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• New Replication, Optimizer and High Availability features in MySQL 5.6.5!

  - by Rob Young

  As the Product Manager for the MySQL database it is always great to announce when the MySQL Engineering team delivers another great product release.  As a field DBA and developer it is even better when that release contains improvements and innovation that I know will help those currently using MySQL for apps that range from modest intranet sites to the most highly trafficked web sites on the web.  That said, it is my pleasure to take my hat off to MySQL Engineering for today's release of the MySQL 5.6.5 Development Milestone Release ("DMR"). The new highlighted features in MySQL 5.6.5 are discussed here: New Self-Healing Replication ClustersThe 5.6.5 DMR improves MySQL Replication by adding Global Transaction Ids and automated utilities for self-healing Replication clusters.  Prior to 5.6.5 this has been somewhat of a pain point for MySQL users with most developing custom solutions or looking to costly, complex third-party solutions for these capabilities.  With 5.6.5 these shackles are all but removed by a solution that is included with the GPL version of the database and supporting GPL tools.  You can learn all about the details of the great, problem solving Replication features in MySQL 5.6 in Mat Keep's Developer Zone article.  New Replication Administration and Failover UtilitiesAs mentioned above, the new Replication features, Global Transaction Ids specifically, are now supported by a set of automated GPL utilities that leverage the new GTIDs to provide administration and manual or auto failover to the most up to date slave (that is the default, but user configurable if needed) in the event of a master failure. The new utilities, along with links to Engineering related blogs, are discussed in detail in the DevZone Article noted above. Better Query Optimization and ThroughputThe MySQL Optimizer team continues to amaze with the latest round of improvements in 5.6.5. Along with much refactoring of the legacy code base, the Optimizer team has improved complex query optimization and throughput by adding these functional improvements: Subquery Optimizations - Subqueries are now included in the Optimizer path for runtime optimization.  Better throughput of nested queries enables application developers to simplify and consolidate multiple queries and result sets into a single unit or work. Optimizer now uses CURRENT_TIMESTAMP as default for DATETIME columns - For simplification, this eliminates the need for application developers to assign this value when a column of this type is blank by default. Optimizations for Range based queries - Optimizer now uses ready statistics vs Index based scans for queries with multiple range values. Optimizations for queries using filesort and ORDER BY.  Optimization criteria/decision on execution method is done now at optimization vs parsing stage. Print EXPLAIN in JSON format for hierarchical readability and Enterprise tool consumption. You can learn the details about these new features as well all of the Optimizer based improvements in MySQL 5.6 by following the Optimizer team blog. You can download and try the MySQL 5.6.5 DMR here. (look under "Development Releases")  Please let us know what you think!  The new HA utilities for Replication Administration and Failover are available as part of the MySQL Workbench Community Edition, which you can download here .Also New in MySQL LabsAs has become our tradition when announcing DMRs we also like to provide "Early Access" development features to the MySQL Community via the MySQL Labs.  Today is no exception as we are also releasing the following to Labs for you to download, try and let us know your thoughts on where we need to improve:InnoDB Online OperationsMySQL 5.6 now provides Online ADD Index, FK Drop and Online Column RENAME.  These operations are non-blocking and will continue to evolve in future DMRs.  You can learn the grainy details by following John Russell's blog.InnoDB data access via Memcached API ("NotOnlySQL") - Improved refresh of an earlier feature releaseSimilar to Cluster 7.2, MySQL 5.6 provides direct NotOnlySQL access to InnoDB data via the familiar Memcached API. This provides the ultimate in flexibility for developers who need fast, simple key/value access and complex query support commingled within their applications.Improved Transactional Performance, ScaleThe InnoDB Engineering team has once again under promised and over delivered in the area of improved performance and scale.  These improvements are also included in the aggregated Spring 2012 labs release:InnoDB CPU cache performance improvements for modern, multi-core/CPU systems show great promise with internal tests showing:    2x throughput improvement for read only activity 6x throughput improvement for SELECT range Read/Write benchmarks are in progress More details on the above are available here. You can download all of the above in an aggregated "InnoDB 2012 Spring Labs Release" binary from the MySQL Labs. You can also learn more about these improvements and about related fixes to mysys mutex and hash sort by checking out the InnoDB team blog.MySQL 5.6.5 is another installment in what we believe will be the best release of the MySQL database ever.  It also serves as a shining example of how the MySQL Engineering team at Oracle leads in MySQL innovation.You can get the overall Oracle message on the MySQL 5.6.5 DMR and Early Access labs features here. As always, thanks for your continued support of MySQL, the #1 open source database on the planet!

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• Microsoft Cloud Day - the ups and downs

  - by Charles Young

  The term ‘cloud’ can sometimes obscure the obvious.  Today’s Microsoft Cloud Day conference in London provided a good example.  Scott Guthrie was halfway through what was an excellent keynote when he lost network connectivity.  This proved very disruptive to his presentation which centred on a series of demonstrations of the Azure platform in action.  Great efforts were made to find a solution, but no quick fix presented itself.  The venue’s IT facilities were dreadful – no WiFi, poor 3G reception (forget 4G…this is the UK) and, unbelievably, no-one on hand from the venue staff to help with infrastructure issues.  Eventually, after an unscheduled break, a solution was found and Scott managed to complete his demonstrations.  Further connectivity issues occurred during the day. I can say that the cause was prosaic.  A member of the venue staff had interfered with a patch board and inadvertently disconnected Scott Guthrie’s machine from the network by pulling out a cable. I need to state the obvious here.  If your PC is disconnected from the network it can’t communicate with other systems.  This could include a machine under someone’s desk, a mail server located down the hall, a server in the local data centre, an Internet search engine or even, heaven forbid, a role running on Azure. Inadvertently disconnecting a PC from the network does not imply a fundamental problem with the cloud or any specific cloud platform.  Some of the tweeted comments I’ve seen today are analogous to suggesting that, if you accidently unplug your microwave from the mains, this suggests some fundamental flaw with the electricity supply to your house.   This is poor reasoning, to say the least. As far as the conference was concerned, the connectivity issue in the keynote, coupled with some later problems in a couple of presentations, served to exaggerate the perception of poor organisation.   Software problems encountered before the conference prevented the correct set-up of a smartphone app intended to convey agenda information to attendees.  Although some information was available via this app, the organisers decided to print out an agenda at the last moment.  Unfortunately, the agenda sheet did not convey enough information, and attendees were forced to approach conference staff through the day to clarify locations of the various presentations. Despite these problems, the overwhelming feedback from conference attendees was very positive.  There was a real sense of excitement in the morning keynote.  For many, this was their first sight of new Azure features delivered in the ‘spring’ release.  The most common reaction I heard was amazement and appreciation that Azure’s new IaaS features deliver built-in template support for several flavours of Linux from day one.  This coupled with open source SDKs and several presentations on Azure’s support for Java, node.js, PHP, MongoDB and Hadoop served to communicate that the Azure platform is maturing quickly.  The new virtual network capabilities also surprised many attendees, and the much improved portal experience went down very well. So, despite some very irritating and disruptive problems, the event served its purpose well, communicating the breadth and depth of the newly upgraded Azure platform.  I enjoyed the day very much.

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• MySQL Policy-Based Auditing Webinar Recording Now Availabile

  - by Rob Young

  For those who missed the live event, the recording of the "How to Add Policy-Based Auditing to your MySQL Applications" webinar is now available.  You can view it here. This presentation builds on my earlier blog post on MySQL Enterprise Audit that was announced at MySQL Connect in late September.  The web presentation expands on the introductory blog and covers: The regulatory problem to be solved (internal audit, PCI, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, others) MySQL Audit solutions for both Community and Enterprise users: General Log - use the basic features of the MySQL server MySQL 5.5 open audit API - or use your time and talent to build your own solution MySQL Enterprise Audit - or use the out of the box, ready for production solution from MySQL Simple, step-by-step process for installing, enabling and configuring the MySQL Enterprise Audit plugin for use with existing apps New variables and options for tuning the MySQL Enterprise Audit plugin for your specific use case Best practices for securing and managing audit log files and archived images Roadmap for adding an integrated solution around MySQL Enterprise Audit for MySQL only and Oracle/MySQL shops You can learn all the technical details on MySQL Enterprise Audit in the MySQL docs and learn all about MySQL Enterprise Edition and Auditing here. As always, thanks for your support of MySQL!

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• Thank You MySQL Community! MySQL 5.6.9 Release Candidate Available Now!

  - by Rob Young

  The MySQL Community continues its good work in testing and refining MySQL 5.6, and as such the next iteration of the 5.6 Release Candidate is now available for download.  You can get MySQL 5.6.9 here (look under the "Development Releases" tab).  This version is the result of feedback we have gotten since MySQL 5.6.7 was announced at MySQL Connect in late September. As iron sharpens iron, Community feedback sharpens the quality and performance of MySQL so please download 5.6.9 and let us know how we can improve it as we move toward the production-ready product release in early 2013. MySQL 5.6 is designed to meet the agility demands of the next generation of web apps and services and includes across the board improvements to the Optimizer, InnoDB performance/scale and online DDL operations, self-healing Replication, Performance Schema Instrumentation, Security and developer enabling NoSQL functionality.  You can learn all the details and follow MySQL Engineering blogs on all of the key features in this MySQL DevZone article. On a related note, plan to join this week's live webinars to learn more about MySQL 5.6 Self-Healing Replication Clusters and Building the Next Generation of Web, Cloud, SaaS, Embedded Application and Services with MySQL 5.6.  Hurry!  Seating is limited!  As always, thanks for your continued support of MySQL!

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• Top 10 Reasons to Use MySQL and MySQL Cluster as an Embedded Database

  - by Rob Young

  If you are considering using MySQL and/or MySQL Cluster as the embedded database solution for your application, you should join us for today's webcast where we will discuss how you can cut costs, add flexibility and benefit from new performance and scalability enhancements that are now available in MySQL 5.6 and MySQL Cluster 7.2.  We will cover the top 10 reasons that make MySQL and MySQL Cluster the best solutions for embedding in both shrink wrapped and SaaS provided applications, how industry leaders leverage MySQL products and how you can get started with the latest innovations and support offerings across the MySQL product line. You can learn more and reserve your seat here. As always, thanks for your support of MySQL!

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• Tellago releases a RESTful API for BizTalk Server business rules

  - by Charles Young

  Jesus Rodriguez has blogged recently on Tellago Devlabs' release of an open source RESTful API for BizTalk Server Business Rules.   This is an excellent addition to the BizTalk ecosystem and I congratulate Tellago on their work.   See http://weblogs.asp.net/gsusx/archive/2011/02/08/tellago-devlabs-a-restful-api-for-biztalk-server-business-rules.aspx   The Microsoft BRE was originally designed to be used as an embedded library in .NET applications. This is reflected in the implementation of the Rules Engine Update (REU) Service which is a TCP/IP service that is hosted by a Windows service running locally on each BizTalk box. The job of the REU is to distribute rules, managed and held in a central database repository, across the various servers in a BizTalk group.   The engine is therefore distributed on each box, rather than exploited behind a central rules service.   This model is all very well, but proves quite restrictive in enterprise environments. The problem is that the BRE can only run legally on licensed BizTalk boxes. Increasingly we need to deliver rules capabilities across a more widely distributed environment. For example, in the project I am working on currently, we need to surface decisioning capabilities for use within WF workflow services running under AppFabric on non-BTS boxes. The BRE does not, currently, offer any centralised rule service facilities out of the box, and hence you have to roll your own (and then run your rules services on BTS boxes which has raised a few eyebrows on my current project, as all other WCF services run on a dedicated server farm ).   Tellago's API addresses this by providing a RESTful API for querying the rules repository and executing rule sets against XML passed in the request payload. As Jesus points out in his post, using a RESTful approach hugely increases the reach of BRE-based decisioning, allowing simple invocation from code written in dynamic languages, mobile devices, etc.   We developed our own SOAP-based general-purpose rules service to handle scenarios such as the one we face on my current project. SOAP is arguably better suited to enterprise service bus environments (please don't 'flame' me - I refuse to engage in the RESTFul vs. SOAP war). For example, on my current project we use claims based authorisation across the entire service bus and use WIF and WS-Federation for this purpose.   We have extended this to the rules service. I can't release the code for commercial reasons :-( but this approach allows us to legally extend the reach of BRE far beyond the confines of the BizTalk boxes on which it runs and to provide general purpose decisioning capabilities on the bus.   So, well done Tellago.   I haven't had a chance to play with the API yet, but am looking forward to doing so.

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• Open Source AI Bot interfaces

  - by David Young

  What are some open source AI Bot interfaces? Similar to Pogamut 3 GameBots2004 for custom Unreal Tournament bots or Brood Wars API for Starcraft bots etc. If you could please post one AI bot interface per answer (make sure to provide a link) and give a brief summary as to the content of the blog posts. Please include what type of bot interface structure it is, client/server, server/server, etc e.g. BWAPI is client/server which emulates a real player

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• RIF PRD: Presentation syntax issues

  - by Charles Young

  Over Christmas I got to play a bit with the W3C RIF PRD and came across a few issues which I thought I would record for posterity. Specifically, I was working on a grammar for the presentation syntax using a GLR grammar parser tool (I was using the current CTP of ‘M’ (MGrammer) and Intellipad – I do so hope the MS guys don’t kill off M and Intellipad now they have dropped the other parts of SQL Server Modelling). I realise that the presentation syntax is non-normative and that any issues with it do not therefore compromise the standard. However, presentation syntax is useful in its own right, and it would be great to iron out any issues in a future revision of the standard. The main issues are actually not to do with the grammar at all, but rather with the ‘running example’ in the RIF PRD recommendation. I started with the code provided in Example 9.1. There are several discrepancies when compared with the EBNF rules documented in the standard. Broadly the problems can be categorised as follows: ·      Parenthesis mismatch – the wrong number of parentheses are used in various places. For example, in GoldRule, the RHS of the rule (the ‘Then’) is nested in the LHS (‘the If’). In NewCustomerAndWidgetRule, the RHS is orphaned from the LHS. Together with additional incorrect parenthesis, this leads to orphanage of UnknownStatusRule from the entire Document. ·      Invalid use of parenthesis in ‘Forall’ constructs. Parenthesis should not be used to enclose formulae. Removal of the invalid parenthesis gave me a feeling of inconsistency when comparing formulae in Forall to formulae in If. The use of parenthesis is not actually inconsistent in these two context, but in an If construct it ‘feels’ as if you are enclosing formulae in parenthesis in a LISP-like fashion. In reality, the parenthesis is simply being used to group subordinate syntax elements. The fact that an If construct can contain only a single formula as an immediate child adds to this feeling of inconsistency. ·      Invalid representation of compact URIs (CURIEs) in the context of Frame productions. In several places the URIs are not qualified with a namespace prefix (‘ex1:’). This conflicts with the definition of CURIEs in the RIF Datatypes and Built-Ins 1.0 document. Here are the productions: CURIE          ::= PNAME_LN                  | PNAME_NS PNAME_LN       ::= PNAME_NS PN_LOCAL PNAME_NS       ::= PN_PREFIX? ':' PN_LOCAL       ::= ( PN_CHARS_U | [0-9] ) ((PN_CHARS|'.')* PN_CHARS)? PN_CHARS       ::= PN_CHARS_U                  | '-' | [0-9] | #x00B7                  | [#x0300-#x036F] | [#x203F-#x2040] PN_CHARS_U     ::= PN_CHARS_BASE                  | '_' PN_CHARS_BASE ::= [A-Z] | [a-z] | [#x00C0-#x00D6] | [#x00D8-#x00F6]                  | [#x00F8-#x02FF] | [#x0370-#x037D] | [#x037F-#x1FFF]                  | [#x200C-#x200D] | [#x2070-#x218F] | [#x2C00-#x2FEF]                  | [#x3001-#xD7FF] | [#xF900-#xFDCF] | [#xFDF0-#xFFFD]                  | [#x10000-#xEFFFF] PN_PREFIX      ::= PN_CHARS_BASE ((PN_CHARS|'.')* PN_CHARS)? The more I look at CURIEs, the more my head hurts! The RIF specification allows prefixes and colons without local names, which surprised me. However, the CURIE Syntax 1.0 working group note specifically states that this form is supported…and then promptly provides a syntactic definition that seems to preclude it! However, on (much) deeper inspection, it appears that ‘ex1:’ (for example) is allowed, but would really represent a ‘fragment’ of the ‘reference’, rather than a prefix! Ouch! This is so completely ambiguous that it surely calls into question the whole CURIE specification.   In any case, RIF does not allow local names without a prefix. ·      Missing ‘External’ specifiers for built-in functions and predicates.  The EBNF specification enforces this for terms within frames, but does not appear to enforce (what I believe is) the correct use of External on built-in predicates. In any case, the running example only specifies ‘External’ once on the predicate in UnknownStatusRule. External() is required in several other places. ·      The List used on the LHS of UnknownStatusRule is comma-delimited. This is not supported by the EBNF definition. Similarly, the argument list of pred:list-contains is illegally comma-delimited. ·      Unnecessary use of conjunction around a single formula in DiscountRule. This is strictly legal in the EBNF, but redundant.   All the above issues concern the presentation syntax used in the running example. There are a few minor issues with the grammar itself. Note that Michael Kiefer stated in his paper “Rule Interchange Format: The Framework” that: “The presentation syntax of RIF … is an abstract syntax and, as such, it omits certain details that might be important for unambiguous parsing.” ·      The grammar cannot differentiate unambiguously between strategies and priorities on groups. A processor is forced to resolve this by detecting the use of IRIs and integers. This could easily be fixed in the grammar.   ·      The grammar cannot unambiguously parse the ‘->’ operator in frames. Specifically, ‘-’ characters are allowed in PN_LOCAL names and hence a parser cannot determine if ‘status->’ is (‘status’ ‘->’) or (‘status-’ ‘>’).   One way to fix this is to amend the PN_LOCAL production as follows: PN_LOCAL ::= ( PN_CHARS_U | [0-9] ) ((PN_CHARS|'.')* ((PN_CHARS)-('-')))? However, unilaterally changing the definition of this production, which is defined in the SPARQL Query Language for RDF specification, makes me uncomfortable. ·      I assume that the presentation syntax is case-sensitive. I couldn’t find this stated anywhere in the documentation, but function/predicate names do appear to be documented as being case-sensitive. ·      The EBNF does not specify whitespace handling. A couple of productions (RULE and ACTION_BLOCK) are crafted to enforce the use of whitespace. This is not necessary. It seems inconsistent with the rest of the specification and can cause parsing issues. In addition, the Const production exhibits whitespaces issues. The intention may have been to disallow the use of whitespace around ‘^^’, but any direct implementation of the EBNF will probably allow whitespace between ‘^^’ and the SYMSPACE. Of course, I am being a little nit-picking about all this. On the whole, the EBNF translated very smoothly and directly to ‘M’ (MGrammar) and proved to be fairly complete. I have encountered far worse issues when translating other EBNF specifications into usable grammars.   I can’t imagine there would be any difficulty in implementing the same grammar in Antlr, COCO/R, gppg, XText, Bison, etc. A general observation, which repeats a point made above, is that the use of parenthesis in the presentation syntax can feel inconsistent and un-intuitive.   It isn’t actually inconsistent, but I think the presentation syntax could be improved by adopting braces, rather than parenthesis, to delimit subordinate syntax elements in a similar way to so many programming languages. The familiarity of braces would communicate the structure of the syntax more clearly to people like me.  If braces were adopted, parentheses could be retained around ‘var (frame | ‘new()’) constructs in action blocks. This use of parenthesis feels very LISP-like, and I think that this is my issue. It’s as if the presentation syntax represents the deformed love-child of LISP and C. In some places (specifically, action blocks), parenthesis is used in a LISP-like fashion. In other places it is used like braces in C. I find this quite confusing. Here is a corrected version of the running example (Example 9.1) in compliant presentation syntax: Document(    Prefix( ex1 <http://example.com/2009/prd2> )    (* ex1:CheckoutRuleset *)  Group rif:forwardChaining (     (* ex1:GoldRule *)    Group 10 (      Forall ?customer such that And(?customer # ex1:Customer                                     ?customer[ex1:status->"Silver"])        (Forall ?shoppingCart such that ?customer[ex1:shoppingCart->?shoppingCart]           (If Exists ?value (And(?shoppingCart[ex1:value->?value]                                  External(pred:numeric-greater-than-or-equal(?value 2000))))            Then Do(Modify(?customer[ex1:status->"Gold"])))))      (* ex1:DiscountRule *)    Group (      Forall ?customer such that ?customer # ex1:Customer        (If Or( ?customer[ex1:status->"Silver"]                ?customer[ex1:status->"Gold"])         Then Do ((?s ?customer[ex1:shoppingCart-> ?s])                  (?v ?s[ex1:value->?v])                  Modify(?s [ex1:value->External(func:numeric-multiply (?v 0.95))]))))      (* ex1:NewCustomerAndWidgetRule *)    Group (      Forall ?customer such that And(?customer # ex1:Customer                                     ?customer[ex1:status->"New"] )        (If Exists ?shoppingCart ?item                   (And(?customer[ex1:shoppingCart->?shoppingCart]                        ?shoppingCart[ex1:containsItem->?item]                        ?item # ex1:Widget ) )         Then Do( (?s ?customer[ex1:shoppingCart->?s])                  (?val ?s[ex1:value->?val])                  (?voucher ?customer[ex1:voucher->?voucher])                  Retract(?customer[ex1:voucher->?voucher])                  Retract(?voucher)                  Modify(?s[ex1:value->External(func:numeric-multiply(?val 0.90))]))))      (* ex1:UnknownStatusRule *)    Group (      Forall ?customer such that ?customer # ex1:Customer        (If Not(Exists ?status                       (And(?customer[ex1:status->?status]                            External(pred:list-contains(List("New" "Bronze" "Silver" "Gold") ?status)) )))         Then Do( Execute(act:print(External(func:concat("New customer: " ?customer))))                  Assert(?customer[ex1:status->"New"]))))  ) )   I hope that helps someone out there :-)

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• Conways Game of Life C#

  - by Darren Young

  Hi, Not sure if this is the correct place for this question or SO - mods please move if necessary. I am going to have a go at creating GoL over the weekend as a little test project : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life I understand the algorithm, however I just wanted to check regarding the implementation, from maybe somebody that has tried it. Essentially, my first (basic) implementation, will be a static grid at a set speed. If I understand correctly, these are the steps I will need: Initial seed Create 2d array with initial set up Foreach iteration, create temporary array, calculating each cells new state based on the Game of Life algorithm Assign temp array to proper array. Redraw grid from proper array. My concerns are over speed. When I am populating the grid from the array, would it simply be a case of looping through the array, assigning on or off to each grid cell and then redraw the grid? Am I on the correct path?

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• Project Idea - Android

  - by Darren Young

  Hi, I am trying to come up with some project ideas for my final year at University, and I think that I have one that would offer be a (massive) challenge, and something I could potentially make money from. I just want to check something. Is it possible(from a photograph), to be able to determine somebodys face and the individual parts of that face - eyes, ears, nose, etc? This will probably be via Android. Thanks.

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• The Singleton Pattern

  - by Darren Young

  Hi, I am a new programmer (4 months into my first job) and have recently taken an interest in design patterns. One that I have used recently is the Singleton. However, looking at some comments on this thread Overused or abused programming techniques .......it has some bad feedback. Come somebody explain why? I have found it useful in some places, however I could probably have achieved the same without it using a static class. Thanks.

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• The Bing Sting - an alternative opinion

  - by Charles Young

  I know I'm a bit of an MS fanboy at times, but please, am I missing something here? Microsoft, with permission of users, exploits clickstream data gathered by observing user behaviour. One use for this data is to improve Bing queries. Google equips twenty of its engineers with laptops and installs the widgets required to provide Microsoft with clickstream data. It then gets their engineers to repeatedly (I assume) type in 'synthetic' queries which bring back 'doctored' hits. It asks its engineers to then click these results (think about this!). So, the behaviour of the engineers is observed and the resulting clickstream data goes off to Microsoft. It is processed and 'improves' Bing results accordingly.   What exactly did Microsoft do wrong here?   Google's so-called 'Bing sting' is clearly a very effective attack from a propaganda perspective, but is poor practice from a company that claims to do no evil. Generating and sending clickstream data deliberately so that you can then subsequently claim that your competitor 'copied' that data from you is neither fair nor reasonable, and suggests to me a degree of desperation in the face of real competition.   Monopolies are undesirable, whether they are Microsoft monopolies or Google monopolies.    Personally, I'm glad Microsoft has technology in place to observe user behaviour (with permission, of course) and improve their search results using such data. I can only assume Google doesn't implement similar capabilities. Sounds to me as if, at least in this respect, Microsoft may offer the better technology.

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• Good Blog Software

  - by Darren Young

  Hi, Inspired from an earlier question regarding starting a blog, I have decided to start one myself. I only have 4 months commercial experience in C#, but I am hoping to use my blog as a tool for further learning. Maybe such things as researching and writing about a different design pattern each week, a tricky aspect of C# that I don't yet fully understand, etc, etc. My question is, can somebody recommend any good blog sites suited for writing text and code? Is there any that allow the use of code tags or similar for formatting? Thanks,

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• Windows Azure AppFabric SDK - June CTP - Download issues

  - by Charles Young

  Microsoft has announced availability of the June CTP for Windows Azure AppFabric. See http://blogs.msdn.com/b/appfabric/archive/2011/06/20/announcing-the-windows-azure-appfabric-june-ctp.aspx. This is an exciting release and provides greater insight into where the AppFabric team is heading in terms of developer and management tooling. Microsoft is offering space in the cloud to experiment with the CTP, but this is limited, so register early to get a namespace! You can download the SDK for the June CTP. However, we ran into a lot of trouble trying to do this today. Whenever we followed the link, we ended up on the page for the May CTP. We found what appeared to be a workaround which we were able to repeat on another box (and which I reported on Connect), but then a few minutes later I couldn't repeat it. Just now, the given link appears to be working every time in IE, but not in Firefox!   Frankly, the behaviour seems random!   It looks like the same URL points to two different pages, and I suspect that which page you end up on is hit and miss. The link to the download page is http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17691. If you end up on the wrong page, try again later and you may get to the right place. Or try googling "Windows Azure AppFabric SDK CTP – June Update" and following a link to this page. For some reason, that sometimes seems to work. Good luck!

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• How to Add Policy-based Audit Compliance to you existing MySQL applications

  - by Rob Young

  As a follow up to an earlier blog on the subject, please join us today at 0900 US PT to learn how to easily add policy-based auditing compliance to your existing MySQL applications.  This brief, informative session will provide an overview of the new MySQL Enterprise Audit plugin and will include a simple, practical step-by-step "how to" approach to get up and running with the new functionality. You can learn more and secure your seat for the presentation here.  Thanks for your continued support of MySQL!

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• Windows 8 for productivity?

  - by Charles Young

  At long last I’ve started using Windows 8.  I boot from a VHD on which I have installed Office, Visio, Visual Studio, SQL Server, etc.  For a week, now, I’ve been happily writing code and documents and using Visio and PowerPoint.  I am, very much, a ‘productivity’ user rather than a content consumer.   I spend my days flitting between countless windows and browser tabs displayed across dual monitors.  I need to access a lot of different functionality and information in as fluid a fashion as possible. With that in mind, and like so many others, I was worried about Windows 8.  The Metro interface is primarily about content consumption on touch-enabled screens, and not really geared for people like me sitting in front of an 8-core non-touch laptop and an additional Samsung monitor.  I still use a mouse, not my finger.  And I create more than I consume. Clearly, Windows 8 won’t be viable for people like me unless Metro keeps out of my hair when using productivity and development tools.  With this in mind, I had long expected Microsoft to provide some mechanism for switching Metro off.  There was a registry hack in last year’s Developer Preview, but this capability has been removed.   That’s brave.  So, how have things worked out so far? Well, I am really quite surprised.  When I played with the Developer Preview last year, it was clear that Metro was unfinished and didn’t play well enough with the desktop.  Obviously I expected things to improve, but the context switching from desktop to full-screen seemed a heavy burden to place on users.  That sense of abrupt change hasn’t entirely gone away (how could it), but after a few days, I can’t say that I find it burdensome or irritating.   I’ve got used very quickly to ‘gesturing’ with my mouse at the bottom or top right corners of the screen to move between applications, using the Windows key to toggle the Start screen and generally finding my way around.   I am surprised at how effective the Start screen is, given the rather basic grouping features it provides.  Of course, I had to take control of it and sort things the way I want.  If anything, though, the Start screen provides a better navigation and application launcher tool than the old Start menu. What I didn’t expect was the way that Metro enhances the productivity story.  As I write this, I’ve got my desktop open with a maximised Word window.  However, the desktop extends only across about 85% of the width of my screen.  On the left hand side, I have a column that displays the new Metro email client.  This is currently showing me a list of emails for my main work account.  I can flip easily between different accounts and read my email within that same column.  As I work on documents, I want to be able to monitor my inbox with a quick glance. The desktop, of course, has its own snap feature.  I could run the desktop full screen and bring up Outlook and Word side by side.  However, this doesn’t begin to approach the convenience of snapping the Metro email client.  Consider that when I snap a window on the desktop, it initially takes up 50% of the screen.  Outlook doesn’t really know anything about snap, and doesn’t adjust to make effective use of the limited screen estate.  Even at 50% screen width, it is difficult to use, so forget about trying to use it in a Metro fashion. In any case, I am left with the prospect of having to manually adjust everything to view my email effectively alongside Word.  Worse, there is nothing stopping another window from overlapping and obscuring my email.  It becomes a struggle to keep sight of email as it arrives.  Of course, there is always ‘toast’ to notify me when things arrive, but if Outlook is obscured, this just feels intrusive. The beauty of the Metro snap feature is that my email reader now exists outside of my desktop.   The Metro app has been crafted to work well in the fixed width column as well as in full-screen.  It cannot be obscured by overlapping windows.  I still get notifications if I wish.  More importantly, it is clear that careful attention has been given to how things work when moving between applications when ‘snapped’.  If I decide, say to flick over to the Metro newsreader to catch up with current affairs, my desktop, rather than my email client, obligingly makes way for the reader.  With a simple gesture and click, or alternatively by pressing Windows-Tab, my desktop reappears. Another pleasant surprise is the way Windows 8 handles dual monitors.  It’s not just the fact that both screens now display the desktop task bar.  It’s that I can so easily move between Metro and the desktop on either screen.  I can only have Metro on one screen at a time which makes entire sense given the ‘full-screen’ nature of Metro apps.  Using dual monitors feels smoother and easier than previous versions of Windows. Overall then, I’m enjoying the Windows 8 improvements.  Strangely, for all the hype (“Windows reimagined”, etc.), my perception as a ‘productivity’ user is more one of evolution than revolution.  It all feels very familiar, but just better.

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• Windows 7 machine, can't connect remotely until after ping

  - by rjohnston

  I have a Windows 7 (Home Premium) machine that doubles as a media centre and subversion server. There's a couple of problems with this setup, when connecting to the server from an XP (SP3) machine: Firstly, the machine won't respond to it's machine name until after it's IP address has been pinged. Here's an example: Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600] (C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp. C:\Documents and Settings\Rob>ping damascus Ping request could not find host damascus. Please check the name and try again. C:\Documents and Settings\Rob>ping 192.168.1.17 Pinging 192.168.1.17 with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 192.168.1.17: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=128 ... Ping statistics for 192.168.1.17: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 2ms, Average = 1ms C:\Documents and Settings\Rob>ping damascus Pinging damascus [192.168.1.17] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 192.168.1.17: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128 .... Ping statistics for 192.168.1.17: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 0ms C:\Documents and Settings\Rob> Likewise, subversion commands with either the machine name or IP address will fail until the machine's IP address is pinged. Occasionally, the machine won't respond to pings on it's IP address, it'll just come back with "Request timed out". The svn server is VisualSVN, if that helps... Any ideas?

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• Virtualmin install failing on Rackspace Debian 5.0

  - by Rob

  Hi - Running the install.sh script as-is from Virtualmin (GPL version), I get a dovecot error after about 5.5mins of installation. I have tried this on several versions of the server - same error whether or not I run apt-get update +/- apt-get upgrade .... and whether or not I have the FQDN set. Here's the end of the installation: http://screencast.com/t/ZDkxMmY1NDQ Any hints/suggestions, etc. would be much appreciated... Thanks, Rob

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• Virtualmin install failing on Rackspace Debian 5.0

  - by Rob

  Hi - Running the install.sh script as-is from Virtualmin (GPL version), I get a dovecot error after about 5.5mins of installation. I have tried this on several versions of the server - same error whether or not I run apt-get update +/- apt-get upgrade .... and whether or not I have the FQDN set. Here's the end of the installation: http://screencast.com/t/ZDkxMmY1NDQ Any hints/suggestions, etc. would be much appreciated... Thanks, Rob

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• Implication of variable context switching time

  - by Rob

  Hi, I know that constant switching time of the Linux scheduler was a big achievement. I was just asking myself the question what would be the implication of a non-constant switching time. The only obvious reason I can think of is real-time systems where we have to meet deadlines. There it is obviously no ideal if the switching time is "random". Are there any other good reasons that favour constant switching times? Many thanks, Rob

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• Anyone else got a problem with ZoneEdit NS2 and NS17 servers?

  - by Rob Nicholson

  My DNS zone record appears to be degrading. NSLOOKUP on www.whatpub.org gives a timeout. Am I right in saying this means the two ZoneEdit nameservers I use (ns2.zoneedit.com & ns17.zoneedit.com) are not responding to requests? Cheers, Rob.

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• Does this NSLOOKUP timeout with ZoneEdit mean their DNS servers are down?

  - by Rob Nicholson

  My DNS zone record appears to be degrading. NSLOOKUP on www.whatpub.org gives a timeout. Am I right in saying this means the two ZoneEdit nameservers I use (ns2.zoneedit.com & ns17.zoneedit.com) are not responding to requests? Cheers, Rob.

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• PowerShell - grabbing values out of the registry and running them

  - by Rob Farley

  So I closed an application that runs when Windows starts up, but it doesn’t have a Start Menu entry, and I was trying to find it. Ok, I could’ve run regedit.exe, navigated through the tree and found the list of things that run when Windows starts up, but I thought I’d use PowerShell instead. PowerShell presents the registry as if it’s a volume on a disk, and you can navigate around it using commands like cd and dir. It wasn’t hard to find the folder I knew I was after – tab completion (starting the word and then hitting the Tab key) was a friend here. But unfortunately dir doesn’t list values, only subkeys (which look like folders). PS C:\Windows\system32> dir HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run PS C:\Windows\system32> Instead, I needed to use Get-Item to fetch the ‘Run’ key, and use its Property property. This listed the values in there for me, as an array of strings (I could work this out using Get-Member). PS C:\Windows\system32> (Get-Item HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run).Property QuickSet SynTPEnh Zune Launcher PS C:\Windows\system32> Ok, so the thing I wanted wasn’t in there (an app called PureText, whicih lets me Paste As Text using Windows+V). That’s ok – a simple change to use HKCU instead of HKLM (Current User instead of Local Machine), and I found it. Now to fetch the details of the application itself, using the RegistryKey method GetValue PS C:\Windows\system32> (Get-Item HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run).GetValue('PureText') "C:\Users\Rob\Utilities\PureText.exe" PS C:\Windows\system32> And finally, surrounding it in a bit of code to execute that command. That needs an ampersand and the Invoke-Expression cmdlet. PS C:\Windows\system32> '& ' + (Get-Item HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run).GetValue('PureText') | Invoke-Expression A simple bit of exploring PowerShell which will makes for a much easier way of finding and running those apps which start with Windows.

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• Why do digits in bash script names screw up path lookups?

  - by cannikin

  I've got a simple script that lists a bunch of EC2 servers and automates me connecting to them. This script lives at ~/bin/ec2 My PATH looks something like: /Users/rob/bin:/Users/rob:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/opt/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin Whenever I call ec2 I get: -bash: /Users/rob/ec2: No such file or directory Unless I give it the full path, then it'll work. If I rename the script to just ec then I can run it from anywhere like expected. Have digits in script names always been a problem like this? I'm on Mac OSX.

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• Webcast: The Power to Translate is Now Inside Oracle WebCenter Sites

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  The Power to Translate is Now Inside Oracle WebCenter Sites You are invited to a special preview of the Lingotek Inside Oracle WebCenter Sites solution which will be showcased at Collaborate in Las Vegas later in April. Register Now! Now it's easy to quickly translate your content directly from Oracle WebCenter Sites using the new Lingotek - Inside for Oracle WebCenter Sites integration. Your users will be able to access translated content, nominate content for translation, and even offer to translate content themselves. Lingotek - Inside Integration: Content identified and seamlessly viewable within Lingotek Workbench. Translation Completed by: Machine and Translation Memory Community Volunteers, Crowdsourcing Professional Translators Translated Content Automatically Saved. Content within Oracle WebCenter Sites: Related Secured Routed Through Workflows Publish to Intranets, Web Sites, Applications Oracle WebCenter Sites Web Experience Management Enables marketers and business users to easily create and manage contextually relevant, social, and interactive online experiences across multiple channels on a global scale. Drive customer acquisition, brand loyalty, and business success Optimize customer engagement across Web, mobile, and social channels Manage large-scale, multichannel global online presence with integration to enterprise applications Register Now! You'll hear from the experts how this can be done. Free 30 Minute Webinar Date: Tues, Apr 17thTime: 8:00am MST, 3pm GMT and 4pm CET Win a Kindle Fire Register before April 6th for a chance to win a Amazon Kindle Fire! Presenter: Rob Vandenberg, President and CEO of Lingotek, drives the vision while leading the charge to change the future of translation. Rob is a well-known technology industry veteran, and his expertise and knowledge surrounding translation, localization, and internationalization materials, software products, and web content serves as an immeasurable asset to customers needs and requirements. Rob is a frequent industry speaker and panelist . Presenter: Andrew PalmerOracleEMEA Alliances DirectorWebCenter Sites System RequirementsPC-based attendeesRequired: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 ServerMacintosh®-based attendeesRequired: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

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