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The Top Ten Security Top Ten Lists

- by Troy Kitch

As a marketer, we're always putting together the top 3, or 5 best, or an assortment of top ten lists. So instead of going that route, I've put together my top ten security top ten lists. These are not only for security practitioners, but also for the average Joe/Jane; because who isn't concerned about security these days? Now, there might not be ten for each one of these lists, but the title works best that way. Starting with my number ten (in no particular order): 10. Top 10 Most Influential Security-Related Movies Amrit Williams pulls together a great collection of security-related movies. He asks for comments on which one made you want to get into the business. I would have to say that my most influential movie(s), that made me want to get into the business of "stopping the bad guys" would have to be the James Bond series. I grew up on James Bond movies: thwarting the bad guy and saving the world. I recall being both ecstatic and worried when Silicon Valley-themed "A View to A Kill" hit theaters: "An investigation of a horse-racing scam leads 007 to a mad industrialist who plans to create a worldwide microchip monopoly by destroying California's Silicon Valley." Yikes! 9. Top Ten Security Careers From movies that got you into the career, here’s a top 10 list of security-related careers. It starts with number then, Information Security Analyst and ends with number one, Malware Analyst. They point out the significant growth in security careers and indicate that "according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the field is expected to experience growth rates of 22% between 2010-2020. If you are interested in getting into the field, Oracle has many great opportunities all around the world. 8. Top 125 Network Security Tools A bit outside of the range of 10, the top 125 Network Security Tools is an important list because it includes a prioritized list of key security tools practitioners are using in the hacking community, regardless of whether they are vendor supplied or open source. The exhaustive list provides ratings, reviews, searching, and sorting. 7. Top 10 Security Practices I have to give a shout out to my alma mater, Cal Poly, SLO: Go Mustangs! They have compiled their list of top 10 practices for students and faculty to follow. Educational institutions are a common target of web based attacks and miscellaneous errors according to the 2014 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report. 6. (ISC)2 Top 10 Safe and Secure Online Tips for Parents This list is arguably the most important list on my list. The tips were "gathered from (ISC)2 member volunteers who participate in the organization’s Safe and Secure Online program, a worldwide initiative that brings top cyber security experts into schools to teach children ages 11-14 how to protect themselves in a cyber-connected world…If you are a parent, educator or organization that would like the Safe and Secure Online presentation delivered at your local school, or would like more information about the program, please visit here.” 5. Top Ten Data Breaches of the Past 12 Months This type of list is always changing, so it's nice to have a current one here from Techrader.com. They've compiled and commented on the top breaches. It is likely that most readers here were effected in some way or another. 4. Top Ten Security Comic Books Although mostly physical security controls, I threw this one in for fun. My vote for #1 (not on the list) would be Professor X. The guy can breach confidentiality, integrity, and availability just by messing with your thoughts. 3. The IOUG Data Security Survey's Top 10+ Threats to Organizations The Independent Oracle Users Group annual survey on enterprise data security, Leaders Vs. Laggards, highlights what Oracle Database users deem as the top 12 threats to their organization. You can find a nice graph on page 9; Figure 7: Greatest Threats to Data Security. 2. The Ten Most Common Database Security Vulnerabilities Though I don't necessarily agree with all of the vulnerabilities in this order...I like a list that focuses on where two-thirds of your sensitive and regulated data resides (Source: IDC). 1. OWASP Top Ten Project The Online Web Application Security Project puts together their annual list of the 10 most critical web application security risks that organizations should be including in their overall security, business risk and compliance plans. In particular, SQL injection risks continues to rear its ugly head each year. Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall can help prevent SQL injection attacks and monitor database and system activity as a detective security control. Did I miss any?

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How big can my SharePoint 2010 installation be?

- by Sahil Malik

Ad:: SharePoint 2007 Training in .NET 3.5 technologies (more information). 3 years ago, I had published “How big can my SharePoint 2007 installation be?” Well, SharePoint 2010 has significant under the covers improvements. So, how big can your SharePoint 2010 installation be? There are three kinds of limits you should know about Hard limits that cannot be exceeded by design. Configurable that are, well configurable – but the default values are set for a pretty good reason, so if you need to tweak, plan and understand before you tweak. Soft limits, you can exceed them, but it is not recommended that you do. Before you read any of the limits, read these two important disclaimers - 1. The limit depends on what you’re doing. So, don’t take the below as gospel, the reality depends on your situation. 2. There are many additional considerations in planning your SharePoint solution scalability and performance, besides just the below. So with those in mind, here goes. Hard Limits - Zones per web app 5 RBS NAS performance Time to first byte of any response from NAS must be less than 20 milliseconds List row size 8000 bytes driven by how SP stores list items internally Max file size 2GB (default is 50MB, configurable). RBS does not increase this limit. Search metadata properties 10,000 per item crawled (pretty damn high, you’ll never need to worry about it). Max # of concurrent in-memory enterprise content types 5000 per web server, per tenant Max # of external system connections 500 per web server PerformancePoint services using Excel services as a datasource No single query can fetch more than 1 million excel cells Office Web Apps Renders One doc per second, per CPU core, per Application server, limited to a maximum of 8 cores. Configurable Limits - Row Size Limit 6, configurable via SPWebApplication.MaxListItemRowStorage property List view lookup 8 join operations per query Max number of list items that a single operation can process at one time in normal hours 5000 Configurable via SPWebApplication.MaxItemsPerThrottledOperation Also you get a warning at 3000, which is configurable via SPWebApplication.MaxItemsPerThrottledOperationWarningLevel In addition, throttle overrides can be requested, throttle overrides can be disabled, and time windows can be set when throttle is disabled. Max number of list items for administrators that a single operation can process at one time in normal hours 20000 Configurable via SPWebApplication.MaxItemsPerThrottledOperationOverride Enumerating subsites 2000 Word and Powerpoint co-authoring simultaneous editors 10 (Hard limit is 99). # of webparts on a page 25 Search Crawl DBs per search service app 10 Items per crawl db 25 million Search Keywords 200 per site collection. There is a max limit of 5000, which can then be modified by editing the web.config/client.config. Concurrent # of workflows on a content db 15. Workflows running in the timer service are not counted in this limit. Further workflows are queued. Can be configured via the Set-SPFarmConfig powershell commandlet. Number of events picked by the workflow timer job and delivered to workflows 100. You can increase this limit by running additional instances of the workflow timer service. Visio services file size 50MB Visio web drawing recalculation timeout 120 seconds Configurable via – Powershell commandlet Set-SPVisioPerformance Visio services minimum and maximum cache age for data connected diagrams 0 to 24 hours. Default is 60 minutes. Configurable via – Powershell commandlet Set-SPVisioPerformance Soft Limits - Content Databases 300 per web app Application Pools 10 per web server Managed Paths 20 per web app Content Database Size 200GB per Content DB Size of 1 site collection 100GB # of sites in a site collection 250,000 Documents in a library 30 Million, with nesting. Depends heavily on type and usage and size of documents. Items 30 million. Depends heavily on usage of items. SPGroups one SPUser can be in 5000 Users in a site collection 2 million, depends on UI, nesting, containers and underlying user store AD Principals in a SPGroup 5000 SPGroups in a site collection 10000 Search Service Instances 20 Indexed Items in Search 100 million Crawl Log entries 100 million Search Alerts 1 million per search application Search Crawled Properties 1/2 million URL removals in search 100 removals per operation User Profiles 2 million per service application Social Tags 500 million per social database Comment on the article ....

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MDX using EXISTING, AGGREGATE, CROSSJOIN and WHERE

- by James Rogers

It is a well-published approach to using the EXISTING function to decode AGGREGATE members and nested sub-query filters. Mosha wrote a good blog on it here and a more recent one here. The use of EXISTING in these scenarios is very useful and sometimes the only option when dealing with multi-select filters. However, there are some limitations I have run across when using the EXISTING function against an AGGREGATE member: The AGGREGATE member must be assigned to the Dimension.Hierarchy being detected by the EXISTING function in the calculated measure. The AGGREGATE member cannot contain a crossjoin from any other dimension or hierarchy or EXISTING will not be able to detect the members in the AGGREGATE member. Take the following query (from Adventure Works DW 2008): With member [Week Count] as 'count(existing([Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].members))' member [Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[CM] as 'AGGREGATE({[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[47]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[48]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[49]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[50]&[2004]})' select {[Week Count]} on columns from [Adventure Works] where [Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[CM] Here we are attempting to count the existing fiscal weeks in slicer. This is useful to get a per-week average for another member. Many applications generate queries in this manner (such as Oracle OBIEE). This query returns the correct result of (4) weeks. Now let's put a twist in it. What if the querying application submits the query in the following manner: With member [Week Count] as 'count(existing([Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].members))' member [Customer].[Customer Geography].[CM] as 'AGGREGATE({[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[47]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[48]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[49]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[50]&[2004]})' select {[Week Count]} on columns from [Adventure Works] where [Customer].[Customer Geography].[CM] Here we are attempting to count the existing fiscal weeks in slicer. However, the AGGREGATE member is built on a different dimension (in name) than the one EXISTING is trying to detect. In this case the query returns (174) which is the total number of [Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].members defined in the dimension. Now another twist, the AGGREGATE member will be named appropriately and contain the hierarchy we are trying to detect with EXISTING but it will be cross-joined with another hierarchy: With member [Week Count] as 'count(existing([Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].members))' member [Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[CM] as 'AGGREGATE({[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[47]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[48]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[49]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[50]&[2004]}* {[Customer].[Customer Geography].[Country].&[Australia],[Customer].[Customer Geography].[Country].&[United States]})' select {[Week Count]} on columns from [Adventure Works] where [Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[CM] Once again, we are attempting to count the existing fiscal weeks in slicer. Again, in this case the query returns (174) which is the total number of [Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].members defined in the dimension. However, in 2008 R2 this query returns the correct result of 4 and additionally , the following will return the count of existing countries as well (2): With member [Week Count] as 'count(existing([Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].members))' member [Country Count] as 'count(existing([Customer].[Customer Geography].[Country].members))' member [Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[CM] as 'AGGREGATE({[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[47]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[48]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[49]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[50]&[2004]}* {[Customer].[Customer Geography].[Country].&[Australia],[Customer].[Customer Geography].[Country].&[United States]})' select {[Week Count]} on columns from [Adventure Works] where [Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[CM] 2008 R2 seems to work as long as the AGGREGATE member is on at least one of the hierarchies attempting to be detected (i.e. [Date].[Fiscal Weeks] or [Customer].[Customer Geography]). If not, it seems that the engine cannot find a "point of entry" into the aggregate member and ignores it for calculated members. One way around this would be to put the sets from the AGGREGATE member explicitly in the WHERE clause (slicer). I realize this is only supported in SSAS 2005 and 2008. However, after talking with Chris Webb (his blog is here and I highly recommend following his efforts and musings) it is a far more efficient way to filter/slice a query: With member [Week Count] as 'count(existing([Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].members))' select {[Week Count]} on columns from [Adventure Works] where ({[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[47]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[48]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[49]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[50]&[2004]} ,{[Customer].[Customer Geography].[Country].&[Australia],[Customer].[Customer Geography].[Country].&[United States]}) This query returns the correct result of (4) weeks. Additionally, we can count the cross-join members of the two hierarchies in the slicer: With member [Week Count] as 'count(existing([Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].members)*existing([Customer].[Customer Geography].[Country].members))' select {[Week Count]} on columns from [Adventure Works] where ({[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[47]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[48]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[49]&[2004],[Date].[Fiscal Weeks].[Fiscal Week].&[50]&[2004]} ,{[Customer].[Customer Geography].[Country].&[Australia],[Customer].[Customer Geography].[Country].&[United States]}) We get the correct number of (8) here.

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SQL SERVER – SSMS: Top Object and Batch Execution Statistics Reports

- by Pinal Dave

The month of June till mid of July has been the fever of sports. First, it was Wimbledon Tennis and then the Soccer fever was all over. There is a huge number of fan followers and it is great to see the level at which people sometimes worship these sports. Being an Indian, I cannot forget to mention the India tour of England later part of July. Following these sports and as the events unfold to the finals, there are a number of ways the statisticians can slice and dice the numbers. Cue from soccer I can surely say there is a team performance against another team and then there is individual member fairs against a particular opponent. Such statistics give us a fair idea to how a team in the past or in the recent past has fared against each other, head-to-head stats during World cup and during other neutral venue games. All these statistics are just pointers. In reality, they don’t reflect the calibre of the current team because the individuals who performed in each of these games are totally different (Typical example being the Brazil Vs Germany semi-final match in FIFA 2014). So at times these numbers are misleading. It is worth investigating and get the next level information. Similar to these statistics, SQL Server Management studio is also equipped with a number of reports like a) Object Execution Statistics report and b) Batch Execution Statistics reports. As discussed in the example, the team scorecard is like the Batch Execution statistics and individual stats is like Object Level statistics. The analogy can be taken only this far, trust me there is no correlation between SQL Server functioning and playing sports – It is like I think about diet all the time except while I am eating. Performance – Batch Execution Statistics Let us view the first report which can be invoked from Server Node -> Reports -> Standard Reports -> Performance – Batch Execution Statistics. Most of the values that are displayed in this report come from the DMVs sys.dm_exec_query_stats and sys.dm_exec_sql_text(sql_handle). This report contains 3 distinctive sections as outline below. Section 1: This is a graphical bar graph representation of Average CPU Time, Average Logical reads and Average Logical Writes for individual batches. The Batch numbers are indicative and the details of individual batch is available in section 3 (detailed below). Section 2: This represents a Pie chart of all the batches by Total CPU Time (%) and Total Logical IO (%) by batches. This graphical representation tells us which batch consumed the highest CPU and IO since the server started, provided plan is available in the cache. Section 3: This is the section where we can find the SQL statements associated with each of the batch Numbers. This also gives us the details of Average CPU / Average Logical Reads and Average Logical Writes in the system for the given batch with object details. Expanding the rows, I will also get the # Executions and # Plans Generated for each of the queries. Performance – Object Execution Statistics The second report worth a look is Object Execution statistics. This is a similar report as the previous but turned on its head by SQL Server Objects. The report has 3 areas to look as above. Section 1 gives the Average CPU, Average IO bar charts for specific objects. The section 2 is a graphical representation of Total CPU by objects and Total Logical IO by objects. The final section details the various objects in detail with the Avg. CPU, IO and other details which are self-explanatory. At a high-level both the reports are based on queries on two DMVs (sys.dm_exec_query_stats and sys.dm_exec_sql_text) and it builds values based on calculations using columns in them: SELECT * FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats s1 CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(sql_handle) AS s2 WHERE s2.objectid IS NOT NULL AND DB_NAME(s2.dbid) IS NOT NULL ORDER BY s1.sql_handle; This is one of the simplest form of reports and in future blogs we will look at more complex reports. I truly hope that these reports can give DBAs and developers a hint about what is the possible performance tuning area. As a closing point I must emphasize that all above reports pick up data from the plan cache. If a particular query has consumed a lot of resources earlier, but plan is not available in the cache, none of the above reports would show that bad query. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: SQL Reports

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Passing the CAML thru the EY of the NEEDL

- by PointsToShare

© 2011 By: Dov Trietsch. All rights reserved Passing the CAML thru the EY of the NEEDL Definitions: CAML (Collaborative Application Markup Language) is an XML based markup language used in Microsoft SharePoint technologies Anonymous: A camel is a horse designed by committee Dov Trietsch: A CAML is a HORS designed by Microsoft I was advised against putting any Camel and Sphinx rhymes in here. Look it up in Google! _____ Now that we have dispensed with the dromedary jokes (BTW, I have many more, but they are not fit to print!), here is an interesting problem and its solution. We have built a list where the title must be kept unique so I needed to verify the existence (or absence) of a list item with a particular title. Two methods came to mind: 1: Span the list until the title is found (result = found) or until the list ends (result = not found). This is an algorithm of complexity O(N) and for long lists it is a performance sucker. 2: Use a CAML query instead. Here, for short list we’ll encounter some overhead, but because the query results in an SQL query on the content database, it is of complexity O(LogN), which is significantly better and scales perfectly. Obviously I decided to go with the latter and this is where the CAML s--t hit the fan. A CAML query returns a SPListItemCollection and I simply checked its Count. If it was 0, the item did not already exist and it was safe to add a new item with the given title. Otherwise I cancelled the operation and warned the user. The trouble was that I always got a positive. Most of the time a false positive. The count was greater than 0 regardles of the title I checked (except when the list was empty, which happens only once). This was very disturbing indeed. To solve my immediate problem which was speedy delivery, I reverted to the “Span the list” approach, but the problem bugged me, so I wrote a little console app by which I tested and tweaked and tested, time and again, until I found the solution. Yes, one can pass the proverbial CAML thru the ey of the needle (e’s missing on purpose). So here are my conclusions: CAML that does not work: Note: QT is my quote: char QT = Convert.ToChar((int)34); string titleQuery = "<Query>><Where><Eq>"; titleQuery += "<FieldRef Name=" + QT + "Title" + QT + "/>"; titleQuery += "<Value Type=" + QT + "Text" + QT + ">" + uniqueID + "</Value></Eq></Where></Query>"; titleQuery += "<ViewFields><FieldRef Name=" + QT + "Title" + QT + "/></ViewFields>"; Why? Even though U2U generates it, the <Query> and </Query> tags do not belong in the query that you pass. Start your query with the <Where> clause. Also the <ViewFiels> clause does not belong. I used this clause to limit the returned collection to a single column, and I still wish to do it. I’ll show how this is done a bit later. When you use the <Query> </Query> tags in you query, it’s as if you did not specify the query at all. What you get is the all inclusive default query for the list. It returns evey column and every item. It is expensive for both server and network because it does all the extra processing and eats plenty of bandwidth. Now, here is the CAML that works string titleQuery = "<Where><Eq>"; titleQuery += "<FieldRef Name=" + QT + "Title" + QT + "/>"; titleQuery += "<Value Type=" + QT + "Text" + QT + ">" + uniqueID + "</Value></Eq></Where>"; You’ll also notice that inside the unusable <ViewFields> clause above, we have a <FieldRef> clause. This is what we pass to the SPQuery object. Here is how: SPQuery query = new SPQuery(); query.Query = titleQuery; query.ViewFields = "<FieldRef Name=" + QT + "Title" + QT + "/>"; query.RowLimit = 1; SPListItemCollection col = masterList.GetItems(query); Two thing to note: we enter the view fields into the SPQuery object and we also limited the number of rows that the query returns. The latter is not always done, but in an existence test, there is no point in returning hundreds of rows. The query will now return one item or none, which is all we need in order to verify the existence (or non-existence) of items. Limiting the number of columns and the number of rows is a great performance enhancer. That’s all folks!!

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Auto DOP and Concurrency

- by jean-pierre.dijcks

After spending some time in the cloud, I figured it is time to come down to earth and start discussing some of the new Auto DOP features some more. As Database Machines (the v2 machine runs Oracle Database 11.2) are effectively selling like hotcakes, it makes some sense to talk about the new parallel features in more detail. For basic understanding make sure you have read the initial post. The focus there is on Auto DOP and queuing, which is to some extend the focus here. But now I want to discuss the concurrency a little and explain some of the relevant parameters and their impact, specifically in a situation with concurrency on the system. The goal of Auto DOP The idea behind calculating the Automatic Degree of Parallelism is to find the highest possible DOP (ideal DOP) that still scales. In other words, if we were to increase the DOP even more above a certain DOP we would see a tailing off of the performance curve and the resource cost / performance would become less optimal. Therefore the ideal DOP is the best resource/performance point for that statement. The goal of Queuing On a normal production system we should see statements running concurrently. On a Database Machine we typically see high concurrency rates, so we need to find a way to deal with both high DOP’s and high concurrency. Queuing is intended to make sure we Don’t throttle down a DOP because other statements are running on the system Stay within the physical limits of a system’s processing power Instead of making statements go at a lower DOP we queue them to make sure they will get all the resources they want to run efficiently without trashing the system. The theory – and hopefully – practice is that by giving a statement the optimal DOP the sum of all statements runs faster with queuing than without queuing. Increasing the Number of Potential Parallel Statements To determine how many statements we will consider running in parallel a single parameter should be looked at. That parameter is called PARALLEL_MIN_TIME_THRESHOLD. The default value is set to 10 seconds. So far there is nothing new here…, but do realize that anything serial (e.g. that stays under the threshold) goes straight into processing as is not considered in the rest of this post. Now, if you have a system where you have two groups of queries, serial short running and potentially parallel long running ones, you may want to worry only about the long running ones with this parallel statement threshold. As an example, lets assume the short running stuff runs on average between 1 and 15 seconds in serial (and the business is quite happy with that). The long running stuff is in the realm of 1 – 5 minutes. It might be a good choice to set the threshold to somewhere north of 30 seconds. That way the short running queries all run serial as they do today (if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it) and allows the long running ones to be evaluated for (higher degrees of) parallelism. This makes sense because the longer running ones are (at least in theory) more interesting to unleash a parallel processing model on and the benefits of running these in parallel are much more significant (again, that is mostly the case). Setting a Maximum DOP for a Statement Now that you know how to control how many of your statements are considered to run in parallel, lets talk about the specific degree of any given statement that will be evaluated. As the initial post describes this is controlled by PARALLEL_DEGREE_LIMIT. This parameter controls the degree on the entire cluster and by default it is CPU (meaning it equals Default DOP). For the sake of an example, let’s say our Default DOP is 32. Looking at our 5 minute queries from the previous paragraph, the limit to 32 means that none of the statements that are evaluated for Auto DOP ever runs at more than DOP of 32. Concurrently Running a High DOP A basic assumption about running high DOP statements at high concurrency is that you at some point in time (and this is true on any parallel processing platform!) will run into a resource limitation. And yes, you can then buy more hardware (e.g. expand the Database Machine in Oracle’s case), but that is not the point of this post… The goal is to find a balance between the highest possible DOP for each statement and the number of statements running concurrently, but with an emphasis on running each statement at that highest efficiency DOP. The PARALLEL_SERVER_TARGET parameter is the all important concurrency slider here. Setting this parameter to a higher number means more statements get to run at their maximum parallel degree before queuing kicks in. PARALLEL_SERVER_TARGET is set per instance (so needs to be set to the same value on all 8 nodes in a full rack Database Machine). Just as a side note, this parameter is set in processes, not in DOP, which equates to 4* Default DOP (2 processes for a DOP, default value is 2 * Default DOP, hence a default of 4 * Default DOP). Let’s say we have PARALLEL_SERVER_TARGET set to 128. With our limit set to 32 (the default) we are able to run 4 statements concurrently at the highest DOP possible on this system before we start queuing. If these 4 statements are running, any next statement will be queued. To run a system at high concurrency the PARALLEL_SERVER_TARGET should be raised from its default to be much closer (start with 60% or so) to PARALLEL_MAX_SERVERS. By using both PARALLEL_SERVER_TARGET and PARALLEL_DEGREE_LIMIT you can control easily how many statements run concurrently at good DOPs without excessive queuing. Because each workload is a little different, it makes sense to plan ahead and look at these parameters and set these based on your requirements.

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Editing sqlcmdvariable nodes in SSDT Publish Profile files using msbuild

- by jamiet

Publish profile files are a new feature of SSDT database projects that enable you to package up all environment-specific properties into a single file for use at publish time; I have written about them before at Publish Profile Files in SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) and if it wasn’t obvious from that blog post, I’m a big fan! As I have used Publish Profile files more and more I have realised that there may be times when you need to edit those Publish profile files during your build process, you may think of such an operation as a kind of pre-processor step. In my case I have a sqlcmd variable called DeployTag, it holds a value representing the current build number that later gets inserted into a table using a Post-Deployment script (that’s a technique that I wrote about in Implementing SQL Server solutions using Visual Studio 2010 Database Projects – a compendium of project experiences – search for “Putting a build number into the DB”). Here are the contents of my Publish Profile file (simplified for demo purposes) : Notice that DeployTag defaults to “UNKNOWN”. On my current project we are using msbuild scripts to control what gets built and what I want to do is take the build number from our build engine and edit the Publish profile files accordingly. Here is the pertinent portion of the the msbuild script I came up with to do that: <ItemGroup> <Namespaces Include="myns"> <Prefix>myns</Prefix> <Uri>http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003</Uri> </Namespaces> </ItemGroup> <Target Name="UpdateBuildNumber"> <ItemGroup> <SSDTPublishFiles Include="$(DESTINATION)\**\$(CONFIGURATION)\**\*.publish.xml" /> </ItemGroup> <MSBuild.ExtensionPack.Xml.XmlFile Condition="%(SSDTPublishFiles.Identity) != ''" TaskAction="UpdateElement" File="%(SSDTPublishFiles.Identity)" Namespaces="@(Namespaces)" XPath="//myns:SqlCmdVariable[@Include='DeployTag']/myns:Value" InnerText="$(BuildNumber)"/> </Target> The important bits here are the definition of the namespace http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003: and the XPath expression //myns:SqlCmdVariable[@Include='DeployTag']/myns:Value: Some extra info: I use a fantastic tool called XMLPad to discover/test XPath expressions, read more at XMLPad – a new tool in my developer utility belt MSBuild.ExtensionPack.Xml.XmlFile is a msbuild task used to edit XML files and is available from Mike Fourie’s MSBuild Extension Pack I’m using a property called $(BuildNumber) to hold the value to substitute into the file and also $(DESTINATION)\**\$(CONFIGURATION)\**\*.publish.xml to define an ItemGroup all of my Publish Profile files. Populating those properties is basic msbuild stuff and is therefore outside the scope of this blog post however if you want to learn more check out MSBuild properties & How To: Use Wildcards to Build All Files in a Directory. Hope this is useful! @Jamiet

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Retrieve Performance Data from SOA Infrastructure Database

- by fip

My earlier blog posting shows how to enable, retrieve and interpret BPEL engine performance statistics to aid performance troubleshooting. The strength of BPEL engine statistics at EM is its break down per request. But there are some limitations with the BPEL performance statistics mentioned in that blog posting: The statistics were stored in memory instead of being persisted. To avoid memory overflow, the data are stored to a buffer with limited size. When the statistic entries exceed the limitation, old data will be flushed out to give ways to new statistics. Therefore it can only keep the last X number of entries of data. The statistics 5 hour ago may not be there anymore. The BPEL engine performance statistics only includes latencies. It does not provide throughputs. Fortunately, Oracle SOA Suite runs with the SOA Infrastructure database and a lot of performance data are naturally persisted there. It is at a more coarse grain than the in-memory BPEL Statistics, but it does have its own strengths as it is persisted. Here I would like offer examples of some basic SQL queries you can run against the infrastructure database of Oracle SOA Suite 11G to acquire the performance statistics for a given period of time. You can run it immediately after you modify the date range to match your actual system. 1. Asynchronous/one-way messages incoming rates The following query will show number of messages sent to one-way/async BPEL processes during a given time period, organized by process names and states select composite_name composite, state, count(*) Count from dlv_message where receive_date >= to_timestamp('2012-10-24 21:00:00','YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') and receive_date <= to_timestamp('2012-10-24 21:59:59','YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') group by composite_name, state order by Count; 2. Throughput of BPEL process instances The following query shows the number of synchronous and asynchronous process instances created during a given time period. It list instances of all states, including the unfinished and faulted ones. The results will include all composites cross all SOA partitions select state, count(*) Count, composite_name composite, component_name,componenttype from cube_instance where creation_date >= to_timestamp('2012-10-24 21:00:00','YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') and creation_date <= to_timestamp('2012-10-24 21:59:59','YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') group by composite_name, component_name, componenttype order by count(*) desc; 3. Throughput and latencies of BPEL process instances This query is augmented on the previous one, providing more comprehensive information. It gives not only throughput but also the maximum, minimum and average elapse time BPEL process instances. select composite_name Composite, component_name Process, componenttype, state, count(*) Count, trunc(Max(extract(day from (modify_date-creation_date))*24*60*60 + extract(hour from (modify_date-creation_date))*60*60 + extract(minute from (modify_date-creation_date))*60 + extract(second from (modify_date-creation_date))),4) MaxTime, trunc(Min(extract(day from (modify_date-creation_date))*24*60*60 + extract(hour from (modify_date-creation_date))*60*60 + extract(minute from (modify_date-creation_date))*60 + extract(second from (modify_date-creation_date))),4) MinTime, trunc(AVG(extract(day from (modify_date-creation_date))*24*60*60 + extract(hour from (modify_date-creation_date))*60*60 + extract(minute from (modify_date-creation_date))*60 + extract(second from (modify_date-creation_date))),4) AvgTime from cube_instance where creation_date >= to_timestamp('2012-10-24 21:00:00','YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') and creation_date <= to_timestamp('2012-10-24 21:59:59','YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') group by composite_name, component_name, componenttype, state order by count(*) desc; 4. Combine all together Now let's combine all of these 3 queries together, and parameterize the start and end time stamps to make the script a bit more robust. The following script will prompt for the start and end time before querying against the database: accept startTime prompt 'Enter start time (YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS)' accept endTime prompt 'Enter end time (YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS)' Prompt "==== Rejected Messages ===="; REM 2012-10-24 21:00:00 REM 2012-10-24 21:59:59 select count(*), composite_dn from rejected_message where created_time >= to_timestamp('&&StartTime','YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') and created_time <= to_timestamp('&&EndTime','YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') group by composite_dn; Prompt " "; Prompt "==== Throughput of one-way/asynchronous messages ===="; select state, count(*) Count, composite_name composite from dlv_message where receive_date >= to_timestamp('&StartTime','YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') and receive_date <= to_timestamp('&EndTime','YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') group by composite_name, state order by Count; Prompt " "; Prompt "==== Throughput and latency of BPEL process instances ====" select state, count(*) Count, trunc(Max(extract(day from (modify_date-creation_date))*24*60*60 + extract(hour from (modify_date-creation_date))*60*60 + extract(minute from (modify_date-creation_date))*60 + extract(second from (modify_date-creation_date))),4) MaxTime, trunc(Min(extract(day from (modify_date-creation_date))*24*60*60 + extract(hour from (modify_date-creation_date))*60*60 + extract(minute from (modify_date-creation_date))*60 + extract(second from (modify_date-creation_date))),4) MinTime, trunc(AVG(extract(day from (modify_date-creation_date))*24*60*60 + extract(hour from (modify_date-creation_date))*60*60 + extract(minute from (modify_date-creation_date))*60 + extract(second from (modify_date-creation_date))),4) AvgTime, composite_name Composite, component_name Process, componenttype from cube_instance where creation_date >= to_timestamp('&StartTime','YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') and creation_date <= to_timestamp('&EndTime','YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') group by composite_name, component_name, componenttype, state order by count(*) desc;

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SQL SERVER – SmallDateTime and Precision – A Continuous Confusion

- by pinaldave

Some kinds of confusion never go away. Here is one of the ancient confusing things in SQL. The precision of the SmallDateTime is one concept that confuses a lot of people, proven by the many messages I receive everyday relating to this subject. Let me start with the question: What is the precision of the SMALLDATETIME datatypes? What is your answer? Write it down on your notepad. Now if you do not want to continue reading the blog post, head to my previous blog post over here: SQL SERVER – Precision of SMALLDATETIME. A Social Media Question Since the increase of social media conversations, I noticed that the amount of the comments I receive on this blog is a bit staggering. I receive lots of questions on facebook, twitter or Google+. One of the very interesting questions yesterday was asked on Facebook by Raghavendra. I am re-organizing his script and asking all of the questions he has asked me. Let us see if we could help him with his question: CREATE TABLE #temp (name VARCHAR(100),registered smalldatetime) GO DECLARE @test smalldatetime SET @test=GETDATE() INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value1',@test) INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value2',@test) GO SELECT * FROM #temp ORDER BY registered DESC GO DROP TABLE #temp GO Now when the above script is ran, we will get the following result: Well, the expectation of the query was to have the following result. The row which was inserted last was expected to return as first row in result set as the ORDER BY descending. Side note: Because the requirement is to get the latest data, we can’t use any column other than smalldatetime column in order by. If we use name column in the order by, we will get an incorrect result as it can be any name. My Initial Reaction My initial reaction was as follows: 1) DataType DateTime2: If file precision of the column is expected from the column which store date and time, it should not be smalldatetime. The precision of the column smalldatetime is One Minute (Read Here) for finer precision use DateTime or DateTime2 data type. Here is the code which includes above suggestion: CREATE TABLE #temp (name VARCHAR(100), registered datetime2) GO DECLARE @test datetime2 SET @test=GETDATE() INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value1',@test) INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value2',@test) GO SELECT * FROM #temp ORDER BY registered DESC GO DROP TABLE #temp GO 2) Tie Breaker Identity: There are always possibilities that two rows were inserted at the same time. In that case, you may need a tie breaker. If you have an increasing identity column, you can use that as a tie breaker as well. CREATE TABLE #temp (ID INT IDENTITY(1,1), name VARCHAR(100),registered datetime2) GO DECLARE @test datetime2 SET @test=GETDATE() INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value1',@test) INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value2',@test) GO SELECT * FROM #temp ORDER BY ID DESC GO DROP TABLE #temp GO Those two were the quick suggestions I provided. It is not necessary that you should use both advices. It is possible that one can use only DATETIME datatype or Identity column can have datatype of BIGINT or have another tie breaker. An Alternate NO Solution In the facebook thread this was also discussed as one of the solutions: CREATE TABLE #temp (name VARCHAR(100),registered smalldatetime) GO DECLARE @test smalldatetime SET @test=GETDATE() INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value1',@test) INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value2',@test) GO SELECT name, registered, ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY registered DESC) AS "Row Number" FROM #temp ORDER BY 3 DESC GO DROP TABLE #temp GO However, I believe it is not the solution and can be further misleading if used in a production server. Here is the example of why it is not a good solution: CREATE TABLE #temp (name VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,registered smalldatetime) GO DECLARE @test smalldatetime SET @test=GETDATE() INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value1',@test) INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value2',@test) GO -- Before Index SELECT name, registered, ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY registered DESC) AS "Row Number" FROM #temp ORDER BY 3 DESC GO -- Create Index ALTER TABLE #temp ADD CONSTRAINT [PK_#temp] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (name DESC) GO -- After Index SELECT name, registered, ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY registered DESC) AS "Row Number" FROM #temp ORDER BY 3 DESC GO DROP TABLE #temp GO Now let us examine the resultset. You will notice that an index which is created on the base table which is (indeed) schema change the table but can affect the resultset. As you can see, an index can change the resultset, so this method is not yet perfect to get the latest inserted resultset. No Schema Change Requirement After giving these two suggestions, I was waiting for the feedback of the asker. However, the requirement of the asker was there can’t be any schema change because the application was used by many other applications. I validated again, and of course, the requirement is no schema change at all. No addition of the column of change of datatypes of any other columns. There is no further help as well. This is indeed an interesting question. I personally can’t think of any solution which I could provide him given the requirement of no schema change. Can you think of any other solution to this? Need of Database Designer This question once again brings up another ancient question: “Do we need a database designer?” I often come across databases which are facing major performance problems or have redundant data. Normalization is often ignored when a database is built fast under a very tight deadline. Often I come across a database which has table with unnecessary columns and performance problems. While working as Developer Lead in my earlier jobs, I have seen developers adding columns to tables without anybody’s consent and retrieving them as SELECT *. There is a lot to discuss on this subject in detail, but for now, let’s discuss the question first. Do you have any suggestions for the above question? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: CodeProject, Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DateTime, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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Cloud Computing Architecture Patterns: Don’t Focus on the Client

- by BuckWoody

Normally I try to put topics in the positive in other words "Do this" not "Don't do that". Sometimes its clearer to focus on what *not* to do. Popular development processes often start with screen mockups, or user input descriptions. In a scale-out pattern like Cloud Computing on Windows Azure, that's the wrong place to start. Start with the Data Instead, I recommend that you start with the data that a process requires. That data might be temporary or persisted, but starting with the data and its requirements helps to define not only the storage engine you need but also drives everything from security to the integrity of the application. For instance, assume the requirements show that the user must enter their phone number, and that this datum is used in a contact management system further down the application chain. For that datum, you can determine what data type you need (U.S. only or International?) the security requirements, whether it needs ACID compliance, how it will be searched, indexed and so on. From one small data point you can extrapolate out your options for storing and processing the data. Here's the interesting part, which begins to break the patterns that we've used for decades: all of the data doesn't have the same requirements. The phone number might be best suited for a list, or an element, or a string, with either BASE or ACID requirements, based on how it is used. That means we don't have to dump everything into XML, an RDBMS, a NoSQL engine, or a flat file exclusively. In fact, one record might use all of those depending on the use-case requirements. Next Is Data Management With the data defined, we can move on to how to store the data. Again, the requirements now dictate whether we need a full relational calculus or set-based operations, or we can choose another method based on the requirements for the data. And breaking another pattern its OK to store in more than once, in more than one location. We do this all the time for reporting systems and Business Intelligence systems, so this is a pattern we need to think about even for OLTP data. Move to Data Transport How does the data get around? We can use a connection-based method, sending the data along a transport to the storage engine, but in some cases we may want to use a cache, a queue, the Service Bus, or Complex Event Processing. Finally, Data Processing Most RDBMS engines, NoSQL, and certainly Big Data engines not only store data, but can process and manipulate it as well. Its doubtful that you'll calculate that phone number right? Well, if you're the phone company, you most certainly will. And so we see that even once we've chosen the data type, storage and engine, the same element can have different computing requirements based on how it is used. Sure, We Need A Front-End At Some Point Not all data is entered by human hands in fact most data isn't. We don't really need a Graphical User Interface (GUI) we need some way for a GUI to get data into and out of the systems listed earlier. But when we do need to allow users to enter or examine data, that should be left to the GUI that best fits the device the user has. Ever tried to use an application designed for a web browser on a phone? Or one designed for a tablet on a phone? Its usually quite painful. The siren song of "We'll just write one interface for all devices" is strong, and has beguiled many an unsuspecting architect. But they just don't work out. Instead, focus on the data, its transport and processing. Create API calls or a message system that allows for resilient transport to the device or interface, and let it do what it does best. References Microsoft Architecture Journal: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/bb410935.aspx Patterns and Practices: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff921345.aspx Windows Azure iOS, Android, Windows 8 Mobile Devices SDK: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/mobile/tutorials/get-started-ios/ Windows Azure Facebook SDK: http://ntotten.com/2013/03/14/using-windows-azure-mobile-services-with-the-facebook-sdk-for-windows-phone/

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JQuery and the multiple date selector

- by David Carter

Overview I recently needed to build a web page that would allow a user to capture some information and most importantly select multiple dates. This functionality was core to the application and hence had to be easy and quick to do. This is a public facing website so it had to be intuitive and very responsive. On the face of it it didn't seem too hard, I know enough juery to know what it is capable of and I was pretty sure that there would be some plugins that would help speed things along the way. I'm using ASP.Net MVC for this project as I really like the control that it gives you over the generated html and javascript. After years of Web Forms development it makes me feel like a web developer again and puts a smile on my face, that can only be a good thing! The Calendar The first item that I needed on this page was a calender and I wanted the ability to: have the calendar be always visible select/deselect multiple dates at the same time bind to the select/deselect event so that I could update a seperate listing of the selected dates allow the user to move to another month and still have the calender remember any dates in the previous month I was hoping that there was a jQuery plugin that would meet my requirements and luckily there was! The jQuery datepicker does everything I want and there is quite a bit of documentation on how to use it. It makes use of a javascript date library date.js which I had not come across before but has a number of very useful date utilities that I have used elsewhere in the project. As you can see from the image there still needs to be some styling done! But there will be plenty of time for that later. The calendar clearly shows which dates the user has selected in red and i also make use of an unordered list to show the the selected dates so the user can always clearly see what has been selected even if they move to another month on the calendar. The javascript code that is responsible for listening to events on the calendar and synchronising the list look as follows: <script type="text/javascript"> $(function () { $('.datepicker').datePicker({ inline: true, selectMultiple: true }) .bind( 'dateSelected', function (e, selectedDate, $td, state) { var dateInMillisecs = selectedDate.valueOf(); if (state) { //adding a date var newDate = new Date(selectedDate); //insert the new item into the correct place in the list var listitems = $('#dateList').children('li').get(); var liToAdd = "<li id='" + dateInMillisecs + "' >" + newDate.toString('ddd dd MMM yyyy') + "</li>"; var targetIndex = -1; for (var i = 0; i < listitems.length; i++) { if (dateInMillisecs <= listitems[i].id) { targetIndex = i; break; } } if (targetIndex < 0) { $('#dateList').append(liToAdd); } else { $($('#dateList').children("li")[targetIndex]).before(liToAdd); } } else {//removing a date $('ul #' + dateInMillisecs).remove(); } } ) }); When a date is selected on the calendar a function is called with a number of parameters passed to it. The ones I am particularly interested in are selectedDate and state. State tells me whether the user has selected or deselected the date passed in the selectedDate parameter. The <ul> that I am using to show the date has an id of dateList and this is what I will be adding and removing <li> items from. To make things a little more logical for the user I decided that the date should be sorted in chronological order, this means that each time a new date is selected it need to be placed in the correct position in the list. One way to do this would be just to append a new <li> to the list and then sort the whole list. However the approach I took was to get an array of all the items in the list var listitems = ('#dateList').children('li').get(); and then check the value of each item in the array against my new date and as soon as I found the case where the new date was less than the current item remember that position in the list as this is where I would insert it later. To make this work easily I decided to store a numeric representation of each date in the list in the id attribute of each <li> element. Fortunately javascript natively stores dates as the number of milliseconds since 1 Jan 1970. var dateInMillisecs = selectedDate.valueOf(); Please note that this is the value of the date in UTC! I always like to store dates in UTC as I learnt a long time ago that it saves a lot of refactoring at a later date... When I convert the dates back to their original back on the server I will need the UTC offset that was used when calculating the dates, this and how to actually serialise the dates and get them posted back will be the subject of another post.

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Memory Efficient Windows SOA Server

- by Antony Reynolds

Installing a Memory Efficient SOA Suite 11.1.1.6 on Windows Server Well 11.1.1.6 is now available for download so I thought I would build a Windows Server environment to run it. I will minimize the memory footprint of the installation by putting all functionality into the Admin Server of the SOA Suite domain. Required Software 64-bit JDK SOA Suite If you want 64-bit then choose “Generic” rather than “Microsoft Windows 32bit JVM” or “Linux 32bit JVM” This has links to all the required software. If you choose “Generic” then the Repository Creation Utility link does not show, you still need this so change the platform to “Microsoft Windows 32bit JVM” or “Linux 32bit JVM” to get the software. Similarly if you need a database then you need to change the platform to get the link to XE for Windows or Linux. If possible I recommend installing a 64-bit JDK as this allows you to assign more memory to individual JVMs. Windows XE will work, but it is better if you can use a full Oracle database because of the limitations on XE that sometimes cause it to run out of space with large or multiple SOA deployments. Installation Steps The following flow chart outlines the steps required in installing and configuring SOA Suite. The steps in the diagram are explained below. 64-bit? Is a 64-bit installation required? The Windows & Linux installers will install 32-bit versions of the Sun JDK and JRockit. A separate JDK must be installed for 64-bit. Install 64-bit JDK The 64-bit JDK can be either Hotspot or JRockit. You can choose either JDK 1.7 or 1.6. Install WebLogic If you are using 64-bit then install WebLogic using “java –jar wls1036_generic.jar”. Make sure you include Coherence in the installation, the easiest way to do this is to accept the “Typical” installation. SOA Suite Required? If you are not installing SOA Suite then you can jump straight ahead and create a WebLogic domain. Install SOA Suite Run the SOA Suite installer and point it at the existing Middleware Home created for WebLogic. Note to run the SOA installer on Windows the user must have admin privileges. I also found that on Windows Server 2008R2 I had to start the installer from a command prompt with administrative privileges, granting it privileges when it ran caused it to ignore the jreLoc parameter. Database Available? Do you have access to a database into which you can install the SOA schema. SOA Suite requires access to an Oracle database (it is supported on other databases but I would always use an oracle database). Install Database I use an 11gR2 Oracle database to avoid XE limitations. Make sure that you set the database character set to be unicode (AL32UTF8). I also disabled the new security settings because they get in the way for a developer database. Don’t forget to check that number of processes is at least 150 and number of sessions is not set, or is set to at least 200 (in the DB init parameters). Run RCU The SOA Suite database schemas are created by running the Repository Creation Utility. Install the “SOA and BPM Infrastructure” component to support SOA Suite. If you keep the schema prefix as “DEV” then the config wizard is easier to complete. Run Config Wizard The Config wizard creates the domain which hosts the WebLogic server instances. To get a minimum footprint SOA installation choose the “Oracle Enterprise Manager” and “Oracle SOA Suite for developers” products. All other required products will be automatically selected. The “for developers” installs target the appropriate components at the AdminServer rather than creating a separate managed server to house them. This reduces the number of JVMs required to run the system and hence the amount of memory required. This is not suitable for anything other than a developer environment as it mixes the admin and runtime functions together in a single server. It also takes a long time to load all the required modules, making start up a slow process. If it exists I would recommend running the config wizard found in the “oracle_common/common/bin” directory under the middleware home. This should have access to all the templates, including SOA. If you also want to run BAM in the same JVM as everything else then you need to “Select Optional Configuration” for “Managed Servers, Clusters and Machines”. To target BAM at the AdminServer delete the “bam_server1” managed server that is created by default. This will result in BAM being targeted at the AdminServer. Installation Issues I had a few problems when I came to test everything in my mega-JVM. Following applications were not targeted and so I needed to target them at the AdminServer: b2bui composer Healthcare UI FMW Welcome Page Application (11.1.0.0.0) How Memory Efficient is It? On a Windows 2008R2 Server running under VirtualBox I was able to bring up both the 11gR2 database and SOA/BPM/BAM in 3G memory. I allocated a minimum 512M to the PermGen and a minimum of 1.5G for the heap. The setting from setSOADomainEnv are shown below: set DEFAULT_MEM_ARGS=-Xms1536m -Xmx2048m set PORT_MEM_ARGS=-Xms1536m -Xmx2048m set DEFAULT_MEM_ARGS=%DEFAULT_MEM_ARGS% -XX:PermSize=512m -XX:MaxPermSize=768m set PORT_MEM_ARGS=%PORT_MEM_ARGS% -XX:PermSize=512m -XX:MaxPermSize=768m I arrived at these numbers by monitoring JVM memory usage in JConsole. Task Manager showed total system memory usage at 2.9G – just below the 3G I allocated to the VM. Performance is not stellar but it runs and I could run JDeveloper alongside it on my 8G laptop, so in that sense it was a result!

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texture mapping with lib3ds and SOIL help

- by Adam West

I'm having trouble with my project for loading a texture map onto a model. Any insight into what is going wrong with my code is fantastic. Right now the code only renders a teapot which I have assinged after creating it in 3DS Max. 3dsloader.cpp #include "3dsloader.h" Object::Object(std:: string filename) { m_TotalFaces = 0; m_model = lib3ds_file_load(filename.c_str()); // If loading the model failed, we throw an exception if(!m_model) { throw strcat("Unable to load ", filename.c_str()); } // set properties of texture coordinate generation for both x and y coordinates glTexGeni(GL_S, GL_TEXTURE_GEN_MODE, GL_EYE_LINEAR); glTexGeni(GL_T, GL_TEXTURE_GEN_MODE, GL_EYE_LINEAR); // if not already enabled, enable texture generation if(! glIsEnabled(GL_TEXTURE_GEN_S)) glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_GEN_S); if(! glIsEnabled(GL_TEXTURE_GEN_T)) glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_GEN_T); } Object::~Object() { if(m_model) // if the file isn't freed yet lib3ds_file_free(m_model); //free up memory glDisable(GL_TEXTURE_GEN_S); glDisable(GL_TEXTURE_GEN_T); } void Object::GetFaces() { m_TotalFaces = 0; Lib3dsMesh * mesh; // Loop through every mesh. for(mesh = m_model->meshes;mesh != NULL;mesh = mesh->next) { // Add the number of faces this mesh has to the total number of faces. m_TotalFaces += mesh->faces; } } void Object::CreateVBO() { assert(m_model != NULL); // Calculate the number of faces we have in total GetFaces(); // Allocate memory for our vertices and normals Lib3dsVector * vertices = new Lib3dsVector[m_TotalFaces * 3]; Lib3dsVector * normals = new Lib3dsVector[m_TotalFaces * 3]; Lib3dsTexel* texCoords = new Lib3dsTexel[m_TotalFaces * 3]; Lib3dsMesh * mesh; unsigned int FinishedFaces = 0; // Loop through all the meshes for(mesh = m_model->meshes;mesh != NULL;mesh = mesh->next) { lib3ds_mesh_calculate_normals(mesh, &normals[FinishedFaces*3]); // Loop through every face for(unsigned int cur_face = 0; cur_face < mesh->faces;cur_face++) { Lib3dsFace * face = &mesh->faceL[cur_face]; for(unsigned int i = 0;i < 3;i++) { memcpy(&texCoords[FinishedFaces*3 + i], mesh->texelL[face->points[ i ]], sizeof(Lib3dsTexel)); memcpy(&vertices[FinishedFaces*3 + i], mesh->pointL[face->points[ i ]].pos, sizeof(Lib3dsVector)); } FinishedFaces++; } } // Generate a Vertex Buffer Object and store it with our vertices glGenBuffers(1, &m_VertexVBO); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, m_VertexVBO); glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(Lib3dsVector) * 3 * m_TotalFaces, vertices, GL_STATIC_DRAW); // Generate another Vertex Buffer Object and store the normals in it glGenBuffers(1, &m_NormalVBO); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, m_NormalVBO); glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(Lib3dsVector) * 3 * m_TotalFaces, normals, GL_STATIC_DRAW); // Generate a third VBO and store the texture coordinates in it. glGenBuffers(1, &m_TexCoordVBO); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, m_TexCoordVBO); glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(Lib3dsTexel) * 3 * m_TotalFaces, texCoords, GL_STATIC_DRAW); // Clean up our allocated memory delete vertices; delete normals; delete texCoords; // We no longer need lib3ds lib3ds_file_free(m_model); m_model = NULL; } void Object::applyTexture(const char*texfilename) { float imageWidth; float imageHeight; glGenTextures(1, & textureObject); // allocate memory for one texture textureObject = SOIL_load_OGL_texture(texfilename,SOIL_LOAD_AUTO,SOIL_CREATE_NEW_ID,SOIL_FLAG_MIPMAPS); glPixelStorei(GL_UNPACK_ALIGNMENT,1); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, textureObject); // use our newest texture glGetTexLevelParameterfv(GL_TEXTURE_2D,0,GL_TEXTURE_WIDTH,&imageWidth); glGetTexLevelParameterfv(GL_TEXTURE_2D,0,GL_TEXTURE_HEIGHT,&imageHeight); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); // give the best result for texture magnification glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); //give the best result for texture minification glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL_CLAMP); // don't repeat texture glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL_CLAMP); // don't repeat textureglTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL_CLAMP); // don't repeat texture glTexEnvf(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_TEXTURE_ENV_MODE,GL_MODULATE); glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D,0,GL_RGB,imageWidth,imageHeight,0,GL_RGB,GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE,& textureObject); } void Object::Draw() const { // Enable vertex, normal and texture-coordinate arrays. glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); glEnableClientState(GL_NORMAL_ARRAY); glEnableClientState(GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); // Bind the VBO with the normals. glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, m_NormalVBO); // The pointer for the normals is NULL which means that OpenGL will use the currently bound VBO. glNormalPointer(GL_FLOAT, 0, NULL); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, m_TexCoordVBO); glTexCoordPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, 0, NULL); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, m_VertexVBO); glVertexPointer(3, GL_FLOAT, 0, NULL); // Render the triangles. glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, m_TotalFaces * 3); glDisableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); glDisableClientState(GL_NORMAL_ARRAY); glDisableClientState(GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); } 3dsloader.h #include "main.h" #include "lib3ds/file.h" #include "lib3ds/mesh.h" #include "lib3ds/material.h" class Object { public: Object(std:: string filename); virtual ~Object(); virtual void Draw() const; virtual void CreateVBO(); void applyTexture(const char*texfilename); protected: void GetFaces(); unsigned int m_TotalFaces; Lib3dsFile * m_model; Lib3dsMesh* Mesh; GLuint textureObject; GLuint m_VertexVBO, m_NormalVBO, m_TexCoordVBO; }; Called in the main cpp file with: VBO,apply texture and draw (pretty simple, how ironic) and thats it, please help me forum :)

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Open World Day 3

- by Antony Reynolds

A Day in the Life of an Oracle OpenWorld Attendee Part IV My third day was exhibition day for me! I took the opportunity to wander around the JavaOne and OpenWorld exhibitions to see what might be useful for me when selling WebLogic, Coherence & SOA Suite. I found a number of interesting vendors and thought I would share what I found here. These are not necessarily endorsements, but observations on companies that I thought had interesting looking products that fill a need I have seen at customers. Highly Available EBS Upgrades A few years ago I worked with a customer that was a port authority. They wanted to tie E-Business Suite into their operations to provide faster processing of cargo and passengers. However they only had a 2 hour downtime window to perform upgrades. This was not a problem for core database and middleware technology, this could accommodate those upgrade timescales easily. It was a problem for EBS however so I intrigued to find Rapid E-Suite Inc offering an 11i to 12i upgrade service that claims to require no outage. This could be a real boon to EBS customers like my port friends that need to upgrade without disruption to their business. Mobile on WebLogic I have come across a number of customers who want a comprehensive mobile solution, connected and disconnected operation and so forth. ADF only addresses part of these requirements currently so I was excited to discover mFrontiers Inc offering an apparently comprehensive solution that should integrate easily with Oracle SOA Suite to mobile enable a SOA infrastructure. The ability to operate without a network is important for many applications, particularly in industries that require their engineers to enter buildings to perform maintenance or repairs, because network access is not always available – many of my colleagues don’t have mobile access from their homes because they live in the middle of nowhere – and disconnected support is crucial in these situations. Sharepoint Connector for WebCenter Content Obviously Sharepoint is an evil pernicious intrusion into a companies IT estate but it is widely deployed and many people like it but also would like to take advantage of Oracle products such as WebCenter Content. So I was encouraged to see that Fishbowl Solutions have created a connector for Sharepoint that allows it to bring in content from WebCenter, it looks like a valuable way to maintain the Sharepoint interface end users are used to but extend the range of content by pulling stuff (technical term for content) from WebCenter. Load Balancing The Enterprise Deployment Guides are Oracles bible on building highly available FMW environments, and each of them requires a front end load balancer. I have been asked to help configure F5 Load Balancers on a number of occasions over my time at Oracle and each time I come back to it I find more useful features have been added to the BigIP line of load balancers that F5 sell, many of their documents are tailored to FMW. I like F5, they provide (relatively) easy to use products that do what they say on the side of the box. They may not have all the bells and whistles of some of their more expensive competitors but they do the job and do it well! Besides which I like their logo! Other Stuff I saw lots of other interesting products and services, such as a lightweight monitoring tool for Coherence, Forms migration services, JCAPS migration services and lots of cool freebies to take home to the children! A Quiet Night Wednesday night was the partner appreciation event and I had decided to go back to the hotel and have an early night. I decided to attend the last session of the day – a Maven/Hudson/WebLogic tutorial. I got the wrong hotel for the session and snuck in 20 minutes late at the back and starting working on the hands on workshop. One of my co-attendees raised his hand for help and as the presenter came over to help he suddenly stopped and yelled – “Is that Antony”! It was my old friend Steve Button who used to be based in Redwood Shores but is now a WebLogic guru PM in Australia. It was good to catch up with him. As he yelled out a guy with really bad posture turned around to see who he was talking to, this turned out to be my friend Simon Haslan, Oracle ACE from the UK. After the tutorial Simon and I retired to the coffee shop to catch up and share stories. 2 and half hours later we decided it was time to retire, so much for an early night but great to renew old friendships and find out what real customers are worrying about.

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Why is my Ubuntu system not using the correct kernel?

- by Brooks Moses

We're having a bit of confusion on a Ubuntu remote system -- /boot/grub/menu.lst suggests the system should boot into kernel 2.6.35-30-generic, but it is actually running kernel 2.6.32-27-generic. Where should I look to start figuring out why this is happening and how to fix it? Specifically, /boot/grub/menu.lst has default 0 and the first entry is title Ubuntu 10.10, kernel 2.6.35-30-generic uuid 67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-30-generic root=UUID=67717ee3-cbf9-45d2- ae97-820256f4c4fd ro quiet splash initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-30-generic Further, I've confirmed that /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-30-generic and /boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-30-generic exist and have appropriate permissions. Meanwhile, uname -a returns: $ uname -a Linux cuda2 2.6.32-27-generic #49-Ubuntu SMP Thu Dec 2 00:51:09 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux Edit: I've also tried re-running update-grub, and rebooting; no luck. Here's the full menu.lst, as requested by a commenter: # menu.lst - See: grub(8), info grub, update-grub(8) # grub-install(8), grub-floppy(8), # grub-md5-crypt, /usr/share/doc/grub # and /usr/share/doc/grub-legacy-doc/. ## default num # Set the default entry to the entry number NUM. Numbering starts from 0, and # the entry number 0 is the default if the command is not used. # # You can specify 'saved' instead of a number. In this case, the default entry # is the entry saved with the command 'savedefault'. # WARNING: If you are using dmraid do not use 'savedefault' or your # array will desync and will not let you boot your system. default 0 ## timeout sec # Set a timeout, in SEC seconds, before automatically booting the default entry # (normally the first entry defined). timeout 3 ## hiddenmenu # Hides the menu by default (press ESC to see the menu) hiddenmenu # Pretty colours #color cyan/blue white/blue ## password ['--md5'] passwd # If used in the first section of a menu file, disable all interactive editing # control (menu entry editor and command-line) and entries protected by the # command 'lock' # e.g. password topsecret # password --md5 $1$gLhU0/$aW78kHK1QfV3P2b2znUoe/ # password topsecret # # examples # # title Windows 95/98/NT/2000 # root (hd0,0) # makeactive # chainloader +1 # # title Linux # root (hd0,1) # kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 ro # # # Put static boot stanzas before and/or after AUTOMAGIC KERNEL LIST ### BEGIN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST ## lines between the AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST markers will be modified ## by the debian update-grub script except for the default options below ## DO NOT UNCOMMENT THEM, Just edit them to your needs ## ## Start Default Options ## ## default kernel options ## default kernel options for automagic boot options ## If you want special options for specific kernels use kopt_x_y_z ## where x.y.z is kernel version. Minor versions can be omitted. ## e.g. kopt=root=/dev/hda1 ro ## kopt_2_6_8=root=/dev/hdc1 ro ## kopt_2_6_8_2_686=root=/dev/hdc2 ro # kopt=root=UUID=67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd ro ## default grub root device ## e.g. groot=(hd0,0) # groot=67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd ## should update-grub create alternative automagic boot options ## e.g. alternative=true ## alternative=false # alternative=true ## should update-grub lock alternative automagic boot options ## e.g. lockalternative=true ## lockalternative=false # lockalternative=false ## additional options to use with the default boot option, but not with the ## alternatives ## e.g. defoptions=vga=791 resume=/dev/hda5 # defoptions=quiet splash ## should update-grub lock old automagic boot options ## e.g. lockold=false ## lockold=true # lockold=false ## Xen hypervisor options to use with the default Xen boot option # xenhopt= ## Xen Linux kernel options to use with the default Xen boot option # xenkopt=console=tty0 ## altoption boot targets option ## multiple altoptions lines are allowed ## e.g. altoptions=(extra menu suffix) extra boot options ## altoptions=(recovery) single # altoptions=(recovery mode) single ## controls how many kernels should be put into the menu.lst ## only counts the first occurence of a kernel, not the ## alternative kernel options ## e.g. howmany=all ## howmany=7 # howmany=all ## specify if running in Xen domU or have grub detect automatically ## update-grub will ignore non-xen kernels when running in domU and vice versa ## e.g. indomU=detect ## indomU=true ## indomU=false # indomU=detect ## should update-grub create memtest86 boot option ## e.g. memtest86=true ## memtest86=false # memtest86=true ## should update-grub adjust the value of the default booted system ## can be true or false # updatedefaultentry=false ## should update-grub add savedefault to the default options ## can be true or false # savedefault=false ## ## End Default Options ## title Ubuntu 10.10, kernel 2.6.35-30-generic uuid 67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-30-generic root=UUID=67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd ro quiet splash initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-30-generic title Ubuntu 10.10, kernel 2.6.35-30-generic (recovery mode) uuid 67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-30-generic root=UUID=67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd ro single initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-30-generic title Ubuntu 10.10, kernel 2.6.32-32-server uuid 67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-32-server root=UUID=67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd ro quiet splash initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-32-server title Ubuntu 10.10, kernel 2.6.32-32-server (recovery mode) uuid 67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-32-server root=UUID=67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd ro single initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-32-server title Ubuntu 10.10, kernel 2.6.32-27-generic uuid 67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-27-generic root=UUID=67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd ro quiet splash initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-27-generic title Ubuntu 10.10, kernel 2.6.32-27-generic (recovery mode) uuid 67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-27-generic root=UUID=67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd ro single initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-27-generic title Chainload into GRUB 2 root 67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd kernel /boot/grub/core.img title Ubuntu 10.10, memtest86+ uuid 67717ee3-cbf9-45d2-ae97-820256f4c4fd kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin ### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST To add complication and joy to my life, this is a desktop machine in a remote datacenter; we don't have either local access or serial-console access. Suggestions?

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Design review for application facing memory issues

- by Mr Moose

I apologise in advance for the length of this post, but I want to paint an accurate picture of the problems my app is facing and then pose some questions below; I am trying to address some self inflicted design pain that is now leading to my application crashing due to out of memory errors. An abridged description of the problem domain is as follows; The application takes in a “dataset” that consists of numerous text files containing related data An individual text file within the dataset usually contains approx 20 “headers” that contain metadata about the data it contains. It also contains a large tab delimited section containing data that is related to data in one of the other text files contained within the dataset. The number of columns per file is very variable from 2 to 256+ columns. The original application was written to allow users to load a dataset, map certain columns of each of the files which basically indicating key information on the files to show how they are related as well as identify a few expected column names. Once this is done, a validation process takes place to enforce various rules and ensure that all the relationships between the files are valid. Once that is done, the data is imported into a SQL Server database. The database design is an EAV (Entity-Attribute-Value) model used to cater for the variable columns per file. I know EAV has its detractors, but in this case, I feel it was a reasonable choice given the disparate data and variable number of columns submitted in each dataset. The memory problem Given the fact the combined size of all text files was at most about 5 megs, and in an effort to reduce the database transaction time, it was decided to read ALL the data from files into memory and then perform the following; perform all the validation whilst the data was in memory relate it using an object model Start DB transaction and write the key columns row by row, noting the Id of the written row (all tables in the database utilise identity columns), then the Id of the newly written row is applied to all related data Once all related data had been updated with the key information to which it relates, these records are written using SqlBulkCopy. Due to our EAV model, we essentially have; x columns by y rows to write, where x can by 256+ and rows are often into the tens of thousands. Once all the data is written without error (can take several minutes for large datasets), Commit the transaction. The problem now comes from the fact we are now receiving individual files containing over 30 megs of data. In a dataset, we can receive any number of files. We’ve started seen datasets of around 100 megs coming in and I expect it is only going to get bigger from here on in. With files of this size, data can’t even be read into memory without the app falling over, let alone be validated and imported. I anticipate having to modify large chunks of the code to allow validation to occur by parsing files line by line and am not exactly decided on how to handle the import and transactions. Potential improvements I’ve wondered about using GUIDs to relate the data rather than relying on identity fields. This would allow data to be related prior to writing to the database. This would certainly increase the storage required though. Especially in an EAV design. Would you think this is a reasonable thing to try, or do I simply persist with identity fields (natural keys can’t be trusted to be unique across all submitters). Use of staging tables to get data into the database and only performing the transaction to copy data from staging area to actual destination tables. Questions For systems like this that import large quantities of data, how to you go about keeping transactions small. I’ve kept them as small as possible in the current design, but they are still active for several minutes and write hundreds of thousands of records in one transaction. Is there a better solution? The tab delimited data section is read into a DataTable to be viewed in a grid. I don’t need the full functionality of a DataTable, so I suspect it is overkill. Is there anyway to turn off various features of DataTables to make them more lightweight? Are there any other obvious things you would do in this situation to minimise the memory footprint of the application described above? Thanks for your kind attention.

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Beginner Guide to User Styles for Firefox

- by Asian Angel

While the default styles for most websites are nice there may be times when you would love to tweak how things look. See how easy it can be to change how websites look with the Stylish Extension for Firefox. Note: Scripts from Userstyles.org can also be added to Greasemonkey if you have it installed. Getting Started After installing the extension you will be presented with a first run page. You may want to keep it open so that you can browse directly to the Userstyles.org website using the link in the upper left corner. In the lower right corner you will have a new Status Bar Icon. If you have used Greasemonkey before this icon works a little differently. It will be faded out due to no user style scripts being active at the moment. You can use either a left or right click to access the Context Menu. The user style script management section is also added into your Add-ons Management Window instead of being separate. When you reach the user style scripts homepage you can choose to either learn more about the extension & scripts or… Start hunting for lots of user style script goodness. There will be three convenient categories to get you jump-started if you wish. You could also conduct a search if you have something specific in mind. Here is some information directly from the website provided for your benefit. Notice the reference to using these scripts with Greasemonkey… This section shows you how the scripts have been categorized and can give you a better idea of how to search for something more specific. Finding & Installing Scripts For our example we decided to look at the Updated Styles Section”first. Based on the page number listing at the bottom there are a lot of scripts available to look through. Time to refine our search a little bit… Using the drop-down menu we selected site styles and entered Yahoo in the search blank. Needless to say 5 pages was a lot easier to look through than 828. We decided to install the Yahoo! Result Number Script. When you do find a script (or scripts) that you like simply click on the Install with Stylish Button. A small window will pop up giving you the opportunity to preview, proceed with the installation, edit the code, or cancel the process. Note: In our example the Preview Function did not work but it may be something particular to the script or our browser’s settings. If you decide to do some quick editing the window shown above will switch over to this one. To return to the previous window and install the user style script click on the Switch to Install Button. After installing the user style the green section in the script’s webpage will actually change to this message… Opening up the Add-ons Manager Window shows our new script ready to go. The script worked perfectly when we conducted a search at Yahoo…the Status Bar Icon also changed from faded out to full color (another indicator that everything is running nicely). Conclusion If you prefer a custom look for your favorite websites then you can have a lot of fun experimenting with different user style scripts. Note: See our article here for specialized How-To Geek User Style Scripts that can be added to your browser. Links Download the Stylish Extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Visit the Userstyles.org Website Install the Yahoo! Result Number User Style Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Spice Up that Boring about:blank Page in FirefoxExpand the Add Bookmark Dialog in Firefox by DefaultEnjoy How-To Geek User Style Script GoodnessAuto-Hide Your Cluttered Firefox Status Bar ItemsBeginner Geek: Delete User Accounts in Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Bypass Waiting Time On Customer Service Calls With Lucyphone MELTUP – "The Beginning Of US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation" Enable or Disable the Task Manager Using TaskMgrED Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes Twelve must-have Google Chrome plugins

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Functional Adaptation

- by Charles Courchaine

In real life and OO programming we’re often faced with using adapters, DVI to VGA, 1/4” to 1/8” audio connections, 110V to 220V, wrapping an incompatible interface with a new one, and so on. Where the adapter pattern is generally considered for interfaces and classes a similar technique can be applied to method signatures. To be fair, this adaptation is generally used to reduce the number of parameters but I’m sure there are other clever possibilities to be had. As Jan questioned in the last post, how can we use a common method to execute an action if the action has a differing number of parameters, going back to the greeting example it was suggested having an AddName method that takes a first and last name as parameters. This is exactly what we’ll address in this post. Let’s set the stage with some review and some code changes. First, our method that handles the setup/tear-down infrastructure for our WCF service: 1: private static TResult ExecuteGreetingFunc<TResult>(Func<IGreeting, TResult> theGreetingFunc) 2: { 3: IGreeting aGreetingService = null; 4: try 5: { 6: aGreetingService = GetGreetingChannel(); 7: return theGreetingFunc(aGreetingService); 8: } 9: finally 10: { 11: CloseWCFChannel((IChannel)aGreetingService); 12: } 13: } Our original AddName method: 1: private static string AddName(string theName) 2: { 3: return ExecuteGreetingFunc<string>(theGreetingService => theGreetingService.AddName(theName)); 4: } Our new AddName method: 1: private static int AddName(string firstName, string lastName) 2: { 3: return ExecuteGreetingFunc<int>(theGreetingService => theGreetingService.AddName(firstName, lastName)); 4: } Let’s change the AddName method, just a little bit more for this example and have it take the greeting service as a parameter. 1: private static int AddName(IGreeting greetingService, string firstName, string lastName) 2: { 3: return greetingService.AddName(firstName, lastName); 4: } The new signature of AddName using the Func delegate is now Func<IGreeting, string, string, int>, which can’t be used with ExecuteGreetingFunc as is because it expects Func<IGreeting, TResult>. Somehow we have to eliminate the two string parameters before we can use this with our existing method. This is where we need to adapt AddName to match what ExecuteGreetingFunc expects, and we’ll do so in the following progression. 1: Func<IGreeting, string, string, int> -> Func<IGreeting, string, int> 2: Func<IGreeting, string, int> -> Func<IGreeting, int> For the first step, we’ll create a method using the lambda syntax that will “eliminate” the last name parameter: 1: string lastNameToAdd = "Smith"; 2: //Func<IGreeting, string, string, int> -> Func<IGreeting, string, int> 3: Func<IGreeting, string, int> addName = (greetingService, firstName) => AddName(greetingService, firstName, lastNameToAdd); The new addName method gets us one step close to the signature we need. Let’s say we’re going to call this in a loop to add several names, we’ll take the final step from Func<IGreeting, string, int> -> Func<IGreeting, int> in line as a lambda passed to ExecuteGreetingFunc like so: 1: List<string> firstNames = new List<string>() { "Bob", "John" }; 2: int aID; 3: foreach (string firstName in firstNames) 4: { 5: //Func<IGreeting, string, int> -> Func<IGreeting, int> 6: aID = ExecuteGreetingFunc<int>(greetingService => addName(greetingService, firstName)); 7: Console.WriteLine(GetGreeting(aID)); 8: } If for some reason you needed to break out the lambda on line 6 you could replace it with 1: aID = ExecuteGreetingFunc<int>(ApplyAddName(addName, firstName)); and use this method: 1: private static Func<IGreeting, int> ApplyAddName(Func<IGreeting, string, int> addName, string lastName) 2: { 3: return greetingService => addName(greetingService, lastName); 4: } Splitting out a lambda into its own method is useful both in this style of coding as well as LINQ queries to improve the debugging experience. It is not strictly necessary to break apart the steps & functions as was shown above; the lambda in line 6 (of the foreach example) could include both the last name and first name instead of being composed of two functions. The process demonstrated above is one of partially applying functions, this could have also been done with Currying (also see Dustin Campbell’s excellent post on Currying for the canonical curried add example). Matthew Podwysocki also has some good posts explaining both Currying and partial application and a follow up post that further clarifies the difference between Currying and partial application. In either technique the ultimate goal is to reduce the number of parameters passed to a function. Currying makes it a single parameter passed at each step, where partial application allows one to use multiple parameters at a time as we’ve done here. This technique isn’t for everyone or every problem, but can be extremely handy when you need to adapt a call to something you don’t control.

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IRM Item Codes – what are they for?

- by martin.abrahams

A number of colleagues have been asking about IRM item codes recently – what are they for, when are they useful, how can you control them to meet some customer requirements? This is quite a big topic, but this article provides a few answers. An item code is part of the metadata of every sealed document – unless you define a custom metadata model. The item code is defined when a file is sealed, and usually defaults to a timestamp/filename combination. This time/name combo tends to make item codes unique for each new document, but actually item codes are not necessarily unique, as will become clear shortly. In most scenarios, item codes are not relevant to the evaluation of a user’s rights - the context name is the critical piece of metadata, as a user typically has a role that grants access to an entire classification of information regardless of item code. This is key to the simplicity and manageability of the Oracle IRM solution. Item codes are occasionally exposed to users in the UI, but most users probably never notice and never care. Nevertheless, here is one example of where you can see an item code – when you hover the mouse pointer over a sealed file. As you see, the item code for this freshly created file combines a timestamp with the file name. But what are item codes for? The first benefit of item codes is that they enable you to manage exceptions to the policy defined for a context. Thus, I might have access to all oracle – internal files - except for 2011_03_11 13:33:29 Board Minutes.sdocx. This simple mechanism enables Oracle IRM to provide file-by-file control where appropriate, whilst offering the scalability and manageability of classification-based control for the majority of users and content. You really don’t want to be managing each file individually, but never say never. Item codes can also be used for the opposite effect – to include a file in a user’s rights when their role would ordinarily deny access. So, you can assign a role that allows access only to specified item codes. For example, my role might say that I have access to precisely one file – the one shown above. So how are item codes set? In the vast majority of scenarios, item codes are set automatically as part of the sealing process. The sealing API uses the timestamp and filename as shown, and the user need not even realise that this has happened. This automatically creates item codes that are for all practical purposes unique - and that are also intelligible to users who might want to refer to them when viewing or assigning rights in the management UI. It is also possible for suitably authorised users and applications to set the item code manually or programmatically if required. Setting the item code manually using the IRM Desktop The manual process is a simple extension of the sealing task. An authorised user can select the Advanced… sealing option, and will see a dialog that offers the option to specify the item code. To see this option, the user’s role needs the Set Item Code right – you don’t want most users to give any thought at all to item codes, so by default the option is hidden. Setting the item code programmatically A more common scenario is that an application controls the item code programmatically. For example, a document management system that seals documents as part of a workflow might set the item code to match the document’s unique identifier in its repository. This offers the option to tie IRM rights evaluation directly to the security model defined in the document management system. Again, the sealing application needs to be authorised to Set Item Code. The Payslip Scenario To give a concrete example of how item codes might be used in a real world scenario, consider a Human Resources workflow such as a payslips. The goal might be to allow the HR team to have access to all payslips, but each employee to have access only to their own payslips. To enable this, you might have an IRM classification called Payslips. The HR team have a role in the normal way that allows access to all payslips. However, each employee would have an Item Reader role that only allows them to access files that have a particular item code – and that item code might match the employee’s payroll number. So, employee number 123123123 would have access to items with that code. This shows why item codes are not necessarily unique – you can deliberately set the same code on many files for ease of administration. The employees might have the right to unseal or print their payslip, so the solution acts as a secure delivery mechanism that allows payslips to be distributed via corporate email without any fear that they might be accessed by IT administrators, or forwarded accidentally to anyone other than the intended recipient. All that remains is to ensure that as each user’s payslip is sealed, it is assigned the correct item code – something that is easily managed by a simple IRM sealing application. Each month, an employee’s payslip is sealed with the same item code, so you do not need to keep amending the list of items that the user has access to – they have access to all documents that carry their employee code.

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Easing the Journey to the Private Cloud with Oracle Consulting

- by MichaelM-Oracle

By Sanjai Marimadaiah, Senior Director, Strategy & Business Development – Cloud Solutions, Oracle Consulting Services Business leaders are now leading the charge on how their firms can profit from cloud solutions. Agility and innovation are becoming the primary drivers of the business case for the cloud, even more than the anticipated cost savings. Leaders need to find the right strategy and optimize the use of cloud-based applications across their enterprise-computing infrastructure. The Problem – Current State With prevalent IT practices, many organizations find that they run multiple IT solutions serving similar business needs. This has led to the proliferation of technology stacks, for example: Oracle 10g on Sun T4 running Solaris 9; Oracle 11g on Exadata running Linux; or Oracle 12c on commodity x86 servers. This variance has a huge impact on an organization’s agility and expenses, and requires IT professionals with varied skills as well as on-going training for different systems and tools. Fortunately there is a practical business strategy to overcome this unneeded redundancy. Thus begins a journey to the right cloud computing solution. The Solution – Cloud Services from Oracle Consulting Services (OCS) Oracle Consulting Services (OCS ) works closely with our clients as trusted advisors to proactively respond to business needs and IT concerns. OCS understands that making the transition to cloud solutions begins with a strategic conversation, based on its deep expertise for successfully completing private cloud service engagements with several companies. For a journey to the cloud, Oracle Consulting Services leads the client through four phases– standardization, consolidation, service delivery, and enterprise cloud – to achieve optimal returns. Phase 1 - Standardization Oracle Consulting Services (OCS) works with clients to evaluate their business requirements and propose a set of standard solutions stacks for various IT solutions. This is an opportune time to evaluate cloud ready solutions, such as Oracle 12c, Oracle Exadata, and the Oracle Database Appliance (ODA). The OCS consultants, together with the delivery team, then turn to upgrading and migrating existing solution stacks to standardized offerings. OCS has the expertise and tools to complete this stage in a fraction of the time required by other IT services companies. Clients quickly realize cost savings in tools, processes, and type/number of resources required. This standardization also improves agility of the IT organizations and their abilities to respond to the needs of various business units. Phase 2 - Consolidation During the consolidation phase, OCS consultants programmatically consolidate hundreds of databases into a smaller number of servers to improve utilization, reduce floor space, and optimize maintenance costs. Consolidation helps clients realize huge savings in CapEx investments and shrink OpEx costs. The use of engineered systems, such as Oracle Exadata, greatly reduces the client’s risk of moving to a new solution stack. OCS recommends clients to pursue Phase 1 (Standardization) and Phase 2 (Consolidation) simultaneously to reduce the overall time, effort, and expense of the cloud journey. Phase 3 - Service Delivery Once a client is on a path of standardization and consolidation, OCS consultants create Service Catalogues based on the SLAs requirements and the criticality of the solutions. The number and types of Service Catalogues (Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, etc.) vary from client to client. OCS consultants also implement a variety of value-added cloud solutions, including monitoring, metering, and charge-back solutions. At this stage, clients are able to achieve a high level of understanding in their cloud journey. Their IT organizations are operating efficiently and are more agile in responding to the needs of business units. Phase 4 - Enterprise Cloud In the final phase of the cloud journey, the economics of the IT organizations change. Business units can request services on-demand; applications can be deployed and consumed on a pay-as-you-go model. OCS has the expertise and capabilities to establish processes, programs, and solutions required for IT organizations to transform how they interact with business units. The Promise of Cloud Solutions Depending the size and complexity of their business model, some clients are able to abbreviate some phases of their cloud journey. Cloud solutions are still evolving and there is rapid pace of innovation to transform how IT organizations operate. The lesson is clear. Cloud solutions hold a lot of promise for business agility. Business leaders can now leverage an additional set of capabilities and services. They can ramp up their pace of innovation. With cloud maturity, they can compete more effectively in their respective markets. But there are certainly challenges ahead. A skilled consulting services partner can play a pivotal role as a trusted advisor in the successful adoption of cloud solutions. Oracle Consulting Services has expertise and a portfolio of services to help clients succeed on their journey to the cloud.

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Working with packed dates in SSIS

- by Jim Giercyk

One of the challenges recently thrown my way was to read an EBCDIC flat file, decode packed dates, and insert the dates into a SQL table. For those unfamiliar with packed data, it is a way to store data at the nibble level (half a byte), and was often used by mainframe programmers to conserve storage space. In the case of my input file, the dates were 2 bytes long and represented the number of days that have past since 01/01/1950. My first thought was, in the words of Scooby, Hmmmmph? But, I love a good challenge, so I dove in. Reading in the flat file was rather simple. The only difference between reading an EBCDIC and an ASCII file is the Code Page option in the connection manager. In my case, I needed to use Code Page 1140 for EBCDIC (I could have also used Code Page 37). Once the code page is set correctly, SSIS can understand what it is reading and it will convert the output to the default code page, 1252. However, packed data is either unreadable or produces non-alphabetic characters, as we can see in the preview window. Column 1 is actually the packed date, columns 0 and 2 are the values in the rest of the file. We are only interested in Column 1, which is a 2 byte field representing a packed date. We know that 2 bytes of packed data can be stored in 1 byte of character data, so we are working with 4 packed digits in 2 character bytes. If you are confused, stay tuned….this will make sense in a minute. Right-click on your Flat File Source shape and select “Show Advanced Editor”. Here is where the magic begins. By changing the properties of the output columns, we can access the packed digits from each byte. By default, the Output Column data type is DT_STR. Since we want to look at the bytes individually and not the entire string, change the data type to DT_BYTES. Next, and most important, set UseBinaryFormat to TRUE. This will write the HEX VALUES of the output string instead of writing the character values. Now we are getting somewhere! Next, you will need to use a Data Conversion shape in your Data Flow to transform the 2 position byte stream to a 4 position Unicode string containing the packed data. You need the string to be 4 bytes long because it will contain the 4 packed digits. Here is what that should look like in the Data Conversion shape: Direct the output of your data flow to a test table or file to see the results. In my case, I created a test table. The results looked like this: Hold on a second! That doesn't look like a date at all. No, of course not. It is a hex number which represents the days which have passed between 01/01/1950 and the date. We have to convert the Hex value to a decimal value, and use the DATEADD function to get a date value. Luckily, I have created a function to convert Hex to Decimal: -- ============================================= -- Author: Jim Giercyk -- Create date: March, 2012 -- Description: Converts a Hex string to a decimal value -- ============================================= CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[ftn_HexToDec] ( @hexValue NVARCHAR(6) ) RETURNS DECIMAL AS BEGIN -- Declare the return variable here DECLARE @decValue DECIMAL IF @hexValue LIKE '0x%' SET @hexValue = SUBSTRING(@hexValue,3,4) DECLARE @decTab TABLE ( decPos1 VARCHAR(2), decPos2 VARCHAR(2), decPos3 VARCHAR(2), decPos4 VARCHAR(2) ) DECLARE @pos1 VARCHAR(1) = SUBSTRING(@hexValue,1,1) DECLARE @pos2 VARCHAR(1) = SUBSTRING(@hexValue,2,1) DECLARE @pos3 VARCHAR(1) = SUBSTRING(@hexValue,3,1) DECLARE @pos4 VARCHAR(1) = SUBSTRING(@hexValue,4,1) INSERT @decTab VALUES (CASE WHEN @pos1 = 'A' THEN '10' WHEN @pos1 = 'B' THEN '11' WHEN @pos1 = 'C' THEN '12' WHEN @pos1 = 'D' THEN '13' WHEN @pos1 = 'E' THEN '14' WHEN @pos1 = 'F' THEN '15' ELSE @pos1 END, CASE WHEN @pos2 = 'A' THEN '10' WHEN @pos2 = 'B' THEN '11' WHEN @pos2 = 'C' THEN '12' WHEN @pos2 = 'D' THEN '13' WHEN @pos2 = 'E' THEN '14' WHEN @pos2 = 'F' THEN '15' ELSE @pos2 END, CASE WHEN @pos3 = 'A' THEN '10' WHEN @pos3 = 'B' THEN '11' WHEN @pos3 = 'C' THEN '12' WHEN @pos3 = 'D' THEN '13' WHEN @pos3 = 'E' THEN '14' WHEN @pos3 = 'F' THEN '15' ELSE @pos3 END, CASE WHEN @pos4 = 'A' THEN '10' WHEN @pos4 = 'B' THEN '11' WHEN @pos4 = 'C' THEN '12' WHEN @pos4 = 'D' THEN '13' WHEN @pos4 = 'E' THEN '14' WHEN @pos4 = 'F' THEN '15' ELSE @pos4 END) SET @decValue = (CONVERT(INT,(SELECT decPos4 FROM @decTab))) + (CONVERT(INT,(SELECT decPos3 FROM @decTab))*16) + (CONVERT(INT,(SELECT decPos2 FROM @decTab))*(16*16)) + (CONVERT(INT,(SELECT decPos1 FROM @decTab))*(16*16*16)) RETURN @decValue END GO Making use of the function, I found the decimal conversion, added that number of days to 01/01/1950 and FINALLY arrived at my “unpacked relative date”. Here is the query I used to retrieve the formatted date, and the result set which was returned: SELECT [packedDate] AS 'Hex Value', dbo.ftn_HexToDec([packedDate]) AS 'Decimal Value', CONVERT(DATE,DATEADD(day,dbo.ftn_HexToDec([packedDate]),'01/01/1950'),101) AS 'Relative String Date' FROM [dbo].[Output Table] This technique can be used any time you need to retrieve the hex value of a character string in SSIS. The date example may be a bit difficult to understand at first, but with SSIS becoming the preferred tool for enterprise level integration for many companies, there is no doubt that developers will encounter these types of requirements with regularity in the future. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

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Caveat utilitor - Can I run two versions of Microsoft Project side-by-side?

- by Martin Hinshelwood

A number of out customers have asked if there are any problems in installing and running multiple versions of Microsoft Project on a single client. Although this is a case of Caveat utilitor (Let the user beware), as long as the user understands and accepts the issues that can occur then they can do this. Although Microsoft provide the ability to leave old versions of Office products (except Outlook) on your client when you are installing a new version of the product they certainly do not endorse doing so. Figure: For Project you can choose to keep the old stuff That being the case I would have preferred that they put a “(NOT RECOMMENDED)” after the options to impart that knowledge to the rest of us, but they did not. The default and recommended behaviour is for the newer version installer to remove the older versions. Of course this does not apply in the revers. There are no forward compatibility packs for Office. There are a number of negative behaviours (or bugs) that can occur in this configuration: There is only one MS Project In Windows a file extension can only be associated with a single program. In this case, MPP files can be associated with only one version of winproj.exe. The executables are in different folders so if a user double-clicks a Project file on the desktop, file explorer, or Outlook email, Windows will launch the winproj.exe associated with MPP and then load the MPP file. There are problems associated with this situation and in some cases workarounds. The user double-clicks on a Project 2010 file, Project 2007 launches but is unable to open the file because it is a newer version. The workaround is for the user to launch Project 2010 from the Start menu then open the file. If the file is attached to an email they will need to first drag the file to the desktop. All your linked MS Project files need to be of the same version There are a number of problems that occur when people use on Microsoft’s Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technology. The three common uses of OLE are: for inserted projects where a Master project contains sub-projects and each sub-project resides in its own MPP file shared resource pools where multiple MPP files share a common resource pool kept in a single MPP file cross-project links where a task or milestone in one MPP file has a predecessor/successor relationship with a task or milestone in a different MPP file What I’ve seen happen before is that if you are running in a version of Project that is not associated with the MPP extension and then try and activate an OLE link then Project tries to launch the other version of Project. Things start getting very confused since different MPP files are being controlled by different versions of Project running at the same time. I haven’t tried this in awhile so I can’t give you exact symptoms but I suspect that if Project 2010 is involved the symptoms will be different then in a Project 2003/2007 scenario. I’ve noticed that Project 2010 gives different error messages for the exact same problem when it occurs in Project 2003 or 2007. -Anonymous The recommendation would be either not to use this feature if you have to have multiple versions of Project installed or to use only a single version of Project. You may get unexpected negative behaviours if you are using shared resource pools or resource pools even when you are not running multiple versions as I have found that they can get broken very easily. If you need these thing then it is probably best to use Project Server as it was created to solve many of these specific issues. Note: I would not even allow multiple people to access a network copy of a Project file because of the way Windows locks files in write mode. This can cause write-locks that get so bad a server restart is required I’ve seen user’s files get write-locked to the point where the only resolution is to reboot the server. Changing the default version to run for an extension So what if you want to change the default association from Project 2007 to Project 2010? Figure: “Control Panel | Folder Options | Change the file associated with a file extension” Windows normally only lists the last version installed for a particular extension. You can select a specific version by selecting the program you want to change and clicking “Change program… | Browse…” and then selecting the .exe you want to use on the file system. Figure: You will need to select the exact version of “winproj.exe” that you want to run Conclusion Although it is possible to run multiple versions of Project on one system in the main it does not really make sense.

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External USB 3 drive not recognized

- by ilan123

Ubuntu 12.10 64 bit seems not to recognize my external hard disk. It is a Vantec NST-310S3 external disk enclosure with a WD 3TB drive. The disk has two NTFS partitions. My PC is a dual boot system. Under Windows 7 the hard disk works fine but I can't make it work with Ubuntu. When the drive is connected to the PC then the command sudo fdisk -l seems to hang forever. Below are the output of lsusb and cat /proc/partitions without the external drive and then with it connected. I added also the last lines of the dmesg command at the end. First without the drive: ilan@linux:~$ lsusb Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 003: ID 13ba:0017 Unknown PS/2 Keyboard+Mouse Adapter Bus 001 Device 004: ID 046d:c50e Logitech, Inc. Cordless Mouse Receiver Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0ac8:3420 Z-Star Microelectronics Corp. Venus USB2.0 Camera ilan@linux:~$ cat /proc/partitions major minor #blocks name 8 0 1953514584 sda 8 1 102400 sda1 8 2 629043200 sda2 8 3 367001600 sda3 8 4 1 sda4 8 5 471859200 sda5 8 6 157286400 sda6 8 7 324115456 sda7 8 8 4101120 sda8 11 0 1048575 sr0 Second with the USB 3 drive: ilan@linux:~$ lsusb Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub Bus 004 Device 002: ID 174c:55aa ASMedia Technology Inc. Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 003: ID 13ba:0017 Unknown PS/2 Keyboard+Mouse Adapter Bus 001 Device 004: ID 046d:c50e Logitech, Inc. Cordless Mouse Receiver Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0ac8:3420 Z-Star Microelectronics Corp. Venus USB2.0 Camera ilan@linux:~$ cat /proc/partitions major minor #blocks name 8 0 1953514584 sda 8 1 102400 sda1 8 2 629043200 sda2 8 3 367001600 sda3 8 4 1 sda4 8 5 471859200 sda5 8 6 157286400 sda6 8 7 324115456 sda7 8 8 4101120 sda8 11 0 1048575 sr0 8 16 2930266584 sdb ilan@linux:~$ lsusb -v -s 004:002 Bus 004 Device 002: ID 174c:55aa ASMedia Technology Inc. Couldn't open device, some information will be missing Device Descriptor: bLength 18 bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 3.00 bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level) bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 9 idVendor 0x174c ASMedia Technology Inc. idProduct 0x55aa bcdDevice 1.00 iManufacturer 2 iProduct 3 iSerial 1 bNumConfigurations 1 Configuration Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 2 wTotalLength 44 bNumInterfaces 1 bConfigurationValue 1 iConfiguration 0 bmAttributes 0xc0 Self Powered MaxPower 0mA Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 0 bNumEndpoints 2 bInterfaceClass 8 Mass Storage bInterfaceSubClass 6 SCSI bInterfaceProtocol 80 Bulk-Only iInterface 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type Bulk Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0400 1x 1024 bytes bInterval 0 bMaxBurst 15 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x02 EP 2 OUT bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type Bulk Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0400 1x 1024 bytes bInterval 0 bMaxBurst 15 ilan@linux:~$ sudo fdisk -l [sudo] password for ilan: Disk /dev/sda: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xf1b4f1ee Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 2048 206847 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda2 206848 1258293247 629043200 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda3 1258293248 1992296447 367001600 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda4 1992298494 3907028991 957365249 f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/sda5 1992298496 2936016895 471859200 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda6 2936018944 3250591743 157286400 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda7 3250593792 3898824703 324115456 83 Linux /dev/sda8 3898826752 3907028991 4101120 82 Linux swap / Solaris dmesg output after connecting the external drive: [ 23.740567] e1000e: eth0 NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: Rx/Tx [ 23.740786] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready [ 49.144673] usb 4-1: >new SuperSpeed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd [ 49.163039] usb 4-1: >Parent hub missing LPM exit latency info. Power management will be impacted. [ 49.166789] usb 4-1: >New USB device found, idVendor=174c, idProduct=55aa [ 49.166793] usb 4-1: >New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1 [ 49.166796] usb 4-1: >Product: AS2105 [ 49.166799] usb 4-1: >Manufacturer: ASMedia [ 49.166801] usb 4-1: >SerialNumber: 0123456789ABCDEF [ 49.206372] usbcore: registered new interface driver uas [ 49.228891] Initializing USB Mass Storage driver... [ 49.229042] scsi6 : usb-storage 4-1:1.0 [ 49.229115] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage [ 49.229116] USB Mass Storage support registered. [ 64.045528] scsi 6:0:0:0: >Direct-Access WDC WD30 EZRX-00MMMB0 80.0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 [ 64.046224] sd 6:0:0:0: >Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0 [ 64.046881] sd 6:0:0:0: >[sdb] Very big device. Trying to use READ CAPACITY(16). [ 64.047610] sd 6:0:0:0: >[sdb] 5860533168 512-byte logical blocks: (3.00 TB/2.72 TiB) [ 64.048368] sd 6:0:0:0: >[sdb] Write Protect is off [ 64.048373] sd 6:0:0:0: >[sdb] Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00 [ 64.048984] sd 6:0:0:0: >[sdb] No Caching mode page present [ 64.048987] sd 6:0:0:0: >[sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through [ 64.049297] sd 6:0:0:0: >[sdb] Very big device. Trying to use READ CAPACITY(16). [ 64.050942] sd 6:0:0:0: >[sdb] No Caching mode page present [ 64.050944] sd 6:0:0:0: >[sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through [ 94.245006] usb 4-1: >reset SuperSpeed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd [ 94.262553] usb 4-1: >Parent hub missing LPM exit latency info. Power management will be impacted. [ 94.263805] xhci_hcd 0000:03:00.0: >xHCI xhci_drop_endpoint called with disabled ep ffff8800d37d1c00 [ 94.263808] xhci_hcd 0000:03:00.0: >xHCI xhci_drop_endpoint called with disabled ep ffff8800d37d1c40 [ 125.262722] usb 4-1: >reset SuperSpeed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd [ 125.280304] usb 4-1: >Parent hub missing LPM exit latency info. Power management will be impacted. [ 125.281511] xhci_hcd 0000:03:00.0: >xHCI xhci_drop_endpoint called with disabled ep ffff8800d37d1c00 [ 125.281516] xhci_hcd 0000:03:00.0: >xHCI xhci_drop_endpoint called with disabled ep ffff8800d37d1c40

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Which of these algorithms is best for my goal?

- by JonathonG

I have created a program that restricts the mouse to a certain region based on a black/white bitmap. The program is 100% functional as-is, but uses an inaccurate, albeit fast, algorithm for repositioning the mouse when it strays outside the area. Currently, when the mouse moves outside the area, basically what happens is this: A line is drawn between a pre-defined static point inside the region and the mouse's new position. The point where that line intersects the edge of the allowed area is found. The mouse is moved to that point. This works, but only works perfectly for a perfect circle with the pre-defined point set in the exact center. Unfortunately, this will never be the case. The application will be used with a variety of rectangles and irregular, amorphous shapes. On such shapes, the point where the line drawn intersects the edge will usually not be the closest point on the shape to the mouse. I need to create a new algorithm that finds the closest point to the mouse's new position on the edge of the allowed area. I have several ideas about this, but I am not sure of their validity, in that they may have far too much overhead. While I am not asking for code, it might help to know that I am using Objective C / Cocoa, developing for OS X, as I feel the language being used might affect the efficiency of potential methods. My ideas are: Using a bit of trigonometry to project lines would work, but that would require some kind of intense algorithm to test every point on every line until it found the edge of the region... That seems too resource intensive since there could be something like 200 lines that would have each have to have as many as 200 pixels checked for black/white.... Using something like an A* pathing algorithm to find the shortest path to a black pixel; however, A* seems resource intensive, even though I could probably restrict it to only checking roughly in one direction. It also seems like it will take more time and effort than I have available to spend on this small portion of the much larger project I am working on, correct me if I am wrong and it would not be a significant amount of code (100 lines or around there). Mapping the border of the region before the application begins running the event tap loop. I think I could accomplish this by using my current line-based algorithm to find an edge point and then initiating an algorithm that checks all 8 pixels around that pixel, finds the next border pixel in one direction, and continues to do this until it comes back to the starting pixel. I could then store that data in an array to be used for the entire duration of the program, and have the mouse re-positioning method check the array for the closest pixel on the border to the mouse target position. That last method would presumably execute it's initial border mapping fairly quickly. (It would only have to map between 2,000 and 8,000 pixels, which means 8,000 to 64,000 checked, and I could even permanently store the data to make launching faster.) However, I am uncertain as to how much overhead it would take to scan through that array for the shortest distance for every single mouse move event... I suppose there could be a shortcut to restrict the number of elements in the array that will be checked to a variable number starting with the intersecting point on the line (from my original algorithm), and raise/lower that number to experiment with the overhead/accuracy tradeoff. Please let me know if I am over thinking this and there is an easier way that will work just fine, or which of these methods would be able to execute something like 30 times per second to keep mouse movement smooth, or if you have a better/faster method. I've posted relevant parts of my code below for reference, and included an example of what the area might look like. (I check for color value against a loaded bitmap that is black/white.) // // This part of my code runs every single time the mouse moves. // CGPoint point = CGEventGetLocation(event); float tX = point.x; float tY = point.y; if( is_in_area(tX,tY, mouse_mask)){ // target is inside O.K. area, do nothing }else{ CGPoint target; //point inside restricted region: float iX = 600; // inside x float iY = 500; // inside y // delta to midpoint between iX,iY and tX,tY float dX; float dY; float accuracy = .5; //accuracy to loop until reached do { dX = (tX-iX)/2; dY = (tY-iY)/2; if(is_in_area((tX-dX),(tY-dY),mouse_mask)){ iX += dX; iY += dY; } else { tX -= dX; tY -= dY; } } while (abs(dX)>accuracy || abs(dY)>accuracy); target = CGPointMake(roundf(tX), roundf(tY)); CGDisplayMoveCursorToPoint(CGMainDisplayID(),target); } Here is "is_in_area(int x, int y)" : bool is_in_area(NSInteger x, NSInteger y, NSBitmapImageRep *mouse_mask){ NSAutoreleasePool * pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init]; NSUInteger pixel[4]; [mouse_mask getPixel:pixel atX:x y:y]; if(pixel[0]!= 0){ [pool release]; return false; } [pool release]; return true; }

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24 Hours of PASS – first reflections

- by Rob Farley

A few days after the end of 24HOP, I find myself reflecting on it. I’m still waiting on most of the information. I want to be able to discover things like where the countries represented on each of the sessions, and things like that. So far, I have the feedback scores and the numbers of attendees. The data was provided in a PDF, so while I wait for it to appear in a more flexible format, I’ve pushed the 24 attendee numbers into Excel. This chart shows the numbers by time. Remember that we started at midnight GMT, which was 10:30am in my part of the world and 8pm in New York. It’s probably no surprise that numbers drooped a bit at the start, stayed comparatively low, and then grew as the larger populations of the English-speaking world woke up. I remember last time 24HOP ran for 24 hours straight, there were quite a few sessions with less than 100 attendees. None this time though. We got close, but even when it was 4am in New York, 8am in London and 7pm in Sydney (which would have to be the worst slot for attracting people), we still had over 100 people tuning in. As expected numbers grew as the UK woke up, and even more so as the US did, with numbers peaking at 755 for the “3pm in New York” session on SQL Server Data Tools. Kendra Little almost reached those numbers too, and certainly contributed the biggest ‘spike’ on the chart with her session five hours earlier. Of all the sessions, Kendra had the highest proportion of ‘Excellent’s for the “Overall Evaluation of the session” question, and those of you who saw her probably won’t be surprised by that. Kendra had one of the best ranked sessions from the 24HOP event this time last year (narrowly missing out on being top 3), and she has produced a lot of good video content since then. The reports indicate that there were nearly 8.5 thousand attendees across the 24 sessions, averaging over 350 at each one. I’m looking forward to seeing how many different people that was, although I do know that Wil Sisney managed to attend every single one (if you did too, please let me know). Wil even moderated one of the sessions, which made his feat even greater. Thanks Wil. I also want to send massive thanks to Dave Dustin. Dave probably would have attended all of the sessions, if it weren’t for a power outage that forced him to take a break. He was also a moderator, and it was during this session that he earned special praise. Part way into the session he was moderating, the speaker lost connectivity and couldn’t get back for about fifteen minutes. That’s an incredibly long time when you’re in a live presentation. There were over 200 people tuned in at the time, and I’m sure Dave was as stressed as I was to have a speaker disappear. I started chasing down a phone number for the speaker, while Dave spoke to the audience. And he did brilliantly. He started answering questions, and kept doing that until the speaker came back. Bear in mind that Dave hadn’t expected to give a presentation on that topic (or any other), and was simply drawing on his SQL expertise to get him through. Also consider that this was between midnight at 1am in Dave’s part of the world (Auckland, NZ). I would’ve been expecting just to welcome people, monitor questions, probably read some out, and in general, help make things run smoothly. He went far beyond the call of duty, and if I had a medal to give him, he’d definitely be getting one. On the whole, I think this 24HOP was a success. We tried a different platform, and I think for the most part it was a popular move. We didn’t ask the question “Was this better than LiveMeeting?”, but we did get a number of people telling us that they thought the platform was very good. Some people have told me I get a chance to put my feet up now that this is over. As I’m also co-ordinating a tour of SQLSaturday events across the Australia/New Zealand region, I don’t quite get to take that much of a break (plus, there’s the little thing of squeezing in seven SQL 2012 exams over the next 2.5 weeks). But I am pleased to be reflecting on this event rather than anticipating it. There were a number of factors that could have gone badly, but on the whole I’m pleased about how it went. A massive thanks to everyone involved. If you’re reading this and thinking you wish you could’ve tuned in more, don’t worry – they were all recorded and you’ll be able to watch them on demand very soon. But as well as that, PASS has a stream of content produced by the Virtual Chapters, so you can keep learning from the comfort of your desk all year round. More info on them at sqlpass.org, of course.

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