left from the session. They all stayed in their place, some moved closure to listen to me properly. I noticed that the curiosity and eagerness to learn new things was at the peak even though it was the very last session of the TechEd. Everybody wanted get the maximum knowledge out of this whole event. I was touched by the support from audience. They listened and participated in my session even without any kinds of technology (no ppt, no mike, no AC, nothing). During these 22 minutes, I had completed my theory verbally. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 After a while, we got the projector back online and we continued with some exciting demos. Many thanks to Microsoft people who worked energetically in background to get the backup power for project up. I had a very interesting demo wherein I overlaid Bangalore and Hyderabad on the India Map and find their aerial distance between them. After finding the aerial distance, we browsed online and found that SQL Server estimates the exact aerial distance between these two cities, as compared to the factual distance. There was a huge applause from the crowd on the subject that SQL Server takes into the count of the curvature of the earth and finds the precise distances based on details. During the process of finding the distance, I demonstrated a few examples of the indexes where I expressed how one can use those indexes to find these distances and how they can improve the performance of similar query. I also demonstrated few examples wherein we were able to see in which data type the Index is most useful. We finished the demos with a few more internal stuff. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Despite all issues, I was mostly satisfied with my presentation. I think it was the best session I have ever presented at any conference. There was no help from Technology for a while, but I still got lots of appreciation at the end. When we ended the session, the applause from the audience was so loud that for a moment, the rain was not audible. I was truly moved by the dedication of the Technology enthusiasts. Pinal Dave After Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers new spatial data types that enable you to consume, use, and extend location-based data through spatial-enabled applications. Attend this session to learn how to use spatial functionality in next version of SQL Server to build and optimize spatial queries. This session outlines the new geography data type to store geodetic spatial data and perform operations on it, use the new geometry data type to store planar spatial data and perform operations on it, take advantage of new spatial indexes for high performance queries, use the new spatial results tab to quickly and easily view spatial query results directly from within Management Studio, extend spatial data capabilities by building or integrating location-enabled applications through support for spatial standards and specifications and much more. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Dinner by Sponsors After the lively session during the day, there was another dinner party courtesy of one of the sponsors of TechEd. All the MVPs and several Community leaders were present at the dinner. I would like to express my gratitude to Abhishek Kant for organizing this wonderful event for us. It was a blast and really relaxing in all angles. We all stayed there for a long time and talked about our sweet and unforgettable memories of the event. Pinal Dave and Bijoy Singhal It was really one wonderful event. After writing this much, I say that I have no words to express about how much I enjoyed TechEd. However, it is true that I shared with you only 1% of the total activities I have done at the event. There were so many people I have met, yet were not mentioned here although I wanted to write their names here, too . Anyway, I have learned so many things and up until now, I am not able to get over all the fun I had in this event. Pinal Dave at TechEd India 2010 The Next Days – April 15, 2010 – till today I am still not able to get my mind out of the whole experience I had at TechEd India 2010. It was like a whole Microsoft Family working together to celebrate a happy occasion. TechEd India – Truly An Unforgettable Experience! Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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• Windows Azure: Import/Export Hard Drives, VM ACLs, Web Sockets, Remote Debugging, Continuous Delivery, New Relic, Billing Alerts and More

  - by ScottGu

  Two weeks ago we released a giant set of improvements to Windows Azure, as well as a significant update of the Windows Azure SDK. This morning we released another massive set of enhancements to Windows Azure.  Today’s new capabilities include: Storage: Import/Export Hard Disk Drives to your Storage Accounts HDInsight: General Availability of our Hadoop Service in the cloud Virtual Machines: New VM Gallery, ACL support for VIPs Web Sites: WebSocket and Remote Debugging Support Notification Hubs: Segmented customer push notification support with tag expressions TFS & GIT: Continuous Delivery Support for Web Sites + Cloud Services Developer Analytics: New Relic support for Web Sites + Mobile Services Service Bus: Support for partitioned queues and topics Billing: New Billing Alert Service that sends emails notifications when your bill hits a threshold you define All of these improvements are now available to use immediately (note that some features are still in preview).  Below are more details about them. Storage: Import/Export Hard Disk Drives to Windows Azure I am excited to announce the preview of our new Windows Azure Import/Export Service! The Windows Azure Import/Export Service enables you to move large amounts of on-premises data into and out of your Windows Azure Storage accounts. It does this by enabling you to securely ship hard disk drives directly to our Windows Azure data centers. Once we receive the drives we’ll automatically transfer the data to or from your Windows Azure Storage account.  This enables you to import or export massive amounts of data more quickly and cost effectively (and not be constrained by available network bandwidth). Encrypted Transport Our Import/Export service provides built-in support for BitLocker disk encryption – which enables you to securely encrypt data on the hard drives before you send it, and not have to worry about it being compromised even if the disk is lost/stolen in transit (since the content on the transported hard drives is completely encrypted and you are the only one who has the key to it).  The drive preparation tool we are shipping today makes setting up bitlocker encryption on these hard drives easy. How to Import/Export your first Hard Drive of Data You can read our Getting Started Guide to learn more about how to begin using the import/export service.  You can create import and export jobs via the Windows Azure Management Portal as well as programmatically using our Server Management APIs. It is really easy to create a new import or export job using the Windows Azure Management Portal.  Simply navigate to a Windows Azure storage account, and then click the new Import/Export tab now available within it (note: if you don’t have this tab make sure to sign-up for the Import/Export preview): Then click the “Create Import Job” or “Create Export Job” commands at the bottom of it.  This will launch a wizard that easily walks you through the steps required: For more comprehensive information about Import/Export, refer to Windows Azure Storage team blog.  You can also send questions and comments to the [email protected] email address. We think you’ll find this new service makes it much easier to move data into and out of Windows Azure, and it will dramatically cut down the network bandwidth required when working on large data migration projects.  We hope you like it. HDInsight: 100% Compatible Hadoop Service in the Cloud Last week we announced the general availability release of Windows Azure HDInsight. HDInsight is a 100% compatible Hadoop service that allows you to easily provision and manage Hadoop clusters for big data processing in Windows Azure.  This release is now live in production, backed by an enterprise SLA, supported 24x7 by Microsoft Support, and is ready to use for production scenarios. HDInsight allows you to use Apache Hadoop tools, such as Pig and Hive, to process large amounts of data in Windows Azure Blob Storage. Because data is stored in Windows Azure Blob Storage, you can choose to dynamically create Hadoop clusters only when you need them, and then shut them down when they are no longer required (since you pay only for the time the Hadoop cluster instances are running this provides a super cost effective way to use them).  You can create Hadoop clusters using either the Windows Azure Management Portal (see below) or using our PowerShell and Cross Platform Command line tools: The import/export hard drive support that came out today is a perfect companion service to use with HDInsight – the combination allows you to easily ingest, process and optionally export a limitless amount of data.  We’ve also integrated HDInsight with our Business Intelligence tools, so users can leverage familiar tools like Excel in order to analyze the output of jobs.  You can find out more about how to get started with HDInsight here. Virtual Machines: VM Gallery Enhancements Today’s update of Windows Azure brings with it a new Virtual Machine gallery that you can use to create new VMs in the cloud.  You can launch the gallery by doing New->Compute->Virtual Machine->From Gallery within the Windows Azure Management Portal: The new Virtual Machine Gallery includes some nice enhancements that make it even easier to use: Search: You can now easily search and filter images using the search box in the top-right of the dialog.  For example, simply type “SQL” and we’ll filter to show those images in the gallery that contain that substring. Category Tree-view: Each month we add more built-in VM images to the gallery.  You can continue to browse these using the “All” view within the VM Gallery – or now quickly filter them using the category tree-view on the left-hand side of the dialog.  For example, by selecting “Oracle” in the tree-view you can now quickly filter to see the official Oracle supplied images. MSDN and Supported checkboxes: With today’s update we are also introducing filters that makes it easy to filter out types of images that you may not be interested in. The first checkbox is MSDN: using this filter you can exclude any image that is not part of the Windows Azure benefits for MSDN subscribers (which have highly discounted pricing - you can learn more about the MSDN pricing here). The second checkbox is Supported: this filter will exclude any image that contains prerelease software, so you can feel confident that the software you choose to deploy is fully supported by Windows Azure and our partners. Sort options: We sort gallery images by what we think customers are most interested in, but sometimes you might want to sort using different views. So we’re providing some additional sort options, like “Newest,” to customize the image list for what suits you best. Pricing information: We now provide additional pricing information about images and options on how to cost effectively run them directly within the VM Gallery. The above improvements make it even easier to use the VM Gallery and quickly create launch and run Virtual Machines in the cloud. Virtual Machines: ACL Support for VIPs A few months ago we exposed the ability to configure Access Control Lists (ACLs) for Virtual Machines using Windows PowerShell cmdlets and our Service Management API. With today’s release, you can now configure VM ACLs using the Windows Azure Management Portal as well. You can now do this by clicking the new Manage ACL command in the Endpoints tab of a virtual machine instance: This will enable you to configure an ordered list of permit and deny rules to scope the traffic that can access your VM’s network endpoints. For example, if you were on a virtual network, you could limit RDP access to a Windows Azure virtual machine to only a few computers attached to your enterprise. Or if you weren’t on a virtual network you could alternatively limit traffic from public IPs that can access your workloads: Here is the default behaviors for ACLs in Windows Azure: By default (i.e. no rules specified), all traffic is permitted. When using only Permit rules, all other traffic is denied. When using only Deny rules, all other traffic is permitted. When there is a combination of Permit and Deny rules, all other traffic is denied. Lastly, remember that configuring endpoints does not automatically configure them within the VM if it also has firewall rules enabled at the OS level.  So if you create an endpoint using the Windows Azure Management Portal, Windows PowerShell, or REST API, be sure to also configure your guest VM firewall appropriately as well. Web Sites: Web Sockets Support With today’s release you can now use Web Sockets with Windows Azure Web Sites.  This feature enables you to easily integrate real-time communication scenarios within your web based applications, and is available at no extra charge (it even works with the free tier).  Higher level programming libraries like SignalR and socket.io are also now supported with it. You can enable Web Sockets support on a web site by navigating to the Configure tab of a Web Site, and by toggling Web Sockets support to “on”: Once Web Sockets is enabled you can start to integrate some really cool scenarios into your web applications.  Check out the new SignalR documentation hub on www.asp.net to learn more about some of the awesome scenarios you can do with it. Web Sites: Remote Debugging Support The Windows Azure SDK 2.2 we released two weeks ago introduced remote debugging support for Windows Azure Cloud Services. With today’s Windows Azure release we are extending this remote debugging support to also work with Windows Azure Web Sites. With live, remote debugging support inside of Visual Studio, you are able to have more visibility than ever before into how your code is operating live in Windows Azure. It is now super easy to attach the debugger and quickly see what is going on with your application in the cloud. Remote Debugging of a Windows Azure Web Site using VS 2013 Enabling the remote debugging of a Windows Azure Web Site using VS 2013 is really easy.  Start by opening up your web application’s project within Visual Studio. Then navigate to the “Server Explorer” tab within Visual Studio, and click on the deployed web-site you want to debug that is running within Windows Azure using the Windows Azure->Web Sites node in the Server Explorer.  Then right-click and choose the “Attach Debugger” option on it: When you do this Visual Studio will remotely attach the debugger to the Web Site running within Windows Azure.  The debugger will then stop the web site’s execution when it hits any break points that you have set within your web application’s project inside Visual Studio.  For example, below I set a breakpoint on the “ViewBag.Message” assignment statement within the HomeController of the standard ASP.NET MVC project template.  When I hit refresh on the “About” page of the web site within the browser, the breakpoint was triggered and I am now able to debug the app remotely using Visual Studio: Note above how we can debug variables (including autos/watchlist/etc), as well as use the Immediate and Command Windows. In the debug session above I used the Immediate Window to explore some of the request object state, as well as to dynamically change the ViewBag.Message property.  When we click the the “Continue” button (or press F5) the app will continue execution and the Web Site will render the content back to the browser.  This makes it super easy to debug web apps remotely. Tips for Better Debugging To get the best experience while debugging, we recommend publishing your site using the Debug configuration within Visual Studio’s Web Publish dialog. This will ensure that debug symbol information is uploaded to the Web Site which will enable a richer debug experience within Visual Studio.  You can find this option on the Web Publish dialog on the Settings tab: When you ultimately deploy/run the application in production we recommend using the “Release” configuration setting – the release configuration is memory optimized and will provide the best production performance.  To learn more about diagnosing and debugging Windows Azure Web Sites read our new Troubleshooting Windows Azure Web Sites in Visual Studio guide. Notification Hubs: Segmented Push Notification support with tag expressions In August we announced the General Availability of Windows Azure Notification Hubs - a powerful Mobile Push Notifications service that makes it easy to send high volume push notifications with low latency from any mobile app back-end.  Notification hubs can be used with any mobile app back-end (including ones built using our Mobile Services capability) and can also be used with back-ends that run in the cloud as well as on-premises. Beginning with the initial release, Notification Hubs allowed developers to send personalized push notifications to both individual users as well as groups of users by interest, by associating their devices with tags representing the logical target of the notification. For example, by registering all devices of customers interested in a favorite MLB team with a corresponding tag, it is possible to broadcast one message to millions of Boston Red Sox fans and another message to millions of St. Louis Cardinals fans with a single API call respectively. New support for using tag expressions to enable advanced customer segmentation With today’s release we are adding support for even more advanced customer targeting.  You can now identify customers that you want to send push notifications to by defining rich tag expressions. With tag expressions, you can now not only broadcast notifications to Boston Red Sox fans, but take that segmenting a step farther and reach more granular segments. This opens up a variety of scenarios, for example: Offers based on multiple preferences—e.g. send a game day vegetarian special to users tagged as both a Boston Red Sox fan AND a vegetarian Push content to multiple segments in a single message—e.g. rain delay information only to users who are tagged as either a Boston Red Sox fan OR a St. Louis Cardinal fan Avoid presenting subsets of a segment with irrelevant content—e.g. season ticket availability reminder to users who are tagged as a Boston Red Sox fan but NOT also a season ticket holder To illustrate with code, consider a restaurant chain app that sends an offer related to a Red Sox vs Cardinals game for users in Boston. Devices can be tagged by your app with location tags (e.g. “Loc:Boston”) and interest tags (e.g. “Follows:RedSox”, “Follows:Cardinals”), and then a notification can be sent by your back-end to “(Follows:RedSox || Follows:Cardinals) && Loc:Boston” in order to deliver an offer to all devices in Boston that follow either the RedSox or the Cardinals. This can be done directly in your server backend send logic using the code below: var notification = new WindowsNotification(messagePayload); hub.SendNotificationAsync(notification, "(Follows:RedSox || Follows:Cardinals) && Loc:Boston"); In your expressions you can use all Boolean operators: AND (&&), OR (||), and NOT (!).  Some other cool use cases for tag expressions that are now supported include: Social: To “all my group except me” - group:id && !user:id Events: Touchdown event is sent to everybody following either team or any of the players involved in the action: Followteam:A || Followteam:B || followplayer:1 || followplayer:2 … Hours: Send notifications at specific times. E.g. Tag devices with time zone and when it is 12pm in Seattle send to: GMT8 && follows:thaifood Versions and platforms: Send a reminder to people still using your first version for Android - version:1.0 && platform:Android For help on getting started with Notification Hubs, visit the Notification Hub documentation center.  Then download the latest NuGet package (or use the Notification Hubs REST APIs directly) to start sending push notifications using tag expressions.  They are really powerful and enable a bunch of great new scenarios. TFS & GIT: Continuous Delivery Support for Web Sites + Cloud Services With today’s Windows Azure release we are making it really easy to enable continuous delivery support with Windows Azure and Team Foundation Services.  Team Foundation Services is a cloud based offering from Microsoft that provides integrated source control (with both TFS and Git support), build server, test execution, collaboration tools, and agile planning support.  It makes it really easy to setup a team project (complete with automated builds and test runners) in the cloud, and it has really rich integration with Visual Studio. With today’s Windows Azure release it is now really easy to enable continuous delivery support with both TFS and Git based repositories hosted using Team Foundation Services.  This enables a workflow where when code is checked in, built successfully on an automated build server, and all tests pass on it – I can automatically have the app deployed on Windows Azure with zero manual intervention or work required. The below screen-shots demonstrate how to quickly setup a continuous delivery workflow to Windows Azure with a Git-based ASP.NET MVC project hosted using Team Foundation Services. Enabling Continuous Delivery to Windows Azure with Team Foundation Services The project I’m going to enable continuous delivery with is a simple ASP.NET MVC project whose source code I’m hosting using Team Foundation Services.  I did this by creating a “SimpleContinuousDeploymentTest” repository there using Git – and then used the new built-in Git tooling support within Visual Studio 2013 to push the source code to it.  Below is a screen-shot of the Git repository hosted within Team Foundation Services: I can access the repository within Visual Studio 2013 and easily make commits with it (as well as branch, merge and do other tasks).  Using VS 2013 I can also setup automated builds to take place in the cloud using Team Foundation Services every time someone checks in code to the repository: The cool thing about this is that I don’t have to buy or rent my own build server – Team Foundation Services automatically maintains its own build server farm and can automatically queue up a build for me (for free) every time someone checks in code using the above settings.  This build server (and automated testing) support now works with both TFS and Git based source control repositories. Connecting a Team Foundation Services project to Windows Azure Once I have a source repository hosted in Team Foundation Services with Automated Builds and Testing set up, I can then go even further and set it up so that it will be automatically deployed to Windows Azure when a source code commit is made to the repository (assuming the Build + Tests pass).  Enabling this is now really easy.  To set this up with a Windows Azure Web Site simply use the New->Compute->Web Site->Custom Create command inside the Windows Azure Management Portal.  This will create a dialog like below.  I gave the web site a name and then made sure the “Publish from source control” checkbox was selected: When we click next we’ll be prompted for the location of the source repository.  We’ll select “Team Foundation Services”: Once we do this we’ll be prompted for our Team Foundation Services account that our source repository is hosted under (in this case my TFS account is “scottguthrie”): When we click the “Authorize Now” button we’ll be prompted to give Windows Azure permissions to connect to the Team Foundation Services account.  Once we do this we’ll be prompted to pick the source repository we want to connect to.  Starting with today’s Windows Azure release you can now connect to both TFS and Git based source repositories.  This new support allows me to connect to the “SimpleContinuousDeploymentTest” respository we created earlier: Clicking the finish button will then create the Web Site with the continuous delivery hooks setup with Team Foundation Services.  Now every time someone pushes source control to the repository in Team Foundation Services, it will kick off an automated build, run all of the unit tests in the solution , and if they pass the app will be automatically deployed to our Web Site in Windows Azure.  You can monitor the history and status of these automated deployments using the Deployments tab within the Web Site: This enables a really slick continuous delivery workflow, and enables you to build and deploy apps in a really nice way. Developer Analytics: New Relic support for Web Sites + Mobile Services With today’s Windows Azure release we are making it really easy to enable Developer Analytics and Monitoring support with both Windows Azure Web Site and Windows Azure Mobile Services.  We are partnering with New Relic, who provide a great dev analytics and app performance monitoring offering, to enable this - and we have updated the Windows Azure Management Portal to make it really easy to configure. Enabling New Relic with a Windows Azure Web Site Enabling New Relic support with a Windows Azure Web Site is now really easy.  Simply navigate to the Configure tab of a Web Site and scroll down to the “developer analytics” section that is now within it: Clicking the “add-on” button will display some additional UI.  If you don’t already have a New Relic subscription, you can click the “view windows azure store” button to obtain a subscription (note: New Relic has a perpetually free tier so you can enable it even without paying anything): Clicking the “view windows azure store” button will launch the integrated Windows Azure Store experience we have within the Windows Azure Management Portal.  You can use this to browse from a variety of great add-on services – including New Relic: Select “New Relic” within the dialog above, then click the next button, and you’ll be able to choose which type of New Relic subscription you wish to purchase.  For this demo we’ll simply select the “Free Standard Version” – which does not cost anything and can be used forever:  Once we’ve signed-up for our New Relic subscription and added it to our Windows Azure account, we can go back to the Web Site’s configuration tab and choose to use the New Relic add-on with our Windows Azure Web Site.  We can do this by simply selecting it from the “add-on” dropdown (it is automatically populated within it once we have a New Relic subscription in our account): Clicking the “Save” button will then cause the Windows Azure Management Portal to automatically populate all of the needed New Relic configuration settings to our Web Site: Deploying the New Relic Agent as part of a Web Site The final step to enable developer analytics using New Relic is to add the New Relic runtime agent to our web app.  We can do this within Visual Studio by right-clicking on our web project and selecting the “Manage NuGet Packages” context menu: This will bring up the NuGet package manager.  You can search for “New Relic” within it to find the New Relic agent.  Note that there is both a 32-bit and 64-bit edition of it – make sure to install the version that matches how your Web Site is running within Windows Azure (note: you can configure your Web Site to run in either 32-bit or 64-bit mode using the Web Site’s “Configuration” tab within the Windows Azure Management Portal): Once we install the NuGet package we are all set to go.  We’ll simply re-publish the web site again to Windows Azure and New Relic will now automatically start monitoring the application Monitoring a Web Site using New Relic Now that the application has developer analytics support with New Relic enabled, we can launch the New Relic monitoring portal to start monitoring the health of it.  We can do this by clicking on the “Add Ons” tab in the left-hand side of the Windows Azure Management Portal.  Then select the New Relic add-on we signed-up for within it.  The Windows Azure Management Portal will provide some default information about the add-on when we do this.  Clicking the “Manage” button in the tray at the bottom will launch a new browser tab and single-sign us into the New Relic monitoring portal associated with our account: When we do this a new browser tab will launch with the New Relic admin tool loaded within it: We can now see insights into how our app is performing – without having to have written a single line of monitoring code.  The New Relic service provides a ton of great built-in monitoring features allowing us to quickly see: Performance times (including browser rendering speed) for the overall site and individual pages.  You can optionally set alert thresholds to trigger if the speed does not meet a threshold you specify. Information about where in the world your customers are hitting the site from (and how performance varies by region) Details on the latency performance of external services your web apps are using (for example: SQL, Storage, Twitter, etc) Error information including call stack details for exceptions that have occurred at runtime SQL Server profiling information – including which queries executed against your database and what their performance was And a whole bunch more… The cool thing about New Relic is that you don’t need to write monitoring code within your application to get all of the above reports (plus a lot more).  The New Relic agent automatically enables the CLR profiler within applications and automatically captures the information necessary to identify these.  This makes it super easy to get started and immediately have a rich developer analytics view for your solutions with very little effort. If you haven’t tried New Relic out yet with Windows Azure I recommend you do so – I think you’ll find it helps you build even better cloud applications.  Following the above steps will help you get started and deliver you a really good application monitoring solution in only minutes. Service Bus: Support for partitioned queues and topics With today’s release, we are enabling support within Service Bus for partitioned queues and topics. Enabling partitioning enables you to achieve a higher message throughput and better availability from your queues and topics. Higher message throughput is achieved by implementing multiple message brokers for each partitioned queue and topic.  The  multiple messaging stores will also provide higher availability. You can create a partitioned queue or topic by simply checking the Enable Partitioning option in the custom create wizard for a Queue or Topic: Read this article to learn more about partitioned queues and topics and how to take advantage of them today. Billing: New Billing Alert Service Today’s Windows Azure update enables a new Billing Alert Service Preview that enables you to get proactive email notifications when your Windows Azure bill goes above a certain monetary threshold that you configure.  This makes it easier to manage your bill and avoid potential surprises at the end of the month. With the Billing Alert Service Preview, you can now create email alerts to monitor and manage your monetary credits or your current bill total.  To set up an alert first sign-up for the free Billing Alert Service Preview.  Then visit the account management page, click on a subscription you have setup, and then navigate to the new Alerts tab that is available: The alerts tab allows you to setup email alerts that will be sent automatically once a certain threshold is hit.  For example, by clicking the “add alert” button above I can setup a rule to send myself email anytime my Windows Azure bill goes above $100 for the month: The Billing Alert Service will evolve to support additional aspects of your bill as well as support multiple forms of alerts such as SMS.  Try out the new Billing Alert Service Preview today and give us feedback. Summary Today’s Windows Azure release enables a ton of great new scenarios, and makes building applications hosted in the cloud even easier. If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using all of the above features today.  Then visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• Know more about Cache Buffer Handle

  - by Liu Maclean(???)

  ??????«latch free:cache buffer handles???SQL????»?????cache buffer handle latch?????,?????????: “?????pin?buffer header???????buffer handle,??buffer handle?????????cache buffer handles?,??????cache buffer handles??????,???????cache???buffer handles,?????(reserved set)?????????????_db_handles_cached(???5)???,?????????????????SQL??????????????????????,????pin??????,????????handle,?????????5?cached buffer handles???handle????????????????,Oracle?????????????????pin?”????“?buffer,????????????????handle???db_block_buffers/processes,????_cursor_db_buffers_pinned???????cache buffer handles?????,??????,????????????SQL,????cache?buffer handles?????????,??????????????,???????????/?????” ????T.ASKMACLEAN.COM????,??????cache Buffer handle?????: cache buffer handle ??: ------------------------------ | Buffer state object | ------------------------------ | Place to hang the buffer | ------------------------------ | Consistent Get? | ------------------------------ | Proc Owning SO | ------------------------------ | Flags(RIR) | ------------------------------ ???? cache buffer handle SO: 70000046fdfe530, type: 24, owner: 70000041b018630, flag: INIT/-/-/0×00(buffer) (CR) PR: 70000048e92d148 FLG: 0×500000lock rls: 0, class bit: 0kcbbfbp: [BH: 7000001c7f069b0, LINK: 70000046fdfe570]where: kdswh02: kdsgrp, why: 0BH (7000001c7f069b0) file#: 12 rdba: 0×03061612 (12/398866) class: 1 ba: 7000001c70ee000set: 75 blksize: 8192 bsi: 0 set-flg: 0 pwbcnt: 0dbwrid: 2 obj: 66209 objn: 48710 tsn: 6 afn: 12hash: [700000485f12138,700000485f12138] lru: [70000025af67790,700000132f69ee0]lru-flags: hot_bufferckptq: [NULL] fileq: [NULL] objq: [700000114f5dd10,70000028bf5d620]use: [70000046fdfe570,70000046fdfe570] wait: [NULL]st: SCURRENT md: SHR tch: 0flags: affinity_lockLRBA: [0x0.0.0] HSCN: [0xffff.ffffffff] HSUB: [65535]where: kdswh02: kdsgrp, why: 0 # Example:#   (buffer) (CR) PR: 37290 FLG:    0#   kcbbfbp    : [BH: befd8, LINK: 7836c] (WAITING) Buffer handle (X$KCBBF) kernel cache, buffer buffer_handles Query x$kcbbf  – lists all the buffer handles ???? _db_handles             System-wide simultaneous buffer operations ,no of buffer handles_db_handles_cached      Buffer handles cached each process , no of processes  default 5_cursor_db_buffers_pinned  additional number of buffers a cursor can pin at once_session_kept_cursor_pins       Number of cursors pins to keep in a session When a buffer is pinned it is attached to buffer state object. ??? ???????? cache buffer handles latch ? buffer pin???: SESSION A : SQL> select * from v$version; BANNER ---------------------------------------------------------------- Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.5.0 - 64bi PL/SQL Release 10.2.0.5.0 - Production CORE    10.2.0.5.0      Production TNS for Linux: Version 10.2.0.5.0 - Production NLSRTL Version 10.2.0.5.0 - Production SQL> create table test_cbc_handle(t1 int); Table created. SQL> insert into test_cbc_handle values(1); 1 row created. SQL> commit; Commit complete. SQL> select rowid from test_cbc_handle; ROWID ------------------ AAANO6AABAAAQZSAAA SQL> select * from test_cbc_handle where rowid='AAANO6AABAAAQZSAAA';         T1 ----------          1 SQL> select addr,name from v$latch_parent where name='cache buffer handles'; ADDR             NAME ---------------- -------------------------------------------------- 00000000600140A8 cache buffer handles SQL> select to_number('00000000600140A8','xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx') from dual; TO_NUMBER('00000000600140A8','XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX') ----------------------------------------------------                                           1610694824 ??cache buffer handles????parent latch ??? child latch ???SESSION A hold ??????cache buffer handles parent latch ???? oradebug call kslgetl ??, kslgetl?oracle??get latch??? SQL> oradebug setmypid; Statement processed. SQL> oradebug call kslgetl 1610694824 1; Function returned 1 ?????SESSION B ???: SQL> select * from v$latchholder;        PID        SID LADDR            NAME                                                                   GETS ---------- ---------- ---------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------- ----------         15        141 00000000600140A8 cache buffer handles                                                    119 cache buffer handles latch ???session A hold??,????????acquire cache buffer handle latch SQL> select * from test_cbc_handle where rowid='AAANO6AABAAAQZSAAA';         T1 ----------          1 ?????Server Process?????? read buffer, ????????"_db_handles_cached", ??process?cache 5? cache buffer handle ??"_db_handles_cached"=0,?process????5????cache buffer handle , ???? process ???pin buffer,???hold cache buffer handle latch??????cache buffer handle SQL> alter system set "_db_handles_cached"=0 scope=spfile; System altered. ????? shutdown immediate; startup; session A: SQL> oradebug setmypid; Statement processed. SQL> oradebug call kslgetl 1610694824 1; Function returned 1 session B: select * from test_cbc_handle where rowid='AAANO6AABAAAQZSAAA'; session B hang!! WHY? SQL> oradebug setmypid; Statement processed. SQL> oradebug dump systemstate 266; Statement processed.   SO: 0x11b30b7b0, type: 2, owner: (nil), flag: INIT/-/-/0x00   (process) Oracle pid=22, calls cur/top: (nil)/0x11b453c38, flag: (0) -             int error: 0, call error: 0, sess error: 0, txn error 0   (post info) last post received: 0 0 0               last post received-location: No post               last process to post me: none               last post sent: 0 0 0               last post sent-location: No post               last process posted by me: none     (latch info) wait_event=0 bits=8       holding    (efd=4) 600140a8 cache buffer handles level=3   SO: 0x11b305810, type: 2, owner: (nil), flag: INIT/-/-/0x00   (process) Oracle pid=10, calls cur/top: 0x11b455ac0/0x11b450a58, flag: (0) -             int error: 0, call error: 0, sess error: 0, txn error 0   (post info) last post received: 0 0 0               last post received-location: No post               last process to post me: none               last post sent: 0 0 0               last post sent-location: No post               last process posted by me: none     (latch info) wait_event=0 bits=2         Location from where call was made: kcbzgs:       waiting for 600140a8 cache buffer handles level=3 FBD93353:000019F0    10   162 10005   1 KSL WAIT BEG [latch: cache buffer handles] 1610694824/0x600140a8 125/0x7d 0/0x0 FF936584:00002761    10   144 10005   1 KSL WAIT BEG [latch: cache buffer handles] 1610694824/0x600140a8 125/0x7d 0/0x0 PID=22 holding ??cache buffer handles latch PID=10 ?? cache buffer handles latch, ????"_db_handles_cached"=0 ?? process??????cache buffer handles ??systemstate???? kcbbfbp cache buffer handle??, ?? "_db_handles_cached"=0 ? cache buffer handles latch?hold ?? ????cache buffer handles latch , ??? buffer?pin?????????? session A exit session B: SQL> select * from v$latchholder; no rows selected SQL> insert into test_cbc_handle values(2); 1 row created. SQL> commit; Commit complete. SQL> SQL> select t1,rowid from test_cbc_handle;         T1 ROWID ---------- ------------------          1 AAANPAAABAAAQZSAAA          2 AAANPAAABAAAQZSAAB SQL> select spid,pid from v$process where addr = ( select paddr from v$session where sid=(select distinct sid from v$mystat)); SPID                PID ------------ ---------- 19251                10 ? GDB ? SPID=19215 ?debug , ?? kcbrls ????breakpoint ??? ????release buffer [oracle@vrh8 ~]$ gdb $ORACLE_HOME/bin/oracle 19251 GNU gdb (GDB) Red Hat Enterprise Linux (7.0.1-37.el5) Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html> This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.  Type "show copying" and "show warranty" for details. This GDB was configured as "x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu". For bug reporting instructions, please see: <http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/bugs/>... Reading symbols from /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/bin/oracle...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Attaching to program: /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/bin/oracle, process 19251 Reading symbols from /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libskgxp10.so...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libskgxp10.so Reading symbols from /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libhasgen10.so...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libhasgen10.so Reading symbols from /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libskgxn2.so...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libskgxn2.so Reading symbols from /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libocr10.so...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libocr10.so Reading symbols from /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libocrb10.so...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libocrb10.so Reading symbols from /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libocrutl10.so...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libocrutl10.so Reading symbols from /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libjox10.so...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libjox10.so Reading symbols from /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libclsra10.so...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libclsra10.so Reading symbols from /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libdbcfg10.so...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libdbcfg10.so Reading symbols from /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libnnz10.so...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /s01/oracle/product/10.2.0.5/db_1/lib/libnnz10.so Reading symbols from /usr/lib64/libaio.so.1...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /usr/lib64/libaio.so.1 Reading symbols from /lib64/libdl.so.2...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /lib64/libdl.so.2 Reading symbols from /lib64/libm.so.6...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /lib64/libm.so.6 Reading symbols from /lib64/libpthread.so.0...(no debugging symbols found)...done. [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled] Loaded symbols for /lib64/libpthread.so.0 Reading symbols from /lib64/libnsl.so.1...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /lib64/libnsl.so.1 Reading symbols from /lib64/libc.so.6...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /lib64/libc.so.6 Reading symbols from /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 Reading symbols from /lib64/libnss_files.so.2...(no debugging symbols found)...done. Loaded symbols for /lib64/libnss_files.so.2 0x00000035c000d940 in __read_nocancel () from /lib64/libpthread.so.0 (gdb) break kcbrls Breakpoint 1 at 0x10e5d24 session B: select * from test_cbc_handle where rowid='AAANPAAABAAAQZSAAA'; select hang !! GDB (gdb) c Continuing. Breakpoint 1, 0x00000000010e5d24 in kcbrls () (gdb) bt #0  0x00000000010e5d24 in kcbrls () #1  0x0000000002e87d25 in qertbFetchByUserRowID () #2  0x00000000030c62b8 in opifch2 () #3  0x00000000032327f0 in kpoal8 () #4  0x00000000013b7c10 in opiodr () #5  0x0000000003c3c9da in ttcpip () #6  0x00000000013b3144 in opitsk () #7  0x00000000013b60ec in opiino () #8  0x00000000013b7c10 in opiodr () #9  0x00000000013a92f8 in opidrv () #10 0x0000000001fa3936 in sou2o () #11 0x000000000072d40b in opimai_real () #12 0x000000000072d35c in main () SQL> oradebug setmypid; Statement processed. SQL> oradebug dump systemstate 266; Statement processed. ?????? kcbbfbp buffer cache handle ?  SO state object ? BH BUFFER HEADER  link???     ----------------------------------------     SO: 0x11b452348, type: 3, owner: 0x11b305810, flag: INIT/-/-/0x00     (call) sess: cur 11b41bd18, rec 0, usr 11b41bd18; depth: 0       ----------------------------------------       SO: 0x1182dc750, type: 24, owner: 0x11b452348, flag: INIT/-/-/0x00       (buffer) (CR) PR: 0x11b305810 FLG: 0x108000       class bit: (nil)       kcbbfbp: [BH: 0xf2fc69f8, LINK: 0x1182dc790]       where: kdswh05: kdsgrp, why: 0       BH (0xf2fc69f8) file#: 1 rdba: 0x00410652 (1/67154) class: 1 ba: 0xf297c000         set: 3 blksize: 8192 bsi: 0 set-flg: 2 pwbcnt: 272         dbwrid: 0 obj: 54208 objn: 54202 tsn: 0 afn: 1         hash: [f2fc47f8,1181f3038] lru: [f2fc6b88,f2fc6968]         obj-flags: object_ckpt_list         ckptq: [1182ecf38,1182ecf38] fileq: [1182ecf58,1182ecf58] objq: [108712a28,108712a28]         use: [1182dc790,1182dc790] wait: [NULL]         st: XCURRENT md: SHR tch: 12         flags: buffer_dirty gotten_in_current_mode block_written_once                 redo_since_read         LRBA: [0xc7.73b.0] HSCN: [0x0.1cbe52] HSUB: [1]         Using State Objects           ----------------------------------------           SO: 0x1182dc750, type: 24, owner: 0x11b452348, flag: INIT/-/-/0x00           (buffer) (CR) PR: 0x11b305810 FLG: 0x108000           class bit: (nil)           kcbbfbp: [BH: 0xf2fc69f8, LINK: 0x1182dc790]           where: kdswh05: kdsgrp, why: 0         buffer tsn: 0 rdba: 0x00410652 (1/67154)         scn: 0x0000.001cbe52 seq: 0x01 flg: 0x02 tail: 0xbe520601         frmt: 0x02 chkval: 0x0000 type: 0x06=trans data tab 0, row 0, @0x1f9a tl: 6 fb: --H-FL-- lb: 0x0  cc: 1 col  0: [ 2]  c1 02 tab 0, row 1, @0x1f94 tl: 6 fb: --H-FL-- lb: 0x2  cc: 1 col  0: [ 2]  c1 15 end_of_block_dump         (buffer) (CR) PR: 0x11b305810 FLG: 0x108000 st: XCURRENT md: SHR tch: 12 ? buffer header?status= XCURRENT mode=KCBMSHARE KCBMSHR     current share ?????  x$kcbbf ????? cache buffer handle SQL> select distinct KCBBPBH from  x$kcbbf ; KCBBPBH ---------------- 00 00000000F2FC69F8            ==>0xf2fc69f8 SQL> select * from x$kcbbf where kcbbpbh='00000000F2FC69F8'; ADDR                   INDX    INST_ID KCBBFSO_TYP KCBBFSO_FLG KCBBFSO_OWN ---------------- ---------- ---------- ----------- ----------- ----------------   KCBBFFLG    KCBBFCR    KCBBFCM KCBBFMBR         KCBBPBH ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------------- ---------------- KCBBPBF          X0KCBBPBH        X0KCBBPBF        X1KCBBPBH ---------------- ---------------- ---------------- ---------------- X1KCBBPBF        KCBBFBH            KCBBFWHR   KCBBFWHY ---------------- ---------------- ---------- ---------- 00000001182DC750        748          1          24           1 000000011B452348    1081344          1          0 00               00000000F2FC69F8 00000001182DC750 00               00000001182DC750 00 00000001182DC7F8 00                      583          0 SQL> desc x$kcbbf;  Name                                      Null?    Type  ----------------------------------------- -------- ----------------------------  ADDR                                               RAW(8)  INDX                                               NUMBER  INST_ID                                            NUMBER  KCBBFSO_TYP                                        NUMBER  KCBBFSO_FLG                                        NUMBER  KCBBFSO_OWN                                        RAW(8)  KCBBFFLG                                           NUMBER  KCBBFCR                                            NUMBER  KCBBFCM                                            NUMBER  KCBBFMBR                                           RAW(8)  KCBBPBH                                            RAW(8)  KCBBPBF                                            RAW(8)  X0KCBBPBH                                          RAW(8)  X0KCBBPBF                                          RAW(8)  X1KCBBPBH                                          RAW(8)  X1KCBBPBF                                          RAW(8)  KCBBFBH                                            RAW(8)  KCBBFWHR                                           NUMBER  KCBBFWHY                                           NUMBER gdb ?? ?process??????kcbrls release buffer? ???cache buffer handle??? SQL> select distinct KCBBPBH from  x$kcbbf ; KCBBPBH ---------------- 00

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• Simple Backup Strategy for Amazon EC2 instances / volumes?

  - by minerj

  You have entered Introductory Backups for Amazon EC2 EBS-backed Windows Images 010... I have been browsing my brains out to find a simple backup strategy for our single windows 2008 server running SharePoint Services. This is an EBS-backed image of one server with one data volume. I don’t need anything exotic. I only need a “daily” backup (losing a day’s worth of data is not catastrophic). We have created and saved an EBS backed AMI image (Windows 2008) we are comfortable using. We started off making backups by simply creating a new EBS AMI image. This is really simple, but the running server is put offline during the first 10 – 15 minutes of creating the image – not ideal. The standard way of creating backups would seem to be creating snapshots of volumes attached to a running instance. Again it’s pretty simple and the server remains usable during the snapshot generation. The apparent Catch-22 is that you can’t simply launch a new instance directly from a snapshot. I know how to bundle a running instance to S3 storage and then register the AMI from the S3 bucket. This does allow me to capture a backup of a running instance and, if the running instance is lost, register the AMI from the S3 bucket and launch the new AMI to recover the instance, but this seems really convoluted and it seems ridiculous to have to juggle back and forth between the AWS Console and the S3 Organizer plug-in for Firefox to get this accomplished. (Please don't mention the command line approach, this is an 010 level course). From playing around with EBS-backed images, the following approach appears to work for me (all done within the AWS Console): 1.For your backups, simply snapshot the system volume (/dev/sda1) as needed. 2.If you lose your running instance, do the following: a.Create a new volume from your last snapshot backup b.Launch another instance of your starting AMI (must be EBS-backed) c.Stop this instance. d.Detach the existing system volume from the new stopped instance and discard. e.Attach the newly created volume as system volume (/dev/sda1) to the stopped instance. f.Re-start the new instance. I have tested this out a couple of times and it seems to work for me. Question: Is there anything wrong with this approach?

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• cron doesn't execute it's commands

  - by Silvio Keller

  I created an own small server with Debian. Last night i updated it. It created an error while generating the initrd and it didn't boot. Today i booted from another filesystem and did dpkg --configure -a with chroot. I also checked the filesystem. Now everything should be ok. But cron doesn't work:-( It is the same /etc/crontab-File but it doesn't work. I reinstalled cron and tried many things. Is there a way to see cron's log? I only readed about rsyslog, but i have not installed rsyslog, because the server is based on a minimal system (Freeagent Dockstar). Has someone an idea? Best regards Silvio Keller Update There is no file /var/log/syslog and dpkg -l|grep syslog gives me no output, so i think syslog is not installed. It is only a minimal system. cron -l gives: cron: can't lock /var/run/crond.pid, otherpid may be 687: Resource temporarily unavailable So i stopped cron with /etc/init.d/cron stop and executed cron -l again, this gives no output. At this moment i tried to start cron with /etc/init.d/cron start: Starting periodic command scheduler: cron failed! But there's no additional error info... But i see there's now in the background a proccess called cron -l which runs. If i stop it /etc/init.d/cron start works: Starting periodic command scheduler: cron. I used the crontab-file /etc/crontab, this worked for me always. Till i updated my kernel and the initrd it doesn't. The file's content is: SHELL=/bin/sh PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin # m h dom mon dow user command 17 * * * * root cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly 25 6 * * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily ) 47 6 * * 7 root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly ) 52 6 1 * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly ) 00 5 * * * root dummy 23 45 * * 7 root dummy 00 * * * * root dummy */1 * * * * root dummy 00 1 * * * root dummy 00 4 * * * root dummy */5 * * * * root dummy #00 */10 * * * root dummy 01 0 * * * root dummy 00 5 * * * root dummy 00 4 * * * root dummy # If i start crontab -e it creates a new file /tmp/crontab.vn87tv/crontab, which is unfortunaly on a tmpfs and which also doesn't work. Thanks & Best regards

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• The Skyline Problem.

  - by zeroDivisible

  I just came across this little problem on UVA's Online Judge and thought, that it may be a good candidate for a little code-golf. The problem: You are to design a program to assist an architect in drawing the skyline of a city given the locations of the buildings in the city. To make the problem tractable, all buildings are rectangular in shape and they share a common bottom (the city they are built in is very flat). The city is also viewed as two-dimensional. A building is specified by an ordered triple (Li, Hi, Ri) where Li and Ri are left and right coordinates, respectively, of building i and Hi is the height of the building. In the diagram below buildings are shown on the left with triples (1,11,5), (2,6,7), (3,13,9), (12,7,16), (14,3,25), (19,18,22), (23,13,29), (24,4,28) and the skyline, shown on the right, is represented by the sequence: 1, 11, 3, 13, 9, 0, 12, 7, 16, 3, 19, 18, 22, 3, 23, 13, 29, 0 The output should consist of the vector that describes the skyline as shown in the example above. In the skyline vector (v1, v2, v3, ... vn) , the vi such that i is an even number represent a horizontal line (height). The vi such that i is an odd number represent a vertical line (x-coordinate). The skyline vector should represent the "path" taken, for example, by a bug starting at the minimum x-coordinate and traveling horizontally and vertically over all the lines that define the skyline. Thus the last entry in the skyline vector will be a 0. The coordinates must be separated by a blank space. If I will not count declaration of provided (test) buildings and including all spaces and tab characters, my solution, in Python, is 223 characters long. Here is the condensed version: B=[[1,11,5],[2,6,7],[3,13,9],[12,7,16],[14,3,25],[19,18,22],[23,13,29],[24,4,28]] # Solution. R=range v=[0 for e in R(max([y[2] for y in B])+1)] for b in B: for x in R(b[0], b[2]): if b[1]>v[x]: v[x]=b[1] p=1 k=0 for x in R(len(v)): V=v[x] if p and V==0: continue elif V!=k: p=0 print "%s %s" % (str(x), str(V)), k=V I think that I didn't made any mistake but if so - feel free to criticize me. EDIT I don't have much reputation, so I will pay only 100 for a bounty - I am curious, if anyone could try to solve this in less than .. lets say, 80 characters. Solution posted by cobbal is 101 characters long and currently it is the best one. ANOTHER EDIT I thought, that 80 characters is a sick limit for this kind of problem. cobbal, with his 46 character solution totaly amazed me - though I must admit, that I spent some time reading his explanation before I partially understood what he had written.

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• Is dual-booting an OS more or less secure than running a virtual machine?

  - by Mark

  I run two operating systems on two separate disk partitions on the same physical machine (a modern MacBook Pro). In order to isolate them from each other, I've taken the following steps: Configured /etc/fstab with ro,noauto (read-only, no auto-mount) Fully encrypted each partition with a separate encryption key (committed to memory) Let's assume that a virus infects my first partition unbeknownst to me. I log out of the first partition (which encrypts the volume), and then turn off the machine to clear the RAM. I then un-encrypt and boot into the second partition. Can I be reasonably confident that the virus has not / cannot infect both partitions, or am I playing with fire here? I realize that MBPs don't ship with a TPM, so a boot-loader infection going unnoticed is still a theoretical possibility. However, this risk seems about equal to the risk of the VMWare/VirtualBox Hypervisor being exploited when running a guest OS, especially since the MBP line uses UEFI instead of BIOS. This leads to my question: is the dual-partitioning approach outlined above more or less secure than using a Virtual Machine for isolation of services? Would that change if my computer had a TPM installed? Background: Note that I am of course taking all the usual additional precautions, such as checking for OS software updates daily, not logging in as an Admin user unless absolutely necessary, running real-time antivirus programs on both partitions, running a host-based firewall, monitoring outgoing network connections, etc. My question is really a public check to see if I'm overlooking anything here and try to figure out if my dual-boot scheme actually is more secure than the Virtual Machine route. Most importantly, I'm just looking to learn more about security issues. EDIT #1: As pointed out in the comments, the scenario is a bit on the paranoid side for my particular use-case. But think about people who may be in corporate or government settings and are considering using a Virtual Machine to run services or applications that are considered "high risk". Are they better off using a VM or a dual-boot scenario as I outlined? An answer that effectively weighs any pros/cons to that trade-off is what I'm really looking for in an answer to this post. EDIT #2: This question was partially fueled by debate about whether a Virtual Machine actually protects a host OS at all. Personally, I think it does, but consider this quote from Theo de Raadt on the OpenBSD mailing list: x86 virtualization is about basically placing another nearly full kernel, full of new bugs, on top of a nasty x86 architecture which barely has correct page protection. Then running your operating system on the other side of this brand new pile of shit. You are absolutely deluded, if not stupid, if you think that a worldwide collection of software engineers who can't write operating systems or applications without security holes, can then turn around and suddenly write virtualization layers without security holes. -http://kerneltrap.org/OpenBSD/Virtualization_Security By quoting Theo's argument, I'm not endorsing it. I'm simply pointing out that there are multiple perspectives here, so I'm trying to find out more about the issue.

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• my multi boot can't boot to XP 'resumeobject' is missing

  - by GwenKillerby

  In my multi boot set up, booting to vista and 7 goes fine, but when I try to boot to XP, i get an error Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem: 1. Insert your Windows installation disc and restart your computer. 2. Choose your language settings, and then click "Next." 3. Click "Repair your computer." If you do not have this disc, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance. File: \NTLDR Status: 0xc000000e Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt. See below. Clearly the resumeobject seems to be missing in the XP entry ("Real Mode Boot sector"), only I don't know how to restore it. Vista is on **C:**, Win7 is on **F:** (as is the bootmgr ??? ) and WinXP is on **E:** What I've tried: [1] I've used about 5 windows discs, that is the Recovery Consoles from real XP install CD's and 3 virtual Recovery Consoles. All failed. The real CD's work ONE time, but won't let me finish, I only got as far as [b]fixboot E:[/b] Then they shut the laptop down, I kid you not. On a next startup, all 5 CD's ask me for some Admin password that I've never added! [2] I have VisualBCD and EasyBCD, but the most obvious things I tried there didn't solve the problem. So know I don't exactly know what to do with them. [3] I CAN boot into XP with the FIX NTLDR workaround of http://milescomer.com/tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm, but it doesn't fix it permanently QUESTION: How do I fix it permanently? bcdedit /enum output: Windows Boot Manager -------------------- identifier {bootmgr} device partition=F: path \bootmgr description Windows Boot Manager locale en-US default {current} displayorder {current} {812e27a9-27b7-11e4-8fb4-dfa8174ae8dc} {812e27ac-27b7-11e4-8fb4-dfa8174ae8dc} timeout 30 resume No Windows Boot Loader ------------------- identifier {current} device partition=C: path \Windows\system32\winload.exe description Vista locale nl-NL osdevice partition=C: systemroot \Windows resumeobject {73d8b5bc-2764-11e4-b181-806e6f6e6963} Windows Boot Loader ------------------- identifier {812e27a9-27b7-11e4-8fb4-dfa8174ae8dc} device partition=F: path \Windows\system32\winload.exe description Daisy Etta locale en-US osdevice partition=F: systemroot \Windows resumeobject {b8c234a4-27b0-11e4-b8b3-806e6f6e6963} Real-mode Boot Sector --------------------- identifier {812e27ac-27b7-11e4-8fb4-dfa8174ae8dc} device partition=E: path \NTLDR description XP Thank you.

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