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• Correcting Grammar for Microsoft Products and Technology

  I see book authors, editors, bloggers, press, team members, and occasionally even a VP misspell our products, technologies, and features that I thought I would build and maintain a list of the correct capitalization and spelling of the most commonly misspelled Microsoft products and technologies. Sources: Internal site (brandtools) and the Microsoft Trademarks Web site. Last updated: April 27, 2010   Incorrect Correct .net or .Net .NET .Net framework 4.0, .NET framework 4.0 .NET Framework AdCenter, Ad Center, Adcenter adCenter Ado.net, ADO.Net ADO.NET Asp.net, ASP.Net ASP.NET Asp.Net ajax, Asp.NET Ajax ASP.NET AJAX Asp.Net Mvc ASP.NET MVC Biz Spark, Bizspark BizSpark Clear Type, Clear type, Cleartype ClearType Directaccess, Direct Access DirectAccess Direct Show, Directshow DirectShow Direct X DirectX Dream Spark, Dreamspark DreamSpark Home Group, Home group HomeGroup HotMail, Hot Mail Hotmail Info Path, Infopath InfoPath Intellisense, Intellisense IntelliSense Iron Ruby IronRuby Kin KIN Linq LINQ MSN Messenger Windows Live Messenger One Note, Onenote OneNote Open type, Opentype OpenType PlayTo, Play to Play To Power Point, Powerpoint PowerPoint Powershell, Power Shell PowerShell Sea Dragon, Seadragon SeaDragon Sharepoint, Share Point SharePoint Silver Light, SilverLight Silverlight Skydrive, Sky Drive SkyDrive Sql Server SQL Server Visual Basic .net (the .net was removed in the 2005 version) Visual Basic  Visual C# Express 2010 or Visual Basic Express 2010 or Visual C++ Express 2010 Visual version 2010 Express as in Visual C# 2010 Express, Visual Basic 2010 Express Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 or Visual Studio Professional 2010 Visual Studio 2010 version, as in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, Visual Studio 2010 Professional WebSite Spark, Website spark Website Spark Win 32 Win32 Windows Mobile (except when referring to previous versions like 5.0 or 6), Windows phone 7 Series Windows Phone Xaml XAML XBOX, xbox Xbox Xbox Live, XBOX Live Xbox LIVE   Caveats These guidelines dont apply to URLs (ex: www.asp.net) or to code namespaces, variables, and classes should follow the .NET Framework naming guidelines. This list only covers capitalization/spacing rules, it doesnt cover the correct usage of (tm) or symbols or the correct word usage rules. For those, refer to the trademark Web site. Also note that I have no idea why we are so inconsistent say on keeping features/brands two words versus one word or the order of product/version/year.Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Visual Studio 2010 plus Help Index : have your cake and eat it too

  - by Adrian Hara

  Although the team's intentions might have been good, the new help system in Visual Studio 2010  is a huge step backwards (more like a cannonball-shot-kind-of-leap really) from the one we all know (and love?) in Visual Studio 2008 and 2005 (and heck, even VS6). Its biggest problem, from my point of view, is the total and complete lack of the Help Index feature: you know...the thing where you just go and type in what you're looking for and it filters down the list of results automatically. For me this was the number one productivity feature in the "old" help system, allowing me to find stuff very quickly. Number two is that it's entirely web based and runs, by default, in the browser. So imagine, when you press F1, a new tab opens in your default browser pointing to the help entry. While this is wrong in many ways, it's also extremely annoying, cleaning up tabs in the browser becomes a chore which represents a serious productivity hit. These and many other problems were discussed extensively (and rather vocally) on connect but it seems MS seemed to ignore it and opt to release the new help system anyway, with the promise that more features will be added in a later release. Again, it kind of amazes me that they chose to ship a product with LESS features that the previous one and, what's worse, missing KEY features, just so it's "standards based" and "extensible". To be honest, I couldn't care less about the help system's implementation, I just want it to be usable and I would've thought that by now the software community and especially MS would've learned this lesson. In the end, what kind of saddens me is that MS regards these basic features as ones for the "power help user". I mean, come on! I mean a) it's not like my aunt's using Visual Studio 2010 and she represents the regular user, b) all software developers are, by definition, power users and c) it's a freakin help, not rocket science! As you can tell, I'm pretty pissed. Even more so because I really feel that the VS2010 & co. release really is a great one, with a lot of effort going into the various platforms and frameworks, most (if not all) of them being really REALLY good products. And then they go and screw up the help! How lame is that?!   Anyway, it's not all gloom-and-doom. Luckily there is a desktop app which presents a UI over the new help system that's very close to what was there in VS2008, by Robert Chandler (to which I hereby declare eternal gratitude). It still has some minor issues but I'll take it over the browser version of the help any day. It's free, pretty quick (on my machine ;)) and nicely usable. So, if you hate the new help system (passionately) like I do, download H3Viewer now.

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• Economic modelling - Resources for valuing goods

  - by Rushyo

  tl;dr: What economic/computer science books would you suggest for learning about economic valuation of goods and simulations thereof? I'm looking to create an economic model for a game based on goods created procedurally. Every natural resource and produced good would be procedurally generated, with certain goods being assigned certain uses. Fakesium might be used for the production of Weapon A and produced from Fakesium factories which use Dilithium and Widgets as reagents, where Widgets are also the product of Foo and Bar The problem is not creating the resources and their various production utlities - but getting the game's AI empires and merchants to correctly value the goods according to their scarcity, utility and production costs. I need to create a simulation of goods which allows the various game factions to assign a common value denominator (credits) to each resource, depending on how much its worth to that empire. I see the simulation being something like: "I have a high requirement for Weapon A. Since I don't have much of Fakesium, which is needed for Weapon A - I must have a high demand for Fakesium. If I can acquire Fakesium, devalue it. If not, increase its value - and also increase demand for Dilithium and Widgets too." This is very naive - because it may be much much cheaper for the empire to simply purchase Dilithium and Widgets directly rather than purchasing Fakesium, for example. Another example is two resources might allow the creation of Weapon A (Fakesium and Lieron), so we'd need to consider that. I've been scratching my head over the problem and it keeps growing. By the time the player joins the world, I'd expect enough iterations of this process to have occurred that prices would have largely normalised - and would then only trigger rarely to compensate for major changes (eg. if the player blows up the world's only Foo mine!) Could anyone suggest resources (books, largely) which outline this style of modelling, preferably in the context of simulations? Since this problem would never occur outside fantasy worlds, I figured this is probably the most likely place to find people who have encountered similar problems and I'm sure there's people who know of good places for Games Developers to start looking at less specific economic theory too. Additionally, does anyone know of any developers with blogs whose games or research applications perform similar modelling?

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• Transparent Technology from Amazon

  - by David Dorf

  Amazon has been making some interesting moves again, this time in the augmented humanity area.  Augmented humanity is about helping humans overcome their shortcomings using technology.  Putting a powerful smartphone in your pocket helps you in many ways like navigating streets, communicating with far off friends, and accessing information.  But the interface for smartphones is somewhat limiting and unnatural, so companies have been looking for ways to make the technology more transparent and therefore easier to use. When Apple helped us drop the stylus, we took a giant leap forward in simplicity.  Using touchscreens with intuitive gestures was part of the iPhone's original appeal.  People don't want to know that technology is there -- they just want the benefits.  So what's the next leap beyond the touchscreen to make smartphones even easier to use? Two natural ways we interact with the world around us is by using sight and voice.  Google and Apple have been using both in their mobile platforms for limited uses cases.  Nobody actually wants to type a text message, so why not just speak it?  Any if you want more information about a book, why not just snap a picture of the cover?  That's much more accurate than trying to key the title and/or author. So what's Amazon been doing?  First, Amazon released a new iPhone app called Flow that allows iPhone users to see information about products in context.  Yes, its an augmented reality app that uses the phone's camera to view products, and overlays data about the products on the screen.  For the most part it requires the barcode to be visible to correctly identify the product, but I believe it can also recognize certain logos as well.  Download the app and try it out but don't expect perfection.  Its good enough to demonstrate the concept, but its far from accurate enough.  (MobileBeat did a pretty good review.)  Extrapolate to the future and we might just have a heads-up display in our eyeglasses. The second interesting area is voice response, for which Siri is getting lots of attention.  Amazon may have purchased a voice recognition company called Yap, although the deal is not confirmed.  But it would make perfect sense, especially with the Kindle Fire in Amazon's lineup. I believe over the next 3-5 years the way in which we interact with smartphones will mature, and they will become more transparent yet more important to our daily lives.  This will, of course, impact the way we shop, making information more readily accessible than it already is.  Amazon seems to be positioning itself to be at the forefront of this trend, so we should be watching them carefully.

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• WebCenter Customer Spotlight: spectrumK Holding GmbH

  - by me

  Author: Peter Reiser - Social Business Evangelist Oracle WebCenter Solution Summary spectrumK Holding GmbH was founded in 2007 by various German health insurance funds and national insurance associations and is a service provider for the healthcare market, covering patient care management, financial management, and information management, as well as payment services and legal counseling. spectrumK Holding GmbH business objectives was to implement innovative new Web-based services and solution systems for health insurance funds by integrating a multitude of isolated solutions from different organizations. Using Oracle WebCenter Portal, Oracle WebCenter Content, and Site Studio, the customer created a multiple-portal environment and deployed the 1st three applications for patient receipt, a medication navigator, and disability information. spectrumK Holding GmbH accelerated time-to-market for new features by reducing the development time, achieved 40% development and cost savings using standard modules and realized 80% overall savings using the Oracle multiple portal environment, as compared to individual installations. Company Overview spectrumK Holding GmbH was founded in 2007 by various company health insurance funds and national insurance associations. A service provider for the healthcare market, spectrumK consists of one holding company and four operative subsidiaries. Its broad product portfolio of compulsory health funds covers patient care management, financial management, and information management, as well as payment services and legal counseling. Business ChallengesspectrumK Holding GmbH business objectives were to implement innovative new Web-based services and solution systems for the health insurance funds by integrating a multitude of isolated solutions from different organizations. Specifically, spectrumK was looking to: Establish a portal-based environment to provide health coverage information services to the insured, with the option to integrate a multitude of isolated solutions from different organizations Implement innovative new Web-based spectrumK service products and solutions systems for health insurance funds Lower costs while improving services for the health fund’s clients Find an infrastructure that supports the small development team in efficient implementation and operation of the solution Reuse standard modules while enabling easy, inexpensive adaptations to customer-specific corporate requirements Solution Deployed spectrumK Holding GmbH created a multiple-portal environment, called “KundenCenter+“ which is based on the integration of Oracle WebCenter Portal, Oracle WebCenter Content, and Site Studio. They initiated and launched the first three of the company’s KundenCenter+, Oracle-based modules for patient receipt, a medication navigator, and disability information, with numerous successful deployments and individual customer environment adaptations. Business ResultsspectrumK Holding GmbH accelerated time-to-market for new features by reducing the development time, achieved 40% development and cost savings using standard modules and realized 80% overall savings using the Oracle multiple portal environment, as compared to individual installations Additional Information  spectrumK Holding GmbH Snapshot Oracle WebCenter Suite Oracle Customer Support Oracle Consulting Oracle WebCenter Content

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• Set up a TFS Server/Service demo environment in less than 1 minute now!

  - by Tarun Arora

  Release Notes – http://tfsdemosetup.codeplex.com/  | Download | Source Code | Report a Bug | Ideas To Demonstrate the capabilities of TFS 2012 Server/Service Task board you would need to set up TFS with some teams, a few team members, some sample stories, tasks, etc. That’s too many steps if you as me! Hi! My name is Tarun Arora, I am a Microsoft MVP in Visual Studio ALM & a Visual Studio ALM Ranger, as a consultant I have had to demo TFS Preview to potential customers several times a day. I usually create the team project during the demo to show off how quick and efficient it is, but setting up teams, team members, tasks usually takes longer I don’t prefer carrying out these steps during the demo. I have developed a .net based console application which uses the TFS API to create a standard demo environment saving me from all these manual steps. The console application reads the set up information from an XML file, leaving the setup process highly customizable. Figure 1 – Demo Dictionary, change values here for unique setup The console application today sets up, 1. Create a new Team 2. Set the team as the default team 3. Configure team settings      a. Set Backlog Iteration path      b. Set Team Iterations and start & finish dates      c. Set Team Area path 4. Add Team Members 5. Add Product Backlog Items & linked Tasks. Image 2 – The team website before (on the left) and after (on the right) running the console app Image 3 – Team configuration before (on left) and after (on right) with new team Demo and 2 members Image 4 – Iteration configuration before (on left) and after (on right) with new backlog iteration path & sprint dates set Image 5 – Area configuration (on left) and after (on right) with area path configured for the team   Image 6 – A demo ready Task Board and Task Board for Team Members Credits, - Mattias Sköld [Visual Studio ALM Ranger] – I have used TfsTeamTools to perform team creation & add members - Ivan Popek – TFS 2012 API blog posts had some fantastic reusable samples.  - Shai Raiten [Microsoft ALM MVP] – Great collection of posts on TFS API. Enjoy!

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• Desktop Fun: Google Themed Icon Packs

  - by Asian Angel

  Are you an avid user of Google’s online services, but the icons for your desktop and app launcher shortcuts leave something to be desired? Now you can make those shortcuts shine with style using our Google Themed Icon Packs collection. Note: To customize the icon setup on your Windows 7 & Vista systems see our article here. Using Windows XP? We have you covered here. Sneak Preview For this week’s sneak preview we set up a Google Chrome themed desktop using the Simply Google Icon Collection shown below. Note: Original full-size wallpaper can be found here. We used Chromium to create a set of app shortcuts for various Google services on our desktop. Anyone who has done the same knows that the original icons do not look very good, so these icon packs can make those shortcuts look spectacular. Once the new icons were arranged for our desktop app shortcuts, we then pinned them to our Taskbar. Those are definitely looking nice! The Icon Packs Simply Google Icon Collection *.ico and .png format Download Google icons *.ico and .png format Download Tango Google Icon Set Vol. 1 *.png and .svg format Download Google Tango Icon Set Vol. 2 *.png and .svg format Download New Google Product Icons *.ico, .png, and .gif format Note: This icon pack contains 657 icons of various sizes. The best selection of individual icon types in the same size (i.e. 48, 128, etc.) from this pack is a mixture of .png and .gif formats. Download New google docs icons *.png format only Download Google Docs pack Icons *.ico, .png, and .gif format Download GCal *.png format only (original favicon .ico file included) Download Google Earth Icon Color Pack *.png format only Download Google Earth Dock Icons *.ico, .png, and .icns format Download Gtalk Color Icons *.png format only Download Google Buzz Icons *.png format only Download Google Chrome icon pack *.png format only Download Google Chrome X *.ico, .png, and .icns format Download Google Chrome icon pack *.png format only Download Wanting more great icon sets to look through? Be certain to visit our Desktop Fun section for more icon goodness! Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 The 50 Best How-To Geek Windows Articles of 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Explainer Topics for 2010 How to Disable Caps Lock Key in Windows 7 or Vista How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC Enjoy Old School Style Video Game Fun with Chicken Invaders Hide the Twitter “Litter” in Twitter’s Sidebar Area (Chrome and Iron) Public Domain Day: Reflections on Copyright and the Importance of Public Domain Angry Birds Coming to PS3 and PSP This Week I Hate Mondays Wallpaper for That First Day Back at Work Tune Pop Enhances Android Music Notifications

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• Site Review: Facebook.com and Blockbuster.com - Navigation Schemes

  After cycling through a list of my favorite sites I decided to select Facebook.com and Blockbuster.com for this  post because I found their navigation schemes very intuitive. Facebook in my opinion took a very simplistic and minimalistic approach when they designed their site and its navigation. For example, when you login to your account you will find on the upper left hand side a generic section of the site common areas to all users like news, messages, events, photos and friends. Below this in a separate navigation menu is a list of applications that a user has elected to access through bookmarks. Finally in the upper right hand corner of the site contains links to administer the user’s account like account settings, public profile, and a link back to the users’ home page. Blockbuster on the other had tried to make site navigation a little more slick by using a menu-submenu approach to navigation where user can click on things like Rent, Buy, On Demand, Games, Stores, and Gifts and a submenu of corresponding items appears below the original menu item. In addition they also took this approach and added categorized lists of movies that they offer on the homepage so that users can click on an item like “DVD Spotlight” and a list of movies represented as actual DVD box cases appear on the user’s screen so they can scroll through the list by using left and right arrows on either side of the images displayed. Both Facebook and Blockbuster have more than one navigation groupings because their respected sites are so large and offer an absorbent amount of features. Because of this reason they have to group the main functionality of information in to logical groups based on their actions they perform and the access to specific information. For example it would not make sense for Facebook to include a particular game you like to play within your account with a section pertaining to account administration. The game link would be completely out of place and really confuse the users experience because the groupings where not logically grouped. In addition I think that Facebook users would benefit if Facebook allowed its users to specify what they want on the general navigation from within their site or at least create a section to show frequently accessed pages or favorite sections. Finally regarding additional navigation, I think blockbuster users really benefit from the submenu system of categorizing data, and if fact Blockbuster even allows them to refine the information they are looking for through the use of secondary submenu systems allowing users to really drill down in to what they are looking for to learn more on. I do not think that having more than one navigation bar on a web page is not confusing for the user. For example if you have a navigation bar at the top of your page and at the bottom will allow users to move around the website easier because they can utilize the navigation closest to where their cursor is on the page. In regards to designers forcing all the navigation in to one navigation bar, I think it would be hard for the user to fully understand what is going on based on the size and complexity of the site they are dealing with. For example Blockbuster has a ton of content that could not easily be put in to one navigation bar. From my experience with both Facebook and Blockbuster, they both do a good job with cross browser compatibility. I have had no issues with either site in IE, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari over the years. In addition, I do not believe that either Facebook or Blockbuster require any additional plug-in to utilize their navigation bars.

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• Retreiving upcoming calendar events from a Google Calendar

  - by brian_ritchie

  Google has a great cloud-based calendar service that is part of their Gmail product.  Besides using it as a personal calendar, you can use it to store events for display on your web site.  The calendar is accessible through Google's GData API for which they provide a C# SDK. Here's some code to retrieve the upcoming entries from the calendar:  .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: Consolas, "Courier New", Courier, Monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } 1: public class CalendarEvent 2: { 3: public string Title { get; set; } 4: public DateTime StartTime { get; set; } 5: } 6:   7: public class CalendarHelper 8: { 9: public static CalendarEvent[] GetUpcomingCalendarEvents 10: (int numberofEvents) 11: { 12: CalendarService service = new CalendarService("youraccount"); 13: EventQuery query = new EventQuery(); 14: query.Uri = new Uri( 15: "http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/userid/public/full"); 16: query.FutureEvents = true; 17: query.SingleEvents = true; 18: query.SortOrder = CalendarSortOrder.ascending; 19: query.NumberToRetrieve = numberofEvents; 20: query.ExtraParameters = "orderby=starttime"; 21: var events = service.Query(query); 22: return (from e in events.Entries select new CalendarEvent() 23: { StartTime=(e as EventEntry).Times[0].StartTime, 24: Title = e.Title.Text }).ToArray(); 25: } 26: } There are a few special "tricks" to make this work: "SingleEvents" flag will flatten out reoccurring events "FutureEvents", "SortOrder", and the "orderby" parameters will get the upcoming events. "NumberToRetrieve" will limit the amount coming back  I then using Linq to Objects to put the results into my own DTO for use by my model.  It is always a good idea to place data into your own DTO for use within your MVC model.  This protects the rest of your code from changes to the underlying calendar source or API.

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• I'm creating my own scalable, rapid prototyping web server. How should I design it?

  - by Mike Willliams

  I'm going to create my own web server that focuses on scalability, rapid prototyping and the use of JavaScript as the server's scripting language, much like node.js. It will use a Model-View-Controller design pattern so a web application can support more concurrent users just by adding hardware -- and not having to redesign the software. Basically, I'm aiming to produce a framework that allows for fast and easy development of cloud applications without the need to write lots of boiler plate code. I've got some questions about this... How hard will it be to put MySQL in the cloud? How could I go about implementing this and make the resulting product free? Will I have to write my own engine or modify an existing one, if I do what should I watch out for? To make this scalable I need to adjust from one server to hundreds of servers this creates the requirement for the servers to be load balancing, how should I do this? If I balance based on the work load per server I would need gateway to handle all the incoming requests. Is it the right idea to have all the servers check into the gateway and update there status. By having the servers run through a gateway if the gateway dies all the incoming requests are ignored. I'm thinking that having all the servers maintain a list of each other, or at least a few I could rebuild the list of servers and establish a new gateway. Is it worth it? Or should I have a backup gateway that could switch out? Should I let the user choose? How should I pick which server handles the database and which handles the page serving? Should I spread the database so that queries are preformed on multiple servers? Which would theoretically improve performance. The servers would need to mirror the database at least once so that if a server goes down the database isn't corrupted. So this brings up writing another question, should I broadcast SQL queries so that all the servers can take a bit of the work load? If I do it that way wouldn't a query clog up the network so that other queries couldn't be preformed? What are my alternatives? Finally, is there a free solution already out there that might need a little modification that suits my needs?

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• Adding a Role to a Responsibility for Use with the Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java JAAS Implementation

  - by Juan Camilo Ruiz

  This new post on the series of ADF integration with Oracle E-Business Suite, was written by Sara Woodhull, Principal Product Manager on the Oracle E-Business Suite Applications Technology team. Based on a previous post of the series, a reader asked what to do if you have an existing responsibility assigned to lots of users, instead of the UMX role that the Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java JAAS Implementation requires.  It would be tedious to assign a new role directly to hundreds or thousands of users, so naturally we’d like to avoid that if possible. Most people don’t know this, but it’s possible to assign a UMX role to a responsibility in Oracle User Management. Once you do that, users with your responsibility will all inherit your UMX role automatically. You can then proceed with using your UMX role with JAAS for ADF. Here is how to assign a UMX role to a responsibility in Oracle E-Business Suite: In the User Management responsibility, go to the Roles & Role Inheritance page. Search for the responsibility you want. In the search results table, click the “View In Hierarchy” icon for your responsibility. Note that the codes for responsibilities start with FND_RESP, while the codes for roles start with UMX. In the Role Inheritance Hierarchy, click on the Add Node icon (green plus + ) for your responsibility. Now you will see what appears to be the same page again but it is a little different (note the text at the top telling you the role you select will be inherited…).  This time, either search or expand nodes until you find your custom UMX role.  Use the Quick Select to choose that role. You will be sent back to the first screen, where you should see a confirmation message at the top. On the same page you can verify that the custom UMX role is underneath the responsibility.  You may need to expand one or more nodes to see the UMX role under the responsibility. You might see some other roles that have been inherited as well. Now that your users have the UMX role, you can test that the UMX role is being passed through to your ADF application through the Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java JAAS feature. Happy coding!

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• TechEd 2010 Day Three: The Database Designer (Isn't)

  - by BuckWoody

  Yesterday at TechEd 2010 here in New Orleans I worked the front-booth, answering general SQL Server questions for the masses. I was actually a little surprised to find most of the questions I got were from folks that wanted to know more about Stream Insight and Master Data Services. In past conferences I've been asked a lot of "free consulting" questions, about problems folks have had from older products. I don't mind that a bit - in fact, I'm always happy to help in any way I can. But this time people are really interested in the new features in the product, and I like that they are thinking ahead, not just having to solve problems in production. My presentation was on "Database Design in an Hour". We had the usual fun, and SideShow Bob made an appearance - I kid you not. The guy in the back of the room looked just like Sideshow Bob, so I quickly held a "bes thair" contest, and he won. Duing the presentation, I explain the tools you can use to design databases. I also explain that the "Database Designer" tool in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) isn't truly a desinger - it uses non-standard notation, doesn't have a meta-data dictionary, and worst of all, it works at the physical level. In other words, whatever you do in SSMS will automatically change the field/table/relationship structures in the database. We fixed this in SSMS 2008 and higher by adding an option to block that, but the tool is not a good design function nonetheless. To be fair, no one I know of at Microsoft recommends that it is - but I was shocked to hear so many developers in the room defending it as a good tool. I think the main issue for someone who doesn't have to work with Relational Systems a great deal is that it can be difficult to figure out Foreign Keys. The syntax makes them look "backwards", so it's just easier to grab a field and place it on the table you want to point to. There are options. You can download a couple of free tools (CA has a community edition of ER-WIN, Quest has one, and Embarcadero also has one) and if you design more than one or two databases a year, it may be worth buying a true design tool. For years I used Visio, but we changed it so that it doesn't forward-engineer (create the DDL) any more, so it isn't a true design tool either. So investigate those free and not-so-free tools. You'll find they help you in your job - but stay away from the Database Designer in SSMS. Or I'll send Sideshow Bob over there to straighten you out. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Merge Join component sorted outputs [SSIS]

  - by jamiet

  One question that I have been asked a few times of late in regard to performance tuning SSIS data flows is this: Why isn’t the Merge Join output sorted (i.e.IsSorted=True)? This is a fair question. After all both of the Merge Join inputs are sorted, hence why wouldn’t the output be sorted as well? Well here’s a little secret, the Merge Join output IS sorted! There’s a caveat though – it is only under certain circumstances and SSIS itself doesn’t do a good job of informing you of it. Let’s take a look at an example. Here we have a dataflow that consumes data from the [AdventureWorks2008].[Sales].[SalesOrderHeader] & [AdventureWorks2008].[Sales].[SalesOrderDetail] tables then joins them using a Merge Join component: Let’s take a look inside the editor of the Merge Join: We are joining on the [SalesOrderId] field (which is what the two inputs just happen to be sorted upon). We are also putting [SalesOrderHeader].[SalesOrderId] into the output. Believe it or not the output from this Merge Join component is sorted (i.e. has IsSorted=True) but unfortunately the Merge Join component does not have an Advanced Editor hence it is hidden away from us. There are a couple of ways to prove to you that is the case; I could open up the package XML inside the .dtsx file and show you the metadata but there is an easier way than that – I can attach a Sort component to the output. Take a look: Notice that the Sort component is attempting to sort on the [SalesOrderId] column. This gives us the following warning: Validation warning. DFT Get raw data: {992B7C9A-35AD-47B9-A0B0-637F7DDF93EB}: The data is already sorted as specified so the transform can be removed. The warning proves that the output from the Merge Join is sorted! It must be noted that the Merge Join output will only have IsSorted=True if at least one of the join columns is included in the output. So there you go, the Merge Join component can indeed produce a sorted output and that’s very useful in order to avoid unnecessary expensive Sort operations downstream. Hope this is useful to someone out there! @Jamiet  P.S. Thank you to Bob Bojanic on the SSIS product team who pointed this out to me!

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• Oracle Utilities Application Framework V4.2.0.0.0 Released

  - by ACShorten

  The Oracle Utilities Application Framework V4.2.0.0.0 has been released with Oracle Utilities Customer Care And Billing V2.4. This release includes new functionality and updates to existing functionality and will be progressively released across the Oracle Utilities applications. The release is quite substantial with lots of new and exciting changes. The release notes shipped with the product includes a summary of the changes implemented in V4.2.0.0.0. They include the following: Configuration Migration Assistant (CMA) - A new data management capability to allow you to export and import Configuration Data from one environment to another with support for Approval/Rejection of individual changes. Database Connection Tagging - Additional tags have been added to the database connection to allow database administrators, Oracle Enterprise Manager and other Oracle technology the ability to monitor and use individual database connection information. Native Support for Oracle WebLogic - In the past the Oracle Utilities Application Framework used Oracle WebLogic in embedded mode, and now, to support advanced configuration and the ExaLogic platform, we are adding Native Support for Oracle WebLogic as configuration option. Native Web Services Support - In the past the Oracle Utilities Application Framework supplied a servlet to handle Web Services calls and now we offer an alternative to use the native Web Services capability of Oracle WebLogic. This allows for enhanced clustering, a greater level of Web Service standards support, enchanced security options and the ability to use the Web Services management capabilities in Oracle WebLogic to implement higher levels of management including defining additional security rules to control access to individual Web Services. XML Data Type Support - Oracle Utilities Application Framework now allows implementors to define XML Data types used in Oracle in the definition of custom objects to take advantage of XQuery and other XML features. Fuzzy Operator Support - Oracle Utilities Application Framework supports the use of the fuzzy operator in conjunction with Oracle Text to take advantage of the fuzzy searching capabilities within the database. Global Batch View - A new JMX based API has been implemented to allow JSR120 compliant consoles the ability to view batch execution across all threadpools in the Coherence based Named Cache Cluster. Portal Personalization - It is now possible to store the runtime customizations of query zones such as preferred sorting, field order and filters to reuse as personal preferences each time that zone is used. These are just the major changes and there are quite a few more that have been delivered (and more to come in the service packs!!). Over the next few weeks we will be publishing new whitepapers and new entries in this blog outlining new facilities that you want to take advantage of.

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-06-22

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Guide to integration architecture | Stephanie Mann "The landscape of integration architecture is shifting as service-oriented and cloud-based architecture take the fore," says Stephanie Mann. "To ensure success, enterprise architects and developers are turning to lighter-weight infrastructure to support more complex integration projects." FY13 Oracle PartnerNetwork Kickoff - Tues June 26, 2012 Join us for a one-hour live online event hosted by the Oracle PartnerNetwork team as we kickoff FY13. Other dates/times for EMEA/LAD/JAPAN/APAC. Click the link for details. Why should you choose Oracle WebLogic 12c instead of JBoss EAP 6? | Ricardo Ferreira Okay, you would expect an Oracle guy to make this argument. But Ferreira takes a very deep, very detailed technical dive into the issue. So hear the man out, will ya? Hibernate4 and Coherence | Rene van Wijk According to Oracle ACE Rene van Wijk, "there are two ways to integrate Hibernate and Coherence." In this post he illustrates one of them. Simple Made Easy | Rich Hickey Rich Hickey discusses simplicity, why it is important, how to achieve it in design and how to recognize its absence in the tools, language constructs and libraries in this presentation from QCon London 2012. Starting a cluster | Mark Nelson Fusion Middleware A-Team blogger Mark Nelson looks at Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle BPM, and Oracle Coherence, three products that are " commonly clustered, and which have somewhat different requirements." Why building SaaS well means giving up your servers | GigaOM The biggest benefit to PaaS, reports GigaOM's Derrick Harris, "might be a better product because the company is able to focus on building the app rather than managing servers." Personas - what, why & how | Mascha van Oosterhout "To be able to create a successful, user-friendly website or application," says Mascha van Oosterhout, "every decision you take, whether you are part of the marketing team, the design team or the development team, should be based on what you know about the user." Thought for the Day "Machines take me by surprise with great frequency." — Alan Turing(June 23, 1912 - June 7, 1954) Source: Brainy Quote

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• Designing Mobile SMS text advertising system

  - by Ramraj Edagutti

  Currently, I am working on a product where we have an SMS text advertising system, and using this, we setup advertising campaigns for clients, and later these campaigns are sent to the end users. This is very similar to Google Adwords, but targeted to Mobile users via SMS. Just to give an overview of the system Each Campaign is mapped to an advertiser Campaign has start date and end date Campaign has a filter condition(s) or query to select the target user base from our database (to whom we send Campaigns) Target user base can be fixed, for e.g send campaign to 10000 users Target user base can also be dynamic based on query condition, for e.g send campaign to users who are active and from a particular state, district, town etc. (this way user base will be keep changing on daily basis) Campaign can have multiple campaign messages Each campaign message has start date and end date Each campaign message can have multiple message texts for different locales, for e.g English,Hindi,Telugu etc After creating an advertisement campaign, we run daily night job to provision the target user base for that a particular campaign in a separate table, and another daily job runs on morning times and checks provisioned table for campaigns and targeted users and sends the campaign to users via SMS. Problem is, current UI for creating advertising campaigns is designed in a very technical manner, I mean, normal user or business owner or clients can not use the UI to create a campaign. Below are reasons why the UI is very technical in nature Filter condition(s) or query input filed, takes user ids or mobile numbers or SQL queries. Most of times or almost every time, we use big SQL queries So we end up storing SQL queries in a database for a campaign, later we use this SQL query to fetch targeted user base. For scheduling these campaigns, we have input filed on UI which takes quartz cron expression(s) ( for e.g. send campaign on "0 0 9 1-10 MAR 2012" ), again very technical in nature Normal user or business owner, can not use the UI for creating campaigns for reasons mentioned above, Currently, we ourself (developers) helping clients to setup/create campaigns. we are trying to re-design the UI to make it more user friendly so that any user can go to UI and create an advertisement campaign by himself. I am thinking of re-designing the current UI similar to Google Adwords interface, especially for selecting target users based on user geography like country, state, city etc. I also need to select users based user subscription(s), which might make system even more complex. And also, for campaign scheduling, I am thinking of using weekdays with hours. For example, I will shows Monday to Sunday on UI, and user can select the from hours, to hours etc. Any better ideas or suggestion on how to design UI in very user friendly manner and what design should be followed on server side code (we write backend code on java/jpa/spring/quartz)? And I am looking for ideas or design patterns on how to build SQL queries (using JPA/Hinernate) programmatically on server side, based on varies conditions like based on country, state, town, village, and user subscriptions.

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• WinMo&rsquo;s Demise: Notifying Next of &ldquo;Kin&rdquo;

  - by andrewbrust

  This past Monday, April 12th, Visual Studio 2010 was launched.  And on that same day, Microsoft also launched a new line of  mobile phone handsets, called Kin.  The two product launches are actually connected, but only by what they do not have in common, and what they commonly lack. On the former point: VS 2010 had released to manufacturing a couple weeks prior to its launch.  The Kin phones, meanwhile are not yet available.  We don’t even know what they will cost.  (And I think cost will be a major factor in Kin’s success…I told ChannelWeb’s Yara Souza so in this article). What do the two products both lack? Simple: Windows Mobile 6.x. For example, Kin seems to be based on the same platform as Windows Phone 7 (albeit a subset).  And VS 2010 does not support .NET Compact Framework development, which means no .NET development support for WinMo 6.x and earlier. So I guess April 12th marks Windows Phone “clean slate day.”  If you want to develop for the old phone platform, you will need to use the old version of Visual Studio (i.e. 2008).  Luckily VS 2010 and 2008 can be installed side-by-side.  But I doubt that’s much consolation to developers who still target WinMo 6.5 and earlier. Remember, WinMo isn’t just about the phone.  There are all sorts of non-telephony mobile devices, including ruggedized Pocket PC-style instruments, bar code readers and shop-floor-deployed units that don’t run Windows Phone 7 and couldn’t, even if they wanted to. Where will developers in these markets go?  I would guess some will stick with WinMo 6.x and earlier, until Windows Phone 7 can handle their workloads, assuming that does indeed happen.  Others will likely go to Google’s Android platform. For OEMs and developers who need a customizable mobile software stack, Android is turning out to be out-WinMo-ing WinMo.  As I wrote in this post, Google took Microsoft’s model (minus the licensing fees) and combined it with a modern SmartPhone feature set (rather than a late 90s/early oughts PDA paradigm), to great success.  You might say Google embraced and extended. You might also say Microsoft shunned and withdrew.

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• Is it possible to have multiple sets of key columns in a table?

  - by Peter Larsson

  Filtered indexes is one of my new favorite things with SQL Server 2008. I am currently working on designing a new datawarehouse. There are two restrictions doing this It has to be fed from the old legacy system with both historical data and new data It has to be fed from the new business system with new data When we incorporate the new business system, we are going to do that for one market only. It means the old legacy business system still will produce new data for other markets (together with historical data for all markets) and the new business system produce new data to that one market only. Sounds interesting this far? To accomplish this I did a thorough research about the business requirements about the business intelligence needs. Then I went on to design the sucker. How does this relate to filtered indexes you ask? I'll give one example, the Stock transaction table. Well, the key columns for the old legacy system are different from the key columns from the new business system. The old legacy system has a key of 5 columns Movement date Movement time Product code Order number Sequence number within shipment And to all thing, I found out that the Movement Time column is not really a time. It starts out like a time HH:MM:SS but seconds are added for each delivery within the shipment, so a Movement Time can look like "12:11:68". The sequence number is ordered over the distributors for shipment. As I said, it is a legacy system. The new business system has one key column, the Movement DateTime (accuracy down to 100th of nanosecond). So how to deal with this? On thing would be to have two stock transaction tables, one for legacy system and one for the new business system. But that would lead to a maintenance overhead and using partitioned views for getting data out of the warehouse. Filtered index will be of a great use here. MovementDate DATETIME2(7) MovementTime CHAR(8) NULL ProductCode VARCHAR(15) NOT NULL OrderNumber VARCHAR(30) NULL SequenceNumber INT NULL The sequence number is not even used in the new system, so I created a clustered index for a new IDENTITY column to make a new identity column which can be shared by both systems. Then I created one unique filtered index for old system like this CREATE UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED INDEX IX_Legacy (MovementDate, MovementTime, ProductCode, SequenceNumber) INCLUDE (OrderNumber, Col5, Col6, ... ) WHERE SequenceNumber IS NOT NULL And then I created a new unique filtered index for the new business system like this CREATE UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED INDEX IX_Business (MovementDate) INCLUDE (ProductCode, OrderNumber, Col12, ... ) WHERE SequenceNumber IS NULL This way I can have multiple sets of key columns on same base table which is shared by both systems.

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• Oracle OpenWorld 2012: Oracle Developer Cloud, ADF-Essentials, ADF Mobile and ME!

  - by Dana Singleterry

  This year at OOW, like those from the past, will certainly be unforgettable. Lots of new announcements which I can't mention here and may not event know about are sure to surprise. I'll keep this short and sweet. For every session ADF, ADF Mobile, Oracle Developer Cloud, Integration with SOA Suite, etc... take a look at the ADF Focus Document listing all the sessions ordered by day providing time and location. For Mobile specifically check out the Mobile Focus Document. OOW 2012 actually kicks off on Sunday with Moscone North demogrounds hosting Cloud. There's also the ADF EMG User Day where you can pick up many technical tips & tricks from ADF Developers / ACE Directors from around the world. A session you shouldn't miss and a great starting point for the week if you miss Sunday's ADF EMG User Day for all of you TechoFiles is Chris Tonas's keynote for developers - Monday 10:45 am at Salon 8 in the Marriott - The Future of Development for Oracle Fusion - From Desktop to Mobile to Cloud. Then peruse the ADF Focus Document to fill out your day with the many sessions and labs on ADF. Don't forge that Wednesday afternoon (4:30 - 5:30) offers an ADF Meetup which is an excellent opportunity to catch up with the Shakers and Makers of ADF from Product Managent, to customers, to top developers leveraging the ADF technology, to ACE Directors themselves. Not to mention free beer is provided to help you wind down from a day of Techno Overload. Now for my schedule and I do hope to see some of you at one of these. OOW 2012 Schedule 10/1 Monday 9:30am – 12:00pm: JDev DemoGrounds 3:15pm – 4:15pm: Intro to Oracle ADF HOL; Marriott Marquis – Salon ¾ 4:00pm – 6:00pm: Cloud DemoGrounds 10/2 Tuesday 9:45am – 12:00pm: JDev DemoGrounds 2:00pm -4:00pm: Cloud DemoGrounds 7:30 – 9:30: Team Dinner @ Donato Enoteca; Redwood City 10/3 Wednesday 10:15pm – 11:15pm: Intro to Oracle ADF HOL; Marriott Marquis – Salon 3/4 1:15pm – 2:15pm: Oracle ADF – Lessons Learned in Real-World Implementations; Moscone South – Room 309This session takes the form of a panel that consists of three customer: Herbalife, Etiya, & Hawaii State Department of Education. During the first part of this session each customer will provide a high-level overview of their application. Following this overview I'll ask questions of the customers specific to their implementations and lessons learned through their development life-cycle. Here's the session abstract: CON3535 - Oracle ADF: Lessons Learned in Real-World Implementations This session profiles and interviews customers that have been successful in delivering compelling applications based on Oracle’s Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF). The session provides an overview of Oracle ADF, and then three customers explain the business drivers for their respective applications and solutions and if possible, provide a demonstration of the applications. Interactive questions posed to the customers after their overview will make for an exciting and dynamic format in which the customers will provide insight into real-world lessons learned in developing with Oracle ADF. 3:30pm – 4:30 pm: Developing Applications for Mobile iOS and Android Devices with Oracle ADF Mobile; Marriott Marquis – Salon 10A 4:30pm – 6:00pm: Meet and Greet ADF Developers/Customers; OTN Lounge 10/4 Thursday   11:15pm – 12:15pm: Intro to Oracle ADF HOL; Marriott Marquis – Salon 3/4 I'm sure our paths will cross at some point during the week and I look forward to seeing you at one of the many events. Enjoy OOW 2012!

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• What&rsquo;s new in RadChart for 2010 Q1 (Silverlight / WPF)

  Greetings, RadChart fans! It is with great pleasure that I present this short highlight of our accomplishments for the Q1 release :). Weve worked very hard to make the best silverlight and WPF charting product even better. Here is some of what we did during the past few months.   1) Zooming&Scrolling and the new sampling engine: Without a doubt one of the most important things we did. This new feature allows you to bind your chart to a very large set of data with blazing performance. Dont take my word for it give it a try!   2) New Smart Label Positioning and Spider-like labels feature: This new feature really helps with very busy graphs. You can play with the different settings we offer in this example.   3) Sorting and Filtering. Much like our RadGridview control the chart now allows you to sort and filter your data out of the box with a single line of code!   4) Legend improvements Weve also been paying attention to those of you who wanted a much improved legend. It is now possible to customize the look and feel of legend items and legend position with a single click.   5) Custom palette brushes. You have told us that you want to easily customize all palette colors using a single clean API from both XAML and code behind. The new custom palette brushes API does exactly that.   There are numerous other improvements as well, as much improved themes, performance optimizations and other features that we did. If you want to dig in further check the release notes and changes and backwards compatibility topics.   Feel free to share the pains and gains of working with RadChart. Our team is always open to receiving constructive feedback and beer :-)Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Unrated Easy iOS 6.1.4/6.1.3 Unlock/Jailbreak iPhone 5/4S/4/3GS Untehtered System

  - by user171772

  Popular jailbreak tool Unlock-Jailbreak.net – compiled by the iPhone Team – has just been updated with full support for Unlock/Jailbreak iPhone 5/4S/4/3GS iOS 6.1.4 and 6.1.3/6.0.1 Untethered. You may have caught our tutorial, which detailed how one could jailbreak their device tethered using Redsn0w, although since it was a pre-iOS 6.1.1 release, users needed to "point" the tool to the older firmware. Team Unlock-Jailbreak was established few years ago, combines some of the jailbreak and unlock community’s most talented developers all known for producing reliable jailbreaks in the past. This team was assembled in order to develop a reliable untethered jailbreak and unlock iphone 5,4S,4 iOS 6.1 for post-A5 devices, including the iPhone 5, the iPad mini and the latest-generation iPad. This has now been achieved with the just-released userland jailbreak tool, known as Unlock-Jailbreak.net. To Jailbreak and Unlock your iPhone 5/4/4S/3GS iOS 6.1.4 and 6.1.3 visit the official website http://www.Unlock-Jailbreak.net http://www.Unlock-Jailbreak.net was formed in mid 2008 and have successfully jailbroken over 250,000 iPhones worldwide. This is unparalleled by any other service in the industry. They have achieved this by combining a very simple solution with a fantastic customer service department that is available 24/7 through many forms of contact, including telephone. Unlock-Jailbreak from Unlock-Jailbreak.nethas been downloaded by over 250,000 customers located in over 145 countries. To further ensure customers of its products usability, Unlock-Jailbreak offers a 100% full money back guarantee on all orders. Customers dissatisfied with the company’s product will be given a full refund, no questions asked. One good advantage of the software is that the jailbreaking and unlocking process is coampletely reversible and there will be no evidence that the iPhone has been jailbroken and unlocked . iOS 6.1/6.1.4 and 6.1.3 comes with many new features and updates for multitasking and storage. By unlocking and jailbreaking the iPhone,Unlock/Jailbreak iPhone 5/4S/4/3GS iOS 6.1/6.1.4 and 6.1.3/6.0.1 Untethered unleash unlimited possibilities to improve this already fantastic experience and the iPhone FULL potential. Before going through any jailbreak process with Unlock-Jailbreak it is always good housekeeping to perform a full backup of all information on the device. It is unlikely that anything will go wrong during the process but when undertaking any process that modifies the internals of a file system it is always prudent to err on the side of caution.

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• Oracle Leader in Transportation Management

  - by John Murphy

  Oracle Named a Leader in the Transportation Management Systems Market by Leading Analyst Firm Redwood Shores, Calif. – October 15, 2012 News Facts Gartner, Inc. has placed Oracle Transportation Management in the Leaders Quadrant of its 2012 report, “Magic Quadrant for Transportation Management Systems (TMS).” (1) Gartner Magic Quadrants position vendors within a particular market segment based on their completeness of vision and ability to execute on that vision. According to the report, “Multiple subcomponents make up a comprehensive TMS across planning (for example, load consolidation, routing, mode selection and carrier selection) and execution (for example, tendering loads to carriers, shipment track and trace, and freight audit and payment).” Built on modern, flexible, Internet based architecture, Oracle Transportation Management is a global transportation and logistics operations system that allows companies to minimize cost, optimize service levels, support sustainability initiatives, and create flexible business process automation within their transportation and logistics networks. With a share of 26% of worldwide software revenue for 2011, Oracle is also number one in TMS vendor share according to Gartner’s report, “Market Trends: A Golden Opportunity in the Transportation Management System Market, 2012 – 2016.” (2) Supporting Quote “Shippers and logistics service providers face increasingly complex challenges as they try to reduce costs, secure capacity and improve overall freight efficiency,” said Derek Gittoes, vice president, logistics product strategy, Oracle. “We believe our high standing in both Gartner reports is a reflection of Oracle’s commitment to addressing these challenges by delivering the industry’s broadest and deepest transportation management platform. With a flexible and modern platform, we are able to support customers with both basic transportation needs, as well as those with highly complex logistics requirements.” Supporting Resources Magic Quadrant for Transportation Management Systems Market Trends: A Golden Opportunity in the Transportation Management System Market, 2012 – 2016 Oracle Transportation Management (1) Gartner, Inc., “Magic Quadrant for Transportation Management Systems,” by C. Dwight Klappich, August 23, 2012 (2) Gartner, Inc., “Market Trends: A Golden Opportunity in the Transportation Management System Market, 2012 – 2016,” by Chad Eschinger and C. Dwight Klappich, September 24, 2012. About Oracle Applications Over 65,000 customers worldwide rely on Oracle's complete, open and integrated enterprise applications to achieve superior results. Oracle provides a secure path for customers to benefit from the latest technology advances that improve the customer software experience and drive better business performance. Oracle Applications Unlimited is Oracle's commitment to customer choice through continuous investment and innovation in current applications offerings. Oracle's next-generation Fusion Applications build upon that commitment, and are designed to work with and evolve Oracle's Applications Unlimited offerings. Oracle's lifetime support policy helps ensure customers will continue to have a choice in upgrade paths, based on their enterprise needs. For more information on the latest Oracle Applications releases go towww.oracle.com/applications About Oracle Oracle engineers hardware and software to work together in the cloud and in your data center. For more information about Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL), visit www.oracle.com. Trademarks Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. ###   Karen [email protected] Simon JonesBlanc & [email protected]

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• Congratulations to the 2012 Oracle Spatial Award Winners!

  - by Mandy Ho

  I just returned from the 2012 Location Intelligence and Oracle Spatial User conference in Washington, DC, held by Directions Magazine. It was a great conference with presentations from across the country and globe, networking with Oracle Spatial users and meeting new customers and partners. As part of the yearly event, Oracle recognizes special customers and partners for their contributions to advancing mainstream solutions using geospatial technology. This was the 8th year that Oracle has recognized innovative, industry leaders.   The awards were given in three categories: Education/Research, Innovator and Partnership. Here's a little on each of the award winners. Education and Research Award Winner: Technical University of Berlin The Institute for Geodesy and Geoinformation Science of the Technical University of Berlin (TU Berlin) was selected for its leading research work in mapping of urban and regional space onto virtual 3D-city and landscape models, and use of Oracle Spatial, including 3D Vector and Georaster type support, as the data management platform. Innovator Award Winner:  Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Istanbul is the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe. One of their greatest challenges is organizing efficient public transportation for citizens and visitors. There are 15 types of transportations organized by 8 different agencies. To solve this problem, the Directorate of GIS of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has created a multi-model itinerary system to help citizens in their decision process for using public transport or their private cars. They choose to use Oracle Spatial Network Model as the solution in our system together with Java and SOAP web services.  Partnership Award Winners: CSoft Group and OSCARS. The Partnership award is given to the ISV or integrator who have demonstrated outstanding achievements in partnering with Oracle on the development side, in taking solutions to market.  CSoft Group- the largest Russion integrator and consultancy provider in CAD and GIS. CSoft was selected by the Oracle Spatial product development organization for the key role in delivering geospatial solutions based on Oracle Database and Fusion Middleware to the Russian market. OSCARS - Provides consulting/training in France, Belgium and Luxembourg. With only 3 full time staff, they have achieved significant success with leading edge customer implementations leveraging the latest Oracle Spatial/MapViewer technologies, and delivering training throughout Europe.  Finally, we also awarded two Special Recognition awards for two partners that helped contribute to the Oracle Partner Network Spatial Specialization. These two partners provided insight and technical expertise from a partner perspective to help launch the new certification program for Oracle Spatial Technologies. Award Winners: ThinkHuddle and OSCARS  For more pictures on the conference and the awards, visit our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/OracleDatabase

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• WebLogic Server–Use the Execution Context ID in Applications–Lessons From Hansel and Gretel

  - by james.bayer

  I learned a neat trick this week.  Don’t let your breadcrumbs go to waste like Hansel and Gretel did!  Keep track of the code path, logs and errors for each request as they flow through the system.  Earlier this week an OTN forum post in the WLS – General category by Oracle Ace John Stegeman asked a question how to retrieve the Execution Context ID so that it could be used on an error page that a user could provide to a help desk or use to check with application administrators so they could look up what went wrong.  What is the Execution Context ID (ECID)?  Fusion Middleware injects an ECID as a request enters the system and it says with the request as it flows from Oracle HTTP Server to Oracle Web Cache to multiple WebLogic Servers to the Oracle Database. It’s a way to uniquely identify a request across tiers.  According to the documentation it’s: The value of the ECID is a unique identifier that can be used to correlate individual events as being part of the same request execution flow. For example, events that are identified as being related to a particular request typically have the same ECID value.  The format of the ECID string itself is determined by an internal mechanism that is subject to change; therefore, you should not have or place any dependencies on that format. The novel idea that I see John had was to extend this concept beyond the diagnostic information that is captured by Fusion Middleware.  Why not also use this identifier in your logs and errors so you can correlate even more information together!  Your logging might already identify the user, so why not identify the request so you filter down even more.  All you need to do inside of WebLogic Server to get ahold of this information is invoke DiagnosticConextHelper: weblogic.diagnostics.context.DiagnosticContextHelper.getContextId() This class has other helpful methods to see other values tracked by the diagnostics framework too.  This way I can see even more detail and get information across tiers. In performance profiling, this can be very handy to track down where time is being spent in code.  I’ve blogged and made videos about this before.  JRockit Flight Recorder can use the WLDF Diagnostic Volume in WLS 10.3.3+ to automatically capture and correlate lots of helpful information for each request without installing any special agents and with the out-of-the-box JRockit and WLS settings!  You can see here how information is displayed in JRockit Flight Recorder about a single request as it calls a Servlet, which calls an EJB, which gets a DB connection, which starts a transaction, etc.  You can get timings around everything and even see the SQL that is used. http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E21764_01/web.1111/e13714/using_flightrecorder.htm#WLDFC480 Recent versions of the WLS console also are able to visualize this data too, so it works with other JVMs besides JRockit when you turn on WLDF instrumentation. I wrote a little sample application that verified to myself that the ECID did actually cross JVM boundaries.  I invoked a Servlet in one JVM, which acted as an EJB client to Stateless Session Bean running in another JVM.  Each call returned the same ECID.  You need to turn on WLDF Instrumentation for this to work otherwise the framework returns null.  I’m glad John put me on to this API as I have some interesting ideas on how to correlate some information together.

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• Challenge: Learn One New Thing Today

  - by BuckWoody

  Most of us know that there's a lot to learn. I'm teaching a class this morning, and even on the subject where I'm the "expert" (that word always makes me nervous!) I still have a lot to learn. To learn, sometimes I take a class, read a book, or carve out a large chunk of time so that I can fully grasp the subject. But since I've been working, I really don't have a lot of opportunities to do that. Like you, I'm really busy. So what I've been able to learn is to take just a few moments each day and learn something new about SQL Server. I thought I would share that process here. First, I started with an outline of the product. You can use Books Online, a college class syllabus, a training class outline, or a comprehensive book table of contents. Then I checked off the things I felt I knew a little about. Sure, I'll come back around to those, but I want to be as efficient as I can. I then trolled various checklists to see what I needed to know about the subjects I didn't have checked off. From there (I'm doing all this in a notepad, and then later in OneNote when that came out) I developed a block of text for that subject. Every time I ran across a book, article, web site or recording on that topic I wrote that reference down. Later I went back and quickly looked over those resources and tried to figure out how I could parcel it out - 10 minutes for this one, a free seminar (like the one I'm teaching today - ironic) takes 4 hours, a web site takes an hour to grok, that sort of thing.  Then all I did was figure out how much time each day I'll give to training. Sure, it literally may be ten minutes, but it adds up. One final thing - as I used something I learned, I came back and made notes in that topic. You learn to play the piano not just from a book, but by playing the piano, after all. If you don't use what you learn, you'll lose it. So if you're interested in getting better at SQL Server, and you're willing to do a little work, try out this method. Leave a note here for others to encourage them.  Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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