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• Rapid Evolution of Society & Technology

  - by Michael Snow

  We caught up with Brian Solis on the phone the other day and Christie Flanagan had a chance to chat with him and learn a bit more about him and some of the concepts he'll be addressing in our Social Business Thought Leaders Webcast on Thursday 12/13/12. «--- Interview with Brian Solis  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast- mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Be sure and register for this week's webcast ---» ------------------- Guest post by Brian Solis. Reposted (Borrowed) from his posting of May 24, 2012 Dear [insert business name], what’s your promise? - Brian Solis You say you want to get closer to customers, but your actions are different than your words. You say you want to “surprise and delight” customers, but your product development teams are too busy building against a roadmap without consideration of the 5th P of marketing…people. Your employees are your number one asset, however the infrastructure of the organization has turned once optimistic and ambitious intrapreneurs into complacent cogs or worse, your greatest detractors. You question the adoption of disruptive technology by your internal champions yet you’ve not tried to find the value for yourself. You’re a change agent and you truly wish to bring about change, but you’ve not invested time or resources to answer “why” in your endeavors to become a connected or social business. If we are to truly change, we must find purpose. We must uncover the essence of our business and the value it delivers to traditional and connected consumers. We must rethink the spirit of today’s embrace and clearly articulate how transformation is going to improve customer and employee experiences and relationships now and over time. Without doing so, any attempts at evolution will be thwarted by reality. In an era of Digital Darwinism, no business is too big to fail or too small to succeed. These are undisciplined times which require alternative approaches to recognize and pursue new opportunities. But everything begins with acknowledging the 360 view of the world that you see today is actually a filtered view of managed and efficient convenience. Today, many organizations that were once inspired by innovation and engagement have fallen into a process of marketing, operationalizing, managing, and optimizing. That might have worked for the better part of the last century, but for the next 10 years and beyond, new vision, leadership and supporting business models will be written to move businesses from rigid frameworks to adaptive and agile entities. I believe that today’s executives will undergo a great test; a test of character, vision, intention, and universal leadership. It starts with a simple, but essential question…what is your promise? Notice, I didn’t ask about your brand promise. Nor did I ask for you to cite your mission and vision statements. This is much more than value propositions or manufactured marketing language designed to hook audiences and stakeholders. I asked for your promise to me as your consumer, stakeholder, and partner. This isn’t about B2B or B2C, but instead, people to people, person to person. It is this promise that will breathe new life into an organization that on the outside, could be misdiagnosed as catatonic by those who are disrupting your markets. A promise, for example, is meant to inspire. It creates alignment. It serves as the foundation for your vision, mission, and all business strategies and it must come from the top to mean anything. For without it, we cannot genuinely voice what it is we stand for or stand behind. Think for a moment about the definition of community. It’s easy to confuse a workplace or a market where everyone simply shares common characteristics. However, a community in this day and age is much more than belonging to something, it’s about doing something together that makes belonging matter The next few years will force a divide where companies are separated by intention as measured by actions and words. But, becoming a social business is not enough. Becoming more authentic and transparent doesn’t serve as a mantra for a renaissance. A promise is the ink that inscribes the spirit of the relationship between you and me. A promise serves as the words that influence change from within and change beyond the halls of our business. It is the foundation for a renewed embrace, one that must then find its way to every aspect of the organization. It’s the difference between a social business and an adaptive business. While an adaptive business can also be social, it is the culture of the organization that strives to not just use technology to extend current philosophies or processes into new domains, but instead give rise to a new culture where striving for relevance is among its goals. The tools and networks simply become enablers of a greater mission You are reading this because you believe in something more than what you’re doing today. While you fight for change within your organization, remember to aim for a higher purpose. Organizations that strive for innovation, imagination, and relevance will outperform those that do not. Part of your job is to lead a missionary push that unites the groundswell with a top down cascade. Change will only happen because you and other internal champions see what others can’t and will do what other won’t. It takes resolve. It takes the ability to translate new opportunities into business value. And, it takes courage. “This is a very noisy world, so we have to be very clear what we want them to know about us”-Steve Jobs ----------------------------------------------------------------- So -- where do you begin to evaluate the kind of experience you are delivering for your customers, partners, and employees?  Take a look at this White Paper: Creating a Successful and Meaningful Customer Experience on the Web and then have a cup of coffee while you listen to the sage advice of Guy Kawasaki in a short video below.   An interview with Guy Kawasaki on Maximizing Social Media Channels 

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• How to Never Use iTunes With Your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch

  - by Chris Hoffman

  iTunes isn’t an amazing program on Windows. There was a time when Apple device users had to plug their devices into their PCs or Macs and use iTunes for device activation, updates, and syncing, but iTunes is no longer necessary. Apple still allows you to use iTunes for these things, but you don’t have to. Your iOS device can function independently from iTunes, so you should never be forced to plug it into a PC or Mac. Device Activation When the iPad first came out, it was touted as a device that could replace full PCs and Macs for people who only needed to perform light computing tasks. Yet, to set up a new iPad, users had to plug it into a PC or Mac running iTunes and use iTunes to activate the device. This is no longer necessary. With new iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches, you can simply go through the setup process after turning on your new device without ever having to plug it into iTunes. Just connect to a Wi-Fi or cellular data network and log in with your Apple ID when prompted. You’ll still see an option that allows you to activate the device via iTunes, but this should only be necessary if you don’t have a wireless Internet connection available for your device. Operating System Updates You no longer have to use Apple’s iTunes software to update to a new version of Apple’s iOS operating system, either. Just open the Settings app on your device, select the General category, and tap Software Update. You’ll be able to update right from your device without ever opening iTunes. Purchased iTunes Media Apple allows you to easily access content you’ve purchased from the iTunes Store on any device. You don’t have to connect your device to your computer and sync via iTunes. For example, you can purchase a movie from the iTunes Store. Then, without any syncing, you can open the iTunes Store app on any of your iOS devices, tap the Purchased section, and see stuff you’ve downloaded. You can download the content right from the store to your device. This also works for apps — apps you purchase from the App Store can be accessed in the Purchased section on the App Store on your device later. You don’t have to sync apps from iTunes to your device, although iTunes still allows you to. You can even set up automatic downloads from the iTunes & App Store settings screen. This would allow you to purchase content on one device and have it automatically download to your other devices without any hassle. Music Apple allows you to re-download purchased music from the iTunes Store in the same way. However, there’s a good chance you have your own music you didn’t purchase from iTunes. Maybe you spent time ripping it all from your old CDs and you’ve been syncing it to your devices via iTunes ever since. Apple’s solution for this is named iTunes Match. This feature isn’t free, but it’s not a bad deal at all. For $25 per year, Apple allows you to upload all your music to your iCloud account. You can then access all your music from any iPhone, IPad, or iPod Touch. You can stream all your music — perfect if you have a huge library and little storage on your device — and choose which songs you want to download to your device for offline use. When you add additional music to your computer, iTunes will notice it and upload it using iTunes Match, making it available for streaming and downloading directly from your iOS devices without any syncing. This feature is named iTunes Match because it doesn’t just upload music — if Apple already has a song you upload, it will “match” your song with Apple’s copy. This means you may get higher-quality versions of your songs if you ripped them from CD at a lower bitrate. Podcasts You don’t have to use iTunes to subscribe to podcasts and sync them to your devices. Even if you have a lowly iPod Touch, you can install APple’s Podcasts app from the app store. Use it to subscribe to podcasts and configure them to automatically download directly to your device. You can use other podcast apps for this, too. Backups You can continue backing up your device’s data through iTunes, generating local backups that are stored on your computer. However, new iOS devices are configured to automatically back up their data to iCloud. This happens automatically in the background without you even having to think about it, and you can restore such backups when setting up a device simply by logging in with your Apple ID. Personal Data In the days of PalmPilots, people would use desktop programs like iTunes to sync their email, contacts, and calendar events with their mobile devices. You probably shouldn’t have to sync this data form your computer. Just sign into your email account — for example, a Gmail account — on your device and iOS will automatically pull your email, contacts, and calendar events from your associated account. Photos Rather than connecting your iOS device to your computer and syncing photos from it, you can use an app that automatically uploads your photos to a web service. Dropbox, Google+, and even Flickr all have this feature in their apps. You’ll be able to access your photos from any computer and have a backup copy without any syncing required. You may still need to use iTunes if you want to sync local music without paying for iTunes Match or copy local video files to your device. Copying large local files over is the only real scenario where you’d need iTunes. If you don’t need to copy such files over, you can go ahead and uninstall iTunes from your Windows PC if you like. You shouldn’t need it.     

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• Inheritance Mapping Strategies with Entity Framework Code First CTP5: Part 2 – Table per Type (TPT)

  - by mortezam

  In the previous blog post you saw that there are three different approaches to representing an inheritance hierarchy and I explained Table per Hierarchy (TPH) as the default mapping strategy in EF Code First. We argued that the disadvantages of TPH may be too serious for our design since it results in denormalized schemas that can become a major burden in the long run. In today’s blog post we are going to learn about Table per Type (TPT) as another inheritance mapping strategy and we'll see that TPT doesn’t expose us to this problem. Table per Type (TPT)Table per Type is about representing inheritance relationships as relational foreign key associations. Every class/subclass that declares persistent properties—including abstract classes—has its own table. The table for subclasses contains columns only for each noninherited property (each property declared by the subclass itself) along with a primary key that is also a foreign key of the base class table. This approach is shown in the following figure: For example, if an instance of the CreditCard subclass is made persistent, the values of properties declared by the BillingDetail base class are persisted to a new row of the BillingDetails table. Only the values of properties declared by the subclass (i.e. CreditCard) are persisted to a new row of the CreditCards table. The two rows are linked together by their shared primary key value. Later, the subclass instance may be retrieved from the database by joining the subclass table with the base class table. TPT Advantages The primary advantage of this strategy is that the SQL schema is normalized. In addition, schema evolution is straightforward (modifying the base class or adding a new subclass is just a matter of modify/add one table). Integrity constraint definition are also straightforward (note how CardType in CreditCards table is now a non-nullable column). Another much more important advantage is the ability to handle polymorphic associations (a polymorphic association is an association to a base class, hence to all classes in the hierarchy with dynamic resolution of the concrete class at runtime). A polymorphic association to a particular subclass may be represented as a foreign key referencing the table of that particular subclass. Implement TPT in EF Code First We can create a TPT mapping simply by placing Table attribute on the subclasses to specify the mapped table name (Table attribute is a new data annotation and has been added to System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace in CTP5): public abstract class BillingDetail {     public int BillingDetailId { get; set; }     public string Owner { get; set; }     public string Number { get; set; } } [Table("BankAccounts")] public class BankAccount : BillingDetail {     public string BankName { get; set; }     public string Swift { get; set; } } [Table("CreditCards")] public class CreditCard : BillingDetail {     public int CardType { get; set; }     public string ExpiryMonth { get; set; }     public string ExpiryYear { get; set; } } public class InheritanceMappingContext : DbContext {     public DbSet<BillingDetail> BillingDetails { get; set; } } If you prefer fluent API, then you can create a TPT mapping by using ToTable() method: protected override void OnModelCreating(ModelBuilder modelBuilder) {     modelBuilder.Entity<BankAccount>().ToTable("BankAccounts");     modelBuilder.Entity<CreditCard>().ToTable("CreditCards"); } Generated SQL For QueriesLet’s take an example of a simple non-polymorphic query that returns a list of all the BankAccounts: var query = from b in context.BillingDetails.OfType<BankAccount>() select b; Executing this query (by invoking ToList() method) results in the following SQL statements being sent to the database (on the bottom, you can also see the result of executing the generated query in SQL Server Management Studio): Now, let’s take an example of a very simple polymorphic query that requests all the BillingDetails which includes both BankAccount and CreditCard types: projects some properties out of the base class BillingDetail, without querying for anything from any of the subclasses: var query = from b in context.BillingDetails             select new { b.BillingDetailId, b.Number, b.Owner }; -- var query = from b in context.BillingDetails select b; This LINQ query seems even more simple than the previous one but the resulting SQL query is not as simple as you might expect: -- As you can see, EF Code First relies on an INNER JOIN to detect the existence (or absence) of rows in the subclass tables CreditCards and BankAccounts so it can determine the concrete subclass for a particular row of the BillingDetails table. Also the SQL CASE statements that you see in the beginning of the query is just to ensure columns that are irrelevant for a particular row have NULL values in the returning flattened table. (e.g. BankName for a row that represents a CreditCard type) TPT ConsiderationsEven though this mapping strategy is deceptively simple, the experience shows that performance can be unacceptable for complex class hierarchies because queries always require a join across many tables. In addition, this mapping strategy is more difficult to implement by hand— even ad-hoc reporting is more complex. This is an important consideration if you plan to use handwritten SQL in your application (For ad hoc reporting, database views provide a way to offset the complexity of the TPT strategy. A view may be used to transform the table-per-type model into the much simpler table-per-hierarchy model.) SummaryIn this post we learned about Table per Type as the second inheritance mapping in our series. So far, the strategies we’ve discussed require extra consideration with regard to the SQL schema (e.g. in TPT, foreign keys are needed). This situation changes with the Table per Concrete Type (TPC) that we will discuss in the next post. References ADO.NET team blog Java Persistence with Hibernate book a { text-decoration: none; } a:visited { color: Blue; } .title { padding-bottom: 5px; font-family: Segoe UI; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; padding-top: 15px; } .code, .typeName { font-family: consolas; } .typeName { color: #2b91af; } .padTop5 { padding-top: 5px; } .padTop10 { padding-top: 10px; } p.MsoNormal { margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; line-height: 115%; font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: "Calibri" , "sans-serif"; }

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• Inventory Management concepts in XNA game

  - by user1332755

  I am trying to code the inventory system in my first real game so I have very little experience in both c# and game engine development. Basically, I need some general guidance and tips with how to structure and organize these sorts of systems. Please tell me if I am on the right track or not before I get too deep into making some badly structured system. It's fine if you don't feel like looking through my code, suggestions about general structure would also be appreciated. What I am aiming to end up with is some sort of system like Minecraft or Terraria. It must include: main inventory GUI (items can be dragged and placed in whatever slot desired Itembar outside of the main inventory which can be assigned to certain items the ability to use items from either location So far, I have 4 main classes: Inventory holds the general info and methods, inventoryslot holds info for individual slots, Itembar holds all info and methods for itself, and finally, ItemManager to manage interactions between the two and hold a master list of items. So far, my itembar works perfectly and interacts well with mousedragging items into and out of it as well as activating the item effect. Here is the code I have so far: (there is a lot but I will try to keep it relevant) This is the code for the itembar on the main screen: class Itembar { public Texture2D itembarfull, iSelected; public static Rectangle itembar = new Rectangle(5, 218, 40, 391); public Rectangle box1 = new Rectangle(itembar.X, 218, 40, 40); //up to 10 Rectangles for each slot public int Selected = 0; private ItemManager manager; public Itembar(Texture2D texture, Texture2D texture3, ItemManager mann) { itembarfull = texture; iSelected = texture3; manager = mann; } public void Update(GameTime gametime) { } public void Draw(SpriteBatch spriteBatch) { spriteBatch.Draw( itembarfull, new Vector2 (itembar.X, itembar.Y), null, Color.White, 0.0f, Vector2.Zero, 1.0f, SpriteEffects.None, 1.0f); if (Selected == 1) spriteBatch.Draw(iSelected, new Rectangle(box1.X-3, box1.Y-3, box1.Width+6, box1.Height+6), Color.White); //goes up to 10 slots } public int Box1Query() { foreach (Item item in manager.items) { if(box1.Contains(item.BoundingBox)) return manager.items.IndexOf(item); } return 999; } //10 different box queries It is working fine right now. I just put an Item in there and the box will query things like the item's effects, stack number, consumable or not etc...This one is basically almost complete. Here is the main inventory class: class Inventory { public bool isActive; public List<Rectangle> mainSlots = new List<Rectangle>(24); public List<InventorySlot> mainSlotscheck = new List<InventorySlot>(24); public static Rectangle inv = new Rectangle(841, 469, 156, 231); public Rectangle invfull = new Rectangle(inv.X, inv.Y, inv.Width, inv.Height); public Rectangle inv1 = new Rectangle(inv.X + 4, inv.Y +3, 32, 32); //goes up to inv24 resulting in a 6x4 grid of Rectangles public Inventory() { mainSlots.Add(inv1); mainSlots.Add(inv2); mainSlots.Add(inv3); mainSlots.Add(inv4); //goes up to 24 foreach (Rectangle slot in mainSlots) mainSlotscheck.Add(new InventorySlot(slot)); } //update and draw methods are empty because im not too sure what to put there public int LookforfreeSlot() { int slotnumber = 999; for (int x = 0; x < mainSlots.Count; x++) { if (mainSlotscheck[x].isFree) { slotnumber = x; break; } } return slotnumber; } } } LookforFreeSlot() method is meant to be called when I do AddtoInventory(). I'm kinda stumped about what other things I need to put in this class. Here is the inventorySlot class: (its main purpose is to check the bool "isFree" to see whether or not something already occupies the slot. But i guess it can also do other stuff like get item info.) class InventorySlot { public int X, Y; public int Width = 32, Height = 32; public Vector2 Position; public int slotnumber; public bool free = true; public int? content = null; public bool isFree { get { return free; } set { free = value; } } public InventorySlot(Rectangle slot) { slot = new Rectangle(X, Y, Width, Height); } } } Finally, here is the ItemManager (I am omitting the master list because it is too long) class ItemManager { public List<Item> items = new List<Item>(20); public List<Item> inventory1 = new List<Item>(24); public List<Item> inventory2 = new List<Item>(24); public List<Item> inventory3 = new List<Item>(24); public List<Item> inventory4 = new List<Item>(24); public Texture2D icon, filta; private Rectangle msRect; MouseState mouseState; public int ISelectedIndex; Inventory inventory; SpriteFont font; public void GenerateItems() { items.Add(new Item(new Rectangle(0, 0, 32, 32), icon, font)); items[0].name = "Grass Chip"; items[0].itemID = 0; items[0].consumable = true; items[0].stackable = true; items[0].maxStack = 99; items.Add(new Item(new Rectangle(32, 0, 32, 32), icon, font)); //master list continues. it will generate all items in the game; } public ItemManager(Inventory inv, Texture2D itemsheet, Rectangle mouseRectt, MouseState ms, Texture2D fil, SpriteFont f) { icon = itemsheet; msRect = mouseRectt; filta = fil; mouseState = ms; inventory = inv; font = f; } //once again, no update or draw public void mousedrag() { items[0].DestinationRect = new Rectangle (msRect.X, msRect.Y, 32, 32); items[0].dragging = true; } public void AddtoInventory(Item item) { int index = inventory.LookforfreeSlot(); if (index == 999) return; item.DestinationRect = inventory.mainSlots[index]; inventory.mainSlotscheck[index].content = item.itemID; inventory.mainSlotscheck[index].isFree = false; item.IsActive = true; } } } The mousedrag works pretty well. AddtoInventory doesn't work because LookforfreeSlot doesn't work. Relevant code from the main program: When I want to add something to the main inventory, I do something like this: foreach (Particle ether in ether1.ethers) { if (ether.isCollected) itemmanager.AddtoInventory(itemmanager.items[14]); } This turned out to be much longer than I had expected :( But I hope someone is interested enough to comment.

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• 10 tape technology features that make you go hmm.

  - by Karoly Vegh

  A week ago an Oracle/StorageTek Tape Specialist, Christian Vanden Balck, visited Vienna, and agreed to visit customers to do techtalks and update them about the technology boom going around tape. I had the privilege to attend some of his sessions and noted the information and features that took the customers by surprise and made them think. Allow me to share the top 10: I. StorageTek as a brand: StorageTek is one of he strongest names in the Tape field. The brand itself was valued so much by customers that even after Sun Microsystems acquiring StorageTek and the Oracle acquiring Sun the brand lives on with all the Oracle tapelibraries are officially branded StorageTek.See http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/storage/tape-storage/overview/index.html II. Disk information density limitations: Disk technology struggles with information density. You haven't seen the disk sizes exploding lately, have you? That's partly because there are physical limits on a disk platter. The size is given, the number of platters is limited, they just can't grow, and are running out of physical area to write to. Now, in a T10000C tape cartridge we have over 1000m long tape. There you go, you have got your physical space and don't need to stuff all that data crammed together. You can write in a reliable pattern, and have space to grow too. III. Oracle has a market share of 62% worldwide in recording head manufacturing. That's right. If you are running LTO drives, with a good chance you rely on StorageTek production. That's two out of three LTO recording heads produced worldwide.  IV. You can store 1 Exabyte data in a single tape library. Yes, an Exabyte. That is 1000 Petabytes. Or, a million Terabytes. A thousand million GigaBytes. You can store that in a stacked StorageTek SL8500 tapelibrary. In one SL8500 you can put 10.000 T10000C cartridges, that store 10TB data (compressed). You can stack 10 of these SL8500s together. Boom. 1000.000 TB.(n.b.: stacking means interconnecting the libraries. Yes, cartridges are moved between the stacked libraries automatically.)  V. EMC: 'Tape doesn't suck after all. We moved on.': Do you remember the infamous 'Tape sucks, move on' Datadomain slogan? Of course they had to put it that way, having only had disk products. But here's a fun fact: on the EMCWorld 2012 there was a major presence of a Tape-tech company - EMC, in a sudden burst of sanity is embracing tape again. VI. The miraculous T10000C: Oracle StorageTek has developed an enterprise-grade tapedrive and cartridge, the T10000C. With awesome numbers: The Cartridge: Native 5TB capacity, 10TB with compression Over a kilometer long tape within the cartridge. And it's locked when unmounted, no rattling of your data.  Replaced the metalparticles datalayer with BaFe (bariumferrite) - metalparticles lose around 7% of magnetism within 30 days. BaFe does not. Yes we employ solid-state physicists doing R&D on demagnetisation in our labs. Can be partitioned, storage tiering within the cartridge!  The Drive: 2GB Cache Encryption implemented in HW - no performance hit 252 MB/s native sustained data rate, beats disk technology by far. Not to mention peak throughput.  Leading the tape while never touching the data side of it, protecting your data physically too Data integritiy checking (CRC recalculation) on tape within the drive without having to read it back to the server reordering data from tape-order, delivering it back in application-order  writing 32 tracks at once, reading them back for CRC check at once VII. You only use 20% of your data on a regular basis. The rest 80% is just lying around for years. On continuously spinning disks. Doubly consuming energy (power+cooling), blocking diskstorage capacity. There is a solution called SAM (Storage Archive Manager) that provides you a filesystem unifying disk and tape, moving data on-demand and for clients transparently between the different storage tiers. You can share these filesystems with NFS or CIFS for clients, and enjoy the low TCO of tape. Tapes don't spin. They sit quietly in their slots, storing 10TB data, using no energy, producing no heat, automounted when a client accesses their data.See: http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/storage/storage-software/storage-archive-manager/overview/index.html VIII. HW supported for three decades: Did you know that the original PowderHorn library was released in '87 and has been only discontinued in 2010? That is over two decades of supported operation. Tape libraries are - just like the data carrying on tapecartridges - built for longevity. Oh, and the T10000C cartridge has 30-year archival life for long-term retention.  IX. Tape is easy to manage: Have you heard of Tape Storage Analytics? It is a central graphical tool to summarize, monitor, analyze dataflow, health and performance of drives and libraries, see: http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/storage/tape-storage/tape-analytics/overview/index.html X. The next generation: The T10000B drives were able to reuse the T10000A cartridges and write on them even more data. On the same cartridges. We call this investment protection, and this is very important for Oracle for the future too. We usually support two generations of cartridges together. The current drive is a T10000C. (...I know I promised to enlist 10, but I got still two more I really want to mention. Allow me to work around the problem: ) X++. The TallBots, the robots moving around the cartridges in the StorageTek library from tapeslots to the drives are cableless. Cables, belts, chains running to moving parts in a library cause maintenance downtimes. So StorageTek eliminated them. The TallBots get power, commands, even firmwareupgrades through the rails they are running on. Also, the TallBots don't just hook'n'pull the tapes out of their slots, they actually grip'n'lift them out. No friction, no scratches, no zillion little plastic particles floating around in the library, in the drives, on your data. (X++)++: Tape beats SSDs and Disks. In terms of throughput (252 MB/s), in terms of TCO: disks cause around 290x more power and cooling, in terms of capacity: 10TB on a single media and soon more.  So... do you need to store large amounts of data? Are you legally bound to archive it for dozens of years? Would you benefit from automatic storage tiering? Have you got large mediachunks to be streamed at times? Have you got power and cooling issues in the growing datacenters? Do you find EMC's 180° turn of tape attitude interesting, but appreciate it at the same time? With all that, you aren't alone. The most data on this planet is stored on tape. Tape is coming. Big time.

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• SQL Server Table Polling by Multiple Subscribers

  - by Daniel Hester

  Background Designing Stored Procedures that are safe for multiple subscribers (to call simultaneously) can be challenging.  For example let’s say that you want multiple worker processes to poll a shared work queue that’s encapsulated as a SQL Table. This is a common scenario and through experience you’ll find that you want to use Table Hints to prevent unwanted locking when performing simultaneous queries on the same table. There are three table hints to consider: NOLOCK, READPAST and UPDLOCK. Both NOLOCK and READPAST table hints allow you to SELECT from a table without placing a LOCK on that table. However, SELECTs with the READPAST hint will ignore any records that are locked due to being updated/inserted (or otherwise “dirty”), whereas a SELECT with NOLOCK ignores all locks including dirty reads. For the initial update of the flag (that marks the record as available for subscription) I don’t use the NOLOCK Table Hint because I want to be sensitive to the “active” records in the table and I want to exclude them.  I use an Update Lock (UPDLOCK) in conjunction with a WHERE clause that uses a sub-select with a READPAST Table Hint in order to explicitly lock the records I’m updating (UPDLOCK) but not place a lock on the table when selecting the records that I’m going to update (READPAST). UPDATES should be allowed to lock the rows affected because we’re probably changing a flag on a record so that it is not included in a SELECT from another subscriber. On the UPDATE statement we should explicitly use the UPDLOCK to guard against lock escalation. A SELECT to check for the next record(s) to process can result in a shared read lock being held by more than one subscriber polling the shared work queue (SQL table). It is expected that more than one worker process (or server) might try to process the same new record(s) at the same time. When each process then tries to obtain the update lock, none of them can because another process has a shared read lock in place. Thus without the UPDLOCK hint the result would be a lock escalation deadlock; however with the UPDLOCK hint this condition is mitigated against. Note that using the READPAST table hint requires that you also set the ISOLATION LEVEL of the transaction to be READ COMMITTED (rather than the default of SERIALIZABLE). Guidance In the Stored Procedure that returns records to the multiple subscribers: Perform the UPDATE first. Change the flag that makes the record available to subscribers.  Additionally, you may want to update a LastUpdated datetime field in order to be able to check for records that “got stuck” in an intermediate state or for other auditing purposes. In the UPDATE statement use the (UPDLOCK) Table Hint on the UPDATE statement to prevent lock escalation. In the UPDATE statement also use a WHERE Clause that uses a sub-select with a (READPAST) Table Hint to select the records that you’re going to update. In the UPDATE statement use the OUTPUT clause in conjunction with a Temporary Table to isolate the record(s) that you’ve just updated and intend to return to the subscriber. This is the fastest way to update the record(s) and to get the records’ identifiers within the same operation. Finally do a set-based SELECT on the main Table (using the Temporary Table to identify the records in the set) with either a READPAST or NOLOCK table hint.  Use NOLOCK if there are other processes (besides the multiple subscribers) that might be changing the data that you want to return to the multiple subscribers; or use READPAST if you're sure there are no other processes (besides the multiple subscribers) that might be updating column data in the table for other purposes (e.g. changes to a person’s last name).  NOLOCK is generally the better fit in this part of the scenario. See the following as an example: CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[usp_NewCustomersSelect] AS BEGIN -- OVERRIDE THE DEFAULT ISOLATION LEVEL SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL READ COMMITTED -- SET NOCOUNT ON SET NOCOUNT ON -- DECLARE TEMP TABLE -- Note that this example uses CustomerId as an identifier; -- you could just use the Identity column Id if that’s all you need. DECLARE @CustomersTempTable TABLE ( CustomerId NVARCHAR(255) ) -- PERFORM UPDATE FIRST -- [Customers] is the name of the table -- [Id] is the Identity Column on the table -- [CustomerId] is the business document key used to identify the -- record globally, i.e. in other systems or across SQL tables -- [Status] is INT or BIT field (if the status is a binary state) -- [LastUpdated] is a datetime field used to record the time of the -- last update UPDATE [Customers] WITH (UPDLOCK) SET [Status] = 1, [LastUpdated] = GETDATE() OUTPUT [INSERTED].[CustomerId] INTO @CustomersTempTable WHERE ([Id] = (SELECT TOP 100 [Id] FROM [Customers] WITH (READPAST) WHERE ([Status] = 0) ORDER BY [Id] ASC)) -- PERFORM SELECT FROM ENTITY TABLE SELECT [C].[CustomerId], [C].[FirstName], [C].[LastName], [C].[Address1], [C].[Address2], [C].[City], [C].[State], [C].[Zip], [C].[ShippingMethod], [C].[Id] FROM [Customers] AS [C] WITH (NOLOCK), @CustomersTempTable AS [TEMP] WHERE ([C].[CustomerId] = [TEMP].[CustomerId]) END In a system that has been designed to have multiple status values for records that need to be processed in the Work Queue it is necessary to have a “Watch Dog” process by which “stale” records in intermediate states (such as “In Progress”) are detected, i.e. a [Status] of 0 = New or Unprocessed; a [Status] of 1 = In Progress; a [Status] of 2 = Processed; etc.. Thus, if you have a business rule that states that the application should only process new records if all of the old records have been processed successfully (or marked as an error), then it will be necessary to build a monitoring process to detect stalled or stale records in the Work Queue, hence the use of the LastUpdated column in the example above. The Status field along with the LastUpdated field can be used as the criteria to detect stalled / stale records. It is possible to put this watchdog logic into the stored procedure above, but I would recommend making it a separate monitoring function. In writing the stored procedure that checks for stale records I would recommend using the same kind of lock semantics as suggested above. The example below looks for records that have been in the “In Progress” state ([Status] = 1) for greater than 60 seconds: CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[usp_NewCustomersWatchDog] AS BEGIN -- TO OVERRIDE THE DEFAULT ISOLATION LEVEL SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL READ COMMITTED -- SET NOCOUNT ON SET NOCOUNT ON DECLARE @MaxWait int; SET @MaxWait = 60 IF EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM [dbo].[Customers] WITH (READPAST) WHERE ([Status] = 1) AND (DATEDIFF(s, [LastUpdated], GETDATE()) > @MaxWait)) BEGIN SELECT 1 AS [IsWatchDogError] END ELSE BEGIN SELECT 0 AS [IsWatchDogError] END END Downloads The zip file below contains two SQL scripts: one to create a sample database with the above stored procedures and one to populate the sample database with 10,000 sample records.  I am very grateful to Red-Gate software for their excellent SQL Data Generator tool which enabled me to create these sample records in no time at all. References http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187373.aspx http://www.techrepublic.com/article/using-nolock-and-readpast-table-hints-in-sql-server/6185492 http://geekswithblogs.net/gwiele/archive/2004/11/25/15974.aspx http://grounding.co.za/blogs/romiko/archive/2009/03/09/biztalk-sql-receive-location-deadlocks-dirty-reads-and-isolation-levels.aspx

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• Augmenting your Social Efforts via Data as a Service (DaaS)

  - by Mike Stiles

  The following is the 3rd in a series of posts on the value of leveraging social data across your enterprise by Oracle VP Product Development Don Springer and Oracle Cloud Data and Insight Service Sr. Director Product Management Niraj Deo. In this post, we will discuss the approach and value of integrating additional “public” data via a cloud-based Data-as-as-Service platform (or DaaS) to augment your Socially Enabled Big Data Analytics and CX Management. Let’s assume you have a functional Social-CRM platform in place. You are now successfully and continuously listening and learning from your customers and key constituents in Social Media, you are identifying relevant posts and following up with direct engagement where warranted (both 1:1, 1:community, 1:all), and you are starting to integrate signals for communication into your appropriate Customer Experience (CX) Management systems as well as insights for analysis in your business intelligence application. What is the next step? Augmenting Social Data with other Public Data for More Advanced Analytics When we say advanced analytics, we are talking about understanding causality and correlation from a wide variety, volume and velocity of data to Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to achieve and optimize business value. And in some cases, to predict future performance to make appropriate course corrections and change the outcome to your advantage while you can. The data to acquire, process and analyze this is very nuanced: It can vary across structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data It can span across content, profile, and communities of profiles data It is increasingly public, curated and user generated The key is not just getting the data, but making it value-added data and using it to help discover the insights to connect to and improve your KPIs. As we spend time working with our larger customers on advanced analytics, we have seen a need arise for more business applications to have the ability to ingest and use “quality” curated, social, transactional reference data and corresponding insights. The challenge for the enterprise has been getting this data inline into an easily accessible system and providing the contextual integration of the underlying data enriched with insights to be exported into the enterprise’s business applications. The following diagram shows the requirements for this next generation data and insights service or (DaaS): Some quick points on these requirements: Public Data, which in this context is about Common Business Entities, such as - Customers, Suppliers, Partners, Competitors (all are organizations) Contacts, Consumers, Employees (all are people) Products, Brands This data can be broadly categorized incrementally as - Base Utility data (address, industry classification) Public Master Reference data (trade style, hierarchy) Social/Web data (News, Feeds, Graph) Transactional Data generated by enterprise process, workflows etc. This Data has traits of high-volume, variety, velocity etc., and the technology needed to efficiently integrate this data for your needs includes - Change management of Public Reference Data across all categories Applied Big Data to extract statics as well as real-time insights Knowledge Diagnostics and Data Mining As you consider how to deploy this solution, many of our customers will be using an online “cloud” service that provides quality data and insights uniformly to all their necessary applications. In addition, they are requesting a service that is: Agile and Easy to Use: Applications integrated with the service can obtain data on-demand, quickly and simply Cost-effective: Pre-integrated into applications so customers don’t have to Has High Data Quality: Single point access to reference data for data quality and linkages to transactional, curated and social data Supports Data Governance: Becomes more manageable and cost-effective since control of data privacy and compliance can be enforced in a centralized place Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) Just as the cloud has transformed and now offers a better path for how an enterprise manages its IT from their infrastructure, platform, and software (IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS), the next step is data (DaaS). Over the last 3 years, we have seen the market begin to offer a cloud-based data service and gain initial traction. On one side of the DaaS continuum, we see an “appliance” type of service that provides a single, reliable source of accurate business data plus social information about accounts, leads, contacts, etc. On the other side of the continuum we see more of an online market “exchange” approach where ISVs and Data Publishers can publish and sell premium datasets within the exchange, with the exchange providing a rich set of web interfaces to improve the ease of data integration. Why the difference? It depends on the provider’s philosophy on how fast the rate of commoditization of certain data types will occur. How do you decide the best approach? Our perspective, as shown in the diagram below, is that the enterprise should develop an elastic schema to support multi-domain applicability. This allows the enterprise to take the most flexible approach to harness the speed and breadth of public data to achieve value. The key tenet of the proposed approach is that an enterprise carefully federates common utility, master reference data end points, mobility considerations and content processing, so that they are pervasively available. One way you may already be familiar with this approach is in how you do Address Verification treatments for accounts, contacts etc. If you design and revise this service in such a way that it is also easily available to social analytic needs, you could extend this to launch geo-location based social use cases (marketing, sales etc.). Our fundamental belief is that value-added data achieved through enrichment with specialized algorithms, as well as applying business “know-how” to weight-factor KPIs based on innovative combinations across an ever-increasing variety, volume and velocity of data, will be where real value is achieved. Essentially, Data-as-a-Service becomes a single entry point for the ever-increasing richness and volume of public data, with enrichment and combined capabilities to extract and integrate the right data from the right sources with the right factoring at the right time for faster decision-making and action within your core business applications. As more data becomes available (and in many cases commoditized), this value-added data processing approach will provide you with ongoing competitive advantage. Let’s look at a quick example of creating a master reference relationship that could be used as an input for a variety of your already existing business applications. In phase 1, a simple master relationship is achieved between a company (e.g. General Motors) and a variety of car brands’ social insights. The reference data allows for easy sort, export and integration into a set of CRM use cases for analytics, sales and marketing CRM. In phase 2, as you create more data relationships (e.g. competitors, contacts, other brands) to have broader and deeper references (social profiles, social meta-data) for more use cases across CRM, HCM, SRM, etc. This is just the tip of the iceberg, as the amount of master reference relationships is constrained only by your imagination and the availability of quality curated data you have to work with. DaaS is just now emerging onto the marketplace as the next step in cloud transformation. For some of you, this may be the first you have heard about it. Let us know if you have questions, or perspectives. In the meantime, we will continue to share insights as we can.Photo: Erik Araujo, stock.xchng

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• Looking into the JQuery Overlays Plugin

  - by nikolaosk

  I have been using JQuery for a couple of years now and it has helped me to solve many problems on the client side of web development.  You can find all my posts about JQuery in this link. In this post I will be providing you with a hands-on example on the JQuery Overlays Plugin.If you want you can have a look at this post, where I describe the JQuery Cycle Plugin.You can find another post of mine talking about the JQuery Carousel Lite Plugin here. Another post of mine regarding the JQuery Image Zoom Plugin can be found here.I will be writing more posts regarding the most commonly used JQuery Plugins. With the JQuery Overlays Plugin we can provide the user (overlay) with more information about an image when the user hovers over the image. I have been using extensively this plugin in my websites. In this hands-on example I will be using Expression Web 4.0.This application is not a free application. You can use any HTML editor you like. You can use Visual Studio 2012 Express edition. You can download it here.  You can download this plugin from this link. I launch Expression Web 4.0 and then I type the following HTML markup (I am using HTML 5) <html lang="en"> <head>    <link rel="stylesheet" href="ImageOverlay.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />    <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-1.8.3.min.js"></script>    <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.ImageOverlay.min.js"></script>         <script type="text/javascript">        $(function () {            $("#Liverpool").ImageOverlay();        });    </script>   </head><body>    <ul id="Liverpool" class="image-overlay">        <li>            <a href="www.liverpoolfc.com">                <img alt="Liverpool" src="championsofeurope.jpg" />                <div class="caption">                    <h3>Liverpool Football club</h3>                    <p>The greatest club in the world</p>                </div>            </a>        </li>    </ul></body></html> This is a very simple markup. I have added references to the JQuery library (current version is 1.8.3) and the JQuery Overlays Plugin. Then I add 1 image in the element with "id=Liverpool". There is a caption class as well, where I place the text I want to show when the mouse hovers over the image. The caption class and the Liverpool id element are styled in the ImageOverlay.css file that can also be downloaded with the plugin.You can style the various elements of the html markup in the .css file. The Javascript code that makes it all happen follows.   <script type="text/javascript">        $(function () {            $("#Liverpool").ImageOverlay();        });    </script>        I am just calling the ImageOverlay function for the Liverpool ID element.The contents of ImageOverlay.css file follow .image-overlay { list-style: none; text-align: left; }.image-overlay li { display: inline; }.image-overlay a:link, .image-overlay a:visited, .image-overlay a:hover, .image-overlay a:active { text-decoration: none; }.image-overlay a:link img, .image-overlay a:visited img, .image-overlay a:hover img, .image-overlay a:active img { border: none; }.image-overlay a{    margin: 9px;    float: left;    background: #fff;    border: solid 2px;    overflow: hidden;    position: relative;}.image-overlay img{    position: absolute;    top: 0;    left: 0;    border: 0;}.image-overlay .caption{    float: left;    position: absolute;    background-color: #000;    width: 100%;    cursor: pointer;    /* The way to change overlay opacity is the follow properties. Opacity is a tricky issue due to        longtime IE abuse of it, so opacity is not offically supported - use at your own risk.         To play it safe, disable overlay opacity in IE. */    /* For Firefox/Opera/Safari/Chrome */    opacity: .8;    /* For IE 5-7 */    filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=80);    /* For IE 8 */    -MS-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=80)";}.image-overlay .caption h1, .image-overlay .caption h2, .image-overlay .caption h3,.image-overlay .caption h4, .image-overlay .caption h5, .image-overlay .caption h6{    margin: 10px 0 10px 2px;    font-size: 26px;    font-weight: bold;    padding: 0 0 0 5px;    color:#92171a;}.image-overlay p{    text-indent: 0;    margin: 10px;    font-size: 1.2em;} It couldn't be any simpler than that. I view my simple page in Internet Explorer 10 and it works as expected. I have tested this simple solution in all major browsers and it works fine.Have a look at the picture below. You can test it yourself and see the results in your favorite browser. Hope it helps!!!

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• Alcatel-Lucent: Enterprise 2.0: The Top 5 Things I would Do Over

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  Happy Monday! Does anyone else feel as if the weekend went entirely too quickly? At least for those of us in the United States, we have the 4th of July Holiday next week to look forward to This week on the blog, we are going to focus on "WebCenter by Example" and highlight best practices from customers and partners. I recently came across this article and I think this is a great example of how we can learn from one another when it comes to social collaboration adoption. Do you agree with Jem? What things or best practices have you learned in your organizations?  By Jem Janik, Enterprise community manager, Alcatel-Lucent  Not so long ago, Engage, the Alcatel-Lucent employee social network and collaboration platform, celebrated its third birthday. With more than 25,000 members actively interacting each month, Engage has been a big enough success that it’s been the subject of external articles, and often those of us who helped launch it will go out and speak about what aspects contributed to that success. Hindsight is still 20/20 and what it takes to successfully launch an enterprise 2.0 community is fairly well-known now.  Today I want to tell you what I suspect you really want to know about.  As the enterprise community manager for Engage, after three years in, what are the top 5 things I wish we (and I mostly mean me) could do over? #5 Define your analytics solution from the start There is so much to do when you launch a community and initially growing it without complete chaos is quite a task.  It doesn’t take too long to get to a point where you want to focus your continued efforts in growing company collaboration.  Do people truly talk across regional boundaries or have we shifted siloed conversations to a new platform.  Is there one organization that doesn’t interact with another? If you are lucky you’ll have someone in your community team well versed in the world of databases and SQL queries, but it takes time to figure out what backend analytics data actually means. Professional support can be expensive and it may be hard to justify later as it typically has the community manager as the only main customer.  Figure out what you think you’ll want to know and how to get it early on. The sooner the better even if it doesn’t seem that critical at the time. #4 Lobbies guide you to the right places One piece of feedback that comes up more and more as we keep growing Engage is it’s hard to find stuff, or new people are not sure where to start. Something we’re doing now is defining some general topic areas of interest to be like “lobbies” into the platform and some common hashtags to go with them. I liken this to walking into a large medical or professional building for the first time.  There are hundreds of offices, and you look to a sign in the lobby to get guided to the right place for you.  We’re building that sign for members now, but again we missed the boat as the majority of the company has had their initial Engage experience. #3 Clean up, clean up, clean up Knowledge work and folksonomies are messy! The day we opened the doors to Engage I would have said we should keep everything ever created in Engage with an argument that it was a window into our collective knowledge so nothing should go.  Well, 6000+ groups and 200,000+ pieces of content later, I’ve changed my mind.  As previously mentioned, with too much “stuff” the system can be overwhelming to new members and it makes it harder to get what you’re looking for.   Do we need that help document about a tool we no longer have? NO!  Do we need that group that had 1 document and 2 discussions in the last two years? NO! Should we only have one group about a given topic instead of 4?  YES! Last fall, Engage defined a cleanup process for groups not used for a long time.  We also formed a volunteer cleaning army who are extra eyes on the hunt for “stuff” that should be updated, merged, or deleted.  It’s better late than never, but in line with what’s becoming a theme I wish these efforts had started earlier. #2 Communications & local community management One of the most important aspects of my job is to make sure people who should be talking to each other are actually doing it.  Connecting people to the other people they should know, the groups they should join, a piece of content that shouldn’t be missed.   I have worked both inside and outside of communications teams, and they are the best informed people in your company.  They know when something big is coming, how it impacts employees, how it fits with strategy, who else knows more, etc.  Having communications professionals who are power users can help scale up community management because they are already so well connected.  They also need to have the platform skills to pay attention without suffering email overload, how to grab someone’s attention, etc.  I wish I’d had figured this out much earlier.  If I had I would have groomed more communications colleagues into advocates and power members right at the start. #1 Grooming advocates vs. natural advocates I’ve just alluded to this above already. The very best advocates are those who naturally embrace your platform and automatically start to see new ways to work within it.  Those advocates seem to come out of the woodwork naturally since some of them are early adopters.  Not surprisingly, our best advocates today are those same people who were willing to come kick the tires when the community was completely empty.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get a global spread of those natural advocates.  I did ask around when we first launched for other people who might be good candidates, but didn’t push too hard as there were so many other things to get ready.  That was a mistake.  If I could get a redo I would have formally asked for people to be assigned where there were gaps and groomed them into an advocate.  Today as we find new advocates to fill the gaps, people are hesitant as the initial set has three years of practice are ahead of the curve power members; it definitely would have been easier earlier on. As fairly early adopters to corporate scale enterprise collaboration, there hasn’t been a roadmap to follow as we’ve grown Engage, which is part of the fun! It’s clear a lot of issues are more easily tackled the earlier you identify and begin to correct them, and I’ve identified the main five I wish I could redo.  In the spirit of collaboration, I hope someone else learns from my mistakes! View the original article by Jem here. 

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• Metrics - A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing (or 'Why you're not clever enough to interpret metrics data')

  - by Jason Crease

  At RedGate Software, I work on a .NET obfuscator  called SmartAssembly.  Various features of it use a database to store various things (exception reports, name-mappings, etc.) The user is given the option of using either a SQL-Server database (which requires them to have Microsoft SQL Server), or a Microsoft Access MDB file (which requires nothing). MDB is the default option, but power-users soon switch to using a SQL Server database because it offers better performance and data-sharing. In the fashionable spirit of optimization and metrics, an obvious product-management question is 'Which is the most popular? SQL Server or MDB?' We've collected data about this fact, using our 'Feature-Usage-Reporting' technology (available as part of SmartAssembly) and more recently our 'Application Metrics' technology: Parameter Number of users % of total users Number of sessions Number of usages SQL Server 28 19.0 8115 8115 MDB 114 77.6 1449 1449 (As a disclaimer, please note than SmartAssembly has far more than 132 users . This data is just a selection of one build) So, it would appear that SQL-Server is used by fewer users, but more often. Great. But here's why these numbers are useless to me: Only the original developers understand the data What does a single 'usage' of 'MDB' mean? Does this happen once per run? Once per option change? On clicking the 'Obfuscate Now' button? When running the command-line version or just from the UI version? Each question could skew the data 10-fold either way, and the answers only known by the developer that instrumented the application in the first place. In other words, only the original developer can interpret the data - product-managers cannot interpret the data unaided. Most of the data is from uninterested users About half of people who download and run a free-trial from the internet quit it almost immediately. Only a small fraction use it sufficiently to make informed choices. Since the MDB option is the default one, we don't know how many of those 114 were people CHOOSING to use the MDB, or how many were JUST HAPPENING to use this MDB default for their 20-second trial. This is a problem we see across all our metrics: Are people are using X because it's the default or are they using X because they want to use X? We need to segment the data further - asking what percentage of each percentage meet our criteria for an 'established user' or 'informed user'. You end up spending hours writing sophisticated and dubious SQL queries to segment the data further. Not fun. You can't find out why they used this feature Metrics can answer the when and what, but not the why. Why did people use feature X? If you're anything like me, you often click on random buttons in unfamiliar applications just to explore the feature-set. If we listened uncritically to metrics at RedGate, we would eliminate the most-important and more-complex features which people actually buy the software for, leaving just big buttons on the main page and the About-Box. "Ah, that's interesting!" rather than "Ah, that's actionable!" People do love data. Did you know you eat 1201 chickens in a lifetime? But just 4 cows? Interesting, but useless. Often metrics give you a nice number: '5.8% of users have 3 or more monitors' . But unless the statistic is both SUPRISING and ACTIONABLE, it's useless. Most metrics are collected, reviewed with lots of cooing. and then forgotten. Unless a piece-of-data could change things, it's useless collecting it. People get obsessed with significance levels The first things that lots of people do with this data is do a t-test to get a significance level ("Hey! We know with 99.64% confidence that people prefer SQL Server to MDBs!") Believe me: other causes of error/misinterpretation in your data are FAR more significant than your t-test could ever comprehend. Confirmation bias prevents objectivity If the data appears to match our instinct, we feel satisfied and move on. If it doesn't, we suspect the data and dig deeper, plummeting down a rabbit-hole of segmentation and filtering until we give-up and move-on. Data is only useful if it can change our preconceptions. Do you trust this dodgy data more than your own understanding, knowledge and intelligence?  I don't. There's always multiple plausible ways to interpret/action any data Let's say we segment the above data, and get this data: Post-trial users (i.e. those using a paid version after the 14-day free-trial is over): Parameter Number of users % of total users Number of sessions Number of usages SQL Server 13 9.0 1115 1115 MDB 5 4.2 449 449 Trial users: Parameter Number of users % of total users Number of sessions Number of usages SQL Server 15 10.0 7000 7000 MDB 114 77.6 1000 1000 How do you interpret this data? It's one of: Mostly SQL Server users buy our software. People who can't afford SQL Server tend to be unable to afford or unwilling to buy our software. Therefore, ditch MDB-support. Our MDB support is so poor and buggy that our massive MDB user-base doesn't buy it.  Therefore, spend loads of money improving it, and think about ditching SQL-Server support. People 'graduate' naturally from MDB to SQL Server as they use the software more. Things are fine the way they are. We're marketing the tool wrong. The large number of MDB users represent uninformed downloaders. Tell marketing to aggressively target SQL Server users. To choose an interpretation you need to segment again. And again. And again, and again. Opting-out is correlated with feature-usage Metrics tends to be opt-in. This skews the data even further. Between 5% and 30% of people choose to opt-in to metrics (often called 'customer improvement program' or something like that). Casual trial-users who are uninterested in your product or company are less likely to opt-in. This group is probably also likely to be MDB users. How much does this skew your data by? Who knows? It's not all doom and gloom. There are some things metrics can answer well. Environment facts. How many people have 3 monitors? Have Windows 7? Have .NET 4 installed? Have Japanese Windows? Minor optimizations.  Is the text-box big enough for average user-input? Performance data. How long does our app take to start? How many databases does the average user have on their server? As you can see, questions about who-the-user-is rather than what-the-user-does are easier to answer and action. Conclusion Use SmartAssembly. If not for the metrics (called 'Feature-Usage-Reporting'), then at least for the obfuscation/error-reporting. Data raises more questions than it answers. Questions about environment are the easiest to answer.

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• BI Applications overview

  - by sv744

  Welcome to Oracle BI applications blog! This blog will talk about various features, general roadmap, description of functionality and implementation steps related to Oracle BI applications. In the first post we start with an overview of the BI apps and will delve deeper into some of the topics below in the upcoming weeks and months. If there are other topics you would like us to talk about, pl feel free to provide feedback on that. The Oracle BI applications are a set of pre-built applications that enable pervasive BI by providing role-based insight for each functional area, including sales, service, marketing, contact center, finance, supplier/supply chain, HR/workforce, and executive management. For example, Sales Analytics includes role-based applications for sales executives, sales management, as well as front-line sales reps, each of whom have different needs. The applications integrate and transform data from a range of enterprise sources—including Siebel, Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP, and others—into actionable intelligence for each business function and user role. This blog  starts with the key benefits and characteristics of Oracle BI applications. In a series of subsequent blogs, each of these points will be explained in detail. Why BI apps? Demonstrate the value of BI to a business user, show reports / dashboards / model that can answer their business questions as part of the sales cycle. Demonstrate technical feasibility of BI project and significantly lower risk and improve success Build Vs Buy benefit Don’t have to start with a blank sheet of paper. Help consolidate disparate systems Data integration in M&A situations Insulate BI consumers from changes in the OLTP Present OLTP data and highlight issues of poor data / missing data – and improve data quality and accuracy Prebuilt Integrations BI apps support prebuilt integrations against leading ERP sources: Fusion Applications, E- Business Suite, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards, Siebel, SAP Co-developed with inputs from functional experts in BI and Applications teams. Out of the box dimensional model to source model mappings Multi source and Multi Instance support Rich Data Model    BI apps have a very rich dimensionsal data model built over 10 years that incorporates best practises from BI modeling perspective as well as reflect the source system complexities  Thanks for reading a long post, and be on the lookout for future posts.  We will look forward to your valuable feedback on these topics as well as suggestions on what other topics would you like us to cover. I Conformed dimensional model across all business subject areas allows cross functional reporting, e.g. customer / supplier 360 Over 360 fact tables across 7 product areas CRM – 145, SCM – 47, Financials – 28, Procurement – 20, HCM – 27, Projects – 18, Campus Solutions – 21, PLM - 56 Supported by 300 physical dimensions Support for extensive calendars; Gregorian, enterprise and ledger based Conformed data model and metrics for real time vs warehouse based reporting  Multi-tenant enabled Extensive BI related transformations BI apps ETL and data integration support various transformations required for dimensional models and reporting requirements. All these have been distilled into common patterns and abstracted logic which can be readily reused across different modules Slowly Changing Dimension support Hierarchy flattening support Row / Column Hybrid Hierarchy Flattening As Is vs. As Was hierarchy support Currency Conversion :-  Support for 3 corporate, CRM, ledger and transaction currencies UOM conversion Internationalization / Localization Dynamic Data translations Code standardization (Domains) Historical Snapshots Cycle and process lifecycle computations Balance Facts Equalization of GL accounting chartfields/segments Standardized values for categorizing GL accounts Reconciliation between GL and subledgers to track accounted/transferred/posted transactions to GL Materialization of data only available through costly and complex APIs e.g. Fusion Payroll, EBS / Fusion Accruals Complex event Interpretation of source data – E.g. o    What constitutes a transfer o    Deriving supervisors via position hierarchy o    Deriving primary assignment in PSFT o    Categorizing and transposition to measures of Payroll Balances to specific metrics to support side by side comparison of measures of for example Fixed Salary, Variable Salary, Tax, Bonus, Overtime Payments. o    Counting of Events – E.g. converting events to fact counters so that for example the number of hires can easily be added up and compared alongside the total transfers and terminations. Multi pass processing of multiple sources e.g. headcount, salary, promotion, performance to allow side to side comparison. Adding value to data to aid analysis through banding, additional domain classifications and groupings to allow higher level analytical reporting and data discovery Calculation of complex measures examples: o    COGs, DSO, DPO, Inventory turns  etc o    Transfers within a Hierarchy or out of / into a hierarchy relative to view point in hierarchy. Configurability and Extensibility support  BI apps offer support for extensibility for various entities as automated extensibility or part of extension methodology Key Flex fields and Descriptive Flex support  Extensible attribute support (JDE)  Conformed Domains ETL Architecture BI apps offer a modular adapter architecture which allows support of multiple product lines into a single conformed model Multi Source Multi Technology Orchestration – creates load plan taking into account task dependencies and customers deployment to generate a plan based on a customers of multiple complex etl tasks Plan optimization allowing parallel ETL tasks Oracle: Bit map indexes and partition management High availability support    Follow the sun support. TCO BI apps support several utilities / capabilities that help with overall total cost of ownership and ensure a rapid implementation Improved cost of ownership – lower cost to deploy On-going support for new versions of the source application Task based setups flows Data Lineage Functional setup performed in Web UI by Functional person Configuration Test to Production support Security BI apps support both data and object security enabling implementations to quickly configure the application as per the reporting security needs Fine grain object security at report / dashboard and presentation catalog level Data Security integration with source systems  Extensible to support external data security rules Extensive Set of KPIs Over 7000 base and derived metrics across all modules Time series calculations (YoY, % growth etc) Common Currency and UOM reporting Cross subject area KPIs (analyzing HR vs GL data, drill from GL to AP/AR, etc) Prebuilt reports and dashboards 3000+ prebuilt reports supporting a large number of industries Hundreds of role based dashboards Dynamic currency conversion at dashboard level Highly tuned Performance The BI apps have been tuned over the years for both a very performant ETL and dashboard performance. The applications use best practises and advanced database features to enable the best possible performance. Optimized data model for BI and analytic queries Prebuilt aggregates& the ability for customers to create their own aggregates easily on warehouse facts allows for scalable end user performance Incremental extracts and loads Incremental Aggregate build Automatic table index and statistics management Parallel ETL loads Source system deletes handling Low latency extract with Golden Gate Micro ETL support Bitmap Indexes Partitioning support Modularized deployment, start small and add other subject areas seamlessly Source Specfic Staging and Real Time Schema Support for source specific operational reporting schema for EBS, PSFT, Siebel and JDE Application Integrations The BI apps also allow for integration with source systems as well as other applications that provide value add through BI and enable BI consumption during operational decision making Embedded dashboards for Fusion, EBS and Siebel applications Action Link support Marketing Segmentation Sales Predictor Dashboard Territory Management External Integrations The BI apps data integration choices include support for loading extenral data External data enrichment choices : UNSPSC, Item class etc. Extensible Spend Classification Broad Deployment Choices Exalytics support Databases :  Oracle, Exadata, Teradata, DB2, MSSQL ETL tool of choice : ODI (coming), Informatica Extensible and Customizable Extensible architecture and Methodology to add custom and external content Upgradable across releases

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• Getting Started with jqChart for ASP.NET Web Forms

  - by jqChart

  Official Site | Samples | Download | Documentation | Forum | Twitter Introduction jqChart takes advantages of HTML5 Canvas to deliver high performance client-side charts and graphs across browsers (IE 6+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari) and devices, including iOS and Android mobile devices. Some of the key features are: High performance rendering. Animaitons. Scrolling/Zoooming. Support for unlimited number of data series and data points. Support for unlimited number of chart axes. True DateTime Axis. Logarithmic and Reversed axis scale. Large set of chart types - Bar, Column, Pie, Line, Spline, Area, Scatter, Bubble, Radar, Polar. Financial Charts - Stock Chart and Candlestick Chart. The different chart types can be easily combined.  System Requirements Browser Support jqChart supports all major browsers: Internet Explorer - 6+ Firefox Google Chrome Opera Safari jQuery version support jQuery JavaScript framework is required. We recommend using the latest official stable version of the jQuery library. Visual Studio Support jqChart for ASP.NET does not require using Visual Studio. You can use your favourite code editor. Still, the product has been tested with several versions of Visual Studio .NET and you can find the list of supported versions below: Visual Studio 2008 Visual Studio 2010 Visual Studio 2012 ASP.NET Web Forms support Supported version - ASP.NET Web Forms 3.5, 4.0 and 4.5 Installation Download and unzip the contents of the archive to any convenient location. The package contains the following folders: [bin] - Contains the assembly DLLs of the product (JQChart.Web.dll) for WebForms 3.5, 4.0 and 4.5. This is the assembly that you can reference directly in your web project (or better yet, add it to your ToolBox and then drag & drop it from there). [js] - The javascript files of jqChart and jqRangeSlider (and the needed libraries). You need to include them in your ASPX page, in order to gain the client side functionality of the chart. The first file is "jquery-1.5.1.min.js" - this is the official jQuery library. jqChart is built upon jQuery library version 1.4.3. The second file you need is the "excanvas.js" javascript file. It is used from the versions of IE, which dosn't support canvas graphics. The third is the jqChart javascript code itself, located in "jquery.jqChart.min.js". The last one is the jqRangeSlider javascript, located in "jquery.jqRangeSlider.min.js". It is used when the chart zooming is enabled. [css] - Contains the Css files that the jqChart and the jqRangeSlider need. [samples] - Contains some examples that use the jqChart. For full list of samples plese visit - jqChart for ASP.NET Samples. [themes] - Contains the themes shipped with the products. It is used from the jqRangeSlider. Since jqRangeSlider supports jQuery UI Themeroller, any theme compatible with jQuery UI ThemeRoller will work for jqRangeSlider as well. You can download any additional themes directly from jQuery UI's ThemeRoller site available here: http://jqueryui.com/themeroller/ or reference them from Microsoft's / Google's CDN. <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.ui/1.8.21/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.css" /> The final result you will have in an ASPX page containing jqChart would be something similar to that (assuming you have copied the [js] to the Script folder and [css] to Content folder of your ASP.NET site respectively). <%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="samples_cs.Default" %> <%@ Register Assembly="JQChart.Web" Namespace="JQChart.Web.UI.WebControls" TagPrefix="jqChart" %> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html > <head runat="server"> <title>jqChart ASP.NET Sample</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="~/Content/jquery.jqChart.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="~/Content/jquery.jqRangeSlider.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="~/Content/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui-1.8.21.css" /> <script src="<% = ResolveUrl("~/Scripts/jquery-1.5.1.min.js") %>" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="<% = ResolveUrl("~/Scripts/jquery.jqRangeSlider.min.js") %>" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="<% = ResolveUrl("~/Scripts/jquery.jqChart.min.js") %>" type="text/javascript"></script> <!--[if IE]><script lang="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="<% = ResolveUrl("~/Scripts/excanvas.js") %>"></script><![endif]--> </head> <body> <form id="form1" runat="server"> <asp:ObjectDataSource ID="ObjectDataSource1" runat="server" SelectMethod="GetData" TypeName="SamplesBrowser.Models.ChartData"></asp:ObjectDataSource> <jqChart:Chart ID="Chart1" Width="500px" Height="300px" runat="server" DataSourceID="ObjectDataSource1"> <Title Text="Chart Title"></Title> <Animation Enabled="True" Duration="00:00:01" /> <Axes> <jqChart:CategoryAxis Location="Bottom" ZoomEnabled="true"> </jqChart:CategoryAxis> </Axes> <Series> <jqChart:ColumnSeries XValuesField="Label" YValuesField="Value1" Title="Column"> </jqChart:ColumnSeries> <jqChart:LineSeries XValuesField="Label" YValuesField="Value2" Title="Line"> </jqChart:LineSeries> </Series> </jqChart:Chart> </form> </body> </html>   Official Site | Samples | Download | Documentation | Forum | Twitter

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• Online ALTER TABLE in MySQL 5.6

  - by Marko Mäkelä

  This is the low-level view of data dictionary language (DDL) operations in the InnoDB storage engine in MySQL 5.6. John Russell gave a more high-level view in his blog post April 2012 Labs Release – Online DDL Improvements. MySQL before the InnoDB Plugin Traditionally, the MySQL storage engine interface has taken a minimalistic approach to data definition language. The only natively supported operations were CREATE TABLE, DROP TABLE and RENAME TABLE. Consider the following example: CREATE TABLE t(a INT); INSERT INTO t VALUES (1),(2),(3); CREATE INDEX a ON t(a); DROP TABLE t; The CREATE INDEX statement would be executed roughly as follows: CREATE TABLE temp(a INT, INDEX(a)); INSERT INTO temp SELECT * FROM t; RENAME TABLE t TO temp2; RENAME TABLE temp TO t; DROP TABLE temp2; You could imagine that the database could crash when copying all rows from the original table to the new one. For example, it could run out of file space. Then, on restart, InnoDB would roll back the huge INSERT transaction. To fix things a little, a hack was added to ha_innobase::write_row for committing the transaction every 10,000 rows. Still, it was frustrating that even a simple DROP INDEX would make the table unavailable for modifications for a long time. Fast Index Creation in the InnoDB Plugin of MySQL 5.1 MySQL 5.1 introduced a new interface for CREATE INDEX and DROP INDEX. The old table-copying approach can still be forced by SET old_alter_table=0. This interface is used in MySQL 5.5 and in the InnoDB Plugin for MySQL 5.1. Apart from the ability to do a quick DROP INDEX, the main advantage is that InnoDB will execute a merge-sort algorithm before inserting the index records into each index that is being created. This should speed up the insert into the secondary index B-trees and potentially result in a better B-tree fill factor. The 5.1 ALTER TABLE interface was not perfect. For example, DROP FOREIGN KEY still invoked the table copy. Renaming columns could conflict with InnoDB foreign key constraints. Combining ADD KEY and DROP KEY in ALTER TABLE was problematic and not atomic inside the storage engine. The ALTER TABLE interface in MySQL 5.6 The ALTER TABLE storage engine interface was completely rewritten in MySQL 5.6. Instead of introducing a method call for every conceivable operation, MySQL 5.6 introduced a handful of methods, and data structures that keep track of the requested changes. In MySQL 5.6, online ALTER TABLE operation can be requested by specifying LOCK=NONE. Also LOCK=SHARED and LOCK=EXCLUSIVE are available. The old-style table copying can be requested by ALGORITHM=COPY. That one will require at least LOCK=SHARED. From the InnoDB point of view, anything that is possible with LOCK=EXCLUSIVE is also possible with LOCK=SHARED. Most ALGORITHM=INPLACE operations inside InnoDB can be executed online (LOCK=NONE). InnoDB will always require an exclusive table lock in two phases of the operation. The execution phases are tied to a number of methods: handler::check_if_supported_inplace_alter Checks if the storage engine can perform all requested operations, and if so, what kind of locking is needed. handler::prepare_inplace_alter_table InnoDB uses this method to set up the data dictionary cache for upcoming CREATE INDEX operation. We need stubs for the new indexes, so that we can keep track of changes to the table during online index creation. Also, crash recovery would drop any indexes that were incomplete at the time of the crash. handler::inplace_alter_table In InnoDB, this method is used for creating secondary indexes or for rebuilding the table. This is the ‘main’ phase that can be executed online (with concurrent writes to the table). handler::commit_inplace_alter_table This is where the operation is committed or rolled back. Here, InnoDB would drop any indexes, rename any columns, drop or add foreign keys, and finalize a table rebuild or index creation. It would also discard any logs that were set up for online index creation or table rebuild. The prepare and commit phases require an exclusive lock, blocking all access to the table. If MySQL times out while upgrading the table meta-data lock for the commit phase, it will roll back the ALTER TABLE operation. In MySQL 5.6, data definition language operations are still not fully atomic, because the data dictionary is split. Part of it is inside InnoDB data dictionary tables. Part of the information is only available in the *.frm file, which is not covered by any crash recovery log. But, there is a single commit phase inside the storage engine. Online Secondary Index Creation It may occur that an index needs to be created on a new column to speed up queries. But, it may be unacceptable to block modifications on the table while creating the index. It turns out that it is conceptually not so hard to support online index creation. All we need is some more execution phases: Set up a stub for the index, for logging changes. Scan the table for index records. Sort the index records. Bulk load the index records. Apply the logged changes. Replace the stub with the actual index. Threads that modify the table will log the operations to the logs of each index that is being created. Errors, such as log overflow or uniqueness violations, will only be flagged by the ALTER TABLE thread. The log is conceptually similar to the InnoDB change buffer. The bulk load of index records will bypass record locking. We still generate redo log for writing the index pages. It would suffice to log page allocations only, and to flush the index pages from the buffer pool to the file system upon completion. Native ALTER TABLE Starting with MySQL 5.6, InnoDB supports most ALTER TABLE operations natively. The notable exceptions are changes to the column type, ADD FOREIGN KEY except when foreign_key_checks=0, and changes to tables that contain FULLTEXT indexes. The keyword ALGORITHM=INPLACE is somewhat misleading, because certain operations cannot be performed in-place. For example, changing the ROW_FORMAT of a table requires a rebuild. Online operation (LOCK=NONE) is not allowed in the following cases: when adding an AUTO_INCREMENT column, when the table contains FULLTEXT indexes or a hidden FTS_DOC_ID column, or when there are FOREIGN KEY constraints referring to the table, with ON…CASCADE or ON…SET NULL option. The FOREIGN KEY limitations are needed, because MySQL does not acquire meta-data locks on the child or parent tables when executing SQL statements. Theoretically, InnoDB could support operations like ADD COLUMN and DROP COLUMN in-place, by lazily converting the table to a newer format. This would require that the data dictionary keep multiple versions of the table definition. For simplicity, we will copy the entire table, even for DROP COLUMN. The bulk copying of the table will bypass record locking and undo logging. For facilitating online operation, a temporary log will be associated with the clustered index of table. Threads that modify the table will also write the changes to the log. When altering the table, we skip all records that have been marked for deletion. In this way, we can simply discard any undo log records that were not yet purged from the original table. Off-page columns, or BLOBs, are an important consideration. We suspend the purge of delete-marked records if it would free any off-page columns from the old table. This is because the BLOBs can be needed when applying changes from the log. We have special logging for handling the ROLLBACK of an INSERT that inserted new off-page columns. This is because the columns will be freed at rollback.

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• Simplifying Human Capital Management with Mobile Applications

  - by HCM-Oracle

  By Aaron Green If you're starting to think 'mobility' is a recurring theme in your reading, you'd be right. For those who haven't started to build organisational capabilities to leverage it, it's fair to say you're late to the party. The good news: better late than never. Research firm eMarketer says the worldwide smartphone audience will total 1.75 billion this year, while communications technology and services provider Ericsson suggests smartphones will triple to 5.6 billion globally by 2019. It should be no surprise, smart phone adoption is reaching the farthest corners of the globe; the subsequent impact of enterprise applications enabled by these devices is driving business performance improvement and will continue to do so. Companies using advanced workforce analytics can add significantly to the bottom line, while impacting customer satisfaction, quality and productivity. It's a statement that makes most business leaders sit forward in their chairs. Achieving these three standards is like sipping The Golden Elixir for the business world. No-one would argue their importance. So what are 'advanced workforce analytics?' Simply, they're unprecedented access to workforce trends and performance markers. Many are made possible by a mobile world and the enterprise applications that come with it on smart devices. Some refer to it as 'the consumerisation of IT'. As this phenomenon has matured and become more widely appreciated it has impacted the spectrum of functional units within an enterprise differently, but powerfully. Whether it's sales, HR, marketing, IT, or operations, all have benefited from a more mobile approach. It has been the catalyst for improvement in, and management of, the employee experience. The net result of which is happier customers. The obvious benefits but the lesser realised impact Most people understand that mobility allows for greater efficiency and productivity, collaboration and flexibility, but how that translates into business outcomes within the various functional groups is lesser known. In actuality mobility has helped galvanise partnerships between cross-functional groups within the enterprise. Where in some quarters it was once feared mobility could fragment a workforce, its rallying cry of support is coming from what you might describe as an unlikely source - HR. As the bedrock of an enterprise, it is conceivable HR might contemplate the possible negative impact of a mobile workforce that no-longer sits in an office, at the same desks every day. After all, who would know what they were doing or saying? How would they collaborate? It's reasonable to see why HR might have a legitimate claim to try and retain as much 'perceived control' as possible. The reality however is mobility has emancipated human capital and its management. Mobility and enterprise applications are expediting decision making. Google calls it Zero Moment of Truth, or ZMOT. It enables smoother operation and can contribute to faster growth. From a collaborative perspective, with the growing use of enterprise social media, which in many cases is being driven by HR, workforce planning and the tangible impact of change is much easier to map. This in turn provides a platform from which individuals and teams can thrive. With more agility and ability to anticipate, staff satisfaction and retention is higher, and real time feedback constant. The management team can save time, energy and costs with more accurate data, which is then intelligently applied across the workforce to truly engage with staff, customers and partners. From a human capital management (HCM) perspective, mobility can help you close the loop on true talent management. It can enhance what managers can offer and what employees can provide in return. It can create nested relationships and powerful partnerships. IT and HR - partners and stewards of mobility One effect of enterprise mobility is an evolution in the nature of the relationship between HR and IT from one of service provision to partnership. The reason for the dynamic shift is largely due to the 'bring your own device' (BYOD) movement, which is transitioning to a 'bring your own application' (BYOA) scenario. As enterprise technology has in some ways reverse-engineered its solutions to help manage this situation, the partnership between IT (the functional owner) and HR (the strategic enabler) is deeply entrenched. And it has to be. The CIO and the HR leader are faced with compliance and regulatory issues and concerns around information security and personal privacy on a daily basis, complicated by global reach and varied domestic legislation. There are tens of thousands of new mobile apps entering the market each month and, unlike many consumer applications which get downloaded but are often never opened again after initial perusal, enterprise applications are being relied upon by functional groups, not least by HR to enhance people management. It requires a systematic approach across all applications in use within the enterprise in order to ensure they're used to best effect. No turning back, and no desire to With real time analytics on performance and the ability for immediate feedback, there is no turning back for managers. In my experience with Oracle, our customers' operational efficiency is at record levels. It's clear as a result of the combination of individual KPIs and organisational goals, CIOs have been able to give HR leaders the ability to build predictive models that feed into an enterprise organisations' evolving strategy. It also helps them ensure regulatory compliance much more easily. Once an arduous task, with mobile enabled automation and quality data, compliance is simpler. Their world has changed for the better. For the CIO, mobility also assists them to optimise performance. While it doesn't come without challenges, mobile-enabled applications and the native experience users have with them means employees don't need high-level technical expertise to train users. It reduces the training and engagement required from the IT team so they can focus on other things that deliver value to the bottom line; all the while lowering the cost of assets and related maintenance work by simplifying processes. Rewards of a mobile enterprise outweigh risks With mobile tools allowing us to increasingly integrate our personal and professional lives, terms like "office hours" are becoming irrelevant, so work/life balance is a cultural must. Enterprises are expected to offer tools that enable workers to access information from anywhere, at any time, from any device. Employees want simplicity and convenience but it doesn't stop at private enterprise. This is a societal shift. Governments, which traditionally have been known to be slower to adopt newer technology, are also offering support for local businesses to go mobile. Several state government websites have advice on how to create mobile apps and more. And as recently as last week the Victorian Minister for Technology Gordon Rich-Phillips unveiled his State government's ICT roadmap for the next two years, which details an increased use of the public cloud, as well as mobile communications, and improved access to online data-sets. Tech giants are investing significantly in solutions designed to simplify mobile deployment and enablement. The mobility trend is creating a wave of change in the industry and driving transformation in the enterprise. If you're not on that wave, the business risk continues to rise as your competitiveness drops. Aaron is the Vice President of HCM Strategy at Oracle Corporation where he is responsible for researching and identifying emerging trends in the practice of Human Resources and works to deliver industry-leading technology solutions. Other responsibilities include, ownership of Oracle's innovative HCM solutions across JAPAC and enabling organisations to transform and modernise their workforce tools. Follow him on Twitter @aaronjgreen

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• Let your Signature Experience drive IT-decision making

  - by Tania Le Voi

  Today’s CIO job description:  ‘’Align IT infrastructure and solutions with business goals and objectives ; AND while doing so reduce costs; BUT ALSO, be innovative, ensure the architectures are adaptable and agile as we need to act today on the changes that we may request tomorrow.”   Sound like an unachievable request? The fact is, reality dictates that CIO’s are put under this type of pressure to deliver more with less. In a past career phase I spent a few years as an IT Relationship Manager for a large Insurance company. This is a role that we see all too infrequently in many of our customers, and it’s a shame.  The purpose of this role was to build a bridge, a relationship between IT and the business. Key to achieving that goal was to ensure the same language was being spoken and more importantly that objectives were commonly understood - hence service and projects were delivered to time, to budget and actually solved the business problems. In reality IT and the business are already married, but the relationship is most often defined as ‘supplier’ of IT rather than a ‘trusted partner’. To deliver business value they need to understand how to work together effectively to attain this next level of partnership. The Business cannot compete if they do not get a new product to market ahead of the competition, or for example act in a timely manner to address a new industry problem such as a legislative change. An even better example is when the Application or Service fails and the Business takes a hit by bad publicity, being trending topics on social media and losing direct revenue from online channels. For this reason alone Business and IT need the alignment of their priorities and deliverables now more than ever! Take a look at Forrester’s recent study that found ‘many IT respondents considering themselves to be trusted partners of the business but their efforts are impaired by the inadequacy of tools and organizations’.  IT Meet the Business; Business Meet IT So what is going on? We talk about aligning the business with IT but the reality is it’s difficult to do. Like any relationship each side has different goals and needs and language can be a barrier; business vs. technology jargon! What if we could translate the needs of both sides into actionable information, backed by data both sides understand, presented in a meaningful way?  Well now we can with the Business-Driven Application Management capabilities in Oracle Enterprise Manager 12cR2! Enterprise Manager’s Business-Driven Application Management capabilities provide the information that IT needs to understand the impact of its decisions on business criteria.  No longer does IT need to be focused solely on speeds and feeds, performance and throughput – now IT can understand IT’s impact on business KPIs like inventory turns, order-to-cash cycle, pipeline-to-forecast, and similar.  Similarly, now the line of business can understand which IT services are most critical for the KPIs they care about. There are a good deal of resources on Oracle Technology Network that describe the functionality of these products, so I won’t’ rehash them here.  What I want to talk about is what you do with these products. What’s next after we meet? Where do you start? Step 1:  Identify the Signature Experience. This is THE business process (or set of processes) that is core to the business, the one that drives the economic engine, the process that a customer recognises the company brand for, reputation, the customer experience, the process that a CEO would state as his number one priority. The crème de la crème of your business! Once you have nailed this it gets easy as Enterprise Manager 12c makes it easy. Step 2:  Map the Signature Experience to underlying IT.  Taking the signature experience, map out the touch points of the components that play a part in ensuring this business transaction is successful end to end, think of it like mapping out a critical path; the applications, middleware, databases and hardware. Use the wealth of Enterprise Manager features such as Systems, Services, Business Application Targets and Business Transaction Management (BTM) to assist you. Adding Real User Experience Insight (RUEI) into the mix will make the end to end customer satisfaction story transparent. Work with the business and define meaningful key performance indicators (KPI’s) and thresholds to enable you to report and action upon. Step 3:  Observe the data over time.  You now have meaningful insight into every step enabling your signature experience and you understand the implication of that experience on your underlying IT.  Watch if for a few months, see what happens and reconvene with your business stakeholders and set clear and measurable targets which can re-define service levels.  Step 4:  Change the information about which you and the business communicate.  It’s amazing what happens when you and the business speak the same language.  You’ll be able to make more informed business and IT decisions. From here IT can identify where/how budget is spent whether on the level of support, performance, capacity, HA, DR, certification etc. IT SLA’s no longer need be focused on metrics such as %availability but structured around business process requirements. The power of this way of thinking doesn’t end here. IT staff get to see and understand how their own role contributes to the business making them accountable for the business service. Take a step further and appraise your staff on the business competencies that are linked to the service availability. For the business, the language barrier is removed by producing targeted reports on the signature experience core to the business and therefore key to the CEO. Chargeback or show back becomes easier to justify as the ‘cost of day per outage’ can be more easily calculated; the business will be able to translate the cost to the business to the cost/value of the underlying IT that supports it. Used this way, Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c is a key enabler to a harmonious relationship between the end customer the business and IT to deliver ultimate service and satisfaction. Just engage with the business upfront, make the signature experience visible and let Enterprise Manager 12c do the rest. In the next blog entry we will cover some of the Enterprise Manager features mentioned to enable you to implement this new way of working.  

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• Entity Framework 6: Alpha2 Now Available

  - by ScottGu

  The Entity Framework team recently announced the 2nd alpha release of EF6.   The alpha 2 package is available for download from NuGet. Since this is a pre-release package make sure to select “Include Prereleases” in the NuGet package manager, or execute the following from the package manager console to install it: PM> Install-Package EntityFramework -Pre This week’s alpha release includes a bunch of great improvements in the following areas: Async language support is now available for queries and updates when running on .NET 4.5. Custom conventions now provide the ability to override the default conventions that Code First uses for mapping types, properties, etc. to your database. Multi-tenant migrations allow the same database to be used by multiple contexts with full Code First Migrations support for independently evolving the model backing each context. Using Enumerable.Contains in a LINQ query is now handled much more efficiently by EF and the SQL Server provider resulting greatly improved performance. All features of EF6 (except async) are available on both .NET 4 and .NET 4.5. This includes support for enums and spatial types and the performance improvements that were previously only available when using .NET 4.5. Start-up time for many large models has been dramatically improved thanks to improved view generation performance. Below are some additional details about a few of the improvements above: Async Support .NET 4.5 introduced the Task-Based Asynchronous Pattern that uses the async and await keywords to help make writing asynchronous code easier. EF 6 now supports this pattern. This is great for ASP.NET applications as database calls made through EF can now be processed asynchronously – avoiding any blocking of worker threads. This can increase scalability on the server by allowing more requests to be processed while waiting for the database to respond. The following code shows an MVC controller that is querying a database for a list of location entities:     public class HomeController : Controller     {         LocationContext db = new LocationContext();           public async Task<ActionResult> Index()         {             var locations = await db.Locations.ToListAsync();               return View(locations);         }     } Notice above the call to the new ToListAsync method with the await keyword. When the web server reaches this code it initiates the database request, but rather than blocking while waiting for the results to come back, the thread that is processing the request returns to the thread pool, allowing ASP.NET to process another incoming request with the same thread. In other words, a thread is only consumed when there is actual processing work to do, allowing the web server to handle more concurrent requests with the same resources. A more detailed walkthrough covering async in EF is available with additional information and examples. Also a walkthrough is available showing how to use async in an ASP.NET MVC application. Custom Conventions When working with EF Code First, the default behavior is to map .NET classes to tables using a set of conventions baked into EF. For example, Code First will detect properties that end with “ID” and configure them automatically as primary keys. However, sometimes you cannot or do not want to follow those conventions and would rather provide your own. For example, maybe your primary key properties all end in “Key” instead of “Id”. Custom conventions allow the default conventions to be overridden or new conventions to be added so that Code First can map by convention using whatever rules make sense for your project. The following code demonstrates using custom conventions to set the precision of all decimals to 5. As with other Code First configuration, this code is placed in the OnModelCreating method which is overridden on your derived DbContext class:         protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)         {             modelBuilder.Properties<decimal>()                 .Configure(x => x.HasPrecision(5));           } But what if there are a couple of places where a decimal property should have a different precision? Just as with all the existing Code First conventions, this new convention can be overridden for a particular property simply by explicitly configuring that property using either the fluent API or a data annotation. A more detailed description of custom code first conventions is available here. Community Involvement I blogged a while ago about EF being released under an open source license.  Since then a number of community members have made contributions and these are included in EF6 alpha 2. Two examples of community contributions are: AlirezaHaghshenas contributed a change that increases the startup performance of EF for larger models by improving the performance of view generation. The change means that it is less often necessary to use of pre-generated views. UnaiZorrilla contributed the first community feature to EF: the ability to load all Code First configuration classes in an assembly with a single method call like the following: protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder) {        modelBuilder.Configurations            .AddFromAssembly(typeof(LocationContext).Assembly); } This code will find and load all the classes that inherit from EntityTypeConfiguration<T> or ComplexTypeConfiguration<T> in the assembly where LocationContext is defined. This reduces the amount of coupling between the context and Code First configuration classes, and is also a very convenient shortcut for large models. Other upcoming features coming in EF 6 Lots of information about the development of EF6 can be found on the EF CodePlex site, including a roadmap showing the other features that are planned for EF6. One of of the nice upcoming features is connection resiliency, which will automate the process of retying database operations on transient failures common in cloud environments and with databases such as the Windows Azure SQL Database. Another often requested feature that will be included in EF6 is the ability to map stored procedures to query and update operations on entities when using Code First. Summary EF6 is the first open source release of Entity Framework being developed in CodePlex. The alpha 2 preview release of EF6 is now available on NuGet, and contains some really great features for you to try. The EF team are always looking for feedback from developers - especially on the new features such as custom Code First conventions and async support. To provide feedback you can post a comment on the EF6 alpha 2 announcement post, start a discussion or file a bug on the CodePlex site. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• What's new in EJB 3.2 ? - Java EE 7 chugging along!

  - by arungupta

  EJB 3.1 added a whole ton of features for simplicity and ease-of-use such as @Singleton, @Asynchronous, @Schedule, Portable JNDI name, EJBContainer.createEJBContainer, EJB 3.1 Lite, and many others. As part of Java EE 7, EJB 3.2 (JSR 345) is making progress and this blog will provide highlights from the work done so far. This release has been particularly kept small but include several minor improvements and tweaks for usability. More features in EJB.Lite Asynchronous session bean Non-persistent EJB Timer service This also means these features can be used in embeddable EJB container and there by improving testability of your application. Pruning - The following features were made Proposed Optional in Java EE 6 and are now made optional. EJB 2.1 and earlier Entity Bean Component Contract for CMP and BMP Client View of an EJB 2.1 and earlier Entity Bean EJB QL: Query Language for CMP Query Methods JAX-RPC-based Web Service Endpoints and Client View The optional features are moved to a separate document and as a result EJB specification is now split into Core and Optional documents. This allows the specification to be more readable and better organized. Updates and Improvements Transactional lifecycle callbacks in Stateful Session Beans, only for CMT. In EJB 3.1, the transaction context for lifecyle callback methods (@PostConstruct, @PreDestroy, @PostActivate, @PrePassivate) are defined as shown. @PostConstruct @PreDestroy @PrePassivate @PostActivate Stateless Unspecified Unspecified N/A N/A Stateful Unspecified Unspecified Unspecified Unspecified Singleton Bean's transaction management type Bean's transaction management type N/A N/A In EJB 3.2, stateful session bean lifecycle callback methods can opt-in to be transactional. These methods are then executed in a transaction context as shown. @PostConstruct @PreDestroy @PrePassivate @PostActivate Stateless Unspecified Unspecified N/A N/A Stateful Bean's transaction management type Bean's transaction management type Bean's transaction management type Bean's transaction management type Singleton Bean's transaction management type Bean's transaction management type N/A N/A For example, the following stateful session bean require a new transaction to be started for @PostConstruct and @PreDestroy lifecycle callback methods. @Statefulpublic class HelloBean {   @PersistenceContext(type=PersistenceContextType.EXTENDED)   private EntityManager em;    @TransactionAttribute(TransactionAttributeType.REQUIRES_NEW)   @PostConstruct   public void init() {        myEntity = em.find(...);   }   @TransactionAttribute(TransactionAttributeType.REQUIRES_NEW)    @PostConstruct    public void destroy() {        em.flush();    }} Notice, by default the lifecycle callback methods are not transactional for backwards compatibility. They need to be explicitly opt-in to be made transactional. Opt-out of passivation for stateful session bean - If your stateful session bean needs to stick around or it has non-serializable field then the bean can be opt-out of passivation as shown. @Stateful(passivationCapable=false)public class HelloBean {    private NonSerializableType ref = ... . . .} Simplified the rules to define all local/remote views of the bean. For example, if the bean is defined as: @Statelesspublic class Bean implements Foo, Bar {    . . .} where Foo and Bar have no annotations of their own, then Foo and Bar are exposed as local views of the bean. The bean may be explicitly marked @Local as @Local@Statelesspublic class Bean implements Foo, Bar {    . . .} then this is the same behavior as explained above, i.e. Foo and Bar are local views. If the bean is marked @Remote as: @Remote@Statelesspublic class Bean implements Foo, Bar {    . . .} then Foo and Bar are remote views. If an interface is marked @Local or @Remote then each interface need to be explicitly marked explicitly to be exposed as a view. For example: @Remotepublic interface Foo { . . . }@Statelesspublic class Bean implements Foo, Bar {    . . .} only exposes one remote interface Foo. Section 4.9.7 from the specification provide more details about this feature. TimerService.getAllTimers is a newly added convenience API that returns all timers in the same bean. This is only for displaying the list of timers as the timer can only be canceled by its owner. Removed restriction to obtain the current class loader, and allow to use java.io package. This is handy if you want to do file access within your beans. JMS 2.0 alignment - A standard list of activation-config properties is now defined destinationLookup connectionFactoryLookup clientId subscriptionName shareSubscriptions Tons of other clarifications through out the spec. Appendix A provide a comprehensive list of changes since EJB 3.1. ThreadContext in Singleton is guaranteed to be thread-safe. Embeddable container implement Autocloseable. A complete replay of Enterprise JavaBeans Today and Tomorrow from JavaOne 2012 can be seen here (click on CON4654_mp4_4654_001 in Media). The specification is still evolving so the actual property or method names or their actual behavior may be different from the currently proposed ones. Are there any improvements that you'd like to see in EJB 3.2 ? The EJB 3.2 Expert Group would love to hear your feedback. An Early Draft of the specification is available. The latest version of the specification can always be downloaded from here. Java EE 7 Specification Status EJB Specification Project JIRA of EJB Specification JSR Expert Group Discussion Archive These features will start showing up in GlassFish 4 Promoted Builds soon.

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• JPA 2.1 Schema Generation (TOTD #187)

  - by arungupta

  This blog explained some of the key features of JPA 2.1 earlier. Since then Schema Generation has been added to JPA 2.1. This Tip Of The Day (TOTD) will provide more details about this new feature in JPA 2.1. Schema Generation refers to generation of database artifacts like tables, indexes, and constraints in a database schema. It may or may not involve generation of a proper database schema depending upon the credentials and authorization of the user. This helps in prototyping of your application where the required artifacts are generated either prior to application deployment or as part of EntityManagerFactory creation. This is also useful in environments that require provisioning database on demand, e.g. in a cloud. This feature will allow your JPA domain object model to be directly generated in a database. The generated schema may need to be tuned for actual production environment. This usecase is supported by allowing the schema generation to occur into DDL scripts which can then be further tuned by a DBA. The following set of properties in persistence.xml or specified during EntityManagerFactory creation controls the behaviour of schema generation. Property Name Purpose Values javax.persistence.schema-generation-action Controls action to be taken by persistence provider "none", "create", "drop-and-create", "drop" javax.persistence.schema-generation-target Controls whehter schema to be created in database, whether DDL scripts are to be created, or both "database", "scripts", "database-and-scripts" javax.persistence.ddl-create-script-target, javax.persistence.ddl-drop-script-target Controls target locations for writing of scripts. Writers are pre-configured for the persistence provider. Need to be specified only if scripts are to be generated. java.io.Writer (e.g. MyWriter.class) or URL strings javax.persistence.ddl-create-script-source, javax.persistence.ddl-drop-script-source Specifies locations from which DDL scripts are to be read. Readers are pre-configured for the persistence provider. java.io.Reader (e.g. MyReader.class) or URL strings javax.persistence.sql-load-script-source Specifies location of SQL bulk load script. java.io.Reader (e.g. MyReader.class) or URL string javax.persistence.schema-generation-connection JDBC connection to be used for schema generation javax.persistence.database-product-name, javax.persistence.database-major-version, javax.persistence.database-minor-version Needed if scripts are to be generated and no connection to target database. Values are those obtained from JDBC DatabaseMetaData. javax.persistence.create-database-schemas Whether Persistence Provider need to create schema in addition to creating database objects such as tables, sequences, constraints, etc. "true", "false" Section 11.2 in the JPA 2.1 specification defines the annotations used for schema generation process. For example, @Table, @Column, @CollectionTable, @JoinTable, @JoinColumn, are used to define the generated schema. Several layers of defaulting may be involved. For example, the table name is defaulted from entity name and entity name (which can be specified explicitly as well) is defaulted from the class name. However annotations may be used to override or customize the values. The following entity class: @Entity public class Employee {    @Id private int id;    private String name;     . . .     @ManyToOne     private Department dept; } is generated in the database with the following attributes: Maps to EMPLOYEE table in default schema "id" field is mapped to ID column as primary key "name" is mapped to NAME column with a default VARCHAR(255). The length of this field can be easily tuned using @Column. @ManyToOne is mapped to DEPT_ID foreign key column. Can be customized using JOIN_COLUMN. In addition to these properties, couple of new annotations are added to JPA 2.1: @Index - An index for the primary key is generated by default in a database. This new annotation will allow to define additional indexes, over a single or multiple columns, for a better performance. This is specified as part of @Table, @SecondaryTable, @CollectionTable, @JoinTable, and @TableGenerator. For example: @Table(indexes = {@Index(columnList="NAME"), @Index(columnList="DEPT_ID DESC")})@Entity public class Employee {    . . .} The generated table will have a default index on the primary key. In addition, two new indexes are defined on the NAME column (default ascending) and the foreign key that maps to the department in descending order. @ForeignKey - It is used to define foreign key constraint or to otherwise override or disable the persistence provider's default foreign key definition. Can be specified as part of JoinColumn(s), MapKeyJoinColumn(s), PrimaryKeyJoinColumn(s). For example: @Entity public class Employee {    @Id private int id;    private String name;    @ManyToOne    @JoinColumn(foreignKey=@ForeignKey(foreignKeyDefinition="FOREIGN KEY (MANAGER_ID) REFERENCES MANAGER"))    private Manager manager;     . . . } In this entity, the employee's manager is mapped by MANAGER_ID column in the MANAGER table. The value of foreignKeyDefinition would be a database specific string. A complete replay of Linda's talk at JavaOne 2012 can be seen here (click on CON4212_mp4_4212_001 in Media). These features will be available in GlassFish 4 promoted builds in the near future. JPA 2.1 will be delivered as part of Java EE 7. The different components in the Java EE 7 platform are tracked here. JPA 2.1 Expert Group has released Early Draft 2 of the specification. Section 9.4 and 11.2 provide all details about Schema Generation. The latest javadocs can be obtained from here. And the JPA EG would appreciate feedback.

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• Cisco ASA 5505 - L2TP over IPsec

  - by xraminx

  I have followed this document on cisco site to set up the L2TP over IPsec connection. When I try to establish a VPN to ASA 5505 from my Windows XP, after I click on "connect" button, the "Connecting ...." dialog box appears and after a while I get this error message: Error 800: Unable to establish VPN connection. The VPN server may be unreachable, or security parameters may not be configured properly for this connection. ASA version 7.2(4) ASDM version 5.2(4) Windows XP SP3 Windows XP and ASA 5505 are on the same LAN for test purposes. Edit 1: There are two VLANs defined on the cisco device (the standard setup on cisco ASA5505). - port 0 is on VLAN2, outside; - and ports 1 to 7 on VLAN1, inside. I run a cable from my linksys home router (10.50.10.1) to the cisco ASA5505 router on port 0 (outside). Port 0 have IP 192.168.1.1 used internally by cisco and I have also assigned the external IP 10.50.10.206 to port 0 (outside). I run a cable from Windows XP to Cisco router on port 1 (inside). Port 1 is assigned an IP from Cisco router 192.168.1.2. The Windows XP is also connected to my linksys home router via wireless (10.50.10.141). Edit 2: When I try to establish vpn, the Cisco device real time Log viewer shows 7 entries like this: Severity:5 Date:Sep 15 2009 Time: 14:51:29 SyslogID: 713904 Destination IP = 10.50.10.141, Decription: No crypto map bound to interface... dropping pkt Edit 3: This is the setup on the router right now. Result of the command: "show run" : Saved : ASA Version 7.2(4) ! hostname ciscoasa domain-name default.domain.invalid enable password HGFHGFGHFHGHGFHGF encrypted passwd NMMNMNMNMNMNMN encrypted names name 192.168.1.200 WebServer1 name 10.50.10.206 external-ip-address ! interface Vlan1 nameif inside security-level 100 ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 ! interface Vlan2 nameif outside security-level 0 ip address external-ip-address 255.0.0.0 ! interface Vlan3 no nameif security-level 50 no ip address ! interface Ethernet0/0 switchport access vlan 2 ! interface Ethernet0/1 ! interface Ethernet0/2 ! interface Ethernet0/3 ! interface Ethernet0/4 ! interface Ethernet0/5 ! interface Ethernet0/6 ! interface Ethernet0/7 ! ftp mode passive dns server-group DefaultDNS domain-name default.domain.invalid object-group service l2tp udp port-object eq 1701 access-list outside_access_in remark Allow incoming tcp/http access-list outside_access_in extended permit tcp any host WebServer1 eq www access-list outside_access_in extended permit udp any any eq 1701 access-list inside_nat0_outbound extended permit ip any 192.168.1.208 255.255.255.240 access-list inside_cryptomap_1 extended permit ip interface outside interface inside pager lines 24 logging enable logging asdm informational mtu inside 1500 mtu outside 1500 ip local pool PPTP-VPN 192.168.1.210-192.168.1.220 mask 255.255.255.0 icmp unreachable rate-limit 1 burst-size 1 asdm image disk0:/asdm-524.bin no asdm history enable arp timeout 14400 global (outside) 1 interface nat (inside) 0 access-list inside_nat0_outbound nat (inside) 1 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 static (inside,outside) tcp interface www WebServer1 www netmask 255.255.255.255 access-group outside_access_in in interface outside timeout xlate 3:00:00 timeout conn 1:00:00 half-closed 0:10:00 udp 0:02:00 icmp 0:00:02 timeout sunrpc 0:10:00 h323 0:05:00 h225 1:00:00 mgcp 0:05:00 mgcp-pat 0:05:00 timeout sip 0:30:00 sip_media 0:02:00 sip-invite 0:03:00 sip-disconnect 0:02:00 timeout sip-provisional-media 0:02:00 uauth 0:05:00 absolute http server enable http 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 inside no snmp-server location no snmp-server contact snmp-server enable traps snmp authentication linkup linkdown coldstart crypto ipsec transform-set TRANS_ESP_3DES_SHA esp-3des esp-sha-hmac crypto ipsec transform-set TRANS_ESP_3DES_SHA mode transport crypto ipsec transform-set TRANS_ESP_3DES_MD5 esp-3des esp-md5-hmac crypto ipsec transform-set TRANS_ESP_3DES_MD5 mode transport crypto map outside_map 1 match address inside_cryptomap_1 crypto map outside_map 1 set transform-set TRANS_ESP_3DES_MD5 crypto map outside_map interface inside crypto isakmp enable outside crypto isakmp policy 10 authentication pre-share encryption 3des hash md5 group 2 lifetime 86400 telnet timeout 5 ssh timeout 5 console timeout 0 dhcpd auto_config outside ! dhcpd address 192.168.1.2-192.168.1.33 inside dhcpd enable inside ! group-policy DefaultRAGroup internal group-policy DefaultRAGroup attributes dns-server value 192.168.1.1 vpn-tunnel-protocol IPSec l2tp-ipsec username myusername password FGHFGHFHGFHGFGFHF nt-encrypted tunnel-group DefaultRAGroup general-attributes address-pool PPTP-VPN default-group-policy DefaultRAGroup tunnel-group DefaultRAGroup ipsec-attributes pre-shared-key * tunnel-group DefaultRAGroup ppp-attributes no authentication chap authentication ms-chap-v2 ! ! prompt hostname context Cryptochecksum:a9331e84064f27e6220a8667bf5076c1 : end

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• Android: ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity error

  - by fordays

  Hi, I'm getting an ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread$ActivityRecord,Intent) error each time I boot up my program in the debugger. The program won't even start up! Any help would be greatly appreciated! I'm very new to this environment. Let me know if you need anymore information/code to help me out. Here is my logcat: 06-09 11:16:26.848: ERROR/vold(27): Error opening switch name path '/sys/class/switch/test2' (No such file or directory) 06-09 11:16:26.848: ERROR/vold(27): Error bootstrapping switch '/sys/class/switch/test2' (No such file or directory) 06-09 11:16:26.848: ERROR/vold(27): Error opening switch name path '/sys/class/switch/test' (No such file or directory) 06-09 11:16:26.848: ERROR/vold(27): Error bootstrapping switch '/sys/class/switch/test' (No such file or directory) 06-09 11:16:37.887: ERROR/MemoryHeapBase(53): error opening /dev/pmem: No such file or directory 06-09 11:16:37.887: ERROR/SurfaceFlinger(53): Couldn't open /sys/power/wait_for_fb_sleep or /sys/power/wait_for_fb_wake 06-09 11:16:37.927: ERROR/libEGL(53): couldn't load <libhgl.so> library (Cannot load library: load_library[984]: Library 'libhgl.so' not found) 06-09 11:16:38.407: ERROR/libEGL(64): couldn't load <libhgl.so> library (Cannot load library: load_library[984]: Library 'libhgl.so' not found) 06-09 11:16:41.358: ERROR/BatteryService(53): Could not open '/sys/class/power_supply/usb/online' 06-09 11:16:41.367: ERROR/BatteryService(53): Could not open '/sys/class/power_supply/battery/batt_vol' 06-09 11:16:41.367: ERROR/BatteryService(53): Could not open '/sys/class/power_supply/battery/batt_temp' 06-09 11:16:41.667: ERROR/EventHub(53): could not get driver version for /dev/input/mouse0, Not a typewriter 06-09 11:16:41.667: ERROR/EventHub(53): could not get driver version for /dev/input/mice, Not a typewriter 06-09 11:16:41.797: ERROR/System(53): Failure starting core service 06-09 11:16:41.797: ERROR/System(53): java.lang.SecurityException 06-09 11:16:41.797: ERROR/System(53): at android.os.BinderProxy.transact(Native Method) 06-09 11:16:41.797: ERROR/System(53): at android.os.ServiceManagerProxy.addService(ServiceManagerNative.java:146) 06-09 11:16:41.797: ERROR/System(53): at android.os.ServiceManager.addService(ServiceManager.java:72) 06-09 11:16:41.797: ERROR/System(53): at com.android.server.ServerThread.run(SystemServer.java:162) 06-09 11:16:41.797: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(53): Crash logging skipped, no checkin service 06-09 11:16:42.777: ERROR/LockPatternKeyguardView(53): Failed to bind to GLS while checking for account 06-09 11:16:46.557: ERROR/ActivityThread(111): Failed to find provider info for com.google.settings 06-09 11:16:46.577: ERROR/ActivityThread(111): Failed to find provider info for com.google.settings 06-09 11:16:49.087: ERROR/ApplicationContext(53): Couldn't create directory for SharedPreferences file shared_prefs/wallpaper-hints.xml 06-09 11:16:51.146: ERROR/ActivityThread(108): Failed to find provider info for android.server.checkin 06-09 11:16:54.266: ERROR/ActivityThread(108): Failed to find provider info for android.server.checkin 06-09 11:16:54.416: ERROR/ActivityThread(108): Failed to find provider info for android.server.checkin 06-09 11:16:56.336: ERROR/MediaPlayerService(31): Couldn't open fd for content://settings/system/notification_sound 06-09 11:16:56.356: ERROR/MediaPlayer(53): Unable to to create media player 06-09 11:16:56.637: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): Uncaught handler: thread main exiting due to uncaught exception 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.svgeeks.kidneytest/com.svgeeks.kidneytest.KidneyTest}: java.lang.ClassCastException: android.widget.EditText 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2401) 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2417) 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): at android.app.ActivityThread.access$2100(ActivityThread.java:116) 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1794) 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99) 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123) 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4203) 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method) 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:521) 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:791) 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:549) 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method) 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): Caused by: java.lang.ClassCastException: android.widget.EditText 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): at com.svgeeks.kidneytest.KidneyTest.onCreate(KidneyTest.java:57) 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1123) 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2364) 06-09 11:16:56.757: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(201): ... 11 more 06-09 11:16:56.876: ERROR/dalvikvm(201): Unable to open stack trace file '/data/anr/traces.txt': Permission denied

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• Complex SQL query help on aggregating values for nested subquery

  - by François Beausoleil

  Hi! I have people, companies, employees, events and event kinds. I'm making a report/followup sheet where people, companies and employees are the rows, and the columns are event kinds. Event kinds are simple values describing: "Promised Donation", "Received Donation", "Phoned", "Followed up" and such. Event kinds are ordered: CREATE TABLE event_kinds ( id, name, position); Events hold the actual reference to the event: CREATE TABLE events ( id, person_id, company_id, referrer_id, event_kind_id, created_at); referrer_id is another reference to people. It is the person which sent the information/tip along, and is an optional field, although I sometimes want to filter on an event_kind that has a specific referrer, while I don't for other event kinds. Notice I don't have an employee ID reference. The reference exists, but is implied. I have application code to validate that person_id and company_id really reference an employee record. The other tables are pretty basic: CREATE TABLE people ( id, name); CREATE TABLE companies ( id, name); CREATE TABLE employees ( id, person_id, company_id); I'm trying to achieve the following report: Referrer Phoned Promised Donated Francois Feb 16th Feb 20th Mar 1st Apple (Steve Jobs) Steve Ballmer Mar 3rd IBM Bill Gates Mar 7th The first row is a people record, the 2nd is an employee, and the 3rd is a company. If I asked for referrer Bill Gates for Phoned event kinds, I'd only see the 3rd row, while asking for Steve and Phoned would return no rows. Right now, I do 3 queries, one for companies, one for people and a last one for employees. I want the event kind columns to be ordered, but I do that in application code and show it properly there. Here's where I'm at so far: SELECT companies.id, companies.name, (SELECT events.id FROM events WHERE events.referrer_id = 1470 AND events.company_id = companies.id AND events.person_id IS NULL AND events.event_kind_id = 9 ORDER BY created_at DESC LIMIT 1) event_kind_9, (SELECT events.id FROM events WHERE events.company_id = companies.id AND events.person_id IS NULL AND events.event_kind_id = 10 ORDER BY created_at DESC LIMIT 1) event_kind_10, (SELECT events.created_at FROM events WHERE events.referrer_id = 1470 AND events.company_id = companies.id AND events.person_id IS NULL AND events.event_kind_id = 9 ORDER BY created_at DESC LIMIT 1) event_kind_9_order FROM "companies" SELECT people.id, people.name, (SELECT events.id FROM events WHERE events.referrer_id = 1470 AND events.company_id IS NULL AND events.person_id = people.id AND events.event_kind_id = 9 ORDER BY created_at DESC LIMIT 1) event_kind_9, (SELECT events.id FROM events WHERE events.company_id IS NULL AND events.person_id = people.id AND events.event_kind_id = 10 ORDER BY created_at DESC LIMIT 1) event_kind_10, (SELECT events.created_at FROM events WHERE events.referrer_id = 1470 AND events.company_id IS NULL AND events.person_id = people.id AND events.event_kind_id = 9 ORDER BY created_at DESC LIMIT 1) event_kind_9_order FROM "people" SELECT employees.id, employees.company_id, employees.person_id, (SELECT events.id FROM events WHERE events.referrer_id = 1470 AND events.company_id = employees.company_id AND events.person_id = employees.person_id AND events.event_kind_id = 9 ORDER BY created_at DESC LIMIT 1) event_kind_9, (SELECT events.id FROM events WHERE events.company_id = employees.company_id AND events.person_id = employees.person_id AND events.event_kind_id = 10 ORDER BY created_at DESC LIMIT 1) event_kind_10, (SELECT events.created_at FROM events WHERE events.referrer_id = 1470 AND events.company_id = employees.company_id AND events.person_id = employees.person_id AND events.event_kind_id = 9 ORDER BY created_at DESC LIMIT 1) event_kind_9_order FROM "employees" I rather suspect I'm doing this wrong. There should be an "easier" way to do it. One other filter criteria would be to filter on people/company names: WHERE LOWER(companies.name) LIKE '%apple%'. Note that I'm ordering by the dates of event_kind_9 here, and a secondary sort is by person/company name. To summarize: I want to paginate the result set, find the latest event for each cell, order the result set by the date of the latest event, and by company/person name, filter by referrer in some event kinds, but not others. For reference, I'm using PostgreSQL, from Ruby, ActiveRecord/Rails. The solution is pure SQL though.

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• Migrate from MySQL to PostgreSQL on Linux (Kubuntu)

  - by Dave Jarvis

  A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... Trying to migrate a database from MySQL to PostgreSQL. All the documentation I have read covers, in great detail, how to migrate the structure. I have found very little documentation on migrating the data. The schema has 13 tables (which have been migrated successfully) and 9 GB of data. MySQL version: 5.1.x PostgreSQL version: 8.4.x I want to use the R programming language to analyze the data using SQL select statements; PostgreSQL has PL/R, but MySQL has nothing (as far as I can tell). A New Hope Create the database location (/var has insufficient space; also dislike having the PostgreSQL version number everywhere -- upgrading would break scripts!): sudo mkdir -p /home/postgres/main sudo cp -Rp /var/lib/postgresql/8.4/main /home/postgres sudo chown -R postgres.postgres /home/postgres sudo chmod -R 700 /home/postgres sudo usermod -d /home/postgres/ postgres All good to here. Next, restart the server and configure the database using these installation instructions: sudo apt-get install postgresql pgadmin3 sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql-8.4 stop sudo vi /etc/postgresql/8.4/main/postgresql.conf Change data_directory to /home/postgres/main sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql-8.4 start sudo -u postgres psql postgres \password postgres sudo -u postgres createdb climate pgadmin3 Use pgadmin3 to configure the database and create a schema. The episode continues in a remote shell known as bash, with both databases running, and the installation of a set of tools with a rather unusual logo: SQL Fairy. perl Makefile.PL sudo make install sudo apt-get install perl-doc (strangely, it is not called perldoc) perldoc SQL::Translator::Manual Extract a PostgreSQL-friendly DDL and all the MySQL data: sqlt -f DBI --dsn dbi:mysql:climate --db-user user --db-password password -t PostgreSQL > climate-pg-ddl.sql mysqldump --skip-add-locks --complete-insert --no-create-db --no-create-info --quick --result-file="climate-my.sql" --databases climate --skip-comments -u root -p The Database Strikes Back Recreate the structure in PostgreSQL as follows: pgadmin3 (switch to it) Click the Execute arbitrary SQL queries icon Open climate-pg-ddl.sql Search for TABLE " replace with TABLE climate." (insert the schema name climate) Search for on " replace with on climate." (insert the schema name climate) Press F5 to execute This results in: Query returned successfully with no result in 122 ms. Replies of the Jedi At this point I am stumped. Where do I go from here (what are the steps) to convert climate-my.sql to climate-pg.sql so that they can be executed against PostgreSQL? How to I make sure the indexes are copied over correctly (to maintain referential integrity; I don't have constraints at the moment to ease the transition)? How do I ensure that adding new rows in PostgreSQL will start enumerating from the index of the last row inserted (and not conflict with an existing primary key from the sequence)? How do you ensure the schema name comes through when transforming the data from MySQL to PostgreSQL inserts? Resources A fair bit of information was needed to get this far: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PostgreSQL http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/site-mysql-postgresql-1 http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Converting_from_other_Databases_to_PostgreSQL#MySQL http://pgfoundry.org/frs/shownotes.php?release_id=810 http://sqlfairy.sourceforge.net/ Thank you!

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• DIV is picking max-width value as width value for DIV.

  - by Lokesh

  I am facing a problem after applying max-width hack for IE7. In mozilla, width of the div is flexible and adjustable as per the image width in the div. But in IE7 it is taking the max-width as width of DIV. Below is my HTML code: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all" href="style/food.css" /> <!--[if IE 7]> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="style/ie7.css" /> <![endif]--> </head> <body> <div class="main_content_inner_ko"> <div class="product_item"> <img src="images/product_icons/BigNTasty.png" alt="Big N&rsquo; Tasty"/><div class="small_title">Big N&rsquo; Tasty</div> <table class="product_information" cellpadding="0" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="red_bold"></td> <td></td> <td class="small_italic">(Daily Value)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Calories</td> <td>460</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Total Fat</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic">(37%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Carbs</td> <td>37g</td> <td class="small_italic">(12%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Protein</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Sodium</td> <td>720mg</td> <td class="small_italic">(30%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="notes">Note: Values shown are for the default size and/or flavor.</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_learn_more_and_customize"></a></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_add_to_my_meal_builder"></a></td></tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div class="product_item"> <img src="images/product_images/x115/chicken/PremCrispyChickenRanchBLT.png" height="115" width="115" alt="Premium Cripsy Chicken Ranch BLT"/><div class="small_title">Premium Cripsy Chicken Ranch BLT</div> <table class="product_information" cellpadding="0" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="red_bold"></td> <td></td> <td class="small_italic">(Daily Value)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Calories</td> <td>460</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Total Fat</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic">(37%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Carbs</td> <td>37g</td> <td class="small_italic">(12%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Protein</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Sodium</td> <td>720mg</td> <td class="small_italic">(30%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="notes">Note: Values shown are for the default size and/or flavor.</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_learn_more_and_customize"></a></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_add_to_my_meal_builder"></a></td></tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div class="product_item"> <img src="images/product_images/x115/sandwiches/FiletOFish.png" height="115" width="99" alt="Filet O Fish"/> <div class="small_title">Filet O Fish</div> <table class="product_information" cellpadding="0" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="red_bold"></td> <td></td> <td class="small_italic">(Daily Value)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Calories</td> <td>460</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Total Fat</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic">(37%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Carbs</td> <td>37g</td> <td class="small_italic">(12%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Protein</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Sodium</td> <td>720mg</td> <td class="small_italic">(30%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="notes">Note: Values shown are for the default size and/or flavor.</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_learn_more_and_customize"></a></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_add_to_my_meal_builder"></a></td></tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div class="product_item"> <img src="images/product_icons/BigNTasty.png" height="115" width="99" alt="Big N&rsquo; Tasty"/> <div class="small_title">Big N&rsquo; Tasty</div> <table class="product_information" cellpadding="0" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="red_bold"></td> <td></td> <td class="small_italic">(Daily Value)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Calories</td> <td>460</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Total Fat</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic">(37%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Carbs</td> <td>37g</td> <td class="small_italic">(12%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Protein</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Sodium</td> <td>720mg</td> <td class="small_italic">(30%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="notes">Note: Values shown are for the default size and/or flavor.</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_learn_more_and_customize"></a></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_add_to_my_meal_builder"></a></td></tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div class="product_item"> <img src="images/product_images/x115/chicken/PremCrispyChickenRanchBLT.png" height="115" width="115" alt="Premium Cripsy Chicken Ranch BLT"/> <div class="small_title">Premium Cripsy Chicken Ranch BLT</div> <table class="product_information" cellpadding="0" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="red_bold"></td> <td></td> <td class="small_italic">(Daily Value)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Calories</td> <td>460</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Total Fat</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic">(37%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Carbs</td> <td>37g</td> <td class="small_italic">(12%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Protein</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Sodium</td> <td>720mg</td> <td class="small_italic">(30%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="notes">Note: Values shown are for the default size and/or flavor.</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_learn_more_and_customize"></a></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_add_to_my_meal_builder"></a></td></tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div class="product_item"> <img src="images/product_images/x115/sandwiches/FiletOFish.png" height="115" width="99" alt="Filet O Fish"/> <div class="small_title">Filet O Fish</div> <table class="product_information" cellpadding="0" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="red_bold"></td> <td></td> <td class="small_italic">(Daily Value)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Calories</td> <td>460</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Total Fat</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic">(37%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Carbs</td> <td>37g</td> <td class="small_italic">(12%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Protein</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Sodium</td> <td>720mg</td> <td class="small_italic">(30%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="notes">Note: Values shown are for the default size and/or flavor.</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_learn_more_and_customize"></a></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_add_to_my_meal_builder"></a></td></tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div class="product_item"> <img src="images/product_icons/BigNTasty.png" height="115" width="99" alt="Big N&rsquo; Tasty"/> <div class="small_title">Big N&rsquo; Tasty</div> <table class="product_information" cellpadding="0" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="red_bold"></td> <td></td> <td class="small_italic">(Daily Value)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Calories</td> <td>460</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Total Fat</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic">(37%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Carbs</td> <td>37g</td> <td class="small_italic">(12%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Protein</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Sodium</td> <td>720mg</td> <td class="small_italic">(30%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="notes">Note: Values shown are for the default size and/or flavor.</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_learn_more_and_customize"></a></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_add_to_my_meal_builder"></a></td></tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div class="product_item"> <img src="images/product_icons/BigNTasty.png" height="115" width="99" alt="Big N&rsquo; Tasty"/> <div class="small_title">Big N&rsquo; Tasty</div> <table class="product_information" cellpadding="0" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="red_bold"></td> <td></td> <td class="small_italic">(Daily Value)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Calories</td> <td>460</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Total Fat</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic">(37%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Carbs</td> <td>37g</td> <td class="small_italic">(12%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Protein</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Sodium</td> <td>720mg</td> <td class="small_italic">(30%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="notes">Note: Values shown are for the default size and/or flavor.</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_learn_more_and_customize"></a></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_add_to_my_meal_builder"></a></td></tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div class="product_item"> <img src="images/product_images/x115/sandwiches/FiletOFish.png" height="115" width="99" alt="Filet O Fish"/> <div class="small_title">Filet O Fish</div> <table class="product_information" cellpadding="0" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="red_bold"></td> <td></td> <td class="small_italic">(Daily Value)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Calories</td> <td>460</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Total Fat</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic">(37%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Carbs</td> <td>37g</td> <td class="small_italic">(12%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Protein</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Sodium</td> <td>720mg</td> <td class="small_italic">(30%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="notes">Note: Values shown are for the default size and/or flavor.</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_learn_more_and_customize"></a></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_add_to_my_meal_builder"></a></td></tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div class="product_item"> <img src="images/product_icons/BigNTasty.png" height="115" width="99" alt="Big N&rsquo; Tasty"/> <div class="small_title">Big N&rsquo; Tasty</div> <table class="product_information" cellpadding="0" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="red_bold"></td> <td></td> <td class="small_italic">(Daily Value)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Calories</td> <td>460</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Total Fat</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic">(37%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Carbs</td> <td>37g</td> <td class="small_italic">(12%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Protein</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Sodium</td> <td>720mg</td> <td class="small_italic">(30%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="notes">Note: Values shown are for the default size and/or flavor.</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_learn_more_and_customize"></a></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_add_to_my_meal_builder"></a></td></tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div class="product_item"> <img src="images/product_icons/BigNTasty.png" height="115" width="99" alt="Big N&rsquo; Tasty"/> <div class="small_title">Big N&rsquo; Tasty</div> <table class="product_information" cellpadding="0" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="red_bold"></td> <td></td> <td class="small_italic">(Daily Value)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Calories</td> <td>460</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Total Fat</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic">(37%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Carbs</td> <td>37g</td> <td class="small_italic">(12%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Protein</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Sodium</td> <td>720mg</td> <td class="small_italic">(30%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="notes">Note: Values shown are for the default size and/or flavor.</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_learn_more_and_customize"></a></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_add_to_my_meal_builder"></a></td></tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div class="product_item"> <img src="images/product_icons/BigNTasty.png" height="115" width="99" alt="Big N&rsquo; Tasty"/> <div class="small_title">Big N&rsquo; Tasty</div> <table class="product_information" cellpadding="0" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="red_bold"></td> <td></td> <td class="small_italic">(Daily Value)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Calories</td> <td>460</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Total Fat</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic">(37%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Carbs</td> <td>37g</td> <td class="small_italic">(12%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Protein</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Sodium</td> <td>720mg</td> <td class="small_italic">(30%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="notes">Note: Values shown are for the default size and/or flavor.</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_learn_more_and_customize"></a></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_add_to_my_meal_builder"></a></td></tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div class="product_item"> <img src="images/product_images/x115/chicken/PremCrispyChickenRanchBLT.png" height="115" width="115" alt="Premium Cripsy Chicken Ranch BLT"/> <div class="small_title">Premium Cripsy Chicken Ranch BLT</div> <table class="product_information" cellpadding="0" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="red_bold"></td> <td></td> <td class="small_italic">(Daily Value)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Calories</td> <td>460</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Total Fat</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic">(37%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Carbs</td> <td>37g</td> <td class="small_italic">(12%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Protein</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Sodium</td> <td>720mg</td> <td class="small_italic">(30%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="notes">Note: Values shown are for the default size and/or flavor.</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_learn_more_and_customize"></a></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_add_to_my_meal_builder"></a></td></tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div class="product_item"> <img src="images/product_images/x115/sandwiches/FiletOFish.png" height="115" width="99" alt="Filet O Fish"/> <div class="small_title">Filet O Fish</div> <table class="product_information" cellpadding="0" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="red_bold"></td> <td></td> <td class="small_italic">(Daily Value)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Calories</td> <td>460</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Total Fat</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic">(37%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Carbs</td> <td>37g</td> <td class="small_italic">(12%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Protein</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Sodium</td> <td>720mg</td> <td class="small_italic">(30%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="notes">Note: Values shown are for the default size and/or flavor.</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_learn_more_and_customize"></a></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_add_to_my_meal_builder"></a></td></tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div class="product_item"> <img src="images/product_icons/BigNTasty.png" height="115" width="99" alt="Big N&rsquo; Tasty"/> <div class="small_title">Big N&rsquo; Tasty</div> <table class="product_information" cellpadding="0" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="red_bold"></td> <td></td> <td class="small_italic">(Daily Value)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Calories</td> <td>460</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Total Fat</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic">(37%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Carbs</td> <td>37g</td> <td class="small_italic">(12%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Protein</td> <td>24g</td> <td class="small_italic"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="red_bold">Sodium</td> <td>720mg</td> <td class="small_italic">(30%)</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="notes">Note: Values shown are for the default size and/or flavor.</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_learn_more_and_customize"></a></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><a href="#" class="acts_as_button en_add_to_my_meal_builder"></a></td></tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div class="clear"></div> </div> </body> Below is the css code: div.small_title { font-size: 10px; color: #929292; text-align: center; max-width: 115px; line-height: 13px; padding-top: 5px; margin: 0 auto; } .product_item { position: relative; float:left; min-width: 35px; max-width: 189px; width: auto !important; text-align:center; border: 1px solid #CCC; } Please help me! Cheers!! Lokesh Yadav

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• How to create multiboot flash drive

  - by Nrew

  I've found a guide here: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/boot-multiple-iso-from-usb-multiboot-usb/ And found this menu.lst in my flash drive, which seems to be the one that I'm seeing when I boot using my flash drive: # This Menu Created by Lance http://www.pendrivelinux.com # Ongoing Suggested Menu Entries and the Suggestor are noted! default 0 timeout 30 color NORMAL HIGHLIGHT HELPTEXT HEADING splashimage=(hd0,0)/splash.xpm.gz foreground=FFFFFF background=0066FF title Memtest86+ find --set-root /memtest86+-4.00.iso map --mem /memtest86+-4.00.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) # Suggested by madprofessor title Boot Clonezilla root (hd0,0) kernel /clonezilla/live/vmlinuz live-media-path=clonezilla/live bootfrom=/dev/sd boot=live union=aufs noprompt ocs_live_run="ocs-live-general" ocs_live_extra_param="" ocs_live_keymap="" ocs_live_batch="no" ocs_lang="" vga=791 ip=frommedia initrd /clonezilla/live/initrd.img title Parted Magic 4.9 (Partition Tools) find --set-root /pmagic-4.9.iso map /pmagic-4.9.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) # Suggested by Deb title Partition Wizard 4.2 (Partition Tools) find --set-root /pwhe42.iso map /pwhe42.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) title Balder DOS image (FreeDOS) map --unsafe-boot /balder10.img (fd0) map --hook chainloader --force (fd0)+1 rootnoverify (fd0) # Suggested by Szymon Silski title Linux Mint 8 find --set-root /LinuxMint-8.iso map /LinuxMint-8.iso (0xff) map --hook root (0xff) kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/mint.seed boot=casper persistent iso-scan/filename=/LinuxMint-8.iso splash initrd /casper/initrd.lz title Ubuntu 10.04 find --set-root /ubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso map /ubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso (0xff) map --hook root (0xff) kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper persistent iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso splash initrd /casper/initrd.lz title Xubuntu 10.04 (XFCE Desktop) find --set-root /xubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso map /xubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso (0xff) map --hook root (0xff) kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/xubuntu.seed boot=casper persistent iso-scan/filename=/xubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso splash initrd /casper/initrd.lz title Kubuntu 10.04 (KDE Desktop) find --set-root /kubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso map /kubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso (0xff) map --hook root (0xff) kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/kubuntu.seed boot=casper persistent iso-scan/filename=/kubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso splash initrd /casper/initrd.lz # Suggested by Ambriel title Lubuntu 10.04 (LXDE Lightweight Desktop) find --set-root /lubuntu-10.04.iso map /lubuntu-10.04.iso (0xff) map --hook root (0xff) kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/lubuntu.seed boot=casper persistent iso-scan/filename=/lubuntu-10.04.iso splash initrd /casper/initrd.lz title Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Remix (NetBook Distro) find --set-root /ubuntu-10.04-netbook-i386.iso map /ubuntu-10.04-netbook-i386.iso (0xff) map --hook root (0xff) kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/netbook-remix.seed boot=casper persistent iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu-10.04-netbook-i386.iso splash initrd /casper/initrd.lz title Ubuntu 10.04 Server Edition Installer (32 bit Installer Only) find --set-root /ubuntu-10.04-server-i386.iso map /ubuntu-10.04-server-i386.iso (0xff) map --hook root (0xff) kernel /install/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu-server.seed boot=install iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu-10.04-server-i386.iso splash initrd /install/initrd.gz title Ubuntu 9.10 find --set-root /ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso map /ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso (0xff) map --hook root (0xff) kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper persistent iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso splash initrd /casper/initrd.lz title Xubuntu 9.10 find --set-root /xubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso map /xubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso (0xff) map --hook root (0xff) kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/xubuntu.seed boot=casper persistent iso-scan/filename=/xubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso splash initrd /casper/initrd.lz title Kubuntu 9.10 find --set-root /kubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso map /kubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso (0xff) map --hook root (0xff) kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/kubuntu.seed boot=casper persistent iso-scan/filename=/kubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso splash initrd /casper/initrd.lz # Ubuntu Server and Netbook Remix suggested by Wojciech Holek title Ubuntu 9.10 Server Edition Installer (Installer Only) find --set-root /ubuntu-9.10-server-i386.iso map /ubuntu-9.10-server-i386.iso (0xff) map --hook root (0xff) kernel /install/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu-server.seed boot=install iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu-9.10-server-i386.iso splash initrd /install/initrd.gz title Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix (NetBook Distro) find --set-root /ubuntu-9.10-netbook-remix-i386.iso map /ubuntu-9.10-netbook-remix-i386.iso (0xff) map --hook root (0xff) kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/netbook-remix.seed boot=casper persistent iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu-9.10-netbook-remix-i386.iso splash initrd /casper/initrd.lz title Ubuntu 9.10 Rescue Remix (Recovery Tools) find --set-root /ubuntu-rescue-remix-9-10-revision1.iso map /ubuntu-rescue-remix-9-10-revision1.iso (0xff) map --hook root (0xff) kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu-rescue-remix-9-10-revision1.iso splash initrd /casper/initrd.lz title DSL 4.4.10 find --set-root /dsl-4.4.10-initrd.iso map --mem /dsl-4.4.10-initrd.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) title AVG Rescue CD (Anti-Virus + Anti-Spyware) find --set-root /avg_arl_en_90_100114.iso map /avg_arl_en_90_100114.iso (hd32) map --hook chainloader (hd32) title Ultimate Boot CD 4.11 find --set-root /ubcd411.iso map /ubcd411.iso (hd32) map --hook chainloader (hd32) title OphCrack XP 2.3.1 (XP Password Cracker) find --set-root /ophcrack-xp-livecd-2.3.1.iso map /ophcrack-xp-livecd-2.3.1.iso (0xff) map --hook root (0xff) kernel /boot/bzImage rw root=/dev/null vga=normal lang=C kmap=us screen=1024x768x16 autologin initrd /boot/rootfs.gz title OphCrack Vista 2.3.1 (Vista Password Cracker) find --set-root /ophcrack-vista-livecd-2.3.1.iso map /ophcrack-vista-livecd-2.3.1.iso (0xff) map --hook root (0xff) kernel /boot/bzImage rw root=/dev/null vga=normal lang=C kmap=us screen=1024x768x16 autologin initrd /boot/rootfs.gz # Suggested by Greg Steer title Offline NT Password & Registy Editor find --set-root /cd080802.iso map /cd080802.iso (hd32) map --hook chainloader (hd32) title SliTaz 2.0 find --set-root /slitaz-2.0.iso map --mem /slitaz-2.0.iso (hd32) map --hook chainloader (hd32) title Riplinux 9.3 find --set-root /RIPLinuX-9.3.iso map --heads=0 --sectors-per-track=0 /RIPLinuX-9.3.iso (0xff) || map --heads=0 --sectors-per-track=0 --mem /RIPLinuX-9.3.iso (0xff) map --hook chainloader (0xff) # Suggested by Sunny title YlmF (Windows Like OS) find --set-root /YlmF_OS_EN_v1.0.iso map /YlmF_OS_EN_v1.0.iso (0xff) map --hook root (0xff) kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper persistent iso-scan/filename=/YlmF_OS_EN_v1.0.iso splash initrd /casper/initrd.lz # Suggested by Martin Andersson title DBAN 1.0.7 (Drive Nuker) find --set-root /dban-1.0.7_i386.iso map --mem /dban-1.0.7_i386.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) # Suggested by Robin McGough title xPUD 0.9.2 (NetBook Distro) find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /xpud-0.9.2.iso map --heads=0 --sectors-per-track=0 /xpud-0.9.2.iso (hd32) map --hook chainloader (hd32) title Puppy 4.3.1 find --set-root /puppy/pup-431.sfs kernel /puppy/vmlinuz initrd /puppy/initrd.gz # Suggested by Relst title Run a Linux OS from the Internet kernel /gpxe.lkrn I also put some .iso files for os installers (Windows xp sp2 and Ubuntu 10.04) But they didn't show up in the list when I booted Do I need to: extract the .iso files and put in in their respective folders? Add the os that I added on the menu.lst? How do I add the iso image(os) in the menu.lst? Before adding the .iso files I first made a folder named Windows xp sp2 then placed the .iso files in there. Please help, I think I need to add the folder name or the file name on the menu.lst but I don't know how

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• JpegBitmapEncoder.Save() throws exception when writing image with metadata to MemoryStream

  - by Dmitry

  I am trying to set up metadata on JPG image what does not have it. You can't use in-place writer (InPlaceBitmapMetadataWriter) in this case, cuz there is no place for metadata in image. If I use FileStream as output - everything works fine. But if I try to use MemoryStream as output - JpegBitmapEncoder.Save() throws an exception (Exception from HRESULT: 0xC0000005). After some investigation I also found out what encoder can save image to memory stream if I supply null instead of metadata. I've made a very simplified and short example what reproduces the problem: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.IO; using System.Drawing; using System.Drawing.Imaging; using System.Windows.Media.Imaging; namespace JpegSaveTest { class Program { public static JpegBitmapEncoder SetUpMetadataOnStream(Stream src, string title) { uint padding = 2048; BitmapDecoder original; BitmapFrame framecopy, newframe; BitmapMetadata metadata; JpegBitmapEncoder output = new JpegBitmapEncoder(); src.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin); original = JpegBitmapDecoder.Create(src, BitmapCreateOptions.PreservePixelFormat, BitmapCacheOption.OnLoad); if (original.Frames[0] != null) { framecopy = (BitmapFrame)original.Frames[0].Clone(); if (original.Frames[0].Metadata != null) metadata = original.Frames[0].Metadata.Clone() as BitmapMetadata; else metadata = new BitmapMetadata("jpeg"); metadata.SetQuery("/app1/ifd/PaddingSchema:Padding", padding); metadata.SetQuery("/app1/ifd/exif/PaddingSchema:Padding", padding); metadata.SetQuery("/xmp/PaddingSchema:Padding", padding); metadata.SetQuery("System.Title", title); newframe = BitmapFrame.Create(framecopy, framecopy.Thumbnail, metadata, original.Frames[0].ColorContexts); output.Frames.Add(newframe); } else { Exception ex = new Exception("Image contains no frames."); throw ex; } return output; } public static MemoryStream SetTagsInMemory(string sfname, string title) { Stream src, dst; JpegBitmapEncoder output; src = File.Open(sfname, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read); output = SetUpMetadataOnStream(src, title); dst = new MemoryStream(); output.Save(dst); src.Close(); return (MemoryStream)dst; } static void Main(string[] args) { string filename = "Z:\\dotnet\\gnom4.jpg"; MemoryStream s; s = SetTagsInMemory(filename, "test title"); } } } It is simple console application. To run it, replace filename variable content with path to any .jpg file without metadata (or use mine). Ofc I can just save image to temporary file first, close it, then open and copy to MemoryStream, but its too dirty and slow workaround. Any ideas about getting this working are welcome :)

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