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• Tough Decisions

  - by Johnm

  There was once a thriving business that employed two Database Administrators, Sam and Jim. Both DBAs were certified, educated and highly talented in their skill sets. During lunch breaks these two DBAs were often found together discussing best practices, troubleshooting techniques and the latest release notes for the upcoming version of SQL Server. They genuinely loved what they did. The maintenance of the first database was the responsibility of Sam. He was the architect of this server's setup and he was very meticulous in its configuration. He regularly monitored the health of the database, validated backup files and regularly adhered to the best practices that were advocated by well respected professionals. He was very proud of the fact that there was never a database that he managed that lost data or performed poorly. The maintenance of the second database was the responsibility of Jim. He too was the architect of this server's setup. At the time that he built this server, his understanding of the finer details of configuration were not as clear as they are today. The server was build on a shoestring budget and with very little time for testing and implementation. Jim often monitored the health of the database; but in more of a reactionary mode due to user complaints of slowness or failed transactions. Deadlocks abounded and the backup files were never validated. One day, the announcement was made that revealed that the business had hit financially hard times. Budgets were being cut, limitation on spending was implemented and the reduction in full-time staff was required. Since having two DBAs was regarded a luxury by many, this meant that either Sam or Jim were about to find themselves out of a job. Sam and Jim's boss, Frank, was faced with a very tough decision. Sam's performance was flawless. His techniques and practices were perfection. The databases he managed were reliable and efficient. His solutions are "by the book". When given a task it is certain that, while it may take a little longer, it will be done right the first time. Jim's techniques and practices were not perfect; but effective and responsive. He made mistakes regularly; but he shows that he learns from them and they often result in innovative solutions. When given a task it is certain that, while the results may require some tweaking, it will be done on time and under budget. You are Frank's best friend. He approaches you and presents this scenario. He must layoff one of his valued DBAs the very next morning. Frank asks you: "All else being equal, who would you let go? and Why?" Another pertinent question is raised: "Regardless of good times or bad, if you had to choose, which DBA would you want on your team when tough challenges arise?" Your response is. (This is where you enter a comment below)

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• Book &ldquo;Team Foundation Server 2012 Starter&rdquo; published!

  - by Jakob Ehn

  During the summer and fall this year, me and my colleague Terje Sandstrøm has worked together on a book project that has now finally hit the stores! The title of the book is Team Foundation Server 2012 Starter and is published by Packt Publishing. You can find it at http://www.packtpub.com/team-foundation-server-2012-starter/book or from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1849688389                          The book is part of a concept that Packt have with starter-books, intended for people new to Team Foundation Server 2012 and who want a quick guideline to get it up and working. It covers the fundamentals, from installing and configuring it, and how to use it with source control, work items and builds. It is done as a step-by-step guide, but also includes best practices advice in the different areas. It covers the use of both the on-premises and the TFS Services version. It also has a list of links and references in the end to the most relevant Visual Studio 2012 ALM sites. Our good friend and fellow ALM MVP Mathias Olausson have done the review of the book, thanks again Mathias! We hope the book fills the gap between the different online guide sites and the more advanced books that are out. Check it out and please let us know what you think of the book! Book Description Your quick start guide to TFS 2012, top features, and best practices with hands on examples Overview Install TFS 2012 from scratch Get up and running with your first project Streamline release cycles for maximum productivity In Detail Team Foundation Server 2012 is Microsoft's leading ALM tool, integrating source control, work item and process handling, build automation, and testing. This practical "Team Foundation Server 2012 Starter Guide" will provide you with clear step-by-step exercises covering all major aspects of the product. This is essential reading for anyone wishing to set up, organize, and use TFS server. This hands-on guide looks at the top features in Team Foundation Server 2012, starting with a quick installation guide and then moving into using it for your software development projects. Manage your team projects with Team Explorer, one of the many new features for 2012. Covering all the main features in source control to help you work more efficiently, including tools for branching and merging, we will delve into the Agile Planning Tools for planning your product and sprint backlogs. Learn to set up build automation, allowing your team to become faster, more streamlined, and ultimately more productive with this "Team Foundation Server 2012 Starter Guide". What you will learn from this book Install TFS 2012 on premise Access TFS Services in the cloud Quickly get started with a new project with product backlogs, source control, and build automation Work efficiently with source control using the top features Understand how the tools for branching and merging in TFS 2012 help you isolate work and teams Learn about the existing process templates, such as Visual Studio Scrum 2.0 Manage your product and sprint backlogs using the Agile planning tools Approach This Starter guide is a short, sharp introduction to Team Foundation Server 2012, covering everything you need to get up and running. Who this book is written for If you are a developer, project lead, tester, or IT administrator working with Team Foundation Server 2012 this guide will get you up to speed quickly and with minimal effort.

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• Syncing Data with a Server using Silverlight and HTTP Polling Duplex

  - by dwahlin

  Many applications have the need to stay in-sync with data provided by a service. Although web applications typically rely on standard polling techniques to check if data has changed, Silverlight provides several interesting options for keeping an application in-sync that rely on server “push” technologies. A few years back I wrote several blog posts covering different “push” technologies available in Silverlight that rely on sockets or HTTP Polling Duplex. We recently had a project that looked like it could benefit from pushing data from a server to one or more clients so I thought I’d revisit the subject and provide some updates to the original code posted. If you’ve worked with AJAX before in Web applications then you know that until browsers fully support web sockets or other duplex (bi-directional communication) technologies that it’s difficult to keep applications in-sync with a server without relying on polling. The problem with polling is that you have to check for changes on the server on a timed-basis which can often be wasteful and take up unnecessary resources. With server “push” technologies, data can be pushed from the server to the client as it changes. Once the data is received, the client can update the user interface as appropriate. Using “push” technologies allows the client to listen for changes from the data but stay 100% focused on client activities as opposed to worrying about polling and asking the server if anything has changed. Silverlight provides several options for pushing data from a server to a client including sockets, TCP bindings and HTTP Polling Duplex.  Each has its own strengths and weaknesses as far as performance and setup work with HTTP Polling Duplex arguably being the easiest to setup and get going.  In this article I’ll demonstrate how HTTP Polling Duplex can be used in Silverlight 4 applications to push data and show how you can create a WCF server that provides an HTTP Polling Duplex binding that a Silverlight client can consume.   What is HTTP Polling Duplex? Technologies that allow data to be pushed from a server to a client rely on duplex functionality. Duplex (or bi-directional) communication allows data to be passed in both directions.  A client can call a service and the server can call the client. HTTP Polling Duplex (as its name implies) allows a server to communicate with a client without forcing the client to constantly poll the server. It has the benefit of being able to run on port 80 making setup a breeze compared to the other options which require specific ports to be used and cross-domain policy files to be exposed on port 943 (as with sockets and TCP bindings). Having said that, if you’re looking for the best speed possible then sockets and TCP bindings are the way to go. But, they’re not the only game in town when it comes to duplex communication. The first time I heard about HTTP Polling Duplex (initially available in Silverlight 2) I wasn’t exactly sure how it was any better than standard polling used in AJAX applications. I read the Silverlight SDK, looked at various resources and generally found the following definition unhelpful as far as understanding the actual benefits that HTTP Polling Duplex provided: "The Silverlight client periodically polls the service on the network layer, and checks for any new messages that the service wants to send on the callback channel. The service queues all messages sent on the client callback channel and delivers them to the client when the client polls the service." Although the previous definition explained the overall process, it sounded as if standard polling was used. Fortunately, Microsoft’s Scott Guthrie provided me with a more clear definition several years back that explains the benefits provided by HTTP Polling Duplex quite well (used with his permission): "The [HTTP Polling Duplex] duplex support does use polling in the background to implement notifications – although the way it does it is different than manual polling. It initiates a network request, and then the request is effectively “put to sleep” waiting for the server to respond (it doesn’t come back immediately). The server then keeps the connection open but not active until it has something to send back (or the connection times out after 90 seconds – at which point the duplex client will connect again and wait). This way you are avoiding hitting the server repeatedly – but still get an immediate response when there is data to send." After hearing Scott’s definition the light bulb went on and it all made sense. A client makes a request to a server to check for changes, but instead of the request returning immediately, it parks itself on the server and waits for data. It’s kind of like waiting to pick up a pizza at the store. Instead of calling the store over and over to check the status, you sit in the store and wait until the pizza (the request data) is ready. Once it’s ready you take it back home (to the client). This technique provides a lot of efficiency gains over standard polling techniques even though it does use some polling of its own as a request is initially made from a client to a server. So how do you implement HTTP Polling Duplex in your Silverlight applications? Let’s take a look at the process by starting with the server. Creating an HTTP Polling Duplex WCF Service Creating a WCF service that exposes an HTTP Polling Duplex binding is straightforward as far as coding goes. Add some one way operations into an interface, create a client callback interface and you’re ready to go. The most challenging part comes into play when configuring the service to properly support the necessary binding and that’s more of a cut and paste operation once you know the configuration code to use. To create an HTTP Polling Duplex service you’ll need to expose server-side and client-side interfaces and reference the System.ServiceModel.PollingDuplex assembly (located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight\v4.0\Libraries\Server on my machine) in the server project. For the demo application I upgraded a basketball simulation service to support the latest polling duplex assemblies. The service simulates a simple basketball game using a Game class and pushes information about the game such as score, fouls, shots and more to the client as the game changes over time. Before jumping too far into the game push service, it’s important to discuss two interfaces used by the service to communicate in a bi-directional manner. The first is called IGameStreamService and defines the methods/operations that the client can call on the server (see Listing 1). The second is IGameStreamClient which defines the callback methods that a server can use to communicate with a client (see Listing 2).   [ServiceContract(Namespace = "Silverlight", CallbackContract = typeof(IGameStreamClient))] public interface IGameStreamService { [OperationContract(IsOneWay = true)] void GetTeamData(); } Listing 1. The IGameStreamService interface defines server operations that can be called on the server.   [ServiceContract] public interface IGameStreamClient { [OperationContract(IsOneWay = true)] void ReceiveTeamData(List<Team> teamData); [OperationContract(IsOneWay = true, AsyncPattern=true)] IAsyncResult BeginReceiveGameData(GameData gameData, AsyncCallback callback, object state); void EndReceiveGameData(IAsyncResult result); } Listing 2. The IGameStreamClient interfaces defines client operations that a server can call.   The IGameStreamService interface is decorated with the standard ServiceContract attribute but also contains a value for the CallbackContract property.  This property is used to define the interface that the client will expose (IGameStreamClient in this example) and use to receive data pushed from the service. Notice that each OperationContract attribute in both interfaces sets the IsOneWay property to true. This means that the operation can be called and passed data as appropriate, however, no data will be passed back. Instead, data will be pushed back to the client as it’s available.  Looking through the IGameStreamService interface you can see that the client can request team data whereas the IGameStreamClient interface allows team and game data to be received by the client. One interesting point about the IGameStreamClient interface is the inclusion of the AsyncPattern property on the BeginReceiveGameData operation. I initially created this operation as a standard one way operation and it worked most of the time. However, as I disconnected clients and reconnected new ones game data wasn’t being passed properly. After researching the problem more I realized that because the service could take up to 7 seconds to return game data, things were getting hung up. By setting the AsyncPattern property to true on the BeginReceivedGameData operation and providing a corresponding EndReceiveGameData operation I was able to get around this problem and get everything running properly. I’ll provide more details on the implementation of these two methods later in this post. Once the interfaces were created I moved on to the game service class. The first order of business was to create a class that implemented the IGameStreamService interface. Since the service can be used by multiple clients wanting game data I added the ServiceBehavior attribute to the class definition so that I could set its InstanceContextMode to InstanceContextMode.Single (in effect creating a Singleton service object). Listing 3 shows the game service class as well as its fields and constructor.   [ServiceBehavior(ConcurrencyMode = ConcurrencyMode.Multiple, InstanceContextMode = InstanceContextMode.Single)] public class GameStreamService : IGameStreamService { object _Key = new object(); Game _Game = null; Timer _Timer = null; Random _Random = null; Dictionary<string, IGameStreamClient> _ClientCallbacks = new Dictionary<string, IGameStreamClient>(); static AsyncCallback _ReceiveGameDataCompleted = new AsyncCallback(ReceiveGameDataCompleted); public GameStreamService() { _Game = new Game(); _Timer = new Timer { Enabled = false, Interval = 2000, AutoReset = true }; _Timer.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(_Timer_Elapsed); _Timer.Start(); _Random = new Random(); }} Listing 3. The GameStreamService implements the IGameStreamService interface which defines a callback contract that allows the service class to push data back to the client. By implementing the IGameStreamService interface, GameStreamService must supply a GetTeamData() method which is responsible for supplying information about the teams that are playing as well as individual players.  GetTeamData() also acts as a client subscription method that tracks clients wanting to receive game data.  Listing 4 shows the GetTeamData() method. public void GetTeamData() { //Get client callback channel var context = OperationContext.Current; var sessionID = context.SessionId; var currClient = context.GetCallbackChannel<IGameStreamClient>(); context.Channel.Faulted += Disconnect; context.Channel.Closed += Disconnect; IGameStreamClient client; if (!_ClientCallbacks.TryGetValue(sessionID, out client)) { lock (_Key) { _ClientCallbacks[sessionID] = currClient; } } currClient.ReceiveTeamData(_Game.GetTeamData()); //Start timer which when fired sends updated score information to client if (!_Timer.Enabled) { _Timer.Enabled = true; } } Listing 4. The GetTeamData() method subscribes a given client to the game service and returns. The key the line of code in the GetTeamData() method is the call to GetCallbackChannel<IGameStreamClient>().  This method is responsible for accessing the calling client’s callback channel. The callback channel is defined by the IGameStreamClient interface shown earlier in Listing 2 and used by the server to communicate with the client. Before passing team data back to the client, GetTeamData() grabs the client’s session ID and checks if it already exists in the _ClientCallbacks dictionary object used to track clients wanting callbacks from the server. If the client doesn’t exist it adds it into the collection. It then pushes team data from the Game class back to the client by calling ReceiveTeamData().  Since the service simulates a basketball game, a timer is then started if it’s not already enabled which is then used to randomly send data to the client. When the timer fires, game data is pushed down to the client. Listing 5 shows the _Timer_Elapsed() method that is called when the timer fires as well as the SendGameData() method used to send data to the client. void _Timer_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e) { int interval = _Random.Next(3000, 7000); lock (_Key) { _Timer.Interval = interval; _Timer.Enabled = false; } SendGameData(_Game.GetGameData()); } private void SendGameData(GameData gameData) { var cbs = _ClientCallbacks.Where(cb => ((IContextChannel)cb.Value).State == CommunicationState.Opened); for (int i = 0; i < cbs.Count(); i++) { var cb = cbs.ElementAt(i).Value; try { cb.BeginReceiveGameData(gameData, _ReceiveGameDataCompleted, cb); } catch (TimeoutException texp) { //Log timeout error } catch (CommunicationException cexp) { //Log communication error } } lock (_Key) _Timer.Enabled = true; } private static void ReceiveGameDataCompleted(IAsyncResult result) { try { ((IGameStreamClient)(result.AsyncState)).EndReceiveGameData(result); } catch (CommunicationException) { // empty } catch (TimeoutException) { // empty } } LIsting 5. _Timer_Elapsed is used to simulate time in a basketball game. When _Timer_Elapsed() fires the SendGameData() method is called which iterates through the clients wanting to be notified of changes. As each client is identified, their respective BeginReceiveGameData() method is called which ultimately pushes game data down to the client. Recall that this method was defined in the client callback interface named IGameStreamClient shown earlier in Listing 2. Notice that BeginReceiveGameData() accepts _ReceiveGameDataCompleted as its second parameter (an AsyncCallback delegate defined in the service class) and passes the client callback as the third parameter. The initial version of the sample application had a standard ReceiveGameData() method in the client callback interface. However, sometimes the client callbacks would work properly and sometimes they wouldn’t which was a little baffling at first glance. After some investigation I realized that I needed to implement an asynchronous pattern for client callbacks to work properly since 3 – 7 second delays are occurring as a result of the timer. Once I added the BeginReceiveGameData() and ReceiveGameDataCompleted() methods everything worked properly since each call was handled in an asynchronous manner. The final task that had to be completed to get the server working properly with HTTP Polling Duplex was adding configuration code into web.config. In the interest of brevity I won’t post all of the code here since the sample application includes everything you need. However, Listing 6 shows the key configuration code to handle creating a custom binding named pollingDuplexBinding and associate it with the service’s endpoint.   <bindings> <customBinding> <binding name="pollingDuplexBinding"> <binaryMessageEncoding /> <pollingDuplex maxPendingSessions="2147483647" maxPendingMessagesPerSession="2147483647" inactivityTimeout="02:00:00" serverPollTimeout="00:05:00"/> <httpTransport /> </binding> </customBinding> </bindings> <services> <service name="GameService.GameStreamService" behaviorConfiguration="GameStreamServiceBehavior"> <endpoint address="" binding="customBinding" bindingConfiguration="pollingDuplexBinding" contract="GameService.IGameStreamService"/> <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" /> </service> </services>   Listing 6. Configuring an HTTP Polling Duplex binding in web.config and associating an endpoint with it. Calling the Service and Receiving “Pushed” Data Calling the service and handling data that is pushed from the server is a simple and straightforward process in Silverlight. Since the service is configured with a MEX endpoint and exposes a WSDL file, you can right-click on the Silverlight project and select the standard Add Service Reference item. After the web service proxy is created you may notice that the ServiceReferences.ClientConfig file only contains an empty configuration element instead of the normal configuration elements created when creating a standard WCF proxy. You can certainly update the file if you want to read from it at runtime but for the sample application I fed the service URI directly to the service proxy as shown next: var address = new EndpointAddress("http://localhost.:5661/GameStreamService.svc"); var binding = new PollingDuplexHttpBinding(); _Proxy = new GameStreamServiceClient(binding, address); _Proxy.ReceiveTeamDataReceived += _Proxy_ReceiveTeamDataReceived; _Proxy.ReceiveGameDataReceived += _Proxy_ReceiveGameDataReceived; _Proxy.GetTeamDataAsync(); This code creates the proxy and passes the endpoint address and binding to use to its constructor. It then wires the different receive events to callback methods and calls GetTeamDataAsync().  Calling GetTeamDataAsync() causes the server to store the client in the server-side dictionary collection mentioned earlier so that it can receive data that is pushed.  As the server-side timer fires and game data is pushed to the client, the user interface is updated as shown in Listing 7. Listing 8 shows the _Proxy_ReceiveGameDataReceived() method responsible for handling the data and calling UpdateGameData() to process it.   Listing 7. The Silverlight interface. Game data is pushed from the server to the client using HTTP Polling Duplex. void _Proxy_ReceiveGameDataReceived(object sender, ReceiveGameDataReceivedEventArgs e) { UpdateGameData(e.gameData); } private void UpdateGameData(GameData gameData) { //Update Score this.tbTeam1Score.Text = gameData.Team1Score.ToString(); this.tbTeam2Score.Text = gameData.Team2Score.ToString(); //Update ball visibility if (gameData.Action != ActionsEnum.Foul) { if (tbTeam1.Text == gameData.TeamOnOffense) { AnimateBall(this.BB1, this.BB2); } else //Team 2 { AnimateBall(this.BB2, this.BB1); } } if (this.lbActions.Items.Count > 9) this.lbActions.Items.Clear(); this.lbActions.Items.Add(gameData.LastAction); if (this.lbActions.Visibility == Visibility.Collapsed) this.lbActions.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; } private void AnimateBall(Image onBall, Image offBall) { this.FadeIn.Stop(); Storyboard.SetTarget(this.FadeInAnimation, onBall); Storyboard.SetTarget(this.FadeOutAnimation, offBall); this.FadeIn.Begin(); } Listing 8. As the server pushes game data, the client’s _Proxy_ReceiveGameDataReceived() method is called to process the data. In a real-life application I’d go with a ViewModel class to handle retrieving team data, setup data bindings and handle data that is pushed from the server. However, for the sample application I wanted to focus on HTTP Polling Duplex and keep things as simple as possible.   Summary Silverlight supports three options when duplex communication is required in an application including TCP bindins, sockets and HTTP Polling Duplex. In this post you’ve seen how HTTP Polling Duplex interfaces can be created and implemented on the server as well as how they can be consumed by a Silverlight client. HTTP Polling Duplex provides a nice way to “push” data from a server while still allowing the data to flow over port 80 or another port of your choice.   Sample Application Download

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• 2010 April Fools Joke

  - by Dane Morgridge

  I started at my current job at the end of March last year and there were some pretty funny April fools jokes.  Nothing super crazy, but pretty funny.  One guy came in and there was a tree in his cube.  We (me and the rest of my team) were planning for a couple of weeks on what we could do that would be just awesome.  We had a lot of really good ideas but nothing was spectacular.  Then Steve Andrews had a brilliant idea (yes it's true).  Since we have internal DNS servers we could redirect DNS to our internal servers for a site such as cnn.com.  Then we would lift the code from the site and create our own home page that would contain news about people in the company.  Steve was actually laughing so hard when he thought of the idea that it took him almost 30 minutes to spit it out. I thought, "this is perfect". I had enlisted a couple of people to help come up with the stories and at the same time we were trying to figure out how to get everybody to the site the morning of the 1st.  Then it hit me.  We could have the main article be one of my getting picked up by the FBI on hacking charges.  Then Chris (my boss) could send an email out telling everyone that I would not be there today and direct them to the site.  That would for sure get everyone to go to cnn.com first thing and see our prank.  I begun the process of looking for photos I could crop myself into and found the perfect one.  Then my wife took a good pic with our Canon 40D and I went to work.  The night before I didn't have any other stories due to everyone being really busy at work, but I decided to go ahead with just the FBI bust on it's own.  I got everything working and tested and coordinated with Chris for me to come in late so no one would see me at the office until after everyone had seen the joke. And so the morning of April fools came and I was waiting at home and the email was perfect.  Chris told everyone that I wouldn't be in and that not to answer any questions if you got any calls from anybody.  The Photoshop job I did was not perfect, but good enough and I even wrote an article with it that went into more detail about how I had been classified as a terrorist and all kinds of stuff. People at work started getting the emails and a few people didn't realize it was a joke (as I had hoped), including some from senior management (one person in particular who shall remain nameless in this post).  Emails started flying around about how to contain the situation and how to handle bad PR.  He basically bought it hook, line and sinker and then went in to crisis mode.  It was awesome! He did finally realize it was a joke and I will likely print and frame the email he sent out.  In short, April fools this year was a huge success.

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• Dude, what’s up with POP Forums vNext?

  - by Jeff

  Yeah, it has been awhile. I posted v9.2 back in January, about five months ago. That’s a real change from the release pace I had there for awhile. Let me explain what’s going on. First off, in the interim, I re-launched CoasterBuzz, which required a lot of my attention for about two of those months. That’s a good thing though, because that site is just about the best test bed I could ask for. The other thing is that I committed to make the next version use ASP.NET MVC 4, which is now at the RC stage. I didn’t think much about when they’d hit their RTW point, but RC is good enough for me. To that end, there is enough change in the next version that I recently decided to make it a major version upgrade, and finish up the loose ends and science projects to make it whole. Here’s what’s in store… Mobile views: I sat on this or a long time. Originally, I was going to use jQuery Mobile, and waited and waited for a new release, but in the end, decided against using it. Sometimes buttons would unexplainably not work, I felt like I was fighting it at times, and the CSS just felt too heavy. I rolled my own mobile sugar at a fraction of the size, and I think you’ll find it easy to modify. And it’s Metro-y, of course! Re-do of background services: A number of things run in the background, and I did quite a bit of “reimagining” of that code. It’s the weirdness of running services in a Web site context, because so many folks can’t run a bona fide service on their host’s box. The biggest change here is that these service no longer start up by default. You’ll need to call a new method from global.asax called PopForumsActivation.StartServices(). This is also a precursor to running the app in a Web farm (new data layer and caching is the second part of that). I learned about this the hard way when I had three apps using the forum library code but only one was actually the forum. The services were all running three times as often with race conditions and hits on the same data. That was particularly bad for e-mail. CSS clean up: It’s still not ideal, but it’s getting better. That’s one of those things that comes with integrating to a real site… you discover all of the dumb things you did. The mobile CSS is particularly easier to live with. Bug fixes: There are a whole lot of them. Most were minor, but it’s feeling pretty solid now. So that’s where I am. I’m going to call it v10.0, and I’m going to really put forth some effort toward finishing the mobile experience and getting through the remaining bugs. The roadmap beyond that will likely not be feature oriented, but rather work on some other things, like making it run in Azure, perhaps using SQL CE, a better install experience, etc. As usual, I’ll post the latest here. Stay tuned!

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• The Incremental Architect&acute;s Napkin &ndash; #3 &ndash; Make Evolvability inevitable

  - by Ralf Westphal

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/06/04/the-incremental-architectacutes-napkin-ndash-3-ndash-make-evolvability-inevitable.aspxThe easier something to measure the more likely it will be produced. Deviations between what is and what should be can be readily detected. That´s what automated acceptance tests are for. That´s what sprint reviews in Scrum are for. It´s no small wonder our software looks like it looks. It has all the traits whose conformance with requirements can easily be measured. And it´s lacking traits which cannot easily be measured. Evolvability (or Changeability) is such a trait. If an operation is correct, if an operation if fast enough, that can be checked very easily. But whether Evolvability is high or low, that cannot be checked by taking a measure or two. Evolvability might correlate with certain traits, e.g. number of lines of code (LOC) per function or Cyclomatic Complexity or test coverage. But there is no threshold value signalling “evolvability too low”; also Evolvability is hardly tangible for the customer. Nevertheless Evolvability is of great importance - at least in the long run. You can get away without much of it for a short time. Eventually, though, it´s needed like any other requirement. Or even more. Because without Evolvability no other requirement can be implemented. Evolvability is the foundation on which all else is build. Such fundamental importance is in stark contrast with its immeasurability. To compensate this, Evolvability must be put at the very center of software development. It must become the hub around everything else revolves. Since we cannot measure Evolvability, though, we cannot start watching it more. Instead we need to establish practices to keep it high (enough) at all times. Chefs have known that for long. That´s why everybody in a restaurant kitchen is constantly seeing after cleanliness. Hygiene is important as is to have clean tools at standardized locations. Only then the health of the patrons can be guaranteed and production efficiency is constantly high. Still a kitchen´s level of cleanliness is easier to measure than software Evolvability. That´s why important practices like reviews, pair programming, or TDD are not enough, I guess. What we need to keep Evolvability in focus and high is… to continually evolve. Change must not be something to avoid but too embrace. To me that means the whole change cycle from requirement analysis to delivery needs to be gone through more often. Scrum´s sprints of 4, 2 even 1 week are too long. Kanban´s flow of user stories across is too unreliable; it takes as long as it takes. Instead we should fix the cycle time at 2 days max. I call that Spinning. No increment must take longer than from this morning until tomorrow evening to finish. Then it should be acceptance checked by the customer (or his/her representative, e.g. a Product Owner). For me there are several resasons for such a fixed and short cycle time for each increment: Clear expectations Absolute estimates (“This will take X days to complete.”) are near impossible in software development as explained previously. Too much unplanned research and engineering work lurk in every feature. And then pervasive interruptions of work by peers and management. However, the smaller the scope the better our absolute estimates become. That´s because we understand better what really are the requirements and what the solution should look like. But maybe more importantly the shorter the timespan the more we can control how we use our time. So much can happen over the course of a week and longer timespans. But if push comes to shove I can block out all distractions and interruptions for a day or possibly two. That´s why I believe we can give rough absolute estimates on 3 levels: Noon Tonight Tomorrow Think of a meeting with a Product Owner at 8:30 in the morning. If she asks you, how long it will take you to implement a user story or bug fix, you can say, “It´ll be fixed by noon.”, or you can say, “I can manage to implement it until tonight before I leave.”, or you can say, “You´ll get it by tomorrow night at latest.” Yes, I believe all else would be naive. If you´re not confident to get something done by tomorrow night (some 34h from now) you just cannot reliably commit to any timeframe. That means you should not promise anything, you should not even start working on the issue. So when estimating use these four categories: Noon, Tonight, Tomorrow, NoClue - with NoClue meaning the requirement needs to be broken down further so each aspect can be assigned to one of the first three categories. If you like absolute estimates, here you go. But don´t do deep estimates. Don´t estimate dozens of issues; don´t think ahead (“Issue A is a Tonight, then B will be a Tomorrow, after that it´s C as a Noon, finally D is a Tonight - that´s what I´ll do this week.”). Just estimate so Work-in-Progress (WIP) is 1 for everybody - plus a small number of buffer issues. To be blunt: Yes, this makes promises impossible as to what a team will deliver in terms of scope at a certain date in the future. But it will give a Product Owner a clear picture of what to pull for acceptance feedback tonight and tomorrow. Trust through reliability Our trade is lacking trust. Customers don´t trust software companies/departments much. Managers don´t trust developers much. I find that perfectly understandable in the light of what we´re trying to accomplish: delivering software in the face of uncertainty by means of material good production. Customers as well as managers still expect software development to be close to production of houses or cars. But that´s a fundamental misunderstanding. Software development ist development. It´s basically research. As software developers we´re constantly executing experiments to find out what really provides value to users. We don´t know what they need, we just have mediated hypothesises. That´s why we cannot reliably deliver on preposterous demands. So trust is out of the window in no time. If we switch to delivering in short cycles, though, we can regain trust. Because estimates - explicit or implicit - up to 32 hours at most can be satisfied. I´d say: reliability over scope. It´s more important to reliably deliver what was promised then to cover a lot of requirement area. So when in doubt promise less - but deliver without delay. Deliver on scope (Functionality and Quality); but also deliver on Evolvability, i.e. on inner quality according to accepted principles. Always. Trust will be the reward. Less complexity of communication will follow. More goodwill buffer will follow. So don´t wait for some Kanban board to show you, that flow can be improved by scheduling smaller stories. You don´t need to learn that the hard way. Just start with small batch sizes of three different sizes. Fast feedback What has been finished can be checked for acceptance. Why wait for a sprint of several weeks to end? Why let the mental model of the issue and its solution dissipate? If you get final feedback after one or two weeks, you hardly remember what you did and why you did it. Resoning becomes hard. But more importantly youo probably are not in the mood anymore to go back to something you deemed done a long time ago. It´s boring, it´s frustrating to open up that mental box again. Learning is harder the longer it takes from event to feedback. Effort can be wasted between event (finishing an issue) and feedback, because other work might go in the wrong direction based on false premises. Checking finished issues for acceptance is the most important task of a Product Owner. It´s even more important than planning new issues. Because as long as work started is not released (accepted) it´s potential waste. So before starting new work better make sure work already done has value. By putting the emphasis on acceptance rather than planning true pull is established. As long as planning and starting work is more important, it´s a push process. Accept a Noon issue on the same day before leaving. Accept a Tonight issue before leaving today or first thing tomorrow morning. Accept a Tomorrow issue tomorrow night before leaving or early the day after tomorrow. After acceptance the developer(s) can start working on the next issue. Flexibility As if reliability/trust and fast feedback for less waste weren´t enough economic incentive, there is flexibility. After each issue the Product Owner can change course. If on Monday morning feature slices A, B, C, D, E were important and A, B, C were scheduled for acceptance by Monday evening and Tuesday evening, the Product Owner can change her mind at any time. Maybe after A got accepted she asks for continuation with D. But maybe, just maybe, she has gotten a completely different idea by then. Maybe she wants work to continue on F. And after B it´s neither D nor E, but G. And after G it´s D. With Spinning every 32 hours at latest priorities can be changed. And nothing is lost. Because what got accepted is of value. It provides an incremental value to the customer/user. Or it provides internal value to the Product Owner as increased knowledge/decreased uncertainty. I find such reactivity over commitment economically very benefical. Why commit a team to some workload for several weeks? It´s unnecessary at beast, and inflexible and wasteful at worst. If we cannot promise delivery of a certain scope on a certain date - which is what customers/management usually want -, we can at least provide them with unpredecented flexibility in the face of high uncertainty. Where the path is not clear, cannot be clear, make small steps so you´re able to change your course at any time. Premature completion Customers/management are used to premeditating budgets. They want to know exactly how much to pay for a certain amount of requirements. That´s understandable. But it does not match with the nature of software development. We should know that by now. Maybe there´s somewhere in the world some team who can consistently deliver on scope, quality, and time, and budget. Great! Congratulations! I, however, haven´t seen such a team yet. Which does not mean it´s impossible, but I think it´s nothing I can recommend to strive for. Rather I´d say: Don´t try this at home. It might hurt you one way or the other. However, what we can do, is allow customers/management stop work on features at any moment. With spinning every 32 hours a feature can be declared as finished - even though it might not be completed according to initial definition. I think, progress over completion is an important offer software development can make. Why think in terms of completion beyond a promise for the next 32 hours? Isn´t it more important to constantly move forward? Step by step. We´re not running sprints, we´re not running marathons, not even ultra-marathons. We´re in the sport of running forever. That makes it futile to stare at the finishing line. The very concept of a burn-down chart is misleading (in most cases). Whoever can only think in terms of completed requirements shuts out the chance for saving money. The requirements for a features mostly are uncertain. So how does a Product Owner know in the first place, how much is needed. Maybe more than specified is needed - which gets uncovered step by step with each finished increment. Maybe less than specified is needed. After each 4–32 hour increment the Product Owner can do an experient (or invite users to an experiment) if a particular trait of the software system is already good enough. And if so, she can switch the attention to a different aspect. In the end, requirements A, B, C then could be finished just 70%, 80%, and 50%. What the heck? It´s good enough - for now. 33% money saved. Wouldn´t that be splendid? Isn´t that a stunning argument for any budget-sensitive customer? You can save money and still get what you need? Pull on practices So far, in addition to more trust, more flexibility, less money spent, Spinning led to “doing less” which also means less code which of course means higher Evolvability per se. Last but not least, though, I think Spinning´s short acceptance cycles have one more effect. They excert pull-power on all sorts of practices known for increasing Evolvability. If, for example, you believe high automated test coverage helps Evolvability by lowering the fear of inadverted damage to a code base, why isn´t 90% of the developer community practicing automated tests consistently? I think, the answer is simple: Because they can do without. Somehow they manage to do enough manual checks before their rare releases/acceptance checks to ensure good enough correctness - at least in the short term. The same goes for other practices like component orientation, continuous build/integration, code reviews etc. None of that is compelling, urgent, imperative. Something else always seems more important. So Evolvability principles and practices fall through the cracks most of the time - until a project hits a wall. Then everybody becomes desperate; but by then (re)gaining Evolvability has become as very, very difficult and tedious undertaking. Sometimes up to the point where the existence of a project/company is in danger. With Spinning that´s different. If you´re practicing Spinning you cannot avoid all those practices. With Spinning you very quickly realize you cannot deliver reliably even on your 32 hour promises. Spinning thus is pulling on developers to adopt principles and practices for Evolvability. They will start actively looking for ways to keep their delivery rate high. And if not, management will soon tell them to do that. Because first the Product Owner then management will notice an increasing difficulty to deliver value within 32 hours. There, finally there emerges a way to measure Evolvability: The more frequent developers tell the Product Owner there is no way to deliver anything worth of feedback until tomorrow night, the poorer Evolvability is. Don´t count the “WTF!”, count the “No way!” utterances. In closing For sustainable software development we need to put Evolvability first. Functionality and Quality must not rule software development but be implemented within a framework ensuring (enough) Evolvability. Since Evolvability cannot be measured easily, I think we need to put software development “under pressure”. Software needs to be changed more often, in smaller increments. Each increment being relevant to the customer/user in some way. That does not mean each increment is worthy of shipment. It´s sufficient to gain further insight from it. Increments primarily serve the reduction of uncertainty, not sales. Sales even needs to be decoupled from this incremental progress. No more promises to sales. No more delivery au point. Rather sales should look at a stream of accepted increments (or incremental releases) and scoup from that whatever they find valuable. Sales and marketing need to realize they should work on what´s there, not what might be possible in the future. But I digress… In my view a Spinning cycle - which is not easy to reach, which requires practice - is the core practice to compensate the immeasurability of Evolvability. From start to finish of each issue in 32 hours max - that´s the challenge we need to accept if we´re serious increasing Evolvability. Fortunately higher Evolvability is not the only outcome of Spinning. Customer/management will like the increased flexibility and “getting more bang for the buck”.

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• Global Cache CR Requested But Current Block Received

  - by Liu Maclean(???)

  ????????«MINSCN?Cache Fusion Read Consistent» ????,???????????? ??????????????????: SQL> select * from V$version; BANNER -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production PL/SQL Release 11.2.0.3.0 - Production CORE 11.2.0.3.0 Production TNS for Linux: Version 11.2.0.3.0 - Production NLSRTL Version 11.2.0.3.0 - Production SQL> select count(*) from gv$instance; COUNT(*) ---------- 2 SQL> select * from global_name; GLOBAL_NAME -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.oracledatabase12g.com ?11gR2 2??RAC??????????status???XG,????Xcurrent block???INSTANCE 2?hold?,?????INSTANCE 1?????????,?????: SQL> select * from test; ID ---------- 1 2 SQL> select dbms_rowid.rowid_block_number(rowid),dbms_rowid.rowid_relative_fno(rowid) from test; DBMS_ROWID.ROWID_BLOCK_NUMBER(ROWID) DBMS_ROWID.ROWID_RELATIVE_FNO(ROWID) ------------------------------------ ------------------------------------ 89233 1 89233 1 SQL> alter system flush buffer_cache; System altered. INSTANCE 1 Session A: SQL> update test set id=id+1 where id=1; 1 row updated. INSTANCE 1 Session B: SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 1 0 3 1755287 SQL> oradebug setmypid; Statement processed. SQL> oradebug dump gc_elements 255; Statement processed. SQL> oradebug tracefile_name; /s01/orabase/diag/rdbms/vprod/VPROD1/trace/VPROD1_ora_19111.trc GLOBAL CACHE ELEMENT DUMP (address: 0xa4ff3080): id1: 0x15c91 id2: 0x1 pkey: OBJ#76896 block: (1/89233) lock: X rls: 0x0 acq: 0x0 latch: 3 flags: 0x20 fair: 0 recovery: 0 fpin: 'kdswh11: kdst_fetch' bscn: 0x0.146e20 bctx: (nil) write: 0 scan: 0x0 lcp: (nil) lnk: [NULL] lch: [0xa9f6a6f8,0xa9f6a6f8] seq: 32 hist: 58 145:0 118 66 144:0 192 352 197 48 121 113 424 180 58 LIST OF BUFFERS LINKED TO THIS GLOBAL CACHE ELEMENT: flg: 0x02000001 lflg: 0x1 state: XCURRENT tsn: 0 tsh: 2 addr: 0xa9f6a5c8 obj: 76896 cls: DATA bscn: 0x0.1ac898 BH (0xa9f6a5c8) file#: 1 rdba: 0x00415c91 (1/89233) class: 1 ba: 0xa9e56000 set: 5 pool: 3 bsz: 8192 bsi: 0 sflg: 3 pwc: 0,15 dbwrid: 0 obj: 76896 objn: 76896 tsn: 0 afn: 1 hint: f hash: [0x91f4e970,0xbae9d5b8] lru: [0x91f58848,0xa9f6a828] lru-flags: debug_dump obj-flags: object_ckpt_list ckptq: [0x9df6d1d8,0xa9f6a740] fileq: [0xa2ece670,0xbdf4ed68] objq: [0xb4964e00,0xb4964e00] objaq: [0xb4964de0,0xb4964de0] st: XCURRENT md: NULL fpin: 'kdswh11: kdst_fetch' tch: 2 le: 0xa4ff3080 flags: buffer_dirty redo_since_read LRBA: [0x19.5671.0] LSCN: [0x0.1ac898] HSCN: [0x0.1ac898] HSUB: [1] buffer tsn: 0 rdba: 0x00415c91 (1/89233) scn: 0x0000.001ac898 seq: 0x01 flg: 0x00 tail: 0xc8980601 frmt: 0x02 chkval: 0x0000 type: 0x06=trans data ??????block: (1/89233)?GLOBAL CACHE ELEMENT DUMP?LOCK????X ??XG , ??????Current Block????Instance??modify???,????????????? ????Instance 2 ????: Instance 2 Session C: SQL> update test set id=id+1 where id=2; 1 row updated. Instance 2 Session D: SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 1 0 3 1756658 SQL> oradebug setmypid; Statement processed. SQL> oradebug dump gc_elements 255; Statement processed. SQL> oradebug tracefile_name; /s01/orabase/diag/rdbms/vprod/VPROD2/trace/VPROD2_ora_13038.trc GLOBAL CACHE ELEMENT DUMP (address: 0x89fb25a0): id1: 0x15c91 id2: 0x1 pkey: OBJ#76896 block: (1/89233) lock: XG rls: 0x0 acq: 0x0 latch: 3 flags: 0x20 fair: 0 recovery: 0 fpin: 'kduwh01: kdusru' bscn: 0x0.1acdf3 bctx: (nil) write: 0 scan: 0x0 lcp: (nil) lnk: [NULL] lch: [0x96f4cf80,0x96f4cf80] seq: 61 hist: 324 21 143:0 19 16 352 329 144:6 14 7 352 197 LIST OF BUFFERS LINKED TO THIS GLOBAL CACHE ELEMENT: flg: 0x0a000001 state: XCURRENT tsn: 0 tsh: 1 addr: 0x96f4ce50 obj: 76896 cls: DATA bscn: 0x0.1acdf6 BH (0x96f4ce50) file#: 1 rdba: 0x00415c91 (1/89233) class: 1 ba: 0x96bd4000 set: 5 pool: 3 bsz: 8192 bsi: 0 sflg: 2 pwc: 0,15 dbwrid: 0 obj: 76896 objn: 76896 tsn: 0 afn: 1 hint: f hash: [0x96ee1fe8,0xbae9d5b8] lru: [0x96f4d0b0,0x96f4cdc0] obj-flags: object_ckpt_list ckptq: [0xbdf519b8,0x96f4d5a8] fileq: [0xbdf519d8,0xbdf519d8] objq: [0xb4a47b90,0xb4a47b90] objaq: [0x96f4d0e8,0xb4a47b70] st: XCURRENT md: NULL fpin: 'kduwh01: kdusru' tch: 1 le: 0x89fb25a0 flags: buffer_dirty redo_since_read remote_transfered LRBA: [0x11.9e18.0] LSCN: [0x0.1acdf6] HSCN: [0x0.1acdf6] HSUB: [1] buffer tsn: 0 rdba: 0x00415c91 (1/89233) scn: 0x0000.001acdf6 seq: 0x01 flg: 0x00 tail: 0xcdf60601 frmt: 0x02 chkval: 0x0000 type: 0x06=trans data GCS CLIENT 0x89fb2618,6 resp[(nil),0x15c91.1] pkey 76896.0 grant 2 cvt 0 mdrole 0x42 st 0x100 lst 0x20 GRANTQ rl G0 master 1 owner 2 sid 0 remote[(nil),0] hist 0x94121c601163423c history 0x3c.0x4.0xd.0xb.0x1.0xc.0x7.0x9.0x14.0x1. cflag 0x0 sender 1 flags 0x0 replay# 0 abast (nil).x0.1 dbmap (nil) disk: 0x0000.00000000 write request: 0x0000.00000000 pi scn: 0x0000.00000000 sq[(nil),(nil)] msgseq 0x1 updseq 0x0 reqids[6,0,0] infop (nil) lockseq x2b8 pkey 76896.0 hv 93 [stat 0x0, 1->1, wm 32768, RMno 0, reminc 18, dom 0] kjga st 0x4, step 0.0.0, cinc 20, rmno 6, flags 0x0 lb 0, hb 0, myb 15250, drmb 15250, apifrz 0 ?Instance 2??????block: (1/89233)? GLOBAL CACHE ELEMENT Lock Convert?lock: XG ????GC_ELEMENTS DUMP???XCUR Cache Fusion?,???????X$ VIEW,??? X$LE X$KJBR X$KJBL, ???X$ VIEW???????????????????: INSTANCE 2 Session D: SELECT * FROM x$le WHERE le_addr IN (SELECT le_addr FROM x$bh WHERE obj IN (SELECT data_object_id FROM dba_objects WHERE owner = 'SYS' AND object_name = 'TEST') AND class = 1 AND state != 3); ADDR INDX INST_ID LE_ADDR LE_ID1 LE_ID2 ---------------- ---------- ---------- ---------------- ---------- ---------- LE_RLS LE_ACQ LE_FLAGS LE_MODE LE_WRITE LE_LOCAL LE_RECOVERY ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------- LE_BLKS LE_TIME LE_KJBL ---------- ---------- ---------------- 00007F94CA14CF60 7003 2 0000000089FB25A0 89233 1 0 0 32 2 0 1 0 1 0 0000000089FB2618 PCM Resource NAME?[ID1][ID2],[BL]???, ID1?ID2 ??blockno? fileno????, ??????????GC_elements dump?? id1: 0x15c91 id2: 0×1 pkey: OBJ#76896 block: (1/89233)?? ,?  kjblname ? kjbrname ??”[0x15c91][0x1],[BL]” ??: INSTANCE 2 Session D: SQL> set linesize 80 pagesize 1400 SQL> SELECT * 2 FROM x$kjbl l 3 WHERE l.kjblname LIKE '%[0x15c91][0x1],[BL]%'; ADDR INDX INST_ID KJBLLOCKP KJBLGRANT KJBLREQUE ---------------- ---------- ---------- ---------------- --------- --------- KJBLROLE KJBLRESP KJBLNAME ---------- ---------------- ------------------------------ KJBLNAME2 KJBLQUEUE ------------------------------ ---------- KJBLLOCKST KJBLWRITING ---------------------------------------------------------------- ----------- KJBLREQWRITE KJBLOWNER KJBLMASTER KJBLBLOCKED KJBLBLOCKER KJBLSID KJBLRDOMID ------------ ---------- ---------- ----------- ----------- ---------- ---------- KJBLPKEY ---------- 00007F94CA22A288 451 2 0000000089FB2618 KJUSEREX KJUSERNL 0 00 [0x15c91][0x1],[BL][ext 0x0,0x 89233,1,BL 0 GRANTED 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 76896 SQL> SELECT r.* FROM x$kjbr r WHERE r.kjbrname LIKE '%[0x15c91][0x1],[BL]%'; no rows selected Instance 1 session B: SQL> SELECT r.* FROM x$kjbr r WHERE r.kjbrname LIKE '%[0x15c91][0x1],[BL]%'; ADDR INDX INST_ID KJBRRESP KJBRGRANT KJBRNCVL ---------------- ---------- ---------- ---------------- --------- --------- KJBRROLE KJBRNAME KJBRMASTER KJBRGRANTQ ---------- ------------------------------ ---------- ---------------- KJBRCVTQ KJBRWRITER KJBRSID KJBRRDOMID KJBRPKEY ---------------- ---------------- ---------- ---------- ---------- 00007F801ACA68F8 1355 1 00000000B5A62AE0 KJUSEREX KJUSERNL 0 [0x15c91][0x1],[BL][ext 0x0,0x 0 00000000B48BB330 00 00 0 0 76896 ??????Instance 1???block: (1/89233),??????Instance 2 build cr block ????Instance 1, ?????????? ????? Instance 1? Foreground Process ? Instance 2?LMS??????RAC  TRACE: Instance 2: [oracle@vrh2 ~]$ ps -ef|grep ora_lms|grep -v grep oracle 23364 1 0 Apr29 ? 00:33:15 ora_lms0_VPROD2 SQL> oradebug setospid 23364 Oracle pid: 13, Unix process pid: 23364, image: [email protected] (LMS0) SQL> oradebug event 10046 trace name context forever,level 8:10708 trace name context forever,level 103: trace[rac.*] disk high; Statement processed. SQL> oradebug tracefile_name /s01/orabase/diag/rdbms/vprod/VPROD2/trace/VPROD2_lms0_23364.trc Instance 1 session B : SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 3 1756658 3 1756661 3 1755287 Instance 1 session A : SQL> alter session set events '10046 trace name context forever,level 8:10708 trace name context forever,level 103: trace[rac.*] disk high'; Session altered. SQL> select * from test; ID ---------- 2 2 SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 3 1761520 ?x$BH?????,???????Instance 1???build??CR block,????? TRACE ??: Instance 1 foreground Process: PARSING IN CURSOR #140336527348792 len=18 dep=0 uid=0 oct=3 lid=0 tim=1335939136125254 hv=1689401402 ad='b1a4c828' sqlid='c99yw1xkb4f1u' select * from test END OF STMT PARSE #140336527348792:c=2999,e=2860,p=0,cr=0,cu=0,mis=1,r=0,dep=0,og=1,plh=1357081020,tim=1335939136125253 EXEC #140336527348792:c=0,e=40,p=0,cr=0,cu=0,mis=0,r=0,dep=0,og=1,plh=1357081020,tim=1335939136125373 WAIT #140336527348792: nam='SQL*Net message to client' ela= 6 driver id=1650815232 #bytes=1 p3=0 obj#=0 tim=1335939136125420 *** 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125 kclscrs: req=0 block=1/89233 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125574 : kjbcro[0x15c91.1 76896.0][4] *** 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125 kclscrs: req=0 typ=nowait-abort *** 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125 kclscrs: bid=1:3:1:0:f:1e:0:0:10:0:0:0:1:2:4:1:20:0:0:0:c3:49:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:4:3:2:1:2:0:1c:0:4d:26:a3:52:0:0:0:0:c7:c:ca:62:c3:49:0:0:0:0:1:0:14:8e:47:76:1:2:dc:5:a9:fe:17:75:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:99:ed:0:0:0:0:0:0:10:0:0:0 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125718 : kjbcro[0x15c91.1 76896.0][4] 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125751 : GSIPC:GMBQ: buff 0xba0ee018, queue 0xbb79a7b8, pool 0x60013fa0, freeq 0, nxt 0xbb79a7b8, prv 0xbb79a7b8 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125780 : kjbsentscn[0x0.1ae0f0][to 2] 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125806 : GSIPC:SENDM: send msg 0xba0ee088 dest x20001 seq 177740 type 36 tkts xff0000 mlen x1680198 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125918 : kjbmscr(0x15c91.1)reqid=0x8(req 0xa4ff30f8)(rinst 1)hldr 2(infosz 200)(lseq x2b8) 2012-05-02 02:12:16.126959 : GSIPC:KSXPCB: msg 0xba0ee088 status 30, type 36, dest 2, rcvr 1 *** 2012-05-02 02:12:16.127 kclwcrs: wait=0 tm=1233 *** 2012-05-02 02:12:16.127 kclwcrs: got 1 blocks from ksxprcv WAIT #140336527348792: nam='gc cr block 2-way' ela= 1233 p1=1 p2=89233 p3=1 obj#=76896 tim=1335939136127199 2012-05-02 02:12:16.127272 : kjbcrcomplete[0x15c91.1 76896.0][0] 2012-05-02 02:12:16.127309 : kjbrcvdscn[0x0.1ae0f0][from 2][idx 2012-05-02 02:12:16.127329 : kjbrcvdscn[no bscn <= rscn 0x0.1ae0f0][from 2] ???? kjbcro[0x15c91.1 76896.0][4] kjbsentscn[0x0.1ae0f0][to 2] ?Instance 2??SCN=1ae0f0=1761520? block: (1/89233),???’gc cr block 2-way’ ??,?????????CR block? Instance 2 LMS TRACE 2012-05-02 02:12:15.634057 : GSIPC:RCVD: ksxp msg 0x7f16e1598588 sndr 1 seq 0.177740 type 36 tkts 0 2012-05-02 02:12:15.634094 : GSIPC:RCVD: watq msg 0x7f16e1598588 sndr 1, seq 177740, type 36, tkts 0 2012-05-02 02:12:15.634108 : GSIPC:TKT: collect msg 0x7f16e1598588 from 1 for rcvr -1, tickets 0 2012-05-02 02:12:15.634162 : kjbrcvdscn[0x0.1ae0f0][from 1][idx 2012-05-02 02:12:15.634186 : kjbrcvdscn[no bscn1, wm 32768, RMno 0, reminc 18, dom 0] kjga st 0x4, step 0.0.0, cinc 20, rmno 6, flags 0x0 lb 0, hb 0, myb 15250, drmb 15250, apifrz 0 GCS CLIENT END 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635211 : kjbdowncvt[0x15c91.1 76896.0][1][options x0] 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635230 : GSIPC:AMBUF: rcv buff 0x7f16e1c56420, pool rcvbuf, rqlen 1103 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635308 : GSIPC:GPBMSG: new bmsg 0x7f16e1c56490 mb 0x7f16e1c56420 msg 0x7f16e1c564b0 mlen 152 dest x101 flushsz -1 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635334 : kjbmslset(0x15c91.1)) seq 0x4 reqid=0x6 (shadow 0xb48bb330.xb)(rsn 2)(mas@1) 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635355 : GSIPC:SPBMSG: send bmsg 0x7f16e1c56490 blen 184 msg 0x7f16e1c564b0 mtype 33 attr|dest x30101 bsz|fsz x1ffff 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635377 : GSIPC:SNDQ: enq msg 0x7f16e1c56490, type 65521 seq 118669, inst 1, receiver 1, queued 1 *** 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635 kclccctx: cleanup copy 0x7f16e1d94798 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635479 : [kjmpmsgi:compl][type 36][msg 0x7f16e1598588][seq 177740.0][qtime 0][ptime 1257] 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635511 : GSIPC:BSEND: flushing sndq 0xb491dd28, id 1, dcx 0xbc516778, inst 1, rcvr 1 qlen 0 1 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635536 : GSIPC:BSEND: no batch1 msg 0x7f16e1c56490 type 65521 len 184 dest (1:1) 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635557 : kjbsentscn[0x0.1ae0f1][to 1] 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635578 : GSIPC:SENDM: send msg 0x7f16e1c56490 dest x10001 seq 118669 type 65521 tkts x10002 mlen xb800e8 WAIT #0: nam='gcs remote message' ela= 180 waittime=1 poll=0 event=0 obj#=0 tim=1335939135635819 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635853 : GSIPC:RCVD: ksxp msg 0x7f16e167e0b0 sndr 1 seq 0.177741 type 32 tkts 0 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635875 : GSIPC:RCVD: watq msg 0x7f16e167e0b0 sndr 1, seq 177741, type 32, tkts 0 2012-05-02 02:12:15.636012 : GSIPC:TKT: collect msg 0x7f16e167e0b0 from 1 for rcvr -1, tickets 0 2012-05-02 02:12:15.636040 : kjbrcvdscn[0x0.1ae0f1][from 1][idx 2012-05-02 02:12:15.636060 : kjbrcvdscn[no bscn <= rscn 0x0.1ae0f1][from 1] 2012-05-02 02:12:15.636082 : GSIPC:TKT: dest (1:1) rtkt not acked 1  unassigned bufs 0  tkts 0  newbufs 0 2012-05-02 02:12:15.636102 : GSIPC:TKT: remove ctx dest (1:1) 2012-05-02 02:12:15.636125 : [kjmxmpm][type 32][seq 0.177741][msg 0x7f16e167e0b0][from 1] 2012-05-02 02:12:15.636146 : kjbmpocr(0xb0.6)seq 0x1,reqid=0x23a,(client 0x9fff7b58,0x1)(from 1)(lseq xdf0) 2????LMS????????? ??gcs remote message GSIPC ????SCN=[0x0.1ae0f0] block=1/89233???,??BAST kjbmpbast(0x15c91.1),?? block=1/89233??????? ??fairness??(?11.2.0.3???_fairness_threshold=2),?current block?KCL: F156: fairness downconvert,?Xcurrent DownConvert? Scurrent: Instance 2: SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 2 0 3 1756658 ??Instance 2 LMS ?cr block??? kjbmslset(0x15c91.1)) ????SEND QUEUE GSIPC:SNDQ: enq msg 0x7f16e1c56490? ???????Instance 1???? block: (1/89233)??? ??????: Instance 2: SQL> select CURRENT_RESULTS,LIGHT_WORKS from v$cr_block_server; CURRENT_RESULTS LIGHT_WORKS --------------- ----------- 29273 437 Instance 1 session A: SQL> SQL> select * from test; ID ---------- 2 2 SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 3 1761942 3 1761932 1 0 3 1761520 Instance 2: SQL> select CURRENT_RESULTS,LIGHT_WORKS from v$cr_block_server; CURRENT_RESULTS LIGHT_WORKS --------------- ----------- 29274 437 select * from test END OF STMT PARSE #140336529675592:c=0,e=337,p=0,cr=0,cu=0,mis=0,r=0,dep=0,og=1,plh=1357081020,tim=1335939668940051 EXEC #140336529675592:c=0,e=96,p=0,cr=0,cu=0,mis=0,r=0,dep=0,og=1,plh=1357081020,tim=1335939668940204 WAIT #140336529675592: nam='SQL*Net message to client' ela= 5 driver id=1650815232 #bytes=1 p3=0 obj#=0 tim=1335939668940348 *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940 kclscrs: req=0 block=1/89233 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940676 : kjbcro[0x15c91.1 76896.0][5] *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940 kclscrs: req=0 typ=nowait-abort *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940 kclscrs: bid=1:3:1:0:f:21:0:0:10:0:0:0:1:2:4:1:20:0:0:0:c3:49:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:4:3:2:1:2:0:1f:0:4d:26:a3:52:0:0:0:0:c7:c:ca:62:c3:49:0:0:0:0:1:0:17:8e:47:76:1:2:dc:5:a9:fe:17:75:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:99:ed:0:0:0:0:0:0:10:0:0:0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940799 : kjbcro[0x15c91.1 76896.0][5] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940833 : GSIPC:GMBQ: buff 0xba0ee018, queue 0xbb79a7b8, pool 0x60013fa0, freeq 0, nxt 0xbb79a7b8, prv 0xbb79a7b8 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940859 : kjbsentscn[0x0.1ae28c][to 2] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940870 : GSIPC:SENDM: send msg 0xba0ee088 dest x20001 seq 177810 type 36 tkts xff0000 mlen x1680198 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940976 : kjbmscr(0x15c91.1)reqid=0xa(req 0xa4ff30f8)(rinst 1)hldr 2(infosz 200)(lseq x2b8) 2012-05-02 02:21:08.941314 : GSIPC:KSXPCB: msg 0xba0ee088 status 30, type 36, dest 2, rcvr 1 *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.941 kclwcrs: wait=0 tm=707 *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.941 kclwcrs: got 1 blocks from ksxprcv 2012-05-02 02:21:08.941818 : kjbassume[0x15c91.1][sender 2][mymode x1][myrole x0][srole x0][flgs x0][spiscn 0x0.0][swscn 0x0.0] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.941852 : kjbrcvdscn[0x0.1ae28d][from 2][idx 2012-05-02 02:21:08.941871 : kjbrcvdscn[no bscn ??????????????SCN=[0x0.1ae28c]=1761932 Version?CR block, ????receive????Xcurrent Block??SCN=1ae28d=1761933,Instance 1???Xcurrent Block???build????????SCN=1761932?CR BLOCK, ????????Current block,?????????'gc current block 2-way'? ?????????????request current block,?????kjbcro;?????Instance 2?LMS???????Current Block: Instance 2 LMS trace: 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448743 : GSIPC:RCVD: ksxp msg 0x7f16e14a4398 sndr 1 seq 0.177810 type 36 tkts 0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448778 : GSIPC:RCVD: watq msg 0x7f16e14a4398 sndr 1, seq 177810, type 36, tkts 0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448798 : GSIPC:TKT: collect msg 0x7f16e14a4398 from 1 for rcvr -1, tickets 0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448816 : kjbrcvdscn[0x0.1ae28c][from 1][idx 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448834 : kjbrcvdscn[no bscn <= rscn 0x0.1ae28c][from 1] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448857 : GSIPC:TKT: dest (1:1) rtkt not acked 2  unassigned bufs 0  tkts 0  newbufs 0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448875 : GSIPC:TKT: remove ctx dest (1:1) 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448970 : [kjmxmpm][type 36][seq 0.177810][msg 0x7f16e14a4398][from 1] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448993 : kjbmpbast(0x15c91.1) reqid=0x6 (req 0xa4ff30f8)(reqinst 1)(reqid 10)(flags x0) *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449 kclcrrf: req=48054 block=1/89233 *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449 kcl_compress_block: compressed: 6 free space: 7680 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449085 : kjbsentscn[0x0.1ae28d][to 1] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449142 : kjbdeliver[to 1][0xa4ff30f8][10][current 1] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449164 : kjbmssch(reqlock 0xa4ff30f8,10)(to 1)(bsz 344) 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449183 : GSIPC:AMBUF: rcv buff 0x7f16e18bcec8, pool rcvbuf, rqlen 1102 *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449 kclccctx: cleanup copy 0x7f16e1d94838 *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449 kcltouched: touch seconds 3271 *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449 kclgrantlk: req=48054 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449347 : [kjmpmsgi:compl][type 36][msg 0x7f16e14a4398][seq 177810.0][qtime 0][ptime 1119] WAIT #0: nam='gcs remote message' ela= 568 waittime=1 poll=0 event=0 obj#=0 tim=1335939668449962 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450001 : GSIPC:RCVD: ksxp msg 0x7f16e1bb22a0 sndr 1 seq 0.177811 type 32 tkts 0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450024 : GSIPC:RCVD: watq msg 0x7f16e1bb22a0 sndr 1, seq 177811, type 32, tkts 0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450043 : GSIPC:TKT: collect msg 0x7f16e1bb22a0 from 1 for rcvr -1, tickets 0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450060 : kjbrcvdscn[0x0.1ae28e][from 1][idx 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450078 : kjbrcvdscn[no bscn <= rscn 0x0.1ae28e][from 1] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450097 : GSIPC:TKT: dest (1:1) rtkt not acked 3  unassigned bufs 0  tkts 0  newbufs 0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450116 : GSIPC:TKT: remove ctx dest (1:1) 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450136 : [kjmxmpm][type 32][seq 0.177811][msg 0x7f16e1bb22a0][from 1] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450155 : kjbmpocr(0xb0.6)seq 0x1,reqid=0x23e,(client 0x9fff7b58,0x1)(from 1)(lseq xdf4) ???Instance 2??LMS???,???build cr block,??????Instance 1?????Current Block??????Instance 2??v$cr_block_server??????LIGHT_WORKS?????current block transfer??????,??????? CR server? Light Work Rule(Light Work Rule?8i Cr Server?????????,?Remote LMS?? build CR????????,resource holder?LMS???????block,????CR build If creating the consistent read version block involves too much work (such as reading blocks from disk), then the holder sends the block to the requestor, and the requestor completes the CR fabrication. The holder maintains a fairness counter of CR requests. After the fairness threshold is reached, the holder downgrades it to lock mode.)? ??????? CR Request ????Current Block?? ???:??????class?block,CR server??????? ??undo block?? undo header block?CR quest, LMS????Current Block, ????? ???? ??????? block cleanout? CR  Version??????? ???????? data blocks, ??????? CR quest  & CR received?(???????Light Work Rule,LMS"??"), ??Current Block??DownConvert???S lock,??LMS???????ship??current version?block? ??????? , ?????? ,???????DownConvert?????”_fairness_threshold“???200,????Xcurrent Block?????Scurrent, ????LMS?????Current Version?Data Block: SQL> show parameter fair NAME TYPE VALUE ------------------------------------ ----------- ------------------------------ _fairness_threshold integer 200 Instance 1: SQL> update test set id=id+1 where id=4; 1 row updated. Instance 2: SQL> update test set id=id+1 where id=2; 1 row updated. SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 1 0 3 1838166 ?Instance 1? ????,? ??instance 2? v$cr_block_server?? instance 1 SQL> select * from test; ID ---------- 10 3 instance 2: SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 1 0 3 1883707 8 0 SQL> select * from test; ID ---------- 10 3 SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 1 0 3 1883707 8 0 ................... SQL> / STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 2 0 3 1883707 3 1883695 repeat cr request on Instance 1 SQL> / STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 8 0 3 1883707 3 1883695 ??????_fairness_threshold????????,?????200 ????????CR serve??Downgrade?lock, ????data block? CR Request????Receive? Current Block?

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• Post MIX10 Decompression

  - by Dave Campbell

  With a big dose of reality, I walked into this place this morning and found out "yeah, I really do write .NET web apps and MS Access for a living" :( ... but it pays the bills and I've gotten *way* used to eating 3 times a day :) MIX10 was great, although the buzz didn't seem as big as MIX09, and I'm not sure why. It also seemed like a different crowd and other folks I talked to agreed with that. Of course now I can outwardly admit that the "Windows Phone 7 Series" is programmed with Silverlight ... how cool is that? I've been biting my tongue about that info for over a month! I cloistered myself in Ballroom A for the week, not counting the Keynotes. That's where the phone sessions were located. I tried to collect the full set, but ended up bailing on the last one because it was ending at the time that MIX10 was ending, and I hadn't spent a whole lot of time in 'The Commons'. I met a bunch of folks I've blogged about, or exchanged email with, and that's always fun. Renewed associations with folks I only see once or twice a year and way too long a list and don't want to mention some and leave off others... I did have an opportunity to meet Charles Petzold... wow that was interesting... I got into Windows development through Charles' Programming Windows 3.1 book 'back in the day' ... couldn't find anyone at Honeywell wanted to join my journey, so it was just me and 'Chuck' :) ... read every word of that book more than once... all marked up, tags sticking out of it. And now he's writing a WP7 book ... gotta get it: Free ebook: Programming Windows Phone 7 Series (DRAFT Preview) I went through my Big List-o-BlogsTM last night and it took over 2 hours because of all the new content since MIX10. I've got 90 posts tagged as of 9PM on 3/21. If everybody stopped right now, it would take me 9 days to push what I have now, so you'll have to be patient! I had another event on Thursday that was *extremely* tiring, so I ended up staying over another night. I drove back into the strip on Friday morning to try to find a non-cheesy souvenir for my wife, and didn't find much. Then I went to Blueberry Hill restaurant for 3 eggs, 3 strips of bacon, and 3 awesome potato pancakes. Check them out if you have time! And then hit the road. In case anyone is wondering, the 2-1/2 hour drive I took across Hoover Dam on Sunday afternoon only took 30 minutes on Friday afternoon... that was a more normal trip! I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with everyone. Thanks to John Papa and his crew for the great Insider's party on Monday night... the Blues Brothers were a fun surprise and they did a good job! And the swag was great... thanks to all the contributors for a fun evening at their expense! All I can say is stay tuned, go to live.visitmix.com/videos and watch everything, get the phone tools, start working... everything's different and everything's fun... jump in, it's all Silverlight! Stay in the 'Light! Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone     MIX10

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• When Less is More

  - by aditya.agarkar

  How do you reconcile the fact that while the overall warehouse volume is down you still need more workers in the warehouse to ship all the orders? A WMS customer recently pointed out this seemingly perplexing fact in a customer conference. So what is going on? Didn't we tell you before that for a warehouse the customer is really the "king"? In this case customers are merely responding to a low overall low demand and uncertainty. They do not want to hold down inventory and one of the ways to do that is by decreasing the order size and ordering more frequently. Overall impact to the warehouse? Two words: "More work!!" This is not all. Smaller order sizes also mean challenges from a transportation perspective including a rise in costlier parcel or LTL shipments instead of cheaper TL shipments. Here is a hypothetical scenario where a customer reduces the order size by 10% and increases the order frequency by 10%. As you can see in the following table, the overall volume declines by 1% but the warehouse has to ship roughly 10% more lines. Order Frequency (Line Count)Order Size (Units)Total VolumeChange (%)10010010,000 -110909,900-1% If you want to see how "Less is More" in graphical terms, this is how it appears: Even though the volume is down, there is going to be more work in the warehouse in terms of number of lines shipped. The operators need to pick more discrete orders, pack them into more shipping containers and ship more deliveries. What do you do differently if you are facing this situation?In this case here are some obvious steps to take:Uno: Change your pick methods. If you are used to doing order picks, it needs to go out the door. You need to evaluate batch picking and grouping techniques. Go for cluster picking, go for zone picking, pick and pass...anything that improves your picker productivity. More than anything, cluster picking works like a charm and above all, its simple and very effective. Dos: Are you minimize "touch" points in your pick process? Consider doing one step pick, pack and confirm i.e. pick and pack stuff directly into shipping cartons. Done correctly the container will not require any more "touch" points all the way to the trailer loading. Use cartonization!Tres: Are the being picked from an optimized pick face? Are the items slotted correctly? This needs to be looked into. Consider automated "pull" or "push" replenishment into your pick face and also make sure that high demand items are occupying the golden zones.  Cuatro: Are you tracking labor productivity? If not there needs to be a concerted push for having labor standards in place. Hope you found these ideas useful.

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• Set App Windows to Always be on Top

  - by Asian Angel

  Sometimes you have a small app or other software that you want to keep topmost but how do you keep it on top without a lot of hassle? If this sounds like your situation then you might want to have a look at OnTop. Before For our example we had four individual apps open…any of the four could easily be on top at the moment. OnTop in Action The exe file for the app comes in a zip file. Simply unzip the file, place it in the Program Files Folder, create a shortcut and you are ready to go. Once you start OnTop you will see a new System Tray Icon…right click to access the Context Menu with a list of currently open apps. We decided to set Winamp to be always topmost first. Note: OnTop detected all three individual sections of our Winamp Player along with the individual monitors running in our Taskbar. Clicking on Paint.NET brought it forward over Firefox and Microsoft Word but Winamp was still sitting on top. Clicking on Microsoft Word next still did not affect Winamp’s topmost status. Nice. As soon as we switched the topmost status to Microsoft Word you can see that it immediately came to the front. One thing that we did note in our tests…the best method for switching topmost status is either to choose a different app or close the app that was topmost. Conclusion OnTop might be considered niche software but if you have an app window that you need to keep on top of other windows then you might want to give this small app a try. Links Download OnTop at Softpedia Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Use the Windows Key for the "Start" Menu in Ubuntu LinuxIncrease the Cached Logon Count for Windows Computers on a DomainUsing Windows 7 or Vista Compatibility ModeQuick Tip: Change the Registered Owner in WindowsMake Safari Stop Crashing Every 20 Seconds on Windows Vista 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 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate Customize Everything Related to Dates, Times, Currency and Measurement in Windows 7 Google Earth replacement Icon (Icons we like) Build Great Charts in Excel with Chart Advisor tinysong gives a shortened URL for you to post on Twitter (or anywhere)

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• simple collision detection with box2dweb

  - by skywalker

  im beginner in box2dweb that version of box2d for javascript i wrote simple gravity system and i want to detect the collision between the box and the ground , when the falling box hit the ground execute simple function like function sucs(){alert("the box on the floor !")}; this is my code var CANVAS_WIDTH = 1024, CANVAS_HEIGHT = 700, SCALE = 30; var b2Vec2 = Box2D.Common.Math.b2Vec2 , b2BodyDef = Box2D.Dynamics.b2BodyDef , b2Body = Box2D.Dynamics.b2Body , b2FixtureDef = Box2D.Dynamics.b2FixtureDef , b2Fixture = Box2D.Dynamics.b2Fixture , b2World = Box2D.Dynamics.b2World , b2MassData = Box2D.Collision.Shapes.b2MassData , b2PolygonShape = Box2D.Collision.Shapes.b2PolygonShape , b2CircleShape = Box2D.Collision.Shapes.b2CircleShape , b2DebugDraw = Box2D.Dynamics.b2DebugDraw; var canvas = document.getElementById("canvas"); var context = canvas.getContext("2d"); var world = new b2World(new b2Vec2(0, 8), true); var fixDef = new b2FixtureDef(); var bodyDef = new b2BodyDef(); fixDef.density = 1.0; fixDef.friction = 0.5; bodyDef.type = b2Body.b2_staticBody; fixDef.shape = new b2PolygonShape; fixDef.shape.SetAsBox(20, 2); bodyDef.position.Set(10, 400 / 30 + 1.8); world.CreateBody(bodyDef).CreateFixture(fixDef); fixDef.density = 1.0; fixDef.friction = 0.5; fixDef.restitution = 0.3; bodyDef.type = b2Body.b2_dynamicBody; bodyDef.position.Set(50 / SCALE, 0 / SCALE); //bodyDef.linearVelocity.Set((Math.random() * 12) + 2, (Math.random() * 12) + 2); fixDef.shape = new b2PolygonShape(); fixDef.shape.SetAsBox(25 / SCALE, 25 / SCALE); world.CreateBody(bodyDef).CreateFixture(fixDef); var debugDraw = new b2DebugDraw(); debugDraw.SetSprite(document.getElementById("canvas").getContext("2d")); debugDraw.SetDrawScale(30.0); debugDraw.SetFillAlpha(0.5); debugDraw.SetLineThickness(1.0); debugDraw.SetFlags(b2DebugDraw.e_shapeBit | b2DebugDraw.e_jointBit); world.SetDebugDraw(debugDraw); var image = new Image(); image.src = "image.png"; window.setInterval(gameLoop, 1000 / 60); function gameLoop() { world.Step(1 / 60, 8, 3); world.ClearForces(); context.clearRect(0, 0, CANVAS_WIDTH, CANVAS_HEIGHT); b = world.GetBodyList() var pos = b.GetPosition(); context.save(); context.translate(pos.x * SCALE, pos.y * SCALE); context.rotate(b.GetAngle()); context.drawImage(image, -25, -25); context.restore(); b = b.GetNext(); pos = b.GetPosition(); context.save(); context.translate(pos.x * SCALE, pos.y * SCALE); //b.GetAngle()++; context.rotate(b.GetAngle()); context.drawImage(image, -25, -25); context.restore(); world.DrawDebugData(); };

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• Chunking a List - .NET vs Python

  - by Abhijeet Patel

  Chunking a List As I mentioned last time, I'm knee deep in python these days. I come from a statically typed background so it's definitely a mental adjustment. List comprehensions is BIG in Python and having worked with a few of them I can see why. Let's say we need to chunk a list into sublists of a specified size. Here is how we'd do it in C#  static class Extensions   {       public static IEnumerable<List<T>> Chunk<T>(this List<T> l, int chunkSize)       {           if (chunkSize <0)           {               throw new ArgumentException("chunkSize cannot be negative", "chunkSize");           }           for (int i = 0; i < l.Count; i += chunkSize)           {               yield return new List<T>(l.Skip(i).Take(chunkSize));           }       }    }    static void Main(string[] args)  {           var l = new List<string> { "a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f","g" };             foreach (var list in l.Chunk(7))           {               string str = list.Aggregate((s1, s2) => s1 + "," + s2);               Console.WriteLine(str);           }   }   A little wordy but still pretty concise thanks to LINQ.We skip the iteration number plus chunkSize elements and yield out a new List of chunkSize elements on each iteration. The python implementation is a bit more terse. def chunkIterable(iter, chunkSize):      '''Chunks an iterable         object into a list of the specified chunkSize     '''        assert hasattr(iter, "__iter__"), "iter is not an iterable"      for i in xrange(0, len(iter), chunkSize):          yield iter[i:i + chunkSize]    if __name__ == '__main__':      l = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f']      generator = chunkIterable(l,2)      try:          while(1):              print generator.next()      except StopIteration:          pass   xrange generates elements in the specified range taking in a seed and returning a generator. which can be used in a for loop(much like using a C# iterator in a foreach loop) Since chunkIterable has a yield statement, it turns this method into a generator as well. iter[i:i + chunkSize] essentially slices the list based on the current iteration index and chunksize and creates a new list that we yield out to the caller one at a time. A generator much like an iterator is a state machine and each subsequent call to it remembers the state at which the last call left off and resumes execution from that point. The caveat to keep in mind is that since variables are not explicitly typed we need to ensure that the object passed in is iterable using hasattr(iter, "__iter__").This way we can perform chunking on any object which is an "iterable", very similar to accepting an IEnumerable in the .NET land

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• ASP.NET Routing not working on IIS 7.0

  - by Rick Strahl

  I ran into a nasty little problem today when deploying an application using ASP.NET 4.0 Routing to my live server. The application and its Routing were working just fine on my dev machine (Windows 7 and IIS 7.5), but when I deployed (Windows 2008 R1 and IIS 7.0) Routing would just not work. Every time I hit a routed url IIS would just throw up a 404 error: This is an IIS error, not an ASP.NET error so this doesn’t actually come from ASP.NET’s routing engine but from IIS’s handling of expressionless URLs. Note that it’s clearly falling through all the way to the StaticFile handler which is the last handler to fire in the typical IIS handler list. In other words IIS is trying to parse the extension less URL and not firing it into ASP.NET but failing. As I mentioned on my local machine this all worked fine and to make sure local and live setups match I re-copied my Web.config, double checked handler mappings in IIS and re-copied the actual application assemblies to the server. It all looked exactly matched. However no workey on the server with IIS 7.0!!! Finally, totally by chance, I remembered the runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests attribute flag on the modules key in web.config and set it to true: <system.webServer> <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"> <add name="ScriptCompressionModule" type="Westwind.Web.ScriptCompressionModule,Westwind.Web" /> </modules> </system.webServer> And lo and behold, Routing started working on the live server and IIS 7.0! This seems really obvious now of course, but the really tricky thing about this is that on IIS 7.5 this key is not necessary. So on my Windows 7 machine ASP.NET Routing was working just fine without the key set. However on IIS 7.0 on my live server the same missing setting was not working. On IIS 7.0 this key must be present or Routing will not work. Oddly on IIS 7.5 it appears that you can’t even turn off the behavior – setting runtAllManagedModuleForAllRequests="false" had no effect at all and Routing continued to work just fine even with the flag set to false, which is NOT what I would have expected. Kind of disappointing too that Windows Server 2008 (R1) can’t be upgraded to IIS 7.5. It sure seems like that should have been possible since the OS server core changes in R2 are pretty minor. For the future I really hope Microsoft will allow updating IIS versions without tying them explicitly to the OS. It looks like that with the release of IIS Express Microsoft has taken some steps to untie some of those tight OS links from IIS. Let’s hope that’s the case for the future – it sure is nice to run the same IIS version on dev and live boxes, but upgrading live servers is too big a deal to do just because an updated OS release came out. Moral of the story – never assume that your dev setup will work as is on the live setup. It took me forever to figure this out because I assumed that because my web.config on the local machine was fine and working and I copied all relevant web.config data to the server it can’t be the configuration settings. I was looking everywhere but in the .config file forever before getting desperate and remembering the flag when I accidentally checked the intellisense settings in the modules key. Never assume anything. The other moral is: Try to keep your dev machine and server OS’s in sync whenever possible. Maybe it’s time to upgrade to Windows Server 2008 R2 after all. More info on Extensionless URLs in IIS Want to find out more exactly on how extensionless Urls work on IIS 7? The check out  How ASP.NET MVC Routing Works and its Impact on the Performance of Static Requests which goes into great detail on the complexities of the process. Thanks to Jeff Graves for pointing me at this article – a great linked reference for this topic!© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in IIS7  Windows  

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• SQL 2005 Transaction Rollback Hung–unresolved deadlock

  - by steveh99999

  Encountered an interesting issue recently with a SQL 2005 sp3 Enterprise Edition system. Every weekend, a full database reindex was being run on this system – normally this took around one and a half hours. Then, one weekend, the job ran for over 17 hours  - and had yet to complete... At this point, DBA cancelled the job. Job status is now cancelled – issue over…   However, cancelling the job had not killed the reindex transaction – DBCC OPENTRAN was still showing the transaction being open. The oldest open transaction in the database was now over 17 hours old.  Consequently, transaction log % used growing dramatically and locks still being held in the database... Further attempts to kill the transaction did nothing. ie we had a transaction which could not be killed. In sysprocesses, it was apparent the SPID was in rollback status, but the spid was not accumulating CPU or IO. Was the SPID stuck ? On examination of the SQL errorlog – shortly after the reindex had started, a whole bunch of deadlock output had been produced by trace flag 1222. Then this :- spid5s      ***Stack Dump being sent to   xxxxxxx\SQLDump0042.txt spid5s      * ******************************************************************************* spid5s      * spid5s      * BEGIN STACK DUMP: spid5s      *   12/05/10 01:04:47 spid 5 spid5s      * spid5s      * Unresolved deadlock spid5s      * spid5s      *   spid5s      * ******************************************************************************* spid5s      * ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- spid5s      * Short Stack Dump spid5s      Stack Signature for the dump is 0x000001D7 spid5s      External dump process return code 0x20000001. Unresolved deadlock – don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these before…. A quick call to Microsoft support confirmed the following bug had been hit :- http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961479 So, only option to get rid of the hung spid – to restart SQL Server… Fortunately SQL Server restarted without any issues. I was pleasantly surprised to see that recovery on this particular database was fast. However, restarting SQL Server to fix an issue is not something I would normally rush to do... Short term fix – the reindex was changed to use MAXDOP of 1. Longer term fix will be to apply the correct CU, or wait for SQL 2005 sp 4 ?? This should be released any day soon I hope..

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• SQL SERVER – Various Leap Year Logics

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier I wrote one article on Leap Year and created one video about Leap Year. My point of view was to demonstrate how we can use SQL Server 2012 features to identify Leap year. How ever during the conversation I had some really good conversation. Here are updates for those who have missed reading the excellent comments on the blog. Incorrect Logic There are so many people still think Leap Year is the event which is consistently happening at every four year and the way to find it is divide the year with 4 and if the remainder is 0. That year is leap year. Well, it is not correct. Comment by David Bridge Check out this excerpt from wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year “most years that are evenly divisible by 4 are leap years…” “…Some exceptions to this rule are required since the duration of a solar year is slightly less than 365.25 days. Years that are evenly divisible by 100 are not leap years, unless they are also evenly divisible by 400, in which case they are leap years. For example, 1600 and 2000 were leap years, but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not. Similarly, 2100, 2200, 2300, 2500, 2600, 2700, 2900 and 3000 will not be leap years, but 2400 and 2800 will be.” If you use logic of divide by 4 and remainder is 0 to find leap year, you will may end up with inaccurate result. The correct way to identify the year is to figure out the days of February and if the count is 29, the year is for sure leap year. Valid Alternate Solutions Comment by sainswor99insworth IIF((@Year%4=0 AND @Year%100 != 0) OR @Year%400=0, 1,0) Comment by Madhivanan Madhivanan has written a blog post about an year ago where he listed multiple ways to find leap year. Comment by Jayan DECLARE @year INT SET @year = 2012 IF (((@year % 4 = 0) AND (@year % 100 != 0)) OR (@year % 400 = 0)) PRINT ’1' ELSE print ’0' Comment by David DECLARE @Year INT = 2012 SELECT ISDATE('2/29/' + CAST(@Year AS CHAR(4))) Comment by David Bridge Incidentally – Another approach would be to take one day off March 1st and see if it is 29. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DateTime, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Oracle Text query parser

  - by Roger Ford

  Oracle Text provides a rich query syntax which enables powerful text searches.However, this syntax isn't intended for use by inexperienced end-users.  If you provide a simple search box in your application, you probably want users to be able to type "Google-like" searches into the box, and have your application convert that into something that Oracle Text understands.For example if your user types "windows nt networking" then you probably want to convert this into something like"windows ACCUM nt ACCUM networking".  But beware - "NT" is a reserved word, and needs to be escaped.  So let's escape all words:"{windows} ACCUM {nt} ACCUM {networking}".  That's fine - until you start introducing wild cards. Then you must escape only non-wildcarded searches:"win% ACCUM {nt} ACCUM {networking}".  There are quite a few other "gotchas" that you might encounter along the way.Then there's the issue of scoring.  Given a query for "oracle text query syntax", it would be nice if we could score a full phrase match higher than a hit where all four words are present but not in a phrase.  And then perhaps lower than that would be a document where three of the four terms are present.  Progressive relaxation helps you with this, but you need to code the "progression" yourself in most cases.To help with this, I've developed a query parser which will take queries in Google-like syntax, and convert them into Oracle Text queries. It's designed to be as flexible as possible, and will generate either simple queries or progressive relaxation queries. The input string will typically just be a string of words, such as "oracle text query syntax" but the grammar does allow for more complex expressions:  word : score will be improved if word exists  +word : word must exist  -word : word CANNOT exist  "phrase words" : words treated as phrase (may be preceded by + or -)  field:(expression) : find expression (which allows +,- and phrase as above) within "field". So for example if I searched for   +"oracle text" query +syntax -ctxcatThen the results would have to contain the phrase "oracle text" and the word syntax. Any documents mentioning ctxcat would be excluded from the results. All the instructions are in the top of the file (see "Downloads" at the bottom of this blog entry).  Please download the file, read the instructions, then try it out by running "parser.pls" in either SQL*Plus or SQL Developer.I am also uploading a test file "test.sql". You can run this and/or modify it to run your own tests or run against your own text index. test.sql is designed to be run from SQL*Plus and may not produce useful output in SQL Developer (or it may, I haven't tried it).I'm putting the code up here for testing and comments. I don't consider it "production ready" at this point, but would welcome feedback.  I'm particularly interested in comments such as "The instructions are unclear - I couldn't figure out how to do XXX" "It didn't work in my environment" (please provide as many details as possible) "We can't use it in our application" (why not?) "It needs to support XXX feature" "It produced an invalid query output when I fed in XXXX" Downloads: parser.pls test.sql

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• Playing NSF music in FMOD.net

  - by Tesserex

  So, as the title says, I want to be able to play NSF files using FMOD, because my project already uses FMOD and I'd rather not replace it. This will involve figuring out how existing players and emulators work and porting it. I haven't yet found an existing player that uses FMOD. My starting point is the MyNes source from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mynes/. There are two big steps between here and what I'm looking for. MyNes plays from a ROM, not NSF. So, I have to rip out the APU and get it to play NSF files. The MyNes APU uses SlimDX, so I have to convert that to FMOD.NET. I am really stuck about how to go about either of these, because I'm not that familiar with audio formats and it's hard finding resources online. So here are a few questions: From what I can tell from the NSF spec at http://kevtris.org/nes/nsfspec.txt, it's just contains the relevant memory section of the ROM, plus the header. If anyone can verify or correct this that would be great. The emulator APU uses data from the rest of the emulator to play, including things like cycle counts. I'm not sure what replaces this in a standalone player. Can't I just load all the music data at once into a stream and play it? Joining #1 and #2, does the header data from the NSF substitute for some of the ROM data in the emulator code? Using FMOD, will I be following the usercreatedsound example for loading a stream? And does this format count as PCM? Specifically MyNes says PCM8. Any tips on loading / playing the stream in FMOD are appreciated. As an aside, I don't really understand the loading / playing sections of the spec I linked at all. It seems to apply to 6502 systems / emulators only and not to my situation. I know it's a long shot for anyone here to have enough experience in this area to help, but anything you can provide is definitely appreciated. A link to an existing .NET library that does this would be even better, but I don't believe one exists.

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• Make Text and Images Easier to Read with the Windows 7 Magnifier

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Do you have impaired vision or find it difficult to read small print on your computer screen? Today, we’ll take a closer look at how to magnify that hard to read content with the Magnifier in Windows 7. Magnifier was available in previous versions of Windows, but the Windows 7 version comes with some notable improvements. There are now three screen modes in Magnifier. Full Screen and Lens mode, however, require Windows Aero to be enabled. If your computer doesn’t support Aero, or if you’re not using am Aero theme, Magnifier will only work in Docked mode. Using Magnifier in Windows 7 You can find the Magnifier by going to Start > All Programs > Accessories > Ease of Access > Magnifier.   Alternately, you can type magnifier into the Search box in the Start Menu and hit Enter. On the Magnifier toolbar, choose your View mode by clicking Views and choosing from the available options. Clicking the plus (+) and minus (-) buttons will zoom in or zoom out. You can change the zoom in/out percentage by adjusting the slider bar. You can also enable color inversion and select tracking options. Click OK when finished to save your settings.   After a brief period, the Magnifier Toolbar will switch to a magnifying glass icon. Simply click the magnifying glass to display the Magnifier Toolbar again.   Docked Mode In Docked mode, a portion of the screen is magnified and docked at the top of the screen. The rest of your desktop will remain in it’s normal state. You can then control which area of the screen is magnified by moving your mouse.   Full Screen Mode This magnifies your entire screen and follows your mouse as you move it around. If you loose track of where you are on the screen, use the Ctrl + Alt + Spacebar shortcut to preview where your mouse pointer is on the screen.   Lens Mode The Lens screen mode is similar to holding a magnifying glass up to your screen. Full screen mode magnifies the area around the mouse. The magnified area moves around the screen with your mouse.    Shortcut Keys Windows key + (+) to zoom in Windows key + (-) to zoom out Windows key + ESC to exit Ctrl + Alt + F – Full screen mode Ctrl + Alt + L – Lens mode Ctrl + Alt + D – Dock mode Ctrl + Alt + R – Resize the lens Ctrl + Alt + Spacebar – Preview full screen Conclusion Windows Magnifier is a nice little tool if you have impaired vision or just need to make items on the screen easier to read. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips New Features in WordPad and Paint in Windows 7How-To Geek on Lifehacker: How to Make Windows Vista Less AnnoyingUsing Comments in Word 2007 DocumentsMake Your PC Look Like Windows Phone 7Use Image Placeholders to Display Documents Faster in Word 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 HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Windows Media Player Plus! – Cool WMP Enhancer Get Your Team’s World Cup Schedule In Google Calendar Backup Drivers With Driver Magician TubeSort: YouTube Playlist Organizer XPS file format & XPS Viewer Explained Microsoft Office Web Apps Guide

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• Angry Bird Makers: Developers Love iOS Over Android To Make Money

  - by Gopinath

  These days web is buzzing with Apple iOS vs Google Android debates. Recently Fortune predicted that Android is going to explode in 2011 and it will surpass Apple’s iOS market share. Yes Android is set to spread its wings across all the devices – smartphones, TVs, set top boxes, in car entertainment devices, what not. Think of any device that requires operating system, Android can be used. On the other than iOS is only available on very selective Apple devices – iPods, iPhones and iPads. When it comes to the count of devices running on a specific OS, Android will be far ahead of iOS but when you consider a quality of devices and providing an eco system for business to make money iOS seems to be the winner. That is what experts and analysts are saysing. Here is an excerpt from Peter Vesterbacka, maker of the popular Angry Birds game, interview to Tech N Marketing site.  He says Apple will be the number one platform for a long time from a developer perspective, they have gotten so many things right. And they know what they are doing and they call the shots. Android is growing, but it’s also growing complexity at the same time. Device fragmentation not the issue, but rather the fragmentation of the ecosystem. So many different shops, so many different models. The carriers messing with the experience again. Open but not really open, a very Google centric ecosystem. And paid content just doesn’t work on Android. Peter says developer prefer iOS over Android as it’s not very easy to make money on Android market. That’s why they released a free version of Angry Birds game with ads support for Android devices. Free is the way to go with Android. Nobody has been successful selling content on Android. We will offer a way to remove the ads by paying for the app, but we don’t expect that to be a huge revenue stream. You can read full interview here. cc image credit: flickr/johanl This article titled,Angry Bird Makers: Developers Love iOS Over Android To Make Money, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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• Windows Azure Use Case: High-Performance Computing (HPC)

  - by BuckWoody

  This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx  Description: High-Performance Computing (also called Technical Computing) at its most simplistic is a layout of computer workloads where a “head node” accepts work requests, and parses them out to “worker nodes'”. This is useful in cases such as scientific simulations, drug research, MatLab work and where other large compute loads are required. It’s not the immediate-result type computing many are used to; instead, a “job” or group of work requests is sent to a cluster of computers and the worker nodes work on individual parts of the calculations and return the work to the scheduler or head node for the requestor in a batch-request fashion. This is typical to the way that many mainframe computing use-cases work. You can use commodity-based computers to create an HPC Cluster, such as the Linux application called Beowulf, and Microsoft has a server product for HPC using standard computers, called the Windows Compute Cluster that you can read more about here. The issue with HPC (from any vendor) that some organization have is the amount of compute nodes they need. Having too many results in excess infrastructure, including computers, buildings, storage, heat and so on. Having too few means that the work is slower, and takes longer to return a result to the calling application. Unless there is a consistent level of work requested, predicting the number of nodes is problematic. Implementation: Recently, Microsoft announced an internal partnership between the HPC group (Now called the Technical Computing Group) and Windows Azure. You now have two options for implementing an HPC environment using Windows. You can extend the current infrastructure you have for HPC by adding in Compute Nodes in Windows Azure, using a “Broker Node”.  You can then purchase time for adding machines, and then stop paying for them when the work is completed. This is a common pattern in groups that have a constant need for HPC, but need to “burst” that load count under certain conditions. The second option is to install only a Head Node and a Broker Node onsite, and host all Compute Nodes in Windows Azure. This is often the pattern for organizations that need HPC on a scheduled and periodic basis, such as financial analysis or actuarial table calculations. References: Blog entry on Hybrid HPC with Windows Azure: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ignitionshowcase/archive/2010/12/13/high-performance-computing-on-premise-and-in-the-windows-azure-cloud.aspx  Links for further research on HPC, includes Windows Azure information: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ncdevguy/archive/2011/02/16/handy-links-for-hpc-and-azure.aspx 

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• BIP BIServer Query Debug

  - by Tim Dexter

  With some help from Bryan, I have uncovered a way of being able to debug or at least log what BIServer is doing when BIP sends it a query request. This is not for those of you querying the database directly but if you are using the BIServer and its datamodel to fetch data for a BIP report. If you have written or used the query builder against BIServer and when you run the report it chokes with a cryptic message, that you have no clue about, read on. When BIP runs a piece of BIServer logical SQL to fetch data. It does not appear to validate it, it just passes it through, so what is BIServer doing on its end? As you may know, you are not writing regular physical sql its actually logical sql e.g. select Jobs."Job Title" as "Job Title", Employees."Last Name" as "Last Name", Employees.Salary as Salary, Locations."Department Name" as "Department Name", Locations."Country Name" as "Country Name", Locations."Region Name" as "Region Name" from HR.Locations Locations, HR.Employees Employees, HR.Jobs Jobs The tables might not even be a physical tables, we don't care, that's what the BIServer and its model are for. You have put all the effort into building the model, just go get me the data from where ever it might be. The BIServer takes the logical sql and uses its vast brain to work out what the physical SQL is, executes it and passes the result back to BIP. select distinct T32556.JOB_TITLE as c1, T32543.LAST_NAME as c2, T32543.SALARY as c3, T32537.DEPARTMENT_NAME as c4, T32532.COUNTRY_NAME as c5, T32577.REGION_NAME as c6 from JOBS T32556, REGIONS T32577, COUNTRIES T32532, LOCATIONS T32569, DEPARTMENTS T32537, EMPLOYEES T32543 where ( T32532.COUNTRY_ID = T32569.COUNTRY_ID and T32532.REGION_ID = T32577.REGION_ID and T32537.DEPARTMENT_ID = T32543.DEPARTMENT_ID and T32537.LOCATION_ID = T32569.LOCATION_ID and T32543.JOB_ID = T32556.JOB_ID ) Not a very tough example I know but you get the idea. How do I know what the BIServer is up to? How can I find out what the issue might be if BIServer chokes on my query? There are a couple of steps: In the Administrator tool you need to set the logging level for the Administrator user to something greater than the default '0'. '7' is going to give you the max. Just remember to take it back down after you have finished the debug. I needed to bounce my BIServer service Now here's the secret sauce. Prefix the following to your BIP query set variable LOGLEVEL = 7; Set the log level to that you have in the admin tool Now run your BIP report. With the prefix in place; BIServer will write to the NQQuery.log file. This is located in the ./OracleBI/server/Log directory. In there you are going to find the complete process the BIServer has gone through to try and get the data back for you A quick note, if the BIServer can, its going to hit that great BIEE cache to get your data and you may not see the full log. IF this is the case. Get inot hte Administration page (via the browser login) and clear out your BIP report cursor. Then re-run. This will hopefully help out if you are trying to debug that annoying BIP report that will not run or is getting some strange data. Don't forget to turn that logging level back down once you are done. This will avoid the DBA screaming at you for sucking up all the disk space on the system.

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• BoundingBox created from mesh to origin, making it bigger

  - by Gunnar Södergren

  I'm working on a level-based survival game and I want to design my scenes in Maya and export them as a single model (with multiple meshes) into XNA. My problem is that when I try to create Bounding Boxes(for Collision purposes) for each of the meshes, the are calculated from origin to the far-end of the current mesh, so to speak. I'm thinking that it might have something to do with the position each mesh brings from Maya and that it's interpreted wrongly... or something. Here's the code for when I create the boxes: private static BoundingBox CreateBoundingBox(Model model, ModelMesh mesh) { Matrix[] boneTransforms = new Matrix[model.Bones.Count]; model.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(boneTransforms); BoundingBox result = new BoundingBox(); foreach (ModelMeshPart meshPart in mesh.MeshParts) { BoundingBox? meshPartBoundingBox = GetBoundingBox(meshPart, boneTransforms[mesh.ParentBone.Index]); if (meshPartBoundingBox != null) result = BoundingBox.CreateMerged(result, meshPartBoundingBox.Value); } result = new BoundingBox(result.Min, result.Max); return result; } private static BoundingBox? GetBoundingBox(ModelMeshPart meshPart, Matrix transform) { if (meshPart.VertexBuffer == null) return null; Vector3[] positions = VertexElementExtractor.GetVertexElement(meshPart, VertexElementUsage.Position); if (positions == null) return null; Vector3[] transformedPositions = new Vector3[positions.Length]; Vector3.Transform(positions, ref transform, transformedPositions); for (int i = 0; i < transformedPositions.Length; i++) { Console.WriteLine(" " + transformedPositions[i]); } return BoundingBox.CreateFromPoints(transformedPositions); } public static class VertexElementExtractor { public static Vector3[] GetVertexElement(ModelMeshPart meshPart, VertexElementUsage usage) { VertexDeclaration vd = meshPart.VertexBuffer.VertexDeclaration; VertexElement[] elements = vd.GetVertexElements(); Func<VertexElement, bool> elementPredicate = ve => ve.VertexElementUsage == usage && ve.VertexElementFormat == VertexElementFormat.Vector3; if (!elements.Any(elementPredicate)) return null; VertexElement element = elements.First(elementPredicate); Vector3[] vertexData = new Vector3[meshPart.NumVertices]; meshPart.VertexBuffer.GetData((meshPart.VertexOffset * vd.VertexStride) + element.Offset, vertexData, 0, vertexData.Length, vd.VertexStride); return vertexData; } } Here's a link to the picture of the mesh(The model holds six meshes, but I'm only rendering one and it's bounding box to make it clearer: http://www.gsodergren.se/portfolio/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Screen-shot-2011-10-24-at-1.16.37-AM.png The mesh that I'm refering to is the Cubelike one. The cylinder is a completely different model and not part of any bounding box calculation. I've double- (and tripple-)-checked that this mesh corresponds to this bounding box. Any thoughts on what I'm doing wrong?

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• SQL SERVER – ASYNC_IO_COMPLETION – Wait Type – Day 11 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  For any good system three things are vital: CPU, Memory and IO (disk). Among these three, IO is the most crucial factor of SQL Server. Looking at real-world cases, I do not see IT people upgrading CPU and Memory frequently. However, the disk is often upgraded for either improving the space, speed or throughput. Today we will look at another IO-related wait type. From Book On-Line: Occurs when a task is waiting for I/Os to finish. ASYNC_IO_COMPLETION Explanation: Any tasks are waiting for I/O to finish. If by any means your application that’s connected to SQL Server is processing the data very slowly, this type of wait can occur. Several long-running database operations like BACKUP, CREATE DATABASE, ALTER DATABASE or other operations can also create this wait type. Reducing ASYNC_IO_COMPLETION wait: When it is an issue related to IO, one should check for the following things associated to IO subsystem: Look at the programming and see if there is any application code which processes the data slowly (like inefficient loop, etc.). Note that it should be re-written to avoid this  wait type. Proper placing of the files is very important. We should check the file system for proper placement of the files – LDF and MDF on separate drive, TempDB on another separate drive, hot spot tables on separate filegroup (and on separate disk), etc. Check the File Statistics and see if there is a higher IO Read and IO Write Stall SQL SERVER – Get File Statistics Using fn_virtualfilestats. Check event log and error log for any errors or warnings related to IO. If you are using SAN (Storage Area Network), check the throughput of the SAN system as well as configuration of the HBA Queue Depth. In one of my recent projects, the SAN was performing really badly and so the SAN administrator did not accept it. After some investigations, he agreed to change the HBA Queue Depth on the development setup (test environment). As soon as we changed the HBA Queue Depth to quite a higher value, there was a sudden big improvement in the performance. It is very likely to happen that there are no proper indexes on the system and yet there are lots of table scans and heap scans. Creating proper index can reduce the IO bandwidth considerably. If SQL Server can use appropriate cover index instead of clustered index, it can effectively reduce lots of CPU, Memory and IO (considering cover index has lesser columns than cluster table and all other; it depends upon the situation). You can refer to the following two articles I wrote that talk about how to optimize indexes: Create Missing Indexes Drop Unused Indexes Checking Memory Related Perfmon Counters SQLServer: Memory Manager\Memory Grants Pending (Consistent higher value than 0-2) SQLServer: Memory Manager\Memory Grants Outstanding (Consistent higher value, Benchmark) SQLServer: Buffer Manager\Buffer Hit Cache Ratio (Higher is better, greater than 90% for usually smooth running system) SQLServer: Buffer Manager\Page Life Expectancy (Consistent lower value than 300 seconds) Memory: Available Mbytes (Information only) Memory: Page Faults/sec (Benchmark only) Memory: Pages/sec (Benchmark only) Checking Disk Related Perfmon Counters Average Disk sec/Read (Consistent higher value than 4-8 millisecond is not good) Average Disk sec/Write (Consistent higher value than 4-8 millisecond is not good) Average Disk Read/Write Queue Length (Consistent higher value than benchmark is not good) Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Note: The information presented here is from my experience and there is no way that I claim it to be accurate. I suggest reading Book OnLine for further clarification. All the discussions of Wait Stats in this blog are generic and vary from system to system. It is recommended that you test this on a development server before implementing it to a production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• Review: A Quick Look at Reflector

  - by James Michael Hare

  I, like many, was disappointed when I heard that Reflector 7 was not free, and perhaps that’s why I waited so long to try it and just kept using my version 6 (which continues to be free).  But though I resisted for so long, I longed for the better features that were being developed, and began to wonder if I should upgrade.  Thus, I began to look into the features being offered in Reflector 7.5 to see what was new. Multiple Editions Reflector 7.5 comes in three flavors, each building on the features of the previous version: Standard – Contains just the Standalone application ($70) VS – Same as Standard but adds Reflector Object Browser for Visual Studio ($130) VSPro – Same as VS but adds ability to set breakpoints and step into decompiled code ($190) So let’s examine each of these features. The Standalone Application (Standard, VS, VSPro editions) Popping open Reflector 7.5 and looking at the GUI, we see much of the same familiar features, with a few new ones as well: Most notably, the disassembler window now has a tabbed window with navigation buttons.  This makes it much easier to back out of a deep-dive into many layers of decompiled code back to a previous point. Also, there is now an analyzer which can be used to determine dependencies for a given method, property, type, etc. For example, if we select System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient and hit the Analyze button, we’d see a window with the following nodes we could expand: This gives us the ability to see what a given type uses, what uses it, who exposes it, and who instantiates it. Now obviously, for low-level types (like DateTime) this list would be enormous, but this can give a lot of information on how a given type is connected to the larger code ecosystem. One of the other things I like about using Reflector 7.5 is that it does a much better job of displaying iterator blocks than Reflector 6 did. For example, if you were to take a look at the Enumerable.Cast() extension method in System.Linq, and dive into the CastIterator in Reflector 6, you’d see this: But now, in Reflector 7.5, we see the iterator logic much more clearly: This is a big improvement in the quality of their code disassembler and for me was one of the main reasons I decided to take the plunge and get version 7.5. The Reflector Object Browser (VS, VSPro editions) If you have the .NET Reflector VS or VSPro editions, you’ll find you have in Visual Studio a Reflector Object Browser window available where you can select and decompile any assembly right in Visual Studio. For example, if you want to take a peek at how System.Collections.Generic.List<T> works, you can either select List<T> in the Reflector Object Browser, or even simpler just select a usage of it in your code and CTRL + Click to dive in. – And it takes you right to a source window with the decompiled source: Setting Breakpoints and Stepping Into Decompiled Code (VSPro) If you have the VSPro edition, in addition to all the things said above, you also get the additional ability to set breakpoints in this decompiled code and step through it as if it were your own code: This can be a handy feature when you need to see why your code’s use of a BCL or other third-party library isn’t working as you expect. Summary Yes, Reflector is no longer free, and yes, that’s a bit of a bummer. But it always was and still is a very fine tool. If you still have Reflector 6, you aren’t forced to upgrade any longer, but getting the nicer disassembler (especially for iterator blocks) and the handy VS integration is worth at least considering upgrading for.  So I leave it up to you, these are some of the features of Reflector 7.5, what’s your thoughts? Technorati Tags: .NET,Reflector

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• Tuning Red Gate: #3 of Lots

  - by Grant Fritchey

  I'm drilling down into the metrics about SQL Server itself available to me in the Analysis tab of SQL Monitor to see what's up with our two problematic servers. In the previous post I'd noticed that rg-sql01 had quite a few CPU spikes. So one of the first things I want to check there is how much CPU is getting used by SQL Server itself. It's possible we're looking at some other process using up all the CPU Nope, It's SQL Server. I compared this to the rg-sql02 server: You can see that there is a more, consistently low set of CPU counters there. I clearly need to look at rg-sql01 and capture more specific data around the queries running on it to identify which ones are causing these CPU spikes. I always like to look at the Batch Requests/sec on a server, not because it's an indication of a problem, but because it gives you some idea of the load. Just how much is this server getting hit? Here are rg-sql01 and rg-sql02: Of the two, clearly rg-sql01 has a lot of activity. Remember though, that's all this is a measure of, activity. It doesn't suggest anything other than what it says, the number of requests coming in. But it's the kind of thing you want to know in order to understand how the system is used. Are you seeing a correlation between the number of requests and the CPU usage, or a reverse correlation, the number of requests drops as the CPU spikes? See, it's useful. Some of the details you can look at are Compilations/sec, Compilations/Batch and Recompilations/sec. These give you some idea of how the cache is getting used within the system. None of these showed anything interesting on either server. One metric that I like (even though I know it can be controversial) is the Page Life Expectancy. On the average server I expect see a series of mountains as the PLE climbs then drops due to a data load or something along those lines. That's not the case here: Those spikes back in January suggest that the servers weren't really being used much. The PLE on the rg-sql01 seems to be somewhat consistent growing to 3 hours or so then dropping, but the rg-sql02 PLE looks like it might be all over the map. Instead of continuing to look at this high level gathering data view, I'm going to drill down on rg-sql02 and see what it's done for the last week: And now we begin to see where we might have an issue. Memory on this system is getting flushed every 1/2 hour or so. I'm going to check another metric, scans: Whoa! I'm going back to the system real quick to look at some disk information again for rg-sql02. Here is the average disk queue length on the server: and the transfers Right, I think I have a guess as to what's up here. We're seeing memory get flushed constantly and we're seeing lots of scans. The disks are queuing, especially that F drive, and there are lots of requests that correspond to the scans and the memory flushes. In short, we've got queries that are scanning the data, a lot, so we either have bad queries or bad indexes. I'm going back to the server overview for rg-sql02 and check the Top 10 expensive queries. I'm modifying it to show me the last 3 days and the totals, so I'm not looking at some maintenance routine that ran 10 minutes ago and is skewing the results: OK. I need to look into these queries that are getting executed this much. They're generating a lot of reads, but which queries are generating the most reads: Ow, all still going against the same database. This is where I'm going to temporarily leave SQL Monitor. What I want to do is connect up to the server, validate that the Warehouse database is using the F:\ drive (which I'll put money down it is) and then start seeing what's up with these queries. Part 1 of the Series Part 2 of the Series

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