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• php object : get value of attribute by computed name

  - by groovehunter

  hi simple question - How do I access an attribute of an object by name, if i compute the name at runtime? Ie. i loop over keys and want to get each value of the attributes "field_".$key In python there is getattribute(myobject, attrname) It works, of course, with eval("$val=$myobject-".$myattr.";"); but IMO this is ugly!! TIA florian

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• OpenGL Layer on top of Video on iPhone?

  - by FlorianZ

  Hi there. I am trying to display a fullscreen video on the iPhone and overlay it with an OpenGL ES view. So basically, I want a video playing in the background, while there are OpenGL graphics being drawn on top of it. How do I achieve this and is it even possible? Thanks for your help! Florian

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• drupal bootstrap script: how to get list of all nodes of type x?

  - by groovehunter

  hi. I create a custom import and export, at the moment as an external script (via bootstrap), i plan to create a module in a more generic fashion lateron. I am building a frontend for nagios and for our host management and nagios configuration btw. Maybe it might become useful for other environments (networkmanagement) Now i need to know how to get list of all nodes of type x? I want to avoid direct SQL. A suggestion i got was to make an rss and parse it but i acess the drupal db a dozen times to extract various nodes, so it feels strange to do a web request for one thing So what i am looking for as newbie drupal dev is just a pointer to basic search module api for this task TIA florian

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• Java Space on Parleys

  - by Yolande Poirier

  Now available! A great selection of JavaOne 2010 and JVM Language Summit 2010 sessions as well as Oracle Technology Network TechCasts on the new Java Space on Parleys website. Oracle partnered with Stephan Janssen, founder of Parleys to make this happen. Parleys website offers a user friendly experience to view online content. You can download some of the talks to your desktop or watch them on the go on mobile devices. The current selection is a well of expertise from top Java luminaries and Oracle experts. JavaOne 2010 sessions: ·        Best practices for signing code by Sean Mullan   ·        Building software using rich client platforms by Rickard Thulin ·        Developing beyond the component libraries by Ryan Cuprak ·        Java API for keyhole markup language by Florian Bachmann ·        Avoiding common user experience anti-patterns by Burk Hufnagel ·        Accelerating Java workloads via GPUs by Gary Frost JVM Languages Summit 2010 sessions: ·      Mixed language project compilation in Eclipse by Andy Clement  ·      Gathering the threads by John Rose  ·      LINQ: language features for concurrency by Neal Gafter  ·      Improvements in OpenJDK useful for JVM languages by Eric Caspole  ·      Symmetric Multilanguage - VM Architecture by Oleg Pliss  Special interviews with Oracle experts on product innovations: ·      Ludovic Champenois, Java EE architect on Glassfish 3.1 and Java EE. ·      John Jullion-Ceccarelli and Martin Ryzl on NetBeans IDE 6.9 You can chose to listen to a section of talks using the agenda view and search for related content while watching a presentation.  Enjoy the Java content and vote on it! 

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• Fair Comments

  - by Tony Davis

  To what extent is good code self-documenting? In one of the most entertaining sessions I saw at the recent PASS summit, Jeremiah Peschka (blog | twitter) got a laugh out of a sleepy post-lunch audience with the following remark: "Some developers say good code is self-documenting; I say, get off my team" I silently applauded the sentiment. It's not that all comments are useful, but that I mistrust the basic premise that "my code is so clearly written, it doesn't need any comments". I've read many pieces describing the road to self-documenting code, and my problem with most of them is that they feed the myth that comments in code are a sign of weakness. They aren't; in fact, used correctly I'd say they are essential. Regardless of how far intelligent naming can get you in describing what the code does, or how well any accompanying unit tests can explain to your fellow developers why it works that way, it's no excuse not to document fully the public interfaces to your code. Maybe I just mixed with the wrong crowd while learning my favorite language, but when I open a stored procedure I lose the will even to read it unless I see a big Phil Factor- or Jeff Moden-style header summarizing in plain English what the code does, how it fits in to the broader application, and a usage example. This public interface describes the high-level process and should explain the role of the code, clearly, for fellow developers, language non-experts, and even any non-technical stake holders in the project. When you step into the body of the code, the low-level details, then I agree that the rules are somewhat different; especially when code is subject to frequent refactoring that can quickly render comments redundant or misleading. At their worst, here, inline comments are sticking plaster to cover up the scars caused by poor naming conventions, failure in clarity when mapping a complex domain into code, or just by not entirely understanding the problem (/ this is the clever part). If you design and refactor your code carefully so that it is as simple as possible, your functions do one thing only, you avoid having two completely different algorithms in the same piece of code, and your functions, classes and variables are intelligently named, then, yes, the need for inline comments should be minimal. And yet, even given this, I'd still argue that many languages (T-SQL certainly being one) just don't lend themselves to readability when performing even moderately-complex tasks. If the algorithm is complex, I still like to see the occasional helpful comment. Please, therefore, be as liberal as you see fit in the detail of the comments you apply to this editorial, for like code it is bound to increase its' clarity and usefulness. Cheers, Tony.

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• PASS Summit 2011 &ndash; Part IV

  - by Tara Kizer

  This is the final blog for my PASS Summit 2011 series.  Well okay, a mini-series, I guess. On the last day of the conference, I attended Keith Elmore’ and Boris Baryshnikov’s (both from Microsoft) “Introducing the Microsoft SQL Server Code Named “Denali” Performance Dashboard Reports, Jeremiah Peschka’s (blog|twitter) “Rewrite your T-SQL for Great Good!”, and Kimberly Tripp’s (blog|twitter) “Isolated Disasters in VLDBs”. Keith and Boris talked about the lifecycle of a session, figuring out the running time and the waiting time.  They pointed out the transient nature of the reports.  You could be drilling into it to uncover a problem, but the session may have ended by the time you’ve drilled all of the way down.  Also, the reports are for troubleshooting live problems and not historical ones.  You can use Management Data Warehouse for historical troubleshooting.  The reports provide similar benefits to the Activity Monitor, however Activity Monitor doesn’t provide context sensitive drill through. One thing I learned in Keith’s and Boris’ session was that the buffer cache hit ratio should really never be below 87% due to the read-ahead mechanism in SQL Server.  When a page is read, it will read the entire extent.  So for every page read, you get 7 more read.  If you need any of those 7 extra pages, well they are already in cache.  I had a lot of fun in Jeremiah’s session about refactoring code plus I learned a lot.  His slides were visually presented in a fun way, which just made for a more upbeat presentation.  Jeremiah says that before you start refactoring, you should look at your system.  Investigate missing or too many indexes, out-of-date statistics, and other areas that could be leading to your code running slow.  He talked about code standards.  He suggested using common abbreviations for aliases instead of one-letter aliases.  I’m a big offender of one-letter aliases, but he makes a good point.  He said that join order does not matter to the optimizer, but it does matter to those who have to read your code.  Now let’s get into refactoring! Eliminate useless things – useless/unneeded joins and columns.  If you don’t need it, get rid of it! Instead of using DISTINCT/JOIN, replace with EXISTS Simplify your conditions; use UNION or better yet UNION ALL instead of OR to avoid a scan and use indexes for each union query Branching logic – instead of IF this, IF that, and on and on…use dynamic SQL (sp_executesql, please!) or use a parameterized query in the application Correlated subqueries – YUCK! Replace with a join Eliminate repeated patterns Last, but certainly not least, was Kimberly’s session.  Kimberly is my favorite speaker.  I attended her two-day pre-conference seminar at PASS Summit 2005 as well as a SQL Immersion Event last December.  Did I mention she’s my favorite speaker?  Okay, enough of that. Kimberly’s session was packed with demos.  I had seen some of it in the SQL Immersion Event, but it was very nice to get a refresher on these, especially since I’ve got a VLDB with some growing pains.  One key takeaway from her session is the idea to use a log shipping solution with a load delay, such as 6, 8, or 24 hours behind the primary.  In the case of say an accidentally dropped table in a VLDB, we could retrieve it from the secondary database rather than waiting an eternity for a restore to complete.  Kimberly let us know that in SQL Server 2012 (it finally has a name!), online rebuilds are supported even if there are LOB columns in your table.  This will simplify custom code that intelligently figures out if an online rebuild is possible. There was actually one last time slot for sessions that day, but I had an airplane to catch and my kids to see!

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• Top 10 Linked Blogs of 2010

  - by Bill Graziano

  Each week I send out a SQL Server newsletter and include links to interesting blog posts.  I’ve linked to over 500 blog posts so far in 2010.  Late last year I started storing those links in a database so I could do a little reporting.  I tend to link to posts related to the OLTP engine.  I also try to link to the individual blogger in the group blogs.  Unfortunately that wasn’t possible for the SQLCAT and CSS blogs.  I also have a real weakness for posts related to PASS. These are the top 10 blogs that I linked to during the year ordered by the number of posts I linked to. Paul Randal – Paul writes extensively on the internals of the relational engine.  Lots of great posts around transactions, transaction log, disaster recovery, corruption, indexes and DBCC.  I also linked to many of his SQL Server myths posts. Glenn Berry – Glenn writes very interesting posts on how hardware affects SQL Server.  I especially like his posts on the various CPU platforms.  These aren’t necessarily topics that I’m searching for but I really enjoy reading them. The SQLCAT Team – This Microsoft team focuses on the largest and most interesting SQL Server installations.  The regularly publish white papers and best practices. SQL Server CSS Team – These are the top engineers from the Microsoft Customer Service and Support group.  These are the folks you finally talk to after your case has been escalated about 20 times.  They write about the interesting problems they find. Brent Ozar – The posts I linked to mostly focused on the relational engine: CPU, NUMA, SSD drives, performance monitoring, etc.  But Brent writes about a real variety of topics including blogging, social networking, speaking, the MCM, SQL Azure and anything else that seems to strike his fancy.  His posts are always well written and though provoking. Jeremiah Peschka – A number of Jeremiah’s posts weren’t about SQL Server.  He’s very active in the “NoSQL” area and I linked to a number of those posts.  I think it’s important for people to know what other technologies are out there. Brad McGehee – Brad writes about being a DBA including maintenance plans, DBA checklists, compression and audit. Thomas LaRock – I linked to a variety of posts from PBM to networking to 24 Hours of PASS to TDE.  Just a real variety of topics.  Tom always writes with an interesting style usually mixing in a movie theme and/or bacon. Aaron Bertrand – Many of my links this year were Denali features.  He also had a great series on bad habits to kick. Michael J. Swart – This last one surprised me.  There are some well known SQL Server bloggers below Michael on this list.  I linked to posts on indexes, hierarchies, transactions and I/O performance and a variety of other engine related posts.  All are interesting and well thought out.  Many of his non-SQL posts are also very good.  He seems to have an interest in puzzles and other brain teasers.  Michael, I won’t be surprised again!

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• Get Alfresco extension properties with OpenCMIS

  - by AJPerez

  I'm writing an OpenCMIS based application, which extracts some data from Alfresco 3.3. It works fine with standard CMIS properties such as cmis:name or cmis:contentStreamMimeType; however, I can't access Alfresco especific properties, which are present on the CMIS AtomPub feed as "Alfresco extensions": <cmisra:object> <cmis:properties> <cmis:propertyString propertyDefinitionId="cmis:name" displayName="Name" queryName="cmis:name"> <cmis:value>test document</cmis:value> </cmis:propertyString> <cmis:propertyString propertyDefinitionId="cmis:contentStreamMimeType" displayName="Content Stream MIME Type" queryName="cmis:contentStreamMimeType"> <cmis:value>text/html</cmis:value> </cmis:propertyString> ... <alf:aspects> ... <alf:properties> <cmis:propertyString propertyDefinitionId="cm:description" displayName="Description" queryName="cm:description"> <cmis:value>This is just a test document</cmis:value> </cmis:propertyString> </alf:properties> </alf:aspects> </cmis:properties> </cmisra:object> Is there any way in which I can get the value of cm:descripcion, with OpenCMIS? My guess is that I need to use the DocumentType interface instead of Document, and then call its getExtensions() method. But I don't know how to get an instance of DocumentType. Any help would be really appreciated. Regards Edit: altough Florian's answer already worked out for me, I've just realized that I can get these properties' values with CMIS SQL, too: select d.*, t.*, a.* from cmis:document d join cm:titled t on d.cmis:objectid = t.cmis:objectid join cm:author a on d.cmis:objectid = a.cmis:objectid where t.cm:description like ...

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• Android: How to put ListView in XML?

  - by FloIancu

  I want to make a simple app that shows a list of contacts (name, surname). My code: package lista.android; import java.util.*; import android.app.ListActivity; import android.os.Bundle; import android.widget.*; class Contact{ String nume; String prenume; Contact(String nume, String prenume){ this.nume=nume; this.prenume=prenume; } public String toString(){ return prenume +" "+ nume; } } public class Lista1Activity extends ListActivity { /** Called when the activity is first created. */ ArrayList <Contact> lista; ArrayAdapter <Contact> adaptor; @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.main); setListAdapter(adaptor); lista=new ArrayList<Contact>(); adaptor=new ArrayAdapter<Contact>(this, R.id.element, lista); adaugaContact("Florian", "Iancu"); adaugaContact("Ioana", "Constantina"); } public void adaugaContact(String nume, String prenume){ lista.add(new Contact(nume, prenume)); adaptor.notifyDataSetChanged(); } } In the XML I have the LinearLayout and a TextView that is the list element. When I run it, the simulator says "Sorry, the application [...] has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again." The LogCat tells me I have to have a ListView whose id is android.R.id.lista. If I create a random ListView field in the XML file and give it the "lista" id, it still doesn't work. How to I call that ListView from XML to match something in my Java code? In other words, I know I'm wrong, but where and how do I fix it?

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• How to use Hardware RAID in Ubuntu Server

  - by user2071938

  I have an Adaptec RAID-Controller and created an RAID-1(Mirroring) succesfully. Now I have installed Ubuntu Server 12.04.3. When I type fdisk -l I get this output: bf@fileserver:~$ sudo fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/sda doesn't contain a valid partition table Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table Disk /dev/sdc: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders, total 156301488 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x0004c454 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdc1 * 2048 499711 248832 83 Linux /dev/sdc2 501758 156301311 77899777 5 Extended /dev/sdc5 501760 156301311 77899776 8e Linux LVM Disk /dev/mapper/fileserver--vg-root: 75.6 GB, 75606523904 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9191 cylinders, total 147668992 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/mapper/fileserver--vg-root doesn't contain a valid partition table Disk /dev/mapper/ddf1_Data: 1000.1 GB, 1000065728512 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121584 cylinders, total 1953253376 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/mapper/ddf1_Data doesn't contain a valid partition table Disk /dev/mapper/fileserver--vg-swap_1: 4160 MB, 4160749568 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 505 cylinders, total 8126464 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/mapper/fileserver--vg-swap_1 doesn't contain a valid partition table The 80 GB HDD is for the System The 1000.2 GB HDD should be for my data. But I'm a bit confused becauser there are listed two 1000.2 GB HDDs, due the Hardware RAID shoudln't there be only one HDD vissible to the OS? (I have two 1000.2 GB HDDs in an Raid-1 Array) dmraid gives me bf@fileserver:~$ sudo dmraid -r /dev/sdb: ddf1, ".ddf1_disks", GROUP, ok, 1953253376 sectors, data@ 0 /dev/sda: ddf1, ".ddf1_disks", GROUP, ok, 1953253376 sectors, data@ 0 so It seems to be ok? But how do I partitionate this disks and which one should I mount(sdb or sda?) Hope you can help me thx Florian

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• Listing common SQL Code Smells.

  - by Phil Factor

  Once you’ve done a number of SQL Code-reviews, you’ll know those signs in the code that all might not be well. These ’Code Smells’ are coding styles that don’t directly cause a bug, but are indicators that all is not well with the code. . Kent Beck and Massimo Arnoldi seem to have coined the phrase in the "OnceAndOnlyOnce" page of www.C2.com, where Kent also said that code "wants to be simple". Bad Smells in Code was an essay by Kent Beck and Martin Fowler, published as Chapter 3 of the book ‘Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code’ (ISBN 978-0201485677) Although there are generic code-smells, SQL has its own particular coding habits that will alert the programmer to the need to re-factor what has been written. See Exploring Smelly Code   and Code Deodorants for Code Smells by Nick Harrison for a grounding in Code Smells in C# I’ve always been tempted by the idea of automating a preliminary code-review for SQL. It would be so useful to trawl through code and pick up the various problems, much like the classic ‘Lint’ did for C, and how the Code Metrics plug-in for .NET Reflector by Jonathan 'Peli' de Halleux is used for finding Code Smells in .NET code. The problem is that few of the standard procedural code smells are relevant to SQL, and we need an agreed list of code smells. Merrilll Aldrich made a grand start last year in his blog Top 10 T-SQL Code Smells.However, I'd like to make a start by discovering if there is a general opinion amongst Database developers what the most important SQL Smells are. One can be a bit defensive about code smells. I will cheerfully write very long stored procedures, even though they are frowned on. I’ll use dynamic SQL occasionally. You can only use them as an aid for your own judgment and it is fine to ‘sign them off’ as being appropriate in particular circumstances. Also, whole classes of ‘code smells’ may be irrelevant for a particular database. The use of proprietary SQL, for example, is only a ‘code smell’ if there is a chance that the database will have to be ported to another RDBMS. The use of dynamic SQL is a risk only with certain security models. As the saying goes,  a CodeSmell is a hint of possible bad practice to a pragmatist, but a sure sign of bad practice to a purist. Plamen Ratchev’s wonderful article Ten Common SQL Programming Mistakes lists some of these ‘code smells’ along with out-and-out mistakes, but there are more. The use of nested transactions, for example, isn’t entirely incorrect, even though the database engine ignores all but the outermost: but it does flag up the possibility that the programmer thinks that nested transactions are supported. If anything requires some sort of general agreement, the definition of code smells is one. I’m therefore going to make this Blog ‘dynamic, in that, if anyone twitters a suggestion with a #SQLCodeSmells tag (or sends me a twitter) I’ll update the list here. If you add a comment to the blog with a suggestion of what should be added or removed, I’ll do my best to oblige. In other words, I’ll try to keep this blog up to date. The name against each 'smell' is the name of the person who Twittered me, commented about or who has written about the 'smell'. it does not imply that they were the first ever to think of the smell! Use of deprecated syntax such as *= (Dave Howard) Denormalisation that requires the shredding of the contents of columns. (Merrill Aldrich) Contrived interfaces Use of deprecated datatypes such as TEXT/NTEXT (Dave Howard) Datatype mis-matches in predicates that rely on implicit conversion.(Plamen Ratchev) Using Correlated subqueries instead of a join   (Dave_Levy/ Plamen Ratchev) The use of Hints in queries, especially NOLOCK (Dave Howard /Mike Reigler) Few or No comments. Use of functions in a WHERE clause. (Anil Das) Overuse of scalar UDFs (Dave Howard, Plamen Ratchev) Excessive ‘overloading’ of routines. The use of Exec xp_cmdShell (Merrill Aldrich) Excessive use of brackets. (Dave Levy) Lack of the use of a semicolon to terminate statements Use of non-SARGable functions on indexed columns in predicates (Plamen Ratchev) Duplicated code, or strikingly similar code. Misuse of SELECT * (Plamen Ratchev) Overuse of Cursors (Everyone. Special mention to Dave Levy & Adrian Hills) Overuse of CLR routines when not necessary (Sam Stange) Same column name in different tables with different datatypes. (Ian Stirk) Use of ‘broken’ functions such as ‘ISNUMERIC’ without additional checks. Excessive use of the WHILE loop (Merrill Aldrich) INSERT ... EXEC (Merrill Aldrich) The use of stored procedures where a view is sufficient (Merrill Aldrich) Not using two-part object names (Merrill Aldrich) Using INSERT INTO without specifying the columns and their order (Merrill Aldrich) Full outer joins even when they are not needed. (Plamen Ratchev) Huge stored procedures (hundreds/thousands of lines). Stored procedures that can produce different columns, or order of columns in their results, depending on the inputs. Code that is never used. Complex and nested conditionals WHILE (not done) loops without an error exit. Variable name same as the Datatype Vague identifiers. Storing complex data  or list in a character map, bitmap or XML field User procedures with sp_ prefix (Aaron Bertrand)Views that reference views that reference views that reference views (Aaron Bertrand) Inappropriate use of sql_variant (Neil Hambly) Errors with identity scope using SCOPE_IDENTITY @@IDENTITY or IDENT_CURRENT (Neil Hambly, Aaron Bertrand) Schemas that involve multiple dated copies of the same table instead of partitions (Matt Whitfield-Atlantis UK) Scalar UDFs that do data lookups (poor man's join) (Matt Whitfield-Atlantis UK) Code that allows SQL Injection (Mladen Prajdic) Tables without clustered indexes (Matt Whitfield-Atlantis UK) Use of "SELECT DISTINCT" to mask a join problem (Nick Harrison) Multiple stored procedures with nearly identical implementation. (Nick Harrison) Excessive column aliasing may point to a problem or it could be a mapping implementation. (Nick Harrison) Joining "too many" tables in a query. (Nick Harrison) Stored procedure returning more than one record set. (Nick Harrison) A NOT LIKE condition (Nick Harrison) excessive "OR" conditions. (Nick Harrison) User procedures with sp_ prefix (Aaron Bertrand) Views that reference views that reference views that reference views (Aaron Bertrand) sp_OACreate or anything related to it (Bill Fellows) Prefixing names with tbl_, vw_, fn_, and usp_ ('tibbling') (Jeremiah Peschka) Aliases that go a,b,c,d,e... (Dave Levy/Diane McNurlan) Overweight Queries (e.g. 4 inner joins, 8 left joins, 4 derived tables, 10 subqueries, 8 clustered GUIDs, 2 UDFs, 6 case statements = 1 query) (Robert L Davis) Order by 3,2 (Dave Levy) MultiStatement Table functions which are then filtered 'Sel * from Udf() where Udf.Col = Something' (Dave Ballantyne) running a SQL 2008 system in SQL 2000 compatibility mode(John Stafford)

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• SQL Cruise Alaska 2011

  - by Grant Fritchey

  I had the extreme good fortune to get sent on the last SQL Cruise to Alaska. I love my job. In case you don't what this is, SQL Cruise is a trip on a cruise ship during which you get to attend classes while on the boat, learning all about SQL Server and related topics as well as network with the instructors and the other Cruisers. Frankly, it's amazing. Classes ran from Monday, 5/30, to Saturday, 6/4. The networking was constant, between classes, at night on cruise ship, out on excursions in Alaskan rainforests and while snorkeling in ocean waters. Here's a run down of the experience from my point of view. Because I couldn't travel out 2 days early, I missed the BBQ that occurred the day before the cruise when many of the Cruisers received their swag bags. Some of that swag came from Red Gate. I researched what was useful on a cruise like this and purchased small flashlights and binoculars for all the Cruisers. The flashlights were because, depending on your cabin, ships can be very dark. The binoculars were so that the cruisers could watch all the beautiful landscape as it flowed by. I would have liked to have been there when the bags were opened, but I heard from several people that they appreciated the gifts. Cruisers "In" the hot tub. Pictured: Marjory Woody, Michele Grondin, Kyle Brandt, Grant Fritchey, John Halunen Sunday I went to board the ship with my wife. We had a bit of an adventure because I messed up our documents. It all worked out and we got on board to meet up at the back of the boat at one of the outdoor bars with the other Cruisers, thanks to tweets letting everyone know where to go. That was the end of electronic coordination on the trip (connectivity in Alaska was horrible for everyone except AT&T). The Cruisers were a great bunch of people and it was a real honor to meet them and get to spend time with them. After everyone settled into their cabins, our very first activity was a contest, sponsored by Red Gate. The Cruisers, in an effort to get to know each other and the ship, were required to go all over taking various photographs, some of them hilarious. The winning team of three would all win prizes. Some of the significant others helped out and I tagged along with a team that tied for first but lost the coin toss. The winning team consisted of Christina Leo (blog|twitter), Ryan Malcom (twitter), Neil Hambly (blog|twitter). They then had to do math and identify the cabin with the lowest prime number, oh, and get a picture of it and be the first to get back up to the bar where we were waiting. Christina came in first and very happily carried home an Ipad2. Ryan won a 1TB portable hard drive and Neil won a wireless mouse (picture below, note my special SQL Server Central Friday Shirt. Thanks Steve (blog|twitter)). Winners: Christina Leo, Neil Hambly, Ryan Malcolm. Just Lucky: Grant Fritchey Monday morning classes started. Buck Woody (blog|twitter) was a special guest speaker on this cruise. His theme was "Three C's on the High Seas: Career, Communication and Cloud." The first session was all on Career. I'm not going to type out all my notes from the session, but let's just say, if you get the chance to hear Buck talk about how to manage your career, I suggest you attend. I have a ton of blog posts that I'll be putting together over the next several months (yes, months) both here and over on ScaryDBA. I also have a bunch of work I'm going to be doing to get my career performance bumped up a notch or two (and let's face it, that won't be easy). Later on Monday, Tim Ford (blog|twitter) did a session on DMOs. Specifically the session was on Tim's Period Table of DMOs that he has put together, and how to use some of the more interesting DMOs in your day to day job. It was a great session, packed with good information. Next, Brent Ozar (blog|twitter) did a session on how to monitor and guide SAN configuration for the DBA that doesn't have access to the SAN. That was some seriously useful information. Tuesday morning we only had a single class. Kendra Little (blog|twitter) taught us all about "No Lock for Yes Fun".  It was all about the different transaction isolation levels and how they work. There is so often confusion in this area and Kendra does a great job in clarifying the information. Also, she tosses in her excellent drawings to liven up the presentation. Then it was excursion time in Juneau. My wife and I, along with several other Cruisers, took a hike up around the Mendenhall Glacier. It was absolutely beautiful weather and walking through the Alaskan rain forest was a treat. Our guide, Jason, was a great guy and it was a good day of hiking. Wednesday was an all day excursion in Skagway. My wife and I took the "Ghost and Good Time Girls" walking tour that ended up at a bar that used to be a brothel, the Red Onion. It was a great history of the town. We went back out and hit a few museums and exhibits. We also hiked up the side of the mountain to see the Dewey Lake and some great views of the town. Finally we hiked out to the far side of town to see the Gold Rush cemetery. Hiking done we went back to the boat and had a quiet dinner on our own. Thursday we cruised through Glacier Bay and saw at least four different glaciers including sitting next to the Marjory Glacier for  about an hour. It was amazing. Then it got better. We went into class with Buck again, this time to talk about Communication. Again, I've got pages of notes that I'm going to be referring back to for some time to come. This was an excellent opportunity to learn. Snorkelers: Nicole Bertrand, Aaron Bertrand, Grant Fritchey, Neil Hambly, Christina Leo, John Robel, Yanni Robel, Tim Ford Friday we pulled into Ketchikan. A bunch of us went snorkeling. Yes, snorkeling. Yes, in Alaska. Yes, snorkeling in the ocean in Alaska. It was fantastic. They had us put on 7mm thick wet suits (an adventure all by itself) so it was basically warm the entire time we were in the water (except for the occasional squirt of cold water down my back). Before we got in the water a bald eagle flew up and landed about 15 feet in front of us, which was just an incredible event. Then our guide pointed out about 14 other eagles in the area, hanging out in the trees. Wow! The water was pretty clear and there was a ton of things to see. That was absolutely a blast. Back on the boat I presented a session called Execution Plans: The Deep Dive (note the nautical theme). It seemed to go over well and I had several good questions come out of the session that will lead to new blog posts. After I presented, it was Aaron Bertrand's (blog|twitter) turn. He did a session on "What's New in Denali" that provided a lot of great information. He was able to incorporate new things straight out of Tech-Ed, so this was expanded beyond his usual presentation. The man really knows what he's talking about and communicates it well. Saturday we were travelling so there was time for a bunch of classes. Jeremiah Peschka (blog|twitter) did a great overview of some of the NoSQL databases and what they should be used for. The session was called "The Database is Dead" but it was really about how there are specific uses for these databases that SQL Server doesn't fill, but also that these databases can't replace SQL Server in other areas. Again, good material. Brent Ozar presented again with a session on Defensive Indexing. It was an overview of how indexes work and a deep dive into how to apply them appropriately in your databases to better support access. A good session, as you would expect. Then we pulled into Victoria, BC, in Canada and had a nice dinner with several of the Cruisers, including Denny Cherry (blog|twitter). After that it was back to Seattle on Sunday. By the way, the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle isn't a Science Fiction Museum any more. I was very disappointed to discover this. Overall, it was a great experience. I'm extremely appreciative of Red Gate for sending me and for Tim, Brent, Kendra and Jeremiah for having me. The other Cruisers were all amazing people and it was an honor & privilege to meet them and spend time with them. While this was a seriously fun time, it was also a very serious training opportunity with solid information coming from seasoned industry pros.

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