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• Complete Guide to Networking Windows 7 with XP and Vista

  - by Mysticgeek

  Since there are three versions of Windows out in the field these days, chances are you need to share data between them. Today we show how to get each version to be share files and printers with one another. In a perfect world, getting your computers with different Microsoft operating systems to network would be as easy as clicking a button. With the Windows 7 Homegroup feature, it’s almost that easy. However, getting all three of them to communicate with each other can be a bit of a challenge. Today we’ve put together a guide that will help you share files and printers in whatever scenario of the three versions you might encounter on your home network. Sharing Between Windows 7 and XP The most common scenario you’re probably going to run into is sharing between Windows 7 and XP.  Essentially you’ll want to make sure both machines are part of the same workgroup, set up the correct sharing settings, and making sure network discovery is enabled on Windows 7. The biggest problem you may run into is finding the correct printer drivers for both versions of Windows. Share Files and Printers Between Windows 7 & XP  Map a Network Drive Another method of sharing data between XP and Windows 7 is mapping a network drive. If you don’t need to share a printer and only want to share a drive, then you can just map an XP drive to Windows 7. Although it might sound complicated, the process is not bad. The trickiest part is making sure you add the appropriate local user. This will allow you to share the contents of an XP drive to your Windows 7 computer. Map a Network Drive from XP to Windows 7 Sharing between Vista and Windows 7 Another scenario you might run into is having to share files and printers between a Vista and Windows 7 machine. The process is a bit easier than sharing between XP and Windows 7, but takes a bit of work. The Homegroup feature isn’t compatible with Vista, so we need to go through a few different steps. Depending on what your printer is, sharing it should be easier as Vista and Windows 7 do a much better job of automatically locating the drivers. How to Share Files and Printers Between Windows 7 and Vista Sharing between Vista and XP When Windows Vista came out, hardware requirements were intensive, drivers weren’t ready, and sharing between them was complicated due to the new Vista structure. The sharing process is pretty straight-forward if you’re not using password protection…as you just need to drop what you want to share into the Vista Public folder. On the other hand, sharing with password protection becomes a bit more difficult. Basically you need to add a user and set up sharing on the XP machine. But once again, we have a complete tutorial for that situation. Share Files and Folders Between Vista and XP Machines Sharing Between Windows 7 with Homegroup If you have one or more Windows 7 machine, sharing files and devices becomes extremely easy with the Homegroup feature. It’s as simple as creating a Homegroup on on machine then joining the other to it. It allows you to stream media, control what data is shared, and can also be password protected. If you don’t want to make your Windows 7 machines part of the same Homegroup, you can still share files through the Public Folder, and setup a printer to be shared as well.   Use the Homegroup Feature in Windows 7 to Share Printers and Files Create a Homegroup & Join a New Computer To It Change which Files are Shared in a Homegroup Windows Home Server If you want an ultimate setup that creates a centralized location to share files between all systems on your home network, regardless of the operating system, then set up a Windows Home Server. It allows you to centralize your important documents and digital media files on one box and provides easy access to data and the ability to stream media to other machines on your network. Not only that, but it provides easy backup of all your machines to the server, in case disaster strikes. How to Install and Setup Windows Home Server How to Manage Shared Folders on Windows Home Server Conclusion The biggest annoyance is dealing with printers that have a different set of drivers for each OS. There is no real easy way to solve this problem. Our best advice is to try to connect it to one machine, and if the drivers won’t work, hook it up to the other computer and see if that works. Each printer manufacturer is different, and Windows doesn’t always automatically install the correct drivers for the device. We hope this guide helps you share your data between whichever Microsoft OS scenario you might run into! Here are some other articles that will help you accomplish your home networking needs: Share a Printer on a Home Network from Vista or XP to Windows 7 How to Share a Folder the XP Way in Windows Vista Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Delete Wrong AutoComplete Entries in Windows Vista MailSvchost Viewer Shows Exactly What Each svchost.exe Instance is DoingFixing "BOOTMGR is missing" Error While Trying to Boot Windows VistaShow Hidden Files and Folders in Windows 7 or VistaAdd Color Coding to Windows 7 Media Center Program Guide TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Icelandic Volcano Webcams Open Multiple Links At One Go NachoFoto Searches Images in Real-time Office 2010 Product Guides Google Maps Place marks – Pizza, Guns or Strip Clubs Monitor Applications With Kiwi

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• Installing SharePoint 2010 and PowerPivot for SharePoint on Windows 7

  - by smisner

  Many people like me want (or need) to do their business intelligence development work on a laptop. As someone who frequently speaks at various events or teaches classes on all subjects related to the Microsoft business intelligence stack, I need a way to run multiple server products on my laptop with reasonable performance. Once upon a time, that requirement meant only that I had to load the current version of SQL Server and the client tools of choice. In today's post, I'll review my latest experience with trying to make the newly released Microsoft BI products work with a Windows 7 operating system.The entrance of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 into the BI stack complicated matters and I started using Virtual Server to establish a "suitable" environment. As part of the team that delivered a lot of education as part of the Yukon pre-launch activities (that would be SQL Server 2005 for the uninitiated), I was working with four - yes, four - virtual servers. That was a pretty brutal workload for a 2GB laptop, which worked if I was very, very careful. It could also be a finicky and unreliable configuration as I learned to my dismay at one TechEd session several years ago when I had to reboot a very carefully cached set of servers just minutes before my session started. Although it worked, it came back to life very, very slowly much to the displeasure of the audience. They couldn't possibly have been less pleased than me.At that moment, I resolved to get the beefiest environment I could afford and consolidate to a single virtual server. Enter the 4GB 64-bit laptop to preserve my sanity and my livelihood. Likewise, for SQL Server 2008, I managed to keep everything within a single virtual server and I could function reasonably well with this approach.Now we have SQL Server 2008 R2 plus Office SharePoint Server 2010. That means a 64-bit operating system. Period. That means no more Virtual Server. That means I must use Hyper-V or another alternative. I've heard alternatives exist, but my few dabbles in this area did not yield positive results. It might have been just me having issues rather than any failure of those technologies to adequately support the requirements.My first run at working with the new BI stack configuration was to set up a 64-bit 4GB laptop with a dual-boot to run Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V. However, I was generally not happy with running Windows Server 2008 R2 on my laptop. For one, I couldn't put it into sleep mode, which is helpful if I want to prepare for a presentation beforehand and then walk to the podium without the need to hold my laptop in its open state along the way (my strategy at the TechEd session long, long ago). Secondly, it was finicky with projectors. I had issues from time to time and while I always eventually got it to work, I didn't appreciate those nerve-wracking moments wondering whether this would be the time that it wouldn't work.Somewhere along the way, I learned that it was possible to load SharePoint 2010 in a Windows 7 which piqued my interest. I had just acquired a new laptop running Windows 7 64-bit, and thought surely running the BI stack natively on my laptop must be better than running Hyper-V. (I have not tried booting to Hyper-V VHD yet, but that's on my list of things to try so the jury of one is still out on this approach.) Recently, I had to build up a server with the RTM versions of SQL Server 2008 R2 and Sharepoint Server 2010 and decided to follow suit on my Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit laptop. The process is slightly different, but I'm happy to report that it IS possible, although I had some fits and starts along the way.DISCLAIMER: These products are NOT intended to be run in production mode on the Windows 7 operating system. The configuration described in this post is strictly for development or learning purposes and not supported by Microsoft. If you have trouble, you will NOT get help from them. I might be able to help, but I provide no guarantees of my ability or availablity to help. I won't provide the step-by-step instructions in this post as there are other resources that provide these details, but I will provide an overview of my approach, point you to the relevant resources, describe some of the problems I encountered, and explain how I addressed those problems to achieve my desired goal.Because my goal was not simply to set up SharePoint Server 2010 on my laptop, but specifically PowerPivot for SharePoint, I started out by referring to the installation instructions at the PowerPiovt-Info site, but mainly to confirm that I was performing steps in the proper sequence. I didn't perform the steps in Part 1 because those steps are applicable only to a server operating system which I am not running on my laptop. Then, the instructions in Part 2, won't work exactly as written for the same reason. Instead, I followed the instructions on MSDN, Setting Up the Development Environment for SharePoint 2010 on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008. In general, I found the following differences in installation steps from the steps at PowerPivot-Info:You must copy the SharePoint installation media to the local drive so that you can edit the config.xml to allow installation on a Windows client.You also have to manually install the prerequisites. The instructions provides links to each item that you must manually install and provides a command-line instruction to execute which enables required Windows features.I will digress for a moment to save you some grief in the sequence of steps to perform. I discovered later that a missing step in the MSDN instructions is to install the November CTP Reporting Services add-in for SharePoint. When I went to test my SharePoint site (I believe I tested after I had a successful PowerPivot installation), I ran into the following error: Could not load file or assembly 'RSSharePointSoapProxy, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. I was rather surprised that Reporting Services was required. Then I found an article by Alan le Marquand, Working Together: SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Integration in SharePoint 2010,that instructed readers to install the November add-in. My first reaction was, "Really?!?" But I confirmed it in another TechNet article on hardware and software requirements for SharePoint Server 2010. It doesn't refer explicitly to the November CTP but following the link took me there. (Interestingly, I retested today and there's no longer any reference to the November CTP. Here's the link to download the latest and greatest Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint Technologies 2010.) You don't need to download the add-in anymore if you're doing a regular server-based installation of SharePoint because it installs as part of the prerequisites automatically.When it was time to start the installation of SharePoint, I deviated from the MSDN instructions and from the PowerPivot-Info instructions:On the Choose the installation you want page of the installation wizard, I chose Server Farm.On the Server Type page, I chose Complete.At the end of the installation, I did not run the configuration wizard.Returning to the PowerPivot-Info instructions, I tried to follow the instructions in Part 3 which describe installing SQL Server 2008 R2 with the PowerPivot option. These instructions tell you to choose the New Server option on the Setup Role page where you add PowerPivot for SharePoint. However, I ran into problems with this approach and got installation errors at the end.It wasn't until much later as I was investigating an error that I encountered Dave Wickert's post that installing PowerPivot for SharePoint on Windows 7 is unsupported. Uh oh. But he did want to hear about it if anyone succeeded, so I decided to take the plunge. Perseverance paid off, and I can happily inform Dave that it does work so far. I haven't tested absolutely everything with PowerPivot for SharePoint but have successfully deployed a workbook and viewed the PowerPivot Management Dashboard. I have not yet tested the data refresh feature, but I have installed. Continue reading to see how I accomplished my objective.I unintalled SQL Server 2008 R2 and started again. I had different problems which I don't recollect now. However, I uninstalled again and approached installation from a different angle and my next attempt succeeded. The downside of this approach is that you must do all of the things yourself that are done automatically when you install PowerPivot as a new server. Here are the steps that I followed:Install SQL Server 2008 R2 to get a database engine instance installed.Run the SharePoint configuration wizard to set up the SharePoint databases.In Central Administration, create a Web application using classic mode authentication as per a TechNet article on PowerPivot Authentication and Authorization.Then I followed the steps I found at How to: Install PowerPivot for SharePoint on an Existing SharePoint Server. Especially important to note - you must launch setup by using Run as administrator. I did not have to manually deploy the PowerPivot solution as the instructions specify, but it's good to know about this step because it tells you where to look in Central Administration to confirm a successful deployment.I did spot some incorrect steps in the instructions (at the time of this writing) in How To: Configure Stored Credentials for PowerPivot Data Refresh. Specifically, in the section entitled Step 1: Create a target application and set the credentials, both steps 10 and 12 are incorrect. They tell you to provide an actual Windows user name and password on the page where you are simply defining the prompts for your application in the Secure Store Service. To add the Windows user name and password that you want to associate with the application - after you have successfully created the target application - you select the target application and then click Set credentials in the ribbon.Lastly, I followed the instructions at How to: Install Office Data Connectivity Components on a PowerPivot server. However, I have yet to test this in my current environment.I did have several stops and starts throughout this process and edited those out to spare you from reading non-essential information. I believe the explanation I have provided here accurately reflect the steps I followed to produce a working configuration. If you follow these steps and get a different result, please let me know so that together we can work through the issue and correct these instructions. I'm sure there are many other folks in the Microsoft BI community that will appreciate the ability to set up the BI stack in a Windows 7 environment for development or learning purposes. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• How to Assign a Static IP Address in XP, Vista, or Windows 7

  - by Mysticgeek

  When organizing your home network it’s easier to assign each computer it’s own IP address than using DHCP. Here we will take a look at doing it in XP, Vista, and Windows 7. If you have a home network with several computes and devices, it’s a good idea to assign each of them a specific address. If you use DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), each computer will request and be assigned an address every time it’s booted up. When you have to do troubleshooting on your network, it’s annoying going to each machine to figure out what IP they have. Using Static IPs prevents address conflicts between devices and allows you to manage them more easily. Assigning IPs to Windows is essentially the same process, but getting to where you need to be varies between each version. Windows 7 To change the computer’s IP address in Windows 7, type network and sharing into the Search box in the Start Menu and select Network and Sharing Center when it comes up.   Then when the Network and Sharing Center opens, click on Change adapter settings. Right-click on your local adapter and select Properties. In the Local Area Connection Properties window highlight Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) then click the Properties button. Now select the radio button Use the following IP address and enter in the correct IP, Subnet mask, and Default gateway that corresponds with your network setup. Then enter your Preferred and Alternate DNS server addresses. Here we’re on a home network and using a simple Class C network configuration and Google DNS. Check Validate settings upon exit so Windows can find any problems with the addresses you entered. When you’re finished click OK. Now close out of the Local Area Connections Properties window. Windows 7 will run network diagnostics and verify the connection is good. Here we had no problems with it, but if you did, you could run the network troubleshooting wizard. Now you can open the command prompt and do an ipconfig  to see the network adapter settings have been successfully changed.   Windows Vista Changing your IP from DHCP to a Static address in Vista is similar to Windows 7, but getting to the correct location is a bit different. Open the Start Menu, right-click on Network, and select Properties. The Network and Sharing Center opens…click on Manage network connections. Right-click on the network adapter you want to assign an IP address and click Properties. Highlight Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) then click the Properties button. Now change the IP, Subnet mask, Default Gateway, and DNS Server Addresses. When you’re finished click OK. You’ll need to close out of Local Area Connection Properties for the settings to go into effect. Open the Command Prompt and do an ipconfig to verify the changes were successful.   Windows XP In this example we’re using XP SP3 Media Center Edition and changing the IP address of the Wireless adapter. To set a Static IP in XP right-click on My Network Places and select Properties. Right-click on the adapter you want to set the IP for and select Properties. Highlight Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click the Properties button. Now change the IP, Subnet mask, Default Gateway, and DNS Server Addresses. When you’re finished click OK. You will need to close out of the Network Connection Properties screen before the changes go into effect.   Again you can verify the settings by doing an ipconfig in the command prompt. In case you’re not sure how to do this, click on Start then Run.   In the Run box type in cmd and click OK. Then at the prompt type in ipconfig and hit Enter. This will show the IP address for the network adapter you changed.   If you have a small office or home network, assigning each computer a specific IP address makes it a lot easier to manage and troubleshoot network connection problems. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Change Ubuntu Desktop from DHCP to a Static IP AddressChange Ubuntu Server from DHCP to a Static IP AddressVista Breadcrumbs for Windows XPCreate a Shortcut or Hotkey for the Safely Remove Hardware DialogCreate a Shortcut or Hotkey to Eject the CD/DVD Drive TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Nice Websites To Watch TV Shows Online 24 Million Sites Windows Media Player Glass Icons (icons we like) How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets Outlook Tools, one stop tweaking for any Outlook version Zoofs, find the most popular tweeted YouTube videos

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• Oracle Announces New Oracle Exastack Program for ISV Partners

  - by pfolgado

  Oracle Exastack Program Enables ISV Partners to Leverage a Scalable, Integrated Infrastructure to Deliver Their Applications Tuned and Optimized for High-Performance News Facts Enabling Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and other members of Oracle Partner Network (OPN) to rapidly build and deliver faster, more reliable applications to end customers, Oracle today introduced Oracle Exastack Ready, available now, and Oracle Exastack Optimized, available in fall 2011 through OPN. The Oracle Exastack Program focuses on helping ISVs run their solutions on Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud -- integrated systems in which the software and hardware are engineered to work together. These products provide partners with a lower cost and high performance infrastructure for database and application workloads across on-premise and cloud based environments. Leveraging the new Oracle Exastack Program in which applications can qualify as Oracle Exastack Ready or Oracle Exastack Optimized, partners can use available OPN resources to optimize their applications to run faster and more reliably -- providing increased performance to their end users. By deploying their applications on Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, ISVs can reduce the cost, time and support complexities typically associated with building and maintaining a disparate application infrastructure -- enabling them to focus more on their core competencies, accelerating innovation and delivering superior value to customers. After qualifying their applications as Oracle Exastack Ready, partners can note to customers that their applications run on and support Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud component products including Oracle Solaris, Oracle Linux, Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic Server. Customers can be confident when choosing a partner's Oracle Exastack Optimized application, knowing it has been tuned by the OPN member on Oracle Exadata Database Machine or Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud with a goal of delivering optimum speed, scalability and reliability. Partners participating in the Oracle Exastack Program can also leverage their Oracle Exastack Ready and Oracle Exastack Optimized applications to advance to Platinum or Diamond level in OPN. Oracle Exastack Programs Provide ISVs a Reliable, High-Performance Application Infrastructure With the Oracle Exastack Program ISVs have several options to qualify and tune their applications with Oracle Exastack, including: Oracle Exastack Ready: Oracle Exastack Ready provides qualifying partners with specific branding and promotional benefits based on their adoption of Oracle products. If a partner application supports the latest major release of one of these products, the partner may use the corresponding logo with their product marketing materials: Oracle Solaris Ready, Oracle Linux Ready, Oracle Database Ready, and Oracle WebLogic Ready. Oracle Exastack Ready is available to OPN members at the Gold level or above. Additionally, OPN members participating in the program can leverage their Oracle Exastack Ready applications toward advancement to the Platinum or Diamond levels in the OPN Specialized program and toward achieving Oracle Exastack Optimized status. Oracle Exastack Optimized: When available, for OPN members at the Gold level or above, Oracle Exastack Optimized will provide direct access to Oracle technical resources and dedicated Oracle Exastack lab environments so OPN members can test and tune their applications to deliver optimal performance and scalability on Oracle Exadata Database Machine or Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. Oracle Exastack Optimized will provide OPN members with specific branding and promotional benefits including the use of the Oracle Exastack Optimized logo. OPN members participating in the program will also be able to leverage their Oracle Exastack Optimized applications toward advancement to Platinum or Diamond level in the OPN Specialized program. Oracle Exastack Labs and ISV Enablement: Dedicated Oracle Exastack lab environments and related technical enablement resources (including Guided Learning Paths and Boot Camps) will be available through OPN for OPN members to further their knowledge of Oracle Exastack offerings, and qualify their applications for Oracle Exastack Optimized or Oracle Exastack Ready. Oracle Exastack labs will be available to qualifying OPN members at the Gold level or above. Partners are eligible to participate in the Oracle Exastack Ready program immediately, which will help them meet the requirements to attain Oracle Exastack Optimized status in the future. Guidelines for Oracle Exastack Optimized, as well as Oracle Exastack Labs will be available in fall 2011. Supporting Quotes "In order to effectively differentiate their software applications in the marketplace, ISVs need to rapidly deliver new capabilities and performance improvements," said Judson Althoff, Oracle senior vice president of Worldwide Alliances and Channels and Embedded Sales. "With Oracle Exastack, ISVs have the ability to optimize and deploy their applications with a complete, integrated and cloud-ready infrastructure that will help them accelerate innovation, unlock new features and functionality, and deliver superior value to customers." "We view performance as absolutely critical and a key differentiator," said Tom Stock, SVP of Product Management, GoldenSource. "As a leading provider of enterprise data management solutions for securities and investment management firms, with Oracle Exadata Database Machine, we see an opportunity to notably improve data processing performance -- providing high quality 'golden copy' data in a reduced timeframe. Achieving Oracle Exastack Optimized status will be a stamp of approval that our solution will provide the performance and scalability that our customers demand." "As a leading provider of Revenue Intelligence solutions for telecommunications, media and entertainment service providers, our customers continually demand more readily accessible, enriched and pre-analyzed information to minimize their financial risks and maximize their margins," said Alon Aginsky, President and CEO of cVidya Networks. "Oracle Exastack enables our solutions to deliver the power, infrastructure, and innovation required to transform our customers' business operations and stay ahead of the game." Supporting Resources Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Oracle Exastack Oracle Exastack Datasheet Judson Althoff blog Connect with the Oracle Partner community at OPN on Facebook, OPN on LinkedIn, OPN on YouTube, or OPN on Twitter

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• MySQL 5.5 - Lost connection to MySQL server during query

  - by bully

  I have an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS server running at a german hoster (virtualized system). # uname -a Linux ... 3.2.0-27-generic #43-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jul 6 14:25:57 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux I want to migrate a Web CMS system, called Contao. It's not my first migration, but my first migration having connection issues with mysql. Migration went successfully, I have the same Contao version running (it's more or less just copy / paste). For the database behind, I did: apt-get install mysql-server phpmyadmin I set a root password and added a user for the CMS which has enough rights on its own database (and only its database) for doing the stuff it has to do. Data import via phpmyadmin worked just fine. I can access the backend of the CMS (which needs to deal with the database already). If I try to access the frontend now, I get the following error: Fatal error: Uncaught exception Exception with message Query error: Lost connection to MySQL server during query (<query statement here, nothing special, just a select>) thrown in /var/www/system/libraries/Database.php on line 686 (Keep in mind: I can access mysql with phpmyadmin and through the backend, working like a charme, it's just the frontend call causing errors). If I spam F5 in my browser I can sometimes even kill the mysql deamon. If I run # mysqld --log-warnings=2 I get this: ... 120921 7:57:31 [Note] mysqld: ready for connections. Version: '5.5.24-0ubuntu0.12.04.1' socket: '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' port: 3306 (Ubuntu) 05:57:37 UTC - mysqld got signal 4 ; This could be because you hit a bug. It is also possible that this binary or one of the libraries it was linked against is corrupt, improperly built, or misconfigured. This error can also be caused by malfunctioning hardware. We will try our best to scrape up some info that will hopefully help diagnose the problem, but since we have already crashed, something is definitely wrong and this may fail. key_buffer_size=16777216 read_buffer_size=131072 max_used_connections=1 max_threads=151 thread_count=1 connection_count=1 It is possible that mysqld could use up to key_buffer_size + (read_buffer_size + sort_buffer_size)*max_threads = 346679 K bytes of memory Hope that's ok; if not, decrease some variables in the equation. Thread pointer: 0x7f1485db3b20 Attempting backtrace. You can use the following information to find out where mysqld died. If you see no messages after this, something went terribly wrong... stack_bottom = 7f1480041e60 thread_stack 0x30000 mysqld(my_print_stacktrace+0x29)[0x7f1483b96459] mysqld(handle_fatal_signal+0x483)[0x7f1483a5c1d3] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0(+0xfcb0)[0x7f1482797cb0] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6(+0x42e11)[0x7f14821cae11] mysqld(_ZN10SQL_SELECT17test_quick_selectEP3THD6BitmapILj64EEyyb+0x1368)[0x7f1483b26cb8] mysqld(+0x33116a)[0x7f148397916a] mysqld(_ZN4JOIN8optimizeEv+0x558)[0x7f148397d3e8] mysqld(_Z12mysql_selectP3THDPPP4ItemP10TABLE_LISTjR4ListIS1_ES2_jP8st_orderSB_S2_SB_yP13select_resultP18st_select_lex_unitP13st_select_lex+0xdd)[0x7f148397fd7d] mysqld(_Z13handle_selectP3THDP3LEXP13select_resultm+0x17c)[0x7f1483985d2c] mysqld(+0x2f4524)[0x7f148393c524] mysqld(_Z21mysql_execute_commandP3THD+0x293e)[0x7f14839451de] mysqld(_Z11mysql_parseP3THDPcjP12Parser_state+0x10f)[0x7f1483948bef] mysqld(_Z16dispatch_command19enum_server_commandP3THDPcj+0x1365)[0x7f148394a025] mysqld(_Z24do_handle_one_connectionP3THD+0x1bd)[0x7f14839ec7cd] mysqld(handle_one_connection+0x50)[0x7f14839ec830] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0(+0x7e9a)[0x7f148278fe9a] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(clone+0x6d)[0x7f1481eba4bd] Trying to get some variables. Some pointers may be invalid and cause the dump to abort. Query (7f1464004b60): is an invalid pointer Connection ID (thread ID): 1 Status: NOT_KILLED From /var/log/syslog: Sep 21 07:17:01 s16477249 CRON[23855]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly) Sep 21 07:18:51 s16477249 kernel: [231923.349159] type=1400 audit(1348204731.333:70): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" name="/usr/sbin/mysqld" pid=23946 comm="apparmor_parser" Sep 21 07:18:53 s16477249 /etc/mysql/debian-start[23990]: Upgrading MySQL tables if necessary. Sep 21 07:18:53 s16477249 /etc/mysql/debian-start[23993]: /usr/bin/mysql_upgrade: the '--basedir' option is always ignored Sep 21 07:18:53 s16477249 /etc/mysql/debian-start[23993]: Looking for 'mysql' as: /usr/bin/mysql Sep 21 07:18:53 s16477249 /etc/mysql/debian-start[23993]: Looking for 'mysqlcheck' as: /usr/bin/mysqlcheck Sep 21 07:18:53 s16477249 /etc/mysql/debian-start[23993]: This installation of MySQL is already upgraded to 5.5.24, use --force if you still need to run mysql_upgrade Sep 21 07:18:53 s16477249 /etc/mysql/debian-start[24004]: Checking for insecure root accounts. Sep 21 07:18:53 s16477249 /etc/mysql/debian-start[24009]: Triggering myisam-recover for all MyISAM tables I'm using MyISAM tables all over, nothing with InnoDB there. Starting / stopping mysql is done via sudo service mysql start sudo service mysql stop After using google a little bit, I experimented a little bit with timeouts, correct socket path in the /etc/mysql/my.cnf file, but nothing helped. There are some old (from 2008) Gentoo bugs, where re-compiling just solved the problem. I already re-installed mysql via: sudo apt-get remove mysql-server mysql-common sudo apt-get autoremove sudo apt-get install mysql-server without any results. This is the first time I'm running into this problem, and I'm not very experienced with this kind of mysql 'administration'. So mainly, I want to know if anyone of you could help me out please :) Is it a mysql bug? Is something broken in the Ubuntu repositories? Is this one of those misterious 'use-tcp-connection-instead-of-socket-stuff-because-there-are-problems-on-virtualized-machines-with-sockets'-problem? Or am I completly on the wrong way and I just miss-configured something? Remember, phpmyadmin and access to the backend (which uses the database, too) is just fine. Maybe something with Apache? What can I do? Any help is appreciated, so thanks in advance :)

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• New MySQL Cluster 7.3 Previews: Foreign Keys, NoSQL Node.js API and Auto-Tuned Clusters

  - by Mat Keep

  At this weeks MySQL Connect conference, Oracle previewed an exciting new wave of developments for MySQL Cluster, further extending its simplicity and flexibility by expanding the range of use-cases, adding new NoSQL options, and automating configuration. What’s new: Development Release 1: MySQL Cluster 7.3 with Foreign Keys Early Access “Labs” Preview: MySQL Cluster NoSQL API for Node.js Early Access “Labs” Preview: MySQL Cluster GUI-Based Auto-Installer In this blog, I'll introduce you to the features being previewed. Review the blogs listed below for more detail on each of the specific features discussed. Save the date!: A live webinar is scheduled for Thursday 25th October at 0900 Pacific Time / 1600UTC where we will discuss each of these enhancements in more detail. Registration will be open soon and published to the MySQL webinars page MySQL Cluster 7.3: Development Release 1 The first MySQL Cluster 7.3 Development Milestone Release (DMR) previews Foreign Keys, bringing powerful new functionality to MySQL Cluster while eliminating development complexity. Foreign Key support has been one of the most requested enhancements to MySQL Cluster – enabling users to simplify their data models and application logic – while extending the range of use-cases for both custom projects requiring referential integrity and packaged applications, such as eCommerce, CRM, CMS, etc. Implementation The Foreign Key functionality is implemented directly within the MySQL Cluster data nodes, allowing any client API accessing the cluster to benefit from them – whether they are SQL or one of the NoSQL interfaces (Memcached, C++, Java, JPA, HTTP/REST or the new Node.js API - discussed later.) The core referential actions defined in the SQL:2003 standard are implemented: CASCADE RESTRICT NO ACTION SET NULL In addition, the MySQL Cluster implementation supports the online adding and dropping of Foreign Keys, ensuring the Cluster continues to serve both read and write requests during the operation.  This represents a further enhancement to MySQL Cluster's support for on0line schema changes, ie adding and dropping indexes, adding columns, etc.  Read this blog for a demonstration of using Foreign Keys with MySQL Cluster.  Getting Started with MySQL Cluster 7.3 DMR1: Users can download either the source or binary and evaluate the MySQL Cluster 7.3 DMR with Foreign Keys now! (Select the Development Release tab). MySQL Cluster NoSQL API for Node.js Node.js is hot! In a little over 3 years, it has become one of the most popular environments for developing next generation web, cloud, mobile and social applications. Bringing JavaScript from the browser to the server, the design goal of Node.js is to build new real-time applications supporting millions of client connections, serviced by a single CPU core. Making it simple to further extend the flexibility and power of Node.js to the database layer, we are previewing the Node.js Javascript API for MySQL Cluster as an Early Access release, available for download now from http://labs.mysql.com/. Select the following build: MySQL-Cluster-NoSQL-Connector-for-Node-js Alternatively, you can clone the project at the MySQL GitHub page.  Implemented as a module for the V8 engine, the new API provides Node.js with a native, asynchronous JavaScript interface that can be used to both query and receive results sets directly from MySQL Cluster, without transformations to SQL. Figure 1: MySQL Cluster NoSQL API for Node.js enables end-to-end JavaScript development Rather than just presenting a simple interface to the database, the Node.js module integrates the MySQL Cluster native API library directly within the web application itself, enabling developers to seamlessly couple their high performance, distributed applications with a high performance, distributed, persistence layer delivering 99.999% availability. The new Node.js API joins a rich array of NoSQL interfaces available for MySQL Cluster. Whichever API is chosen for an application, SQL and NoSQL can be used concurrently across the same data set, providing the ultimate in developer flexibility.  Get started with MySQL Cluster NoSQL API for Node.js tutorial MySQL Cluster GUI-Based Auto-Installer Compatible with both MySQL Cluster 7.2 and 7.3, the Auto-Installer makes it simple for DevOps teams to quickly configure and provision highly optimized MySQL Cluster deployments – whether on-premise or in the cloud. Implemented with a standard HTML GUI and Python-based web server back-end, the Auto-Installer intelligently configures MySQL Cluster based on application requirements and auto-discovered hardware resources Figure 2: Automated Tuning and Configuration of MySQL Cluster Developed by the same engineering team responsible for the MySQL Cluster database, the installer provides standardized configurations that make it simple, quick and easy to build stable and high performance clustered environments. The auto-installer is previewed as an Early Access release, available for download now from http://labs.mysql.com/, by selecting the MySQL-Cluster-Auto-Installer build. You can read more about getting started with the MySQL Cluster auto-installer here. Watch the YouTube video for a demonstration of using the MySQL Cluster auto-installer Getting Started with MySQL Cluster If you are new to MySQL Cluster, the Getting Started guide will walk you through installing an evaluation cluster on a singe host (these guides reflect MySQL Cluster 7.2, but apply equally well to 7.3 and the Early Access previews). Or use the new MySQL Cluster Auto-Installer! Download the Guide to Scaling Web Databases with MySQL Cluster (to learn more about its architecture, design and ideal use-cases). Post any questions to the MySQL Cluster forum where our Engineering team and the MySQL Cluster community will attempt to assist you. Post any bugs you find to the MySQL bug tracking system (select MySQL Cluster from the Category drop-down menu) And if you have any feedback, please post them to the Comments section here or in the blogs referenced in this article. Summary MySQL Cluster 7.2 is the GA, production-ready release of MySQL Cluster. The first Development Release of MySQL Cluster 7.3 and the Early Access previews give you the opportunity to preview and evaluate future developments in the MySQL Cluster database, and we are very excited to be able to share that with you. Let us know how you get along with MySQL Cluster 7.3, and other features that you want to see in future releases, by using the comments of this blog.

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• Fix Windows Computer Problems with Microsoft Fix it Center

  - by Matthew Guay

  Fixing computer problems can often be difficult, but Microsoft is aiming to make it as simple as a couple clicks with.  Here’s how you can easily fix computer problems with Microsoft’s new Fix it Center Beta. Last year Microsoft began offering small Fix it scripts that you could download and run to help solve common computer problems automatically.  These were added to some of the most visited Windows help pages, and helped fix problems with things such as printing errors and Aero glass support.  Now, the Fix it scripts have been bundled together with the Fix it Center, making fixing your computer even easier.  This free tool works great on all editions of Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Note: The Fix it Center is currently in beta, so only run if you are comfortable running beta software. Getting Started Download the Fix it Center installer (link below), and install as normal. The installer will download the remaining components, and then finish the installation. In Windows XP, if you have not yet installed .NET 2.0, you may see the following prompt.  Click Yes to go to the download site, and once you’ve installed .NET 2.0, run the Fix it Center setup again. Also, the Fix it Center uses PowerShell to automate its fixes, but if it is not installed yet the installer will automatically download and install it. Find Fixes for Your PC Once Fix it Center is installed, you can personalize it for your computer.  Select Now, and the click Next. It will scan your computer for problems with known solutions, and will offer to go ahead and install these troubleshooters.  If you choose to not install them, you can always download them from within the Fix it Center at a later time. While those troubleshooters are downloading, you can create a Fix it account.  This will give you additional help and support, and let you review Fix it solutions for all your computers from an online dashboard.  You need a Windows Live ID to create an account. Also, choose whether or not to send information to Microsoft about your hardware and software problems. Get Problems Fixed Now that the Fix it Center is installed and has identified issues on your computer, it’s time to get the problems fixed.  Here’s the default front screen in Windows 7, showing all of the available fixes. And here’s the Fix it Center running in Windows XP. Select one of the Troubleshooters to see more information about it, and click Run to start it. You can choose to either detect problems and have them fixed automatically, or you can choose for the Fix it Center to show you the solutions and let you choose whether to apply them or not.  The defaults usually work good, and only take a couple minutes to apply the fixes, but you can select your own fixes if you’d rather be in control. It will scan your computer for known problems in this area, and then will show you the results.  Here, Fix it determined that startup programs may be causing performance issues.  Select Start System Configuration, and uncheck any of the programs you do not usually use. Once you’ve run a troubleshooter, you can see the issues it checked for and any problems it discovered. If you created the online account, you can also choose to view the details online.  This will show all of your computers with Fix it Center and the fixes you’ve run on them.   Conclusion Whether you’re a power user or new to computers, sometimes it’s best to just get your problems fixed and go on with life instead of digging through the registry, forums, and hacking your way to a solution.  Remember the service is still in beta and may not work perfectly or solve your issues every time. But it’s something cool and worth a look. Links Download Microsoft Fix it Center Beta Fix additional problems with Microsoft’s Fix it Center Online Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Disable Windows Mobility Center in Windows 7 or VistaMake Outlook Faster by Disabling Unnecessary Add-InsUsing Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Disable Security Center Popup Notifications in Windows VistaHow To Manage Action Center in Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Icelandic Volcano Webcams Open Multiple Links At One Go NachoFoto Searches Images in Real-time Office 2010 Product Guides Google Maps Place marks – Pizza, Guns or Strip Clubs Monitor Applications With Kiwi

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• 8 Backup Tools Explained for Windows 7 and 8

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Backups on Windows can be confusing. Whether you’re using Windows 7 or 8, you have quite a few integrated backup tools to think about. Windows 8 made quite a few changes, too. You can also use third-party backup software, whether you want to back up to an external drive or back up your files to online storage. We won’t cover third-party tools here — just the ones built into Windows. Backup and Restore on Windows 7 Windows 7 has its own Backup and Restore feature that lets you create backups manually or on a schedule. You’ll find it under Backup and Restore in the Control Panel. The original version of Windows 8 still contained this tool, and named it Windows 7 File Recovery. This allowed former Windows 7 users to restore files from those old Windows 7 backups or keep using the familiar backup tool for a little while. Windows 7 File Recovery was removed in Windows 8.1. System Restore System Restore on both Windows 7 and 8 functions as a sort of automatic system backup feature. It creates backup copies of important system and program files on a schedule or when you perform certain tasks, such as installing a hardware driver. If system files become corrupted or your computer’s software becomes unstable, you can use System Restore to restore your system and program files from a System Restore point. This isn’t a way to back up your personal files. It’s more of a troubleshooting feature that uses backups to restore your system to its previous working state. Previous Versions on Windows 7 Windows 7′s Previous Versions feature allows you to restore older versions of files — or deleted files. These files can come from backups created with Windows 7′s Backup and Restore feature, but they can also come from System Restore points. When Windows 7 creates a System Restore point, it will sometimes contain your personal files. Previous Versions allows you to extract these personal files from restore points. This only applies to Windows 7. On Windows 8, System Restore won’t create backup copies of your personal files. The Previous Versions feature was removed on Windows 8. File History Windows 8 replaced Windows 7′s backup tools with File History, although this feature isn’t enabled by default. File History is designed to be a simple, easy way to create backups of your data files on an external drive or network location. File History replaces both Windows 7′s Backup and Previous Versions features. Windows System Restore won’t create copies of personal files on Windows 8. This means you can’t actually recover older versions of files until you enable File History yourself — it isn’t enabled by default. System Image Backups Windows also allows you to create system image backups. These are backup images of your entire operating system, including your system files, installed programs, and personal files. This feature was included in both Windows 7 and Windows 8, but it was hidden in the preview versions of Windows 8.1. After many user complaints, it was restored and is still available in the final version of Windows 8.1 — click System Image Backup on the File History Control Panel. Storage Space Mirroring Windows 8′s Storage Spaces feature allows you to set up RAID-like features in software. For example, you can use Storage Space to set up two hard disks of the same size in a mirroring configuration. They’ll appear as a single drive in Windows. When you write to this virtual drive, the files will be saved to both physical drives. If one drive fails, your files will still be available on the other drive. This isn’t a good long-term backup solution, but it is a way of ensuring you won’t lose important files if a single drive fails. Microsoft Account Settings Backup Windows 8 and 8.1 allow you to back up a variety of system settings — including personalization, desktop, and input settings. If you’re signing in with a Microsoft account, OneDrive settings backup is enabled automatically. This feature can be controlled under OneDrive > Sync settings in the PC settings app. This feature only backs up a few settings. It’s really more of a way to sync settings between devices. OneDrive Cloud Storage Microsoft hasn’t been talking much about File History since Windows 8 was released. That’s because they want people to use OneDrive instead. OneDrive — formerly known as SkyDrive — was added to the Windows desktop in Windows 8.1. Save your files here and they’ll be stored online tied to your Microsoft account. You can then sign in on any other computer, smartphone, tablet, or even via the web and access your files. Microsoft wants typical PC users “backing up” their files with OneDrive so they’ll be available on any device. You don’t have to worry about all these features. Just choose a backup strategy to ensure your files are safe if your computer’s hard disk fails you. Whether it’s an integrated backup tool or a third-party backup application, be sure to back up your files.

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• How to deal with transport level security policy with OSB

  - by Jian Liang

  Recently, we received a use case for Oracle Service Bus (OSB) 11gPS4 to consume a Web Service which is secured by HTTP transport level security policy. The WSDL of the remote web service looks like following where the part marked in red shows the security policy: <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?> <definitions xmlns:wssutil="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd" xmlns:wsp="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/09/policy" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/" xmlns:tns="https://httpsbasicauth" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/" targetNamespace="https://httpsbasicauth" name="HttpsBasicAuthService"> <wsp:UsingPolicy wssutil:Required="true"/> <wsp:Policy wssutil:Id="WSHttpBinding_IPartyServicePortType_policy"> <wsp:ExactlyOne> <wsp:All> <ns1:TransportBinding xmlns:ns1="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/07/securitypolicy"> <wsp:Policy> <ns1:TransportToken> <wsp:Policy> <ns1:HttpsToken RequireClientCertificate="false"/> </wsp:Policy> </ns1:TransportToken> <ns1:AlgorithmSuite> <wsp:Policy> <ns1:Basic256/> </wsp:Policy> </ns1:AlgorithmSuite> <ns1:Layout> <wsp:Policy> <ns1:Strict/> </wsp:Policy> </ns1:Layout> </wsp:Policy> </ns1:TransportBinding> <ns2:UsingAddressing xmlns:ns2="http://www.w3.org/2006/05/addressing/wsdl"/> </wsp:All> </wsp:ExactlyOne> </wsp:Policy> <types> <xsd:schema> <xsd:import namespace="https://proxyhttpsbasicauth" schemaLocation="http://localhost:7001/WS/HttpsBasicAuthService?xsd=1"/> </xsd:schema> <xsd:schema> <xsd:import namespace="https://httpsbasicauth" schemaLocation="http://localhost:7001/WS/HttpsBasicAuthService?xsd=2"/> </xsd:schema> </types> <message name="echoString"> <part name="parameters" element="tns:echoString"/> </message> <message name="echoStringResponse"> <part name="parameters" element="tns:echoStringResponse"/> </message> <portType name="HttpsBasicAuth"> <operation name="echoString"> <input message="tns:echoString"/> <output message="tns:echoStringResponse"/> </operation> </portType> <binding name="HttpsBasicAuthSoapPortBinding" type="tns:HttpsBasicAuth"> <wsp:PolicyReference URI="#WSHttpBinding_IPartyServicePortType_policy"/> <soap:binding transport="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/http" style="document"/> <operation name="echoString"> <soap:operation soapAction=""/> <input> <soap:body use="literal"/> </input> <output> <soap:body use="literal"/> </output> </operation> </binding> <service name="HttpsBasicAuthService"> <port name="HttpsBasicAuthSoapPort" binding="tns:HttpsBasicAuthSoapPortBinding"> <soap:address location="https://localhost:7002/WS/HttpsBasicAuthService"/> </port> </service> </definitions> The security assertion in the WSDL (marked in red) indicates that this is the HTTP transport level security policy which requires one way SSL with default authentication (aka. basic authenticate with username/password). Normally, there are two ways to handle web service security policy with OSB 11g: Use WebLogic 9.x policy Use OWSM Since OSB doesn’t support WebLogic 9.x WSSP transport level assertion (except for WS transport), when we tried to create the business service based on the imported WSDL, OSB complained with the following message: [OSB Kernel:398133]The service is based on WSDL with Web Services Security Policies that are not natively supported by Oracle Service Bus. Please select OWSM Policies - From OWSM Policy Store option and attach equivalent OWSM security policy. For the Business Service, either you can add the necessary client policies manually by clicking Add button or you can let Oracle Service Bus automatically pick and add compatible client policies by clicking Add Compatible button. Unfortunately, when tried with OWSM, we couldn’t find http_token_policy from OWSM since OSB PS4 doesn’t support OWSM http_token_policy. It seems that we ran into an unsupported situation that no appropriate policy can be used from both WebLogic and OWSM. As this security policy requires one way SSL with basic authentication at the transport level, a possible workaround is to meet the remote service's requirement at transport level without using web service policy. We can simply use OSB to establish SSL connection and provide username/password for authentication at the transport level to the remote web service. In this case, the business service within OSB will be transparent to the web service policy. However, we still need to deal with OSB console’s complaint related to unsupported security policy because the failure of WSDL validation prohibits OSB console to move forward. With the help from OSB Product Management team, we finally came up with the following solutions: Solution 1: OSB PS5 The good news is that the http_token_policy is made available in OSB PS5. With OSB PS5, you can simply add OWSM oracle/wss_http_token_over_ssl_client_policy to the business service. The simplest solution is to upgrade to OSB PS5 where the OWSM solution is provided out of the box. But if you are not in a position where upgrading is an immediate option, you might want to consider other two workaround solutions described below. Solution 2: Modifying WSDL This solution addresses OSB console’s complaint by removing the security policy from the imported WSDL within OSB. Without the security policy, OSB console allows the business service to be created based on modified WSDL.  Please bear in mind, modifying WSDL is done only for the OSB side via OSB console, no change is required on the remote Web Service. The main steps of this solution: Connect to OSB console import the remote WSDL into OSB remove security assertion (the red marked part) from the imported WSDL create a service account. In our sample, we simply take the user weblogic create the business service and check "Basic" for Authentication and select the created service account make sure that OSB consumes the web service via https. This solution requires modifying WSDL. It is suitable for any OSB version (10g or OSB 11g version) prior to PS5 without OWSM. However, modifying WSDL by hand is troublesome as it requires the user to remember that the original WSDL was edited.  It forces you to make the same edit each time you want to re-import the service WSDL when changes occur at the service level. This also prevents you from using UDDI to import WSDL.  Solution 3: Using original WSDL This solution keeps the WSDL intact and ignores the embedded policy by using OWSM. By design, OWSM doesn’t like WSDL with embedded security assertion. Since OWSM doesn’t provide the feature to explicitly ignore the embedded policy from a remote WSDL, in this solution, we use OWSM in a tricky way to ignore the embedded policy. Connect to OSB console import the remote WSDL into OSB create a service account create the business service in which check "Basic" for Authentication and select the created service account as the imported WSDL is intact, the OSB Kernel:398133 error is expected ignore this error message for the moment and navigate to the Policies Page of business service Select “From OWSM Policy Store” and click “Add” button, the list of policies will pop-up Here is the tricky part: select an arbitrary policy, and click “Cancel” Update and save By clicking “Cancel’ button, we didn’t add any OWSM policy to business service, but the embedded policy is ignored. Yes, this is tricky. According to Oracle OSB Product Manager, the future release of OWSM will add a button “None” which allows to ignore the embedded policy explicitly. This solution keeps the imported WSDL intact which is the big advantage over the solution 2. It is suitable for OSB 11g (version prior to PS5) domain with OWSM configured. This blog addressed the unsupported transport level web service security policy with OSB PS4. To summarize, if you are using OSB PS5 or in a position to upgrade to PS5, the recommendation is to use OWSM OOTB transport level security policy directly. With the release prior to 11g PS5, you can consider the solution 2 or 3 depending on if OWSM is configured.

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• SQL Developer at Oracle Open World 2012

  - by thatjeffsmith

  We have a lot going on in San Francisco this fall. One of the most personal exciting bits, for what will be my 4th or 5th Open World, is that this will be my FIRST as a member of Team Oracle. I’ve presented once before, but most years it was just me pressing flesh at the vendor booths. After 3-4 days of standing and talking, you’re ready to just go home and not do anything for a few weeks. This time I’ll have a chance to walk around and talk with our users and get a good idea of what’s working and what’s not. Of course it will be a great opportunity for you to find us and get to know your SQL Developer team! 3.4 miles across and back – thanks Ashley for signing me up for the run! This year is going to be a bit crazy. Work wise I’ll be presenting twice, working a booth, and proctoring several of our Hands-On Labs. The fun parts will be equally crazy though – running across the Bay Bridge (I don’t run), swimming the Bay (I don’t swim), having my wife fly out on Wednesday for the concert, and then our first WhiskyFest on Friday (I do drink whisky though.) But back to work – let’s talk about EVERYTHING you can expect from the SQL Developer team. Booth Hours We’ll have 2 ‘demo pods’ in the Exhibition Hall over at Moscone South. Look for the farm of Oracle booths, we’ll be there under the signs that say ‘SQL Developer.’ There will be several people on hand, mostly developers (yes, they still count as people), who can answer your questions or demo the latest features. Come by and say ‘Hi!’, and let us know what you like and what you think we can do better. Seriously. Monday 10AM – 6PM Tuesday 9:45AM – 6PM Wednesday 9:45AM – 4PM Presentations Stop by for an hour, pull up a chair, sit back and soak in all the SQL Developer goodness. You’ll only have to suffer my bad jokes for two of the presentations, so please at least try to come to the other ones. We’ll be talking about data modeling, migrations, source control, and new features in versions 3.1 and 3.2 of SQL Developer and SQL Developer Data Modeler. Day Time Event Monday 10:454:45 What’s New in SQL Developer Why Move to Oracle Application Express Listener Tueday 10:1511:455:00 Using Subversion in Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler Oracle SQL Developer Tips & Tricks Database Design with Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler Wednesday 11:453:30 Migrating Third-Party Databases and Applications to Oracle Exadata 11g Enterprise Options and Management Packs for Developers Hands On Labs (HOLs) The Hands On Labs allow you to come into a classroom environment, sit down at a computer, and run through some exercises. We’ll provide the hardware, software, and training materials. It’s self-paced, but we’ll have several helpers walking around to answer questions and chat up any SQL Developer or database topic that comes to mind. If your employer is sending you to Open World for all that great training, the HOLs are a great opportunity to capitalize on that. They are only 60 minutes each, so you don’t have to worry about burning out. And there’s no homework! Of course, if you do want to take the labs home with you, many are already available via the Developer Day Hands-On Database Applications Developer Lab. You will need your own computer for those, but we’ll take care of the rest. Wednesday PL/SQL Development and Unit Testing with Oracle SQL Developer 10:15 Performance Tuning with Oracle SQL Developer 11:45 Thursday The Soup to Nuts of Data Modeling with Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler 11:15 Some Parting Advice Always wanted to meet your favorite Oracle authors, speakers, and thought-leaders? Don’t be shy, walk right up to them and introduce yourself. Normal social rules still apply, but at the conference everyone is open and up for meeting and talking with attendees. Just understand if there’s a line that you might only get a minute or two. It’s a LONG conference though, so you’ll have plenty of time to catch up with everyone. If you’re going to be around on Tuesday evening, head on over to the OTN Lounge from 4:30 to 6:30 and hang out for our Tweet Meet. That’s right, all the Oracle nerds on Twitter will be there in one place. Be sure to put your Twitter handle on your name tag so we know who you are!

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• Transactional Messaging in the Windows Azure Service Bus

  - by Alan Smith

  Introduction I’m currently working on broadening the content in the Windows Azure Service Bus Developer Guide. One of the features I have been looking at over the past week is the support for transactional messaging. When using the direct programming model and the WCF interface some, but not all, messaging operations can participate in transactions. This allows developers to improve the reliability of messaging systems. There are some limitations in the transactional model, transactions can only include one top level messaging entity (such as a queue or topic, subscriptions are no top level entities), and transactions cannot include other systems, such as databases. As the transaction model is currently not well documented I have had to figure out how things work through experimentation, with some help from the development team to confirm any questions I had. Hopefully I’ve got the content mostly correct, I will update the content in the e-book if I find any errors or improvements that can be made (any feedback would be very welcome). I’ve not had a chance to look into the code for transactions and asynchronous operations, maybe that would make a nice challenge lab for my Windows Azure Service Bus course. Transactional Messaging Messaging entities in the Windows Azure Service Bus provide support for participation in transactions. This allows developers to perform several messaging operations within a transactional scope, and ensure that all the actions are committed or, if there is a failure, none of the actions are committed. There are a number of scenarios where the use of transactions can increase the reliability of messaging systems. Using TransactionScope In .NET the TransactionScope class can be used to perform a series of actions in a transaction. The using declaration is typically used de define the scope of the transaction. Any transactional operations that are contained within the scope can be committed by calling the Complete method. If the Complete method is not called, any transactional methods in the scope will not commit.   // Create a transactional scope. using (TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope()) {     // Do something.       // Do something else.       // Commit the transaction.     scope.Complete(); }     In order for methods to participate in the transaction, they must provide support for transactional operations. Database and message queue operations typically provide support for transactions. Transactions in Brokered Messaging Transaction support in Service Bus Brokered Messaging allows message operations to be performed within a transactional scope; however there are some limitations around what operations can be performed within the transaction. In the current release, only one top level messaging entity, such as a queue or topic can participate in a transaction, and the transaction cannot include any other transaction resource managers, making transactions spanning a messaging entity and a database not possible. When sending messages, the send operations can participate in a transaction allowing multiple messages to be sent within a transactional scope. This allows for “all or nothing” delivery of a series of messages to a single queue or topic. When receiving messages, messages that are received in the peek-lock receive mode can be completed, deadlettered or deferred within a transactional scope. In the current release the Abandon method will not participate in a transaction. The same restrictions of only one top level messaging entity applies here, so the Complete method can be called transitionally on messages received from the same queue, or messages received from one or more subscriptions in the same topic. Sending Multiple Messages in a Transaction A transactional scope can be used to send multiple messages to a queue or topic. This will ensure that all the messages will be enqueued or, if the transaction fails to commit, no messages will be enqueued.     An example of the code used to send 10 messages to a queue as a single transaction from a console application is shown below.   QueueClient queueClient = messagingFactory.CreateQueueClient(Queue1);   Console.Write("Sending");   // Create a transaction scope. using (TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope()) {     for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)     {         // Send a message         BrokeredMessage msg = new BrokeredMessage("Message: " + i);         queueClient.Send(msg);         Console.Write(".");     }     Console.WriteLine("Done!");     Console.WriteLine();       // Should we commit the transaction?     Console.WriteLine("Commit send 10 messages? (yes or no)");     string reply = Console.ReadLine();     if (reply.ToLower().Equals("yes"))     {         // Commit the transaction.         scope.Complete();     } } Console.WriteLine(); messagingFactory.Close();     The transaction scope is used to wrap the sending of 10 messages. Once the messages have been sent the user has the option to either commit the transaction or abandon the transaction. If the user enters “yes”, the Complete method is called on the scope, which will commit the transaction and result in the messages being enqueued. If the user enters anything other than “yes”, the transaction will not commit, and the messages will not be enqueued. Receiving Multiple Messages in a Transaction The receiving of multiple messages is another scenario where the use of transactions can improve reliability. When receiving a group of messages that are related together, maybe in the same message session, it is possible to receive the messages in the peek-lock receive mode, and then complete, defer, or deadletter the messages in one transaction. (In the current version of Service Bus, abandon is not transactional.)   The following code shows how this can be achieved. using (TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope()) {       while (true)     {         // Receive a message.         BrokeredMessage msg = q1Client.Receive(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1));         if (msg != null)         {             // Wrote message body and complete message.             string text = msg.GetBody<string>();             Console.WriteLine("Received: " + text);             msg.Complete();         }         else         {             break;         }     }     Console.WriteLine();       // Should we commit?     Console.WriteLine("Commit receive? (yes or no)");     string reply = Console.ReadLine();     if (reply.ToLower().Equals("yes"))     {         // Commit the transaction.         scope.Complete();     }     Console.WriteLine(); }     Note that if there are a large number of messages to be received, there will be a chance that the transaction may time out before it can be committed. It is possible to specify a longer timeout when the transaction is created, but It may be better to receive and commit smaller amounts of messages within the transaction. It is also possible to complete, defer, or deadletter messages received from more than one subscription, as long as all the subscriptions are contained in the same topic. As subscriptions are not top level messaging entities this scenarios will work. The following code shows how this can be achieved. try {     using (TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope())     {         // Receive one message from each subscription.         BrokeredMessage msg1 = subscriptionClient1.Receive();         BrokeredMessage msg2 = subscriptionClient2.Receive();           // Complete the message receives.         msg1.Complete();         msg2.Complete();           Console.WriteLine("Msg1: " + msg1.GetBody<string>());         Console.WriteLine("Msg2: " + msg2.GetBody<string>());           // Commit the transaction.         scope.Complete();     } } catch (Exception ex) {     Console.WriteLine(ex.Message); }     Unsupported Scenarios The restriction of only one top level messaging entity being able to participate in a transaction makes some useful scenarios unsupported. As the Windows Azure Service Bus is under continuous development and new releases are expected to be frequent it is possible that this restriction may not be present in future releases. The first is the scenario where messages are to be routed to two different systems. The following code attempts to do this.   try {     // Create a transaction scope.     using (TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope())     {         BrokeredMessage msg1 = new BrokeredMessage("Message1");         BrokeredMessage msg2 = new BrokeredMessage("Message2");           // Send a message to Queue1         Console.WriteLine("Sending Message1");         queue1Client.Send(msg1);           // Send a message to Queue2         Console.WriteLine("Sending Message2");         queue2Client.Send(msg2);           // Commit the transaction.         Console.WriteLine("Committing transaction...");         scope.Complete();     } } catch (Exception ex) {     Console.WriteLine(ex.Message); }     The results of running the code are shown below. When attempting to send a message to the second queue the following exception is thrown: No active Transaction was found for ID '35ad2495-ee8a-4956-bbad-eb4fedf4a96e:1'. The Transaction may have timed out or attempted to span multiple top-level entities such as Queue or Topic. The server Transaction timeout is: 00:01:00..TrackingId:947b8c4b-7754-4044-b91b-4a959c3f9192_3_3,TimeStamp:3/29/2012 7:47:32 AM.   Another scenario where transactional support could be useful is when forwarding messages from one queue to another queue. This would also involve more than one top level messaging entity, and is therefore not supported.   Another scenario that developers may wish to implement is performing transactions across messaging entities and other transactional systems, such as an on-premise database. In the current release this is not supported.   Workarounds for Unsupported Scenarios There are some techniques that developers can use to work around the one top level entity limitation of transactions. When sending two messages to two systems, topics and subscriptions can be used. If the same message is to be sent to two destinations then the subscriptions would have the default subscriptions, and the client would only send one message. If two different messages are to be sent, then filters on the subscriptions can route the messages to the appropriate destination. The client can then send the two messages to the topic in the same transaction.   In scenarios where a message needs to be received and then forwarded to another system within the same transaction topics and subscriptions can also be used. A message can be received from a subscription, and then sent to a topic within the same transaction. As a topic is a top level messaging entity, and a subscription is not, this scenario will work.

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• Azure Grid Computing - Worker Roles as HPC Compute Nodes

  - by JoshReuben

  Overview ·        With HPC 2008 R2 SP1 You can add Azure worker roles as compute nodes in a local Windows HPC Server cluster. ·        The subscription for Windows Azure like any other Azure Service - charged for the time that the role instances are available, as well as for the compute and storage services that are used on the nodes. ·        Win-Win ? - Azure charges the computer hour cost (according to vm size) amortized over a month – so you save on purchasing compute node hardware. Microsoft wins because you need to purchase HPC to have a local head node for managing this compute cluster grid distributed in the cloud. ·        Blob storage is used to hold input & output files of each job. I can see how Parametric Sweep HPC jobs can be supported (where the same job is run multiple times on each node against different input units), but not MPI.NET (where different HPC Job instances function as coordinated agents and conduct master-slave inter-process communication), unless Azure is somehow tunneling MPI communication through inter-WorkerRole Azure Queues. ·        this is not the end of the story for Azure Grid Computing. If MS requires you to purchase a local HPC license (and administrate it), what's to stop a 3rd party from doing this and encapsulating exposing HPC WCF Broker Service to you for managing compute nodes? If MS doesn’t  provide head node as a service, someone else will! Process ·        requires creation of a worker node template that specifies a connection to an existing subscription for Windows Azure + an availability policy for the worker nodes. ·        After worker nodes are added to the cluster, you can start them, which provisions the Windows Azure role instances, and then bring them online to run HPC cluster jobs. ·        A Windows Azure worker role instance runs a HPC compatible Azure guest operating system which runs on the VMs that host your service. The guest operating system is updated monthly. You can choose to upgrade the guest OS for your service automatically each time an update is released - All role instances defined by your service will run on the guest operating system version that you specify. see Windows Azure Guest OS Releases and SDK Compatibility Matrix (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=190549). ·        use the hpcpack command to upload file packages and install files to run on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). Requirements ·        assuming you have an azure subscription account and the HPC head node installed and configured. ·        Install HPC Pack 2008 R2 SP 1 -  see Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 Release Notes (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=202812). ·        Configure the head node to connect to the Internet - connectivity is provided by the connection of the head node to the enterprise network. You may need to configure a proxy client on the head node. Any cluster network topology (1-5) is supported). ·        Configure the firewall - allow outbound TCP traffic on the following ports: 80,       443, 5901, 5902, 7998, 7999 ·        Note: HPC Server  uses Admin Mode (Elevated Privileges) in Windows Azure to give the service administrator of the subscription the necessary privileges to initialize HPC cluster services on the worker nodes. ·        Obtain a Windows Azure subscription certificate - the Windows Azure subscription must be configured with a public subscription (API) certificate -a valid X.509 certificate with a key size of at least 2048 bits. Generate a self-sign certificate & upload a .cer file to the Windows Azure Portal Account page > Manage my API Certificates link. see Using the Windows Azure Service Management API (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=205526). ·        import the certificate with an associated private key on the HPC cluster head node - into the trusted root store of the local computer account. Obtain Windows Azure Connection Information for HPC Server ·        required for each worker node template ·        copy from azure portal - Get from: navigation pane > Hosted Services > Storage Accounts & CDN ·        Subscription ID - a 32-char hex string in the form xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx. In Properties pane. ·        Subscription certificate thumbprint - a 40-char hex string (you need to remove spaces). In Management Certificates > Properties pane. ·        Service name - the value of <ServiceName> configured in the public URL of the service (http://<ServiceName>.cloudapp.net). In Hosted Services > Properties pane. ·        Blob Storage account name - the value of <StorageAccountName> configured in the public URL of the account (http://<StorageAccountName>.blob.core.windows.net). In Storage Accounts > Properties pane. Import the Azure Subscription Certificate on the HPC Head Node ·        enable the services for Windows HPC Server  to authenticate properly with the Windows Azure subscription. ·        use the Certificates MMC snap-in to import the certificate to the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store of the local computer account. The certificate must be in PFX format (.pfx or .p12 file) with a private key that is protected by a password. ·        see Certificates (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=163918). ·        To open the certificates snapin: Run > mmc. File > Add/Remove Snap-in > certificates > Computer account > Local Computer ·        To import the certificate via wizard - Certificates > Trusted Root Certification Authorities > Certificates > All Tasks > Import ·        After the certificate is imported, it appears in the details pane in the Certificates snap-in. You can open the certificate to check its status. Configure a Proxy Client on the HPC Head Node ·        the following Windows HPC Server services must be able to communicate over the Internet (through the firewall) with the services for Windows Azure: HPCManagement, HPCScheduler, HPCBrokerWorker. ·        Create a Windows Azure Worker Node Template ·        Edit HPC node templates in HPC Node Template Editor. ·        Specify: 1) Windows Azure subscription connection info (unique service name) for adding a set of worker nodes to the cluster + 2)worker node availability policy – rules for deploying / removing worker role instances in Windows Azure o   HPC Cluster Manager > Configuration > Navigation Pane > Node Templates > Actions pane > New à Create Node Template Wizard or Edit à Node Template Editor o   Choose Node Template Type page - Windows Azure worker node template o   Specify Template Name page – template name & description o   Provide Connection Information page – Azure Subscription ID (text) & Subscription certificate (browse) o   Provide Service Information page - Azure service name + blob storage account name (optionally click Retrieve Connection Information to get list of available from azure – possible LRT). o   Configure Azure Availability Policy page - how Windows Azure worker nodes start / stop (online / offline the worker role instance -  add / remove) – manual / automatic o   for automatic - In the Configure Windows Azure Worker Availability Policy dialog -select days and hours for worker nodes to start / stop. ·        To validate the Windows Azure connection information, on the template's Connection Information tab > Validate connection information. ·        You can upload a file package to the storage account that is specified in the template - eg upload application or service files that will run on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). Add Azure Worker Nodes to the HPC Cluster ·        Use the Add Node Wizard – specify: 1) the worker node template, 2) The number of worker nodes   (within the quota of role instances in the azure subscription), and 3)           The VM size of the worker nodes : ExtraSmall, Small, Medium, Large, or ExtraLarge.  ·        to add worker nodes of different sizes, must run the Add Node Wizard separately for each size. ·        All worker nodes that are added to the cluster by using a specific worker node template define a set of worker nodes that will be deployed and managed together in Windows Azure when you start the nodes. This includes worker nodes that you add later by using the worker node template and, if you choose, worker nodes of different sizes. You cannot start, stop, or delete individual worker nodes. ·        To add Windows Azure worker nodes o   In HPC Cluster Manager: Node Management > Actions pane > Add Node à Add Node Wizard o   Select Deployment Method page - Add Azure Worker nodes o   Specify New Nodes page - select a worker node template, specify the number and size of the worker nodes ·        After you add worker nodes to the cluster, they are in the Not-Deployed state, and they have a health state of Unapproved. Before you can use the worker nodes to run jobs, you must start them and then bring them online. ·        Worker nodes are numbered consecutively in a naming series that begins with the root name AzureCN – this is non-configurable. Deploying Windows Azure Worker Nodes ·        To deploy the role instances in Windows Azure - start the worker nodes added to the HPC cluster and bring the nodes online so that they are available to run cluster jobs. This can be configured in the HPC Azure Worker Node Template – Azure Availability Policy -  to be automatic or manual. ·        The Start, Stop, and Delete actions take place on the set of worker nodes that are configured by a specific worker node template. You cannot perform one of these actions on a single worker node in a set. You also cannot perform a single action on two sets of worker nodes (specified by two different worker node templates). ·        ·          Starting a set of worker nodes deploys a set of worker role instances in Windows Azure, which can take some time to complete, depending on the number of worker nodes and the performance of Windows Azure. ·        To start worker nodes manually and bring them online o   In HPC Node Management > Navigation Pane > Nodes > List / Heat Map view - select one or more worker nodes. o   Actions pane > Start – in the Start Azure Worker Nodes dialog, select a node template. o   the state of the worker nodes changes from Not Deployed to track the provisioning progress – worker node Details Pane > Provisioning Log tab. o   If there were errors during the provisioning of one or more worker nodes, the state of those nodes is set to Unknown and the node health is set to Unapproved. To determine the reason for the failure, review the provisioning logs for the nodes. o   After a worker node starts successfully, the node state changes to Offline. To bring the nodes online, select the nodes that are in the Offline state > Bring Online. ·        Troubleshooting o   check node template. o   use telnet to test connectivity: telnet <ServiceName>.cloudapp.net 7999 o   check node status - Deployment status information appears in the service account information in the Windows Azure Portal - HPC queries this -  see  node status information for any failed nodes in HPC Node Management. ·        When role instances are deployed, file packages that were previously uploaded to the storage account using the hpcpack command are automatically installed. You can also upload file packages to storage after the worker nodes are started, and then manually install them on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). ·        to remove a set of role instances in Windows Azure - stop the nodes by using HPC Cluster Manager (apply the Stop action). This deletes the role instances from the service and changes the state of the worker nodes in the HPC cluster to Not Deployed. ·        Each time that you start a set of worker nodes, two proxy role instances (size Small) are configured in Windows Azure to facilitate communication between HPC Cluster Manager and the worker nodes. The proxy role instances are not listed in HPC Cluster Manager after the worker nodes are added. However, the instances appear in the Windows Azure Portal. The proxy role instances incur charges in Windows Azure along with the worker node instances, and they count toward the quota of role instances in the subscription.

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• Compress Large Video Files with DivX / Xvid and AutoGK

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Have you ever recorded home video on a camcorder only to find the video size is enormous? What if you wanted to share a video clip on YouTube or another video sharing site, but the file size was bigger than the maximum upload size? Today we’ll look at a way to compress certain video files, such as MPEG and AVI, with Auto Gordian Knot (AutoGK). AutoGK is a free application that runs on Windows. It supports Mpeg1, Mpeg2, Transport Streams, Vobs, and virtually any codec used for an .AVI file. AutoGK will accept as input the following file types: MPG, MPEG, VOB, VRO, M2V, DAT, IFO, TS, TP, TRP, M2T, and AVI. Files are output as .AVI files and are converted using the DivX or XviD codecs. Installing and Using AutoGK Download and install AutoGK (link below) Open the AutoGK. You’ll need to navigate a few wizard screens, but you can just accept the defaults.   Choose your video file by clicking on the folder to the right of the Input file text box.   Browse for and select your video file and click “Open.”   For this example, we’ll be working with an .AVI file that’s 167MB in size.   The output file is copied into the same directory as the input file by default, but you can change this if you choose. If the input file is also .AVI, AutoGK will append an _agk to the output file so that the original is not overwritten. Next, you’ll see any audio tracks listed. You can unselect the check box if you’d like to remove the audio track. You can choose one of the Predefined size options… Or, select a Custom size in MB or Target Quality in percentage. For our example, we’ll be compressing our 167MB file to 35MB. Click on Advanced Settings. Here you can choose your codec, if you have a preference, as well as output resolution and output audio. If you’d like to use the DivX codec, you’ll need to download and install it separately. (See link below) Typically you’ll want to keep the defaults. Click “OK.” Now you’re ready to add your file conversion job to the Job queue. Click Add Job to add it to the queue. You can add multiple files conversions to the job queue and  convert them in one batch. Click Start to begin the conversion process. The process will begin. You’ll be able to see the progress in the Log window on the bottom left. When the conversion is complete you’ll see a “Job finished” and the total time in the log window.   Check your output file to see it’s compressed size. Test your video just to make sure the output quality is satisfactory.   Note:  Conversion times can vary greatly depending on the size of the file and your computer hardware. Files that are several GBs in size may take several hours to compress. AutoGK is no longer being actively developed but is still a wonderful DivX/XviD conversion tool. It can also be used to compress and convert non-copy protected DVDs. Downloads AutoGordianKnot DivX (optional) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Use Your Mac Mini as a Media Server Part 2Make Disk Cleanup Compress Older(or Newer) Files on XPMysticgeek Blog: Exclusive Look Inside Vreel – Including Interview With Vreel Founder!Friday Fun: Watch HD Video Content with MeevidConvert a DVD Movie Directly to AVI with FairUse Wizard 2.9 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Penolo Lets You Share Sketches On Twitter Visit Woolyss.com for Old School Games, Music and Videos Add a Custom Title in IE using Spybot or Spyware Blaster When You Need to Hail a Taxi in NYC Live Map of Marine Traffic NoSquint Remembers Site Specific Zoom Levels (Firefox)

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• Forcing an External Activation with Service Broker

  - by Davide Mauri

  In these last days I’ve been working quite a lot with Service Broker, a technology I’m really happy to work with, since it can give a lot of satisfaction. The scale-out solution one can easily build is simply astonishing. I’m helping a company to build a very scalable and – yet almost inexpensive – invoicing system that has to be able to scale out using commodity hardware. To offload the work from the main server to satellite “compute nodes” (yes, I’ve borrowed this term from PDW) we’re using Service Broker and the External Activator application available in the SQL Server Feature Pack. For those who are not used to work with SSB, the External Activation is a feature that allows you to intercept the arrival of a message in a queue right from your application code. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171617.aspx (Look for “Event-Based Activation”) In order to make life even more easier, Microsoft released the External Activation application that saves you even from writing even this code. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sql_service_broker/archive/tags/external+activator/ The External Activator application can be configured to execute your own application so that each time a message – an invoice in my case – arrives in the target queue, the invoking application is executed and the invoice is calculated. The very nice feature of External Activator is that it can automatically execute as many configured application in order to process as many messages as your system can handle.  This also a lot of create a scale-out solution, leaving to the developer only a fraction of the problems that usually came with asynchronous programming. Developers are also shielded from Service Broker since everything can be encapsulated in Stored Procedures, so that – for them – developing such scale-out asynchronous solution is not much more complex than just executing a bunch of Stored Procedures. Now, if everything works correctly, you don’t have to bother of anything else. You put messages in the queue and your application, invoked by the External Activator, process them. But what happen if for some reason your application fails to process the messages. For examples, it crashes? The message is safe in the queue so you just need to process it again. But your application is invoked by the External Activator application, so now the question is, how do you wake up that app? Service Broker will engage the activation process only if certain conditions are met: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171601.aspx But how we can invoke the activation process manually, without having to wait for another message to arrive (the arrival of a new message is a condition that can fire the activation process)? The “trick” is to do manually with the activation process does: sending a system message to a queue in charge of handling External Activation messages: declare @conversationHandle uniqueidentifier; declare @n xml = N' <EVENT_INSTANCE>   <EventType>QUEUE_ACTIVATION</EventType>   <PostTime>' + CONVERT(CHAR(24),GETDATE(),126) + '</PostTime>   <SPID>' + CAST(@@SPID AS VARCHAR(9)) + '</SPID>   <ServerName>[your_server_name]</ServerName>   <LoginName>[your_login_name]</LoginName>   <UserName>[your_user_name]</UserName>   <DatabaseName>[your_database_name]</DatabaseName>   <SchemaName>[your_queue_schema_name]</SchemaName>   <ObjectName>[your_queue_name]</ObjectName>   <ObjectType>QUEUE</ObjectType> </EVENT_INSTANCE>' begin dialog conversation     @conversationHandle from service        [<your_initiator_service_name>] to service          '<your_event_notification_service>' on contract         [http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQL/Notifications/PostEventNotification] with     encryption = off,     lifetime = 6000 ; send on conversation     @conversationHandle message type     [http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQL/Notifications/EventNotification] (@n) ;     end conversation @conversationHandle; That’s it! Put the code in a Stored Procedure and you can add to your application a button that says “Force Queue Processing” (or something similar) in order to start the activation process whenever you need it (which should not occur too frequently but it may happen). PS I know that the “fire-and-forget” (ending the conversation without waiting for an answer) technique is not a best practice, but in this case I don’t see how it can hurts so I decided to stay very close to the KISS principle []

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, May 14, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, May 14, 2010New ProjectsCampfire#: Campfire# is a campfire client written in .NET 4.0 using WPF, which uses the Campfire API.CHESS: Systematic Concurrency Testing: CHESS is a tool for systematic and disciplined concurrency testing. Given a concurrent test, CHESS systematically enumerates the possible thread sc...cmpp: cmppcycloid: Arcanoid gameDotNetNuke® C#: The DotNetNuke® project is developed and maintained on a Visual Basic codebase, however a C# version has always been a popular request. This is a ...EasyBuildingCMS.NET: EasyBuildingCMS is an easy use content management system.fluidCMS: Provide for flexible management of web content that is not tightly integrated with the layout and rendering of sites that consume the content.Golem: An automation tool oriented to localization engineering environmentHB Batch Encoder Mk 2: HandBrake Batch Encoder Mk II This Program was adapted from an original project downloaded from codeplex by the name of "Handbrake Batch Encoder"...Integrating Social Media Networks: This is part of my pos graduation project.Ketonic: The Ketonic project aims to improve development of websites based on the Kentico CMS. LinkSharp: LinkSharp is a short-URL provider that can be used to generate short static non changing URL's. The web interface allows you to easily add / edit /...PUC NET (C++ Network Library - PUC Minas): This is an Academic Library for an Easy Development of Applications and Games based on Network Communication.Regular Expression Tester: Small utility for testing regular expressionsSharePoint User Management WebPart: SharePoint User Management WebPartSharpBox: SharpBox makes it easier for .NET developers to interact with existing cloud storage service, e.g. DropBox or Amazon S3Snipivit: Snipivit is a snippet manager service and VS2010 plugin that allows small development teams to store all their code snippets on a central database,...Software Factories Applied: Software Factories Applied is a project collecting the companion bits for the eponymous book to be published by Wiley & Sons in 2011. The authors ...The Ping Master: A service that periodically pings network addresses and allows the running of command line type utilities in response to success or failure.Title Safe Region Checker: A simple utility for XNA developers to check screenshots from games intended for release on the LIVE Marketplace for "title safe" region compliance...Trial project: sky is blueUyghur Named Date: Generate Uyghur named date string. ئۇيغۇرچە ئاي ناملىق چىسلا ھاسىل قىلىشWildcard Search Web Part for SharePoint 2010: The Wildcard Search web part for MOSS 2007 was wildly successful. Although, SharePoint 2010 has built-in wildcard searching functionality, the out...在线Office控件 Online Offical Control: 在线Office控件软件作品发布平台: SoftwarePublishPlatform 软件作品发布平台New ReleasesDemina: Demina Binaries version 0.1: Demina binaries are now available. This release (version 0.1) is an alpha version. Please report any bugs for extermination.EasyTFS: EasyTfs 1.0 Beta 2: Added cache refreshing when contents are updated rather than just every 10 minutes. Added window title based on currently-open case. Added attachme...Extending C# editor - Outlining, classification: Initial release: Initial releaseHB Batch Encoder Mk 2: HB Batch Encoder Mk2 v1.01: Binary release files.HB Batch Encoder Mk 2: Source Code: Source CodeHobbyBrew Mobile: Beta 2: Corretti numerosi bug, data un implementazione "approssimativa" del riscaldamento per Infusione. Aggiornamento consigliato!HouseFly controls: HouseFly controls beta 1.0.2.0: HouseFly controls relase 1.0.2.0 betaHtml Reader: Beta 2: I fixed a bug in HtmlElementCollection, Which exposed an integer enumerator, instead of enumerating through HtmlElements. I added a WPF Window tha...Html to OpenXml: HtmlToOpenXml 1.2: Fix some reported bug. See change set for description. The dll library to include in your project. The dll is signed for GAC support. Compiled wi...Infection Protection: Infection Protection 0.1: This is the final version of Infection Protection that was entered into the 2010 OGPC game competition.Jobping Url Shortener: Deploy Code 0.5.1: Deployment code for Version 0.5 This version includes our Jobping style.Jobping Url Shortener: Source Code 0.5.1: Source code for the 0.5 release. This release includes our Jobping style skin.Kooboo HTML form: Kooboo HTML form module 2.1.0.1: HTML form module contributed by member aledelgo. Add SMTP user and password authentication.KooBoo Image Galery: Beta 2: This new version corrects some issues pointed by Guoqi Zheng Some schema and folders were renamed, so it's better to uninstall the module and remo...MFCMAPI: May 2010 Release: If you just want to run the tool, get the executable. If you want to debug it, get the symbol file and the source. Build: 6.0.0.1020 The 64 bit bu...MVC Turbine: Release 2.1 for MVC2: This RTM contains the same features as v2.0 RTM plus these features: Instance Registration to IServiceLocator You can now add an instance of a typ...NazTek.Extension.Clr4: NazTek.Extension.Clr4 Binary: Binary releaseNazTek.Extension.Clr4: NazTek.Extension.Clr4 Source: Cab with source codeNSIS Autorun: NSIS Autorun 0.1.8: This release includes source code, executable binaries and example materials.Ottawa IT Day: 2010 Source Code and Presentations: During the Ottawa IT Day 2010, some of the presenters shared their code (and some presentations). This release is the culmination of all those effo...PHPWord: PHPWord 0.6.1 Beta: Changelog: Fixed Error when adding a JPEG image and opening in office 2007 Issue #1 Fixed Already defined constant PHPWORD_BASE_PATH Issue #2 F...Rapid Dictionary: Rapid Dictionary Alpha 2.0: Release Notes * Try auto updatable version: http://install.rapiddict.com/index.html Rapid Dictionary Alpha 2.0 includes such functionality: ...Shake - C# Make: Shake v0.1.18: Core changes. Process wrapper class, console logger, etc.SharpBox: SharpBox-Trunk: This is the SharpBox build from the trunk source branch!SharpBox: SharpBox-Trunk-Initial-Source: The initial source code, will be updated from time to timeSpackle.NET: 4.0.0.0 Release: This new drop contains the following A CreateBigInteger() method on SecureRandom to create random BigInteger values. An extension method to prop...StreamInsight example queries, input adapters and output adapters: StreamInsight Examples for V1.0 RTM: Zipped source code.The Ping Master: v0.1.0.0: Early release of The Ping Master for test purposes. Configuration tool is unfinished and does not include an installer.Title Safe Region Checker: Title Safe Region Checker v1.0.0.1: Release 1.0 of Title Safe Region Checker. No known bugs or problems. File is a zipped directory containing the necessary installation files.TortoiseHg: TortoiseHg 1.0.3: This is a bug fix release, we recommend all users upgrade to 1.0.3Usa*Usa Libraly: Smart.Windows.Navigation 0.4: Smart.Windows.Navigation simple navigation library ver 0.4.0. Include Windows Forms & Compact Framework samples. Information - Smart.Windows.Mvc ...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30513.0: Automatic drop of latest buildWabbitStudio Z80 Software Tools: Wabbitcode: Wabbitcode is an Z80 Assembly IDE for Windows, OS X, and Linux. Built to take full advantage of the features of SPASM and Wabbitemu, Wabbitcode has...white: Release 0.20: Source Code: https://white-project.googlecode.com/svn/tags/0.20 Add few more keyboard keys like windows button and F13-F24. Fixed bugs for keyboar...Wildcard Search Web Part for SharePoint 2010: Version 1.0 Release 1: This is the initial release of the Wildcard Search Web Part for SharePoint 2010. All queries will be issued as wildcards unless disabled with the ...Windows Azure Command-line Tools for PHP Developers: Windows Azure Command-line Tools May 2010 Update: May 2010 Update – May 13, 2010 We are pleased to announced the May 2010 update of Windows Azure Command-Line Tools. In addition to bug fixes and i...WinXmlCook: WinXmlCook 2.1: Version 2.1 released!Xrns2XMod: Xrns2XMod 1.1: some source code optimization在线Office控件 Online Offical Control: SPOffice2.0Release: 该版本在MS Office2003/2007，WPS2009，WPS2010下测试通过Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)patterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesPHPExcelASP.NETMost Active Projectspatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMirror Testing SystemRawrBlogEngine.NETPHPExcelMicrosoft Biology FoundationwhiteWindows Azure Command-line Tools for PHP DevelopersStyleCopShake - C# Make

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• Productivity Tips

  - by Brian T. Jackett

  A few months ago during my first end of year review at Microsoft I was doing an assessment of my year.  One of my personal goals to come out of this reflection was to improve my personal productivity.  While I hear many people say “I wish I had more hours in the day so that I could get more done” I feel like that is the wrong approach.  There is an inherent assumption that you are being productive with your time that you already have and thus more time would allow you to be as productive given more time.    Instead of wishing I could add more hours to the day I’ve begun adopting a number of processes or behavior changes in my personal life to make better use of my time with the goal of improving productivity.  The areas of focus are as follows: Focus Processes Tools Personal health Email Note: A number of these topics have spawned from reading Scott Hanselman’s blog posts on productivity, reading of David Allen’s book Getting Things Done, and discussions with friends and coworkers who had great insights into this topic.   Focus Pre-reading / viewing: Overcome your work addiction Millennials paralyzed by choice Its Not What You Read Its What You Ignore (Scott Hanselman video)    I highly recommend Scott Hanselman’s video above and this post before continuing with this article.  It is well worth the 40+ mins price of admission for the video and couple minutes for article.  One key takeaway for me was listing out my activities in an average week and realizing which ones held little or no value to me.  We all have a finite amount of time to work each day.  Do you know how much time and effort you spend on various aspects of your life (family, friends, religion, work, personal happiness, etc.)?  Do your actions and commitments reflect your priorities?    The biggest time consumers with little value for me were time spent on social media services (Twitter and Facebook), playing an MMO video game, and watching TV.  I still check up on Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft internal chat forums, and other services to keep contact with others but I’ve reduced that time significantly.  As for TV I’ve cut the cord and no longer subscribe to cable TV.  Instead I use Netflix, RedBox, and over the air channels but again with reduced time consumption.  With the time I’ve freed up I’m back to working out 2-3 times a week and reading 4 nights a week (both of which I had been neglecting previously).  I’ll mention a few tools for helping measure your time in the Tools section.   Processes    Do not multi-task.  I’ll say it again.  Do not multi-task.  There is no such thing as multi tasking.  The human brain is optimized to work on one thing at a time.  When you are “multi-tasking” you are really doing 2 or more things at less than 100%, usually by a wide margin.  I take pride in my work and when I’m doing something less than 100% the results typically degrade rapidly.    Now there are some ways of bending the rules of physics for this one.  There is the notion of getting a double amount of work done in the same timeframe.  Some examples would be listening to podcasts / watching a movie while working out, using a treadmill as your work desk, or reading while in the bathroom.    Personally I’ve found good results in combining one task that does not require focus (making dinner, playing certain video games, working out) and one task that does (watching a movie, listening to podcasts).  I believe this is related to me being a visual and kinesthetic (using my hands or actually doing it) learner.  I’m terrible with auditory learning.  My fiance and I joke that sometimes we talk and talk to each other but never really hear each other.   Goals / Tasks    Goals can give us direction in life and a sense of accomplishment when we complete them.  Goals can also overwhelm us and give us a sense of failure when we don’t complete them.  I propose that you shift your perspective and not dwell on all of the things that you haven’t gotten done, but focus instead on regularly setting measureable goals that are within reason of accomplishing.    At the end of each time frame have a retrospective to review your progress.  Do not feel guilty about what you did not accomplish.  Feel proud of what you did accomplish and readjust your goals for the next time frame to more attainable goals.  Here is a sample schedule I’ve seen proposed by some.  I have not consistently set goals for each timeframe, but I do typically set 3 small goals a day (this blog post is #2 for today). Each day set 3 small goals Each week set 3 medium goals Each month set 1 large goal Each year set 2 very large goals   Tools    Tools are an extension of our human body.  They help us extend beyond what we can physically and mentally do.  Below are some tools I use almost daily or have found useful as of late. Disclaimer: I am not getting endorsed to promote any of these products.  I just happen to like them and find them useful. Instapaper – Save internet links for reading later.  There are many tools like this but I’ve found this to be a great one.  There is even a “read it later” JavaScript button you can add to your browser so when you navigate to a site it will then add this to your list. Stacks for Instapaper – A Windows Phone 7 app for reading my Instapaper articles on the go.  It does require a subscription to Instapaper (nominal $3 every three months) but is easily worth the cost.  Alternatively you can set up your Kindle to sync with Instapaper easily but I haven’t done so. SlapDash Podcast – Apps for Windows Phone and  Windows 8 (possibly other platforms) to sync podcast viewing / listening across multiple devices.  Now that I have my Surface RT device (which I love) this is making my consumption easier to manage. Feed Reader – Simple Windows 8 app for quickly catching up on my RSS feeds.  I used to have hundreds of unread items all the time.  Now I’m down to 20-50 regularly and it is much easier and faster to consume on my Surface RT.  There is also a free version (which I use) and I can’t see much different between the free and paid versions currently. Rescue Time – Have you ever wondered how much time you’ve spent on websites vs. email vs. “doing work”?  This service tracks your computer actions and then lets you report on them.  This can help you quantitatively identify areas where your actions are not in line with your priorities. PowerShell – Windows automation tool.  It is now built into every client and server OS.  This tool has saved me days (and I mean the full 24 hrs worth) of time and effort in the past year alone.  If you haven’t started learning PowerShell and you administrating any Windows OS or server product you need to start today. Various blogging tools – I wrote a post a couple years ago called How I Blog about my blogging process and tools used.  Almost all of it still applies today.   Personal Health    Some of these may be common sense or debatable, but I’ve found them to help prioritize my daily activities. Get plenty of sleep on a regular basis.  Sacrificing sleep too many nights a week negatively impacts your cognition, attitude, and overall health. Exercise at least three days.  Exercise could be lifting weights, taking the stairs up multiple flights of stairs, walking for 20 mins, or a number of other "non-traditional” activities.  I find that regular exercise helps with sleep and improves my overall attitude. Eat a well balanced diet.  Too much sugar, caffeine, junk food, etc. are not good for your body.  This is not a matter of losing weight but taking care of your body and helping you perform at your peak potential.   Email    Email can be one of the biggest time consumers (i.e. waster) if you aren’t careful. Time box your email usage.  Set a meeting invite for yourself if necessary to limit how much time you spend checking email. Use rules to prioritize your email.  Email from external customers, my manager, or include me directly on the To line go into my inbox.  Everything else goes a level down and I have 30+ rules to further sort it, mostly distribution lists. Use keyboard shortcuts (when available).  I use Outlook for my primary email and am constantly hitting Alt + S to send, Ctrl + 1 for my inbox, Ctrl + 2 for my calendar, Space / Tab / Shift + Tab to mark items as read, and a number of other useful commands.  Learn them and you’ll see your speed getting through emails increase. Keep emails short.  No one Few people like reading through long emails.  The first line should state exactly why you are sending the email followed by a 3-4 lines to support it.  Anything longer might be better suited as a phone call or in person discussion.   Conclusion    In this post I walked through various tips and tricks I’ve found for improving personal productivity.  It is a mix of re-focusing on the things that matter, using tools to assist in your efforts, and cutting out actions that are not aligned with your priorities.  I originally had a whole section on keyboard shortcuts, but with my recent purchase of the Surface RT I’m finding that touch gestures have replaced numerous keyboard commands that I used to need.  I see a big future in touch enabled devices.  Hopefully some of these tips help you out.  If you have any tools, tips, or ideas you would like to share feel free to add in the comments section.         -Frog Out   Links Scott Hanselman Productivity posts http://www.hanselman.com/blog/CategoryView.aspx?category=Productivity Overcome your work addiction http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/05/overcome-your-work-addiction.html?awid=5512355740280659420-3271   Millennials paralyzed by choice http://priyaparker.com/blog/millennials-paralyzed-by-choice   Its Not What You Read Its What You Ignore (video) http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ItsNotWhatYouReadItsWhatYouIgnoreVideoOfScottHanselmansPersonalProductivityTips.aspx   Cutting the cord – Jeff Blankenburg http://www.jeffblankenburg.com/2011/04/06/cutting-the-cord/   Building a sitting standing desk – Eric Harlan http://www.ericharlan.com/Everything_Else/building-a-sitting-standing-desk-a229.html   Instapaper http://www.instapaper.com/u   Stacks for Instapaper http://www.stacksforinstapaper.com/   Slapdash Podcast Windows Phone -  http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/slapdash-podcasts/90e8b121-080b-e011-9264-00237de2db9e Windows 8 - http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/slapdash-podcasts/0c62e66a-f2e4-4403-af88-3430a821741e/m/ROW   Feed Reader http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/feed-reader/d03199c9-8e08-469a-bda1-7963099840cc/m/ROW   Rescue Time http://www.rescuetime.com/   PowerShell Script Center http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/bb410849.aspx

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• 6 Reasons Why You Can’t Move Your Cell Phone To Any Carrier You Want

  - by Chris Hoffman

  You can buy a laptop or Wi-Fi tablet and use it on Wi-Fi anywhere in the world, so why are cell phones and devices with mobile data not portable between different cellular networks in the same country? Unlike with Wi-Fi, there are many different competing cellular network standards — both around the world and within countries. Cellular carriers also like locking you to their specific network and making it difficult to move. That’s what contracts are for. Phone Locking Many phones are sold locked to a specific network. When you buy a phone from a cellular carrier, they often lock that phone to their network so you can’t take it to a competitor’s network. That’s why you’ll often need to unlock a phone before you can move it to a different cellular provider or take it to a different country and use it on a local provider instead of roaming. Cellular carriers will generally unlock your phone for you as long as you’re no longer in a contract with them. However, unlocking a cell phone you’ve paid for without your carrier’s permission is currently a crime in the USA. GSM vs. CDMA Some cellular networks use the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) standard, while some use CDMA (Code-division multiple access). Worldwide, most cellular networks use GSM. In the USA, both GSM and CDMA are popular. Verizon, Sprint, and other carriers that use their networks use CDMA. AT&T, T-Mobile, and other carriers that use their networks are use GSM. These are two competing standards and are not interoperable. This means you can’t simply take a phone from Verizon to T-Mobile, or from AT&T to Sprint. These carriers have incompatible phones. CDMA Restrictions CDMA is more restricted than GSM. GSM phones have SIM cards. Simply open the phone, pop out the SIM card, and pop in a new SIM card to switch carriers. (In reality, it’s more complicated thanks to phone locking and other factors here.) CDMA phones don’t have removable modules like this. All CDMA phones ship locked to a specific network and you’d have to get both your old carrier and your new carrier to cooperate to switch phones between them. In reality, many people just consider CDMA phones eternally locked to a specific carrier. Frequencies Different cellular networks throughout the USA and the rest of the world use different frequencies. These radio frequencies have to be supported by your phone’s hardware or your phone simply can’t work on a network using those frequencies. Many GSM phones support three or four bands of frequencies — 900/1800/1900 MHz, 850/1800/1900 MHz, or 850/900/1800/1900 MHz. These are sometimes called “world phones” because they allow easier roaming. This allows the manufacturer to produce a phone that will support all GSM networks in the world and allows their customers to travel with those phones. If your phone doesn’t support the appropriate frequencies, it won’t work on certain networks. LTE Bands When it comes to newer, faster LTE networks, different frequencies are still a concern. LTE frequencies are generally known as “LTE bands.” To use a smartphone on a certain LTE network, that smartphone will have to support that LTE network’s frequency. Different models of phones are often created to work on different LTE networks around the world. However, phones are generally supporting more and more LTE networks and becoming more and more interoperable over time. SIM Card Sizes The SIM cards used in GSM phones come in different sizes. Newer phones use smaller SIM cards to save space and be more compact. This isn’t a big obstacle, as the different sizes of SIM cards — full-size SIM, mini-SIM, micro-SIM, and nano-SIM are actually compatible. The only difference between them is the size of the plastic card surrounding the SIM’s chip. The actual chip is the same size between all the SIM cards. This means you can take an old SIM card and cut the plastic off until it becomes a smaller-size SIM card that fits in a modern phone. Or, you can take a smaller-size SIM card and insert it into a tray so that it becomes a larger-size SIM card that fits in an older phone. Be aware that it’s very possible to damage your SIM card and make it not work properly by cutting it to the wrong dimensions. Your cellular carrier will often be able to cut your SIM card for you or give you a new one if you want to use an old SIM card in a new phone. Hopefully they won’t overcharge you for this service, too. Be sure to check what types of networks, frequencies, and LTE bands your phone supports before trying to move it between networks. You may have to buy a new phone when moving between certain cellular carriers. Image Credit: Morgan on Flickr, 22n on Flickr

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• Seven Worlds will collide…. High Availability BI is not such a Distant Sun.

  - by Testas

  Over the last 5 years I have observed Microsoft persevere with the notion of Self Service BI over a series of conferences as far back as SQLBits V in Newport. The release of SQL Server 2012, improvements in Excel and the integration with SharePoint 2010 is making this a reality. Business users are now empowered to create their own BI reports through a number of different technologies such as PowerPivot, PowerView and Report Builder. This opens up a whole new way of working; improving staff productivity, promoting efficient decision making and delivering timely business reports. There is, however; a serious question to answer. What happens should any of these applications become unavailable? More to the point, how would the business react should key business users be unable to fulfil reporting requests for key management meetings when they require it?  While the introduction of self-service BI will provide instant access to the creation of management information reports, it will also cause instant support calls should the access to the data become unavailable. These are questions that are often overlooked when a business evaluates the need for self-service BI. But as I have written in other blog posts, the thirst for information is unquenchable once the business users have access to the data. When they are unable to access the information, you will be the first to know about it and will be expected to have a resolution to the downtime as soon as possible. The world of self-service BI is pushing reporting and analytical databases to the tier 1 application level for some of Coeo’s customers. A level that is traditionally associated with mission critical OLTP environments. There is recognition that by making BI readily available to the business user, provisions also need to be made to ensure that the solution is highly available so that there is minimal disruption to the business. This is where High Availability BI infrastructures provide a solution. As there is a convergence of technologies to support a self-service BI culture, there is also a convergence of technologies that need to be understood in order to provide the high availability architecture required to support the self-service BI infrastructure. While you may not be the individual that implements these components, understanding the concepts behind these components will empower you to have meaningful discussions with the right people should you put this infrastructure in place. There are 7 worlds that you will have to understand to successfully implement a highly available BI infrastructure   1.       Server/Virtualised server hardware/software 2.       DNS 3.       Network Load Balancing 4.       Active Directory 5.       Kerberos 6.       SharePoint 7.       SQL Server I have found myself over the last 6 months reaching out to knowledge that I learnt years ago when I studied for the Windows 2000 and 2003 (MCSE) Microsoft Certified System Engineer. (To the point that I am resuming my studies for the Windows Server 2008 equivalent to be up to date with newer technologies) This knowledge has proved very useful in the numerous engagements I have undertaken since being at Coeo, particularly when dealing with High Availability Infrastructures. As a result of running my session at SQLBits X and SQL Saturday in Dublin, the feedback I have received has been that many individuals desire to understand more of the concepts behind the first 6 “worlds” in the list above. Over the coming weeks, a series of blog posts will be put on this site to help understand the key concepts of each area as it pertains to a High Availability BI Infrastructure. Each post will not provide exhaustive coverage of the topic. For example DNS can be a book in its own right when you consider that there are so many different configuration options with Forward Lookup, Reverse Lookups, AD Integrated Zones and DNA forwarders to name some examples. What I want to do is share the pertinent points as it pertains to the BI infrastructure that you build so that you are equipped with the knowledge to have the right discussion when planning this infrastructure. Next, we will focus on the server infrastructure that will be required to support the High Availability BI Infrastructure, from both a physical box and virtualised perspective. Thanks   Chris

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• Oracle Unveils Industry’s Broadest Cloud Strategy

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  Oracle Unveils Industry’s Broadest Cloud Strategy Adds Social Cloud and Showcases early customers Redwood Shores, Calif. – June 6, 2012 “Almost seven years of relentless engineering and innovation plus key strategic acquisitions. An investment of billions. We are now announcing the most comprehensive Cloud on the planet Earth,” said Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison. “Most cloud vendors only have niche assets. They don’t have platforms to extend. Oracle is the only vendor that offers a complete suite of modern, socially-enabled applications, all based on a standards-based platform.” News Facts In a major strategy update today, Larry Ellison announced the industry’s broadest and most advanced Cloud strategy and introduced Oracle Cloud Social Services, a broad Enterprise Social Platform offering. Oracle Cloud delivers a broad set of industry-standards based, integrated services that provide customers with subscription-based access to Oracle Platform Services, Application Services, and Social Services, all completely managed, hosted and supported by Oracle. Offering a wide range of business applications and platform services, the Oracle Cloud is the only cloud to enable customers to avoid the data and business process fragmentation that occurs when using multiple, siloed public clouds. Oracle Cloud is powered by leading enterprise-grade infrastructure, including Oracle Exadata and Oracle Exalogic, providing customers and partners with a high-performance, reliable, and secure infrastructure for running critical business applications. Oracle Cloud enables easy self-service for both business users and developers. Business users can order, configure, extend, and monitor their applications. Developers and administrators can easily develop, deploy, monitor and manage their applications. As part of the event, Oracle also showcased several early Oracle Cloud customers and partners including system integrators and independent software vendors. Oracle Cloud Platform Services Built on a common, complete, standards-based and enterprise-grade set of infrastructure components, Oracle Cloud Platform Services enable customers to speed time to market and lower costs by quickly building, deploying and managing bespoke applications. Oracle Cloud Platform Services will include: Database Services to manage data and build database applications with the Oracle Database. Java Services to develop, deploy and manage Java applications with Oracle WebLogic. Developer Services to allow application developers to collaboratively build applications. Web Services to build Web applications rapidly using PHP, Ruby, and Python. Mobile Services to allow developers to build cross-platform native and HTML5 mobile applications for leading smartphones and tablets. Documents Services to allow project teams to collaborate and share documents through online workspaces and portals. Sites Services to allow business users to develop and maintain visually engaging .com sites Analytics Services to allow business users to quickly build and share analytic dashboards and reports through the Cloud. Oracle Cloud Application Services Oracle Cloud Application Services provides customers access to the industry’s broadest range of enterprise applications available in the cloud today, with built-in business intelligence, social and mobile capabilities. Easy to setup, configure, extend, use and administer, Oracle Cloud Application Services will include: ERP Services: A complete set of Financial Accounting, Project Management, Procurement, Sourcing, and Governance, Risk & Compliance solutions. HCM Services: A complete Human Capital Management solution including Global HR, Workforce Lifecycle Management, Compensation, Benefits, Payroll and other solutions. Talent Management Services: A complete Talent Management solution including Recruiting, Sourcing, Performance Management, and Learning. Sales and Marketing Services: A complete Sales and Marketing solution including Sales Planning, Territory Management, Leads & Opportunity Management, and Forecasting. Customer Experience Services: A complete Customer Service solution including Web Self-Service, Contact Centers, Knowledge Management, Chat, and e-mail Management. Oracle Cloud Social Services Oracle Cloud Social Services provides the most broad and complete enterprise social platform available in the cloud today.  With Oracle Cloud Social Services, enterprises can engage with their customers on a range of social media properties in a comprehensive and meaningful fashion including social marketing, commerce, service and listening. The platform also provides enterprises with a rich social networking solution for their employees to collaborate effectively inside the enterprise. Oracle’s integrated social platform will include: Oracle Social Network to enable secure enterprise collaboration and purposeful social networking for business. Oracle Social Data Services to aggregate data from social networks and enterprise data sources to enrich business applications. Oracle Social Marketing and Engagement Services to enable marketers to centrally create, publish, moderate, manage, measure and report on their social marketing campaigns. Oracle Social Intelligence Services to enable marketers to analyze social media interactions and to enable customer service and sales teams to engage with customers and prospects effectively. Supporting Resources Oracle Cloud – learn more cloud.oracle.com – sign up now Webcast – watch the replay 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. TrademarksOracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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• Windows Phone 7 development: first impressions

  - by DigiMortal

  After hard week in work I got some free time to play with Windows Phone 7 CTP developer tools. Although my first test application is still unfinished I think it is good moment to share my first experiences to you. In this posting I will give you quick overview of Windows Phone 7 developer tools from developer perspective. If you are familiar with Visual Studio 2010 then you will feel comfortable because Windows Phone 7 CTP developer tools base on Visual Studio 2010 Express. Project templates There are five project templates available. Three of them are based on Silverlight and two on XNA Game Studio: Windows Phone Application (Silverlight) Windows Phone List Application (Silverlight) Windows Phone Class Library (Silverlight) Windows Phone Game (XNA Game Studio) Windows Phone Game Library (XNA Game Studio) Currently I am writing to test applications. One of them is based on Windows Phone Application and the other on Windows Phone List Application project template. After creating these projects you see the following views in Visual Studio. Windows Phone Application. Click on image to enlarge. Windows Phone List Application. Click on image to enlarge.  I suggest you to use some of these templates to get started more easily. Windows Phone 7 emulator You can run your Windows Phone 7 applications on Windows Phone 7 emulator that comes with developer tools CTP. If you run your application then emulator is started automatically and you can try out how your application works in phone-like emulator. You can see screenshot of emulator on right. Currently there is opened Windows Phone List Application as it is created by default. Click on image to enlarge it. Emulator is a little bit slow and uncomfortable but it works pretty well. This far I have caused only couple of crashes during my experiments. In these cases emulator works but Visual Studio gets stuck because it cannot communicate with emulator. One important note. Emulator is based on virtual machine although you can see only phone screen and options toolbar. If you want to run emulator you must close all virtual machines running on your machine and run Visual Studio 2010 as administrator. Once you run emulator you can keep it open because you can stop your application in Visual Studio, modify, compile and re-deploy it without restarting emulator. Designing user interfaces You can design user interface of your application in Visual Studio. When you open XAML-files it is displayed in window with two panels. Left panel shows you device screen and works as visual design environment while right panel shows you XAML mark-up and let’s you modify XML if you need it. As it is one of my very first Silverlight applications I felt more comfortable with XAML editor because property names in property boxes of visual designer confused me a little bit. Designer panel is not very good because it is visually hard to follow. It has black background that makes dark borders of controls very hard to see. If you have monitor with very high contrast then it is may be not a real problem. I have usual monitor and I have problem. :) Putting controls on design surface, dragging and resizing them is also pretty painful. Some controls are drawn correctly but for some controls you have to set width and height in XML so they can be resized. After some practicing it is not so annoying anymore. On the right you can see toolbox with some controllers. This is all you get out of the box. But it is sufficient to get started. After getting some experiences you can create your own controls or use existing ones from other vendors or developers. If it is your first time to do stuff with Silverlight then keep Google open – you need it hard. After getting over the first shock you get the point very quickly and start developing at normal speed. :) Writing source code Writing source code is the most familiar part of this action. Good old Visual Studio code editor with all nice features it has. But here you get also some surprises: The anatomy of Silverlight controls is a little bit different than the one of user controls in web and forms projects. Windows Phone 7 doesn’t run on full version of Windows (I bet it is some version of Windows CE or something like this) then there is less system classes you can use. Some familiar classes have less methods that in full version of .NET Framework and in these cases you have to write all the code by yourself or find libraries or source code from somewhere. These problems are really not so much problems than limitations and you get easily over them. Conclusion Windows Phone 7 CTP developer tools help you do a lot of things on Windows Phone 7. Although I expected better performance from tools I think that current performance is not a problem. This far my first test project is going very well and Google has answer for almost every question. Windows Phone 7 is mobile device and therefore it has less hardware resources than desktop computers. This is why toolset is so limited. The more you need memory the more slower is device and as you may guess it needs the more battery. If you are writing apps for mobile devices then make your best to get your application use as few resources as possible and act as fast as possible.

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• Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 - Business Intelligence Samples

  - by smisner

  On April 14, 2010, Microsoft Press (blog | twitter) released my latest book, co-authored with Ross Mistry (twitter), as a free ebook download - Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2. As the title implies, this ebook is an introduction to the latest SQL Server release. Although you'll find a comprehensive review of the product's features in this book, you will not find the step-by-step details that are typical in my other books. For those readers who are interested in a more interactive learning experience, I have created two samples file for download: IntroSQLServer2008R2Samples project Sales Analysis workbook Here's a recap of the business intelligence chapters and the samples I used to generate the screen shots by chapter: Chapter 6: Scalable Data Warehousing covers a new edition of SQL Server, Parallel Data Warehouse. Understandably, Microsoft did not ship me the software and hardware to set up my own Parallel Data Warehouse environment for testing purposes and consequently you won't see any screenshots in this chapter. I received a lot of information and a lot of help from the product team during the development of this chapter to ensure its technical accuracy. Chapter 7: Master Data Services is a new component in SQL Server. After you install Master Data Services (MDS), which is a separate installation from SQL Server although it's found on the same media, you can install sample models to explore (which is what I did to create screenshots for the book). To do this, you deploying packages found at \Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\Master Data Services\Samples\Packages. You will first need to use the Configuration Manager (in the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2\Master Data Services program group) to create a database and a Web application for MDS. Then when you launch the application, you'll see a Getting Started page which has a Deploy Sample Data link that you can use to deploy any of the sample packages. Chapter 8: Complex Event Processing is an introduction to another new component, StreamInsight. This topic was way too large to cover in-depth in a single chapter, so I focused on information such as architecture, development models, and an overview of the key sections of code you'll need to develop for your own applications. StreamInsight is an engine that operates on data in-flight and as such has no user interface that I could include in the book as screenshots. The November CTP version of SQL Server 2008 R2 included code samples as part of the installation, but these are not the official samples that will eventually be available in Codeplex. At the time of this writing, the samples are not yet published. Chapter 9: Reporting Services Enhancements provides an overview of all the changes to Reporting Services in SQL Server 2008 R2, and there are many! In previous posts, I shared more details than you'll find in the book about new functions (Lookup, MultiLookup, and LookupSet), properties for page numbering, and the new global variable RenderFormat. I will confess that I didn't use actual data in the book for my discussion on the Lookup functions, but I did create real reports for the blog posts and will upload those separately. For the other screenshots and examples in the book, I have created the IntroSQLServer2008R2Samples project for you to download. To preview these reports in Business Intelligence Development Studio, you must have the AdventureWorksDW2008R2 database installed, and you must download and install SQL Server 2008 R2. For the map report, you must execute the PopulationData.sql script that I included in the samples file to add a table to the AdventureWorksDW2008R2 database. The IntroSQLServer2008R2Samples project includes the following files: 01_AggregateOfAggregates.rdl to illustrate the use of embedded aggregate functions 02_RenderFormatAndPaging.rdl to illustrate the use of page break properties (Disabled, ResetPageNumber), the PageName property, and the RenderFormat global variable 03_DataSynchronization.rdl to illustrate the use of the DomainScope property 04_TextboxOrientation.rdl to illustrate the use of the WritingMode property 05_DataBar.rdl 06_Sparklines.rdl 07_Indicators.rdl 08_Map.rdl to illustrate a simple analytical map that uses color to show population counts by state PopulationData.sql to provide the data necessary for the map report Chapter 10: Self-Service Analysis with PowerPivot introduces two new components to the Microsoft BI stack, PowerPivot for Excel and PowerPivot for SharePoint, which you can learn more about at the PowerPivot site. To produce the screenshots for this chapter, I created the Sales Analysis workbook which you can download (although you must have Excel 2010 and the PowerPivot for Excel add-in installed to explore it fully). It's a rather simple workbook because space in the book did not permit a complete exploration of all the wonderful things you can do with PowerPivot. I used a tutorial that was available with the CTP version as a basis for the report so it might look familiar if you've already started learning about PowerPivot. In future posts, I'll continue exploring the new features in greater detail. If there's any special requests, please let me know! Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 04, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 04, 2010New ProjectsAlbum photo de club - Club's Photos Album: Un album photos permettant d'afficher les photos et le détails des membres d'un club - Photo album allowing to view photos and details of the membersBlog.Net Blogging Components: Blog.Net server-side blogging components to add a blog to your current ASP.NET website.FilePirate - Really Advanced LAN File Sharing: Really Advanced, yet super easy, LAN Party File Sharing written using the .Net Framework and C#. Ditch DirectConnect or Windows File Sharing at y...Fisiogest: Programa de gestión de una clínica de fisioterapiaIdeaNMR: An online repository of NMR experiment automated setups with wiki type documentation library and client program providing automated experiment setu...Introducción a Unity: Código de ejemplo del uso de Unity en diferentes situaciones. - Registro de clases, instancias e interfaces. - Resolución de clases, instancias e...Iowa City .NET Developers: This is the project site for the Iowa City .NET Developers.isanywhere: A command line utility to see if one or more files (given a filemask) are to be found anywhere inside a specific directory, or elsewhere inside one...LczCode: lczLog4net udp logs viewer: UdpLogViewer is a .NET 4 WinForm application that receives udp messages from log4net and shows them in a grid. It is possible to filter them or sh...New Silverlight XPS Viewer (In Sl4): New Silverlight XPS viewer Novuz: Novuz is a usenet indexer and reporter. It's developed both in Visual Studio 2010 and MonoDevelop, one of the key features of Novuz is that it sho...PodSnatch: PodSnatch is a podcast client that makes it easy to download rss-enclosures. Multiple simultaneous downloads enabled by threading. GUI is built wi...Robot Shootans: A simple top down shooter game where the player has to kill robots running at them. Written in C++ using SDL with various extentionsSharePoint Rsync List: This program will syncronize files and directories from and unc/local/sharepoint to a SharePoint 2007 or 2010 server. Supports of to 2GB files and ...SignInAndStorageLib: SignInAndStorageLib makes properly handling both sign in and storage issues in Xbox 360 XBLIG XNA games simple. Written in C#, SignInAndStorageLib...SilverBBS: ANSI-style bbs experience delivered via Silverlight. Silverlight flip-down counter: A Silverlight widget that enables you to count down towards a preconfigured event on a configured date.SmartieFly: Smartie Fly is a quiz software program written in C# using Silverlight. It uses SQL Server as a backend database. VS2010 Framework Driven Testing: CodedUITests generate a lot of code, and they break on every change to the object under test. Goals: - write new tests manually, but with as litt...WMediaCatalog: Advanced multimedia cataloguer. Allows users to keep their musical collections well organized and provides flexible methods of filtering, serarching WPathFinder: A simple path management application for windows. Functionality includes: - Add/remove/change path entries easily. - Search for all instances of a...Yasminoku: Yasminoku is an open source "Sudoku" alike game totally written in DHTML (JavaScript, CSS and HTML) that uses mouse. Includes sudoku solver. This c...New ReleasesAlbum photo de club - Club's Photos Album: App - version 0.4: version 0.4 - Critère d'affichage des membres : nom, année, ville - Navigation entre les images d'un membres - Navigation entre les membres - Affi...Album photo de club - Club's Photos Album: Code - Version 0.4: Code source de la version 0.4BigDecimal: Concept Evaluation Release 2 (BigDecimals): This in the second updates release of BigDecimals. It has the four simple arithmetic rules Addition, Subtract, Multiple and Division.CBM-Command: 2010-05-03: New features in this build Keyboard Shortcuts Panel Swapping Panel Toggling On/Off Toggling 40/80 Columns Confirming Quit Confirming GO64...Directory Linker: Directory Linker 2: This release introduces Undo Support and Symbolic File Link support. More details can be found here http://www.humblecoder.co.uk/?p=141DotNetNuke Skins Pack: DotNetNuke 80 Skins Pack: This released is the first for DNN 4 & 5 with Skin Token Design (legacy skin support on DNN 4 & 5)DTLoggedExec: 1.0.0.0: -FIRST NON-BETA RELEASE! :) -Code cleaned up -Added SetPackageInfo method to ILogProvider interface to make easier future improvements -Deprecated...GenerateTypedBamApi: Version 2.1: Changes in this release: NEW: Support for Office Data Connectivity Components 2010 NEW: Include both x86 and x64 EXE's due to lack of support in ...HobbyBrew Mobile: Beta 1 Refresh: Risolto bug circa il salvataggio di ricette (veniva impostato scorrettamente che si trattava di Mash Design "infusione" se ri-aperte con hobbyBrew)...Home Access Plus+: v4.2: Version 4.2 Added Overrides into the Booking System Some slight CSS changes to the Help Desk Updated the config tool to work anywhere on the LA...Hubble.Net - Open source full-text search database: V0.8.3.0: V0.8.3.0 Show server version in about dialog. Fix a bug of deleting querycache files. V0.8.2.9 Change sql client to support userid and password Ch...IdeaNMR: IdeaNMR Client: This is a client program with an example package.kdar: KDAR 0.0.21: KDAR - Kernel Debugger Anti Rootkit - signature's bases updated - usability increased - NDIS6 MINIPORT_BLOCK checks addedLightWeight Application Server: 0.4.1: One step further to beta - yet another release for c# developers audience only. Changes: 1. API - added a LWAS.Infrastructure.Storage service to d...Log4net udp logs viewer: UdpLogViewer 1.0: First release of UdpLogViewer, version 1.0.MDownloader: MDownloader-0.15.11.58370: Fixed minor bugs.Metabolite Enterprise Libraries for EPiServer CMS using Page Type Builder: Metabolite Enterprise Libraries 1.2 Beta 2: This is the beta release of the Metabolite Enterprise Libraries 1.2 Beta 2 for use with EPiServer 6 and Page Type Builder 1.2 Beta 2.Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework: Version 1.4.3 Installer: Pre-release Installer for Visual Studio 2010 and Expression Blend 4 RCSupports both Silverlight 3 and Silverlight 4 Release NotesFixed null referen...MultipointTUIO: Multipoint SDK v1.5 Release: Rebuilt against v1.5 of the Microsoft Multipoint SDK, this mean Windows 7 support (and 64bit I think!)My Notepad: My Notepad: This is the status of My Notepad until now. This is many built in features but has to undergo a lot of modifications. The release does not include ...New Silverlight XPS Viewer (In Sl4): Silverlight XPS Viewer: Background: During my development last week I was working on a Silverlight based XPS viewer. During this viewer we came to a situation in which the...NSIS Autorun: NSIS Autorun 0.1.6: This release includes source code, executable binary, files and example materials.Open Diagram: Open Diagram 5.0 Beta May 2010: This is the first beta release of Open Diagram 5.0. Select Crainiate.Diagramming.Examples.Forms as the startup project to view the current Class D...Pocket Wiki: PC Wiki (zip) 1.0.1: PC Version of Pocket Wiki. Unzip and run. Requires .NET Framework 2.0Pocket Wiki: Pocket Wiki 1.0.1 (cab): Pocket Wiki cab installation - requires DotNet 2.0 or greater. Default wiki language is "slash" - a syntax I created that is easy to type on keyboa...Pocket Wiki: Pocket Wiki.sbp: Pocket Wiki Source Code (version .72) - Basic4PPCPublish to Photo Frame: 1.0.2.0: This version adds: add borders to portrait images, for photo frames that crop them incorrectly.Reflection Studio: Reflection Studio 0.1: First download release, it contains a lot of things but allways in beta version. Hope you will like the preview.SharePoint 2010 PowerShell Scripts & Utilities: PSSP2010 Utils 0.1: This is the initial release with SPInstallUtils.psm1 module. This module includes Get-SPPrerequisites and New-SPInstallPackage cmdlets. Refer to th...Silverlight 4.0 Popup Menu: Context Menu for Silverlight 4.0 v1.1 Beta: Multilevel menus are now supported. Added design time support for the PopupMenuItem elements. The project is now under Subversion.Silverlight flip-down counter: FlipDownCounter v1.0: The final release of the Silverlight flip-down counter. Please refer to the included readme file for information on how to use the counter.Stratosphere: Stratosphere 1.0.0.1: Moved scalable block file system implementation to Stratosphere.FileSystemSystem.AddIn Pipeline Builder: Pipeline Builder 1.2: Lots of improvements from the CTP, version 1.0: - Added dialogue for possible overwrite if the file has changed: possibility of ignoring changes (p...ThoughtWorks Cruise Notification Interceptor: 1.0.1: Fixed an issue with the regex that parses the incoming notification. This issue would send failure messages when the build was "fixed".ThreadSafeControls: ThreadSafeControls v0.1: This is the first binary release of the ThreadSafeControls library. I'll call it a pre-alpha release.TracerX Logger/Viewer for .NET: 4.0: View this CodeProject article for documentation on how to use the latest version of the Logger. About the DownloadsVersion: 4.0.1005.1163 Changese...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30503.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVisual Studio DSite: Lottery Game (Visual C++ 2008): An advanced lottery game made in visual c 2008.VivoSocial: VivoSocial 7.1.3: Version 7.1.3 of VivoSocial has been released. If you experienced any issues with the previous version, please update your modules to the 7.1.3 rel...Xrns2XMod: Xrns2XMod 1.0: Features added Conversion of all possible convertible features between Renoise and MOD / XM. FlacBox lib updated (thanks to Yuri) NAudio lib in...Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: Databasepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibrarySilverlight ToolkitiTuner - The iTunes CompanionWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETDotNetNuke® Community EditionMost Active ProjectsIonics Isapi Rewrite Filterpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryRawrHydroServer - CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System ServerAJAX Control Frameworkpatterns & practices: Azure Security GuidanceNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleBlogEngine.NETTinyProjectDambach Linear Algebra Framework

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• Sun Fire X4800 M2 Delivers World Record TPC-C for x86 Systems

  - by Brian

  Oracle's Sun Fire X4800 M2 server equipped with eight 2.4 GHz Intel Xeon Processor E7-8870 chips obtained a result of 5,055,888 tpmC on the TPC-C benchmark. This result is a world record for x86 servers. Oracle demonstrated this world record database performance running Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition with Partitioning. The Sun Fire X4800 M2 server delivered a new x86 TPC-C world record of 5,055,888 tpmC with a price performance of $0.89/tpmC using Oracle Database 11g Release 2. This configuration is available 06/26/12. The Sun Fire X4800 M2 server delivers 3.0x times better performance than the next 8-processor result, an IBM System p 570 equipped with POWER6 processors. The Sun Fire X4800 M2 server has 3.1x times better price/performance than the 8-processor 4.7GHz POWER6 IBM System p 570. The Sun Fire X4800 M2 server has 1.6x times better performance than the 4-processor IBM x3850 X5 system equipped with Intel Xeon processors. This is the first TPC-C result on any system using eight Intel Xeon Processor E7-8800 Series chips. The Sun Fire X4800 M2 server is the first x86 system to get over 5 million tpmC. The Oracle solution utilized Oracle Linux operating system and Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 2 with Partitioning to produce the x86 world record TPC-C benchmark performance. Performance Landscape Select TPC-C results (sorted by tpmC, bigger is better) System p/c/t tpmC Price/tpmC Avail Database MemorySize Sun Fire X4800 M2 8/80/160 5,055,888 0.89 USD 6/26/2012 Oracle 11g R2 4 TB IBM x3850 X5 4/40/80 3,014,684 0.59 USD 7/11/2011 DB2 ESE 9.7 3 TB IBM x3850 X5 4/32/64 2,308,099 0.60 USD 5/20/2011 DB2 ESE 9.7 1.5 TB IBM System p 570 8/16/32 1,616,162 3.54 USD 11/21/2007 DB2 9.0 2 TB p/c/t - processors, cores, threads Avail - availability date Oracle and IBM TPC-C Response times System tpmC Response Time (sec) New Order 90th% Response Time (sec) New Order Average Sun Fire X4800 M2 5,055,888 0.210 0.166 IBM x3850 X5 3,014,684 0.500 0.272 Ratios - Oracle Better 1.6x 1.4x 1.3x Oracle uses average new order response time for comparison between Oracle and IBM. Graphs of Oracle's and IBM's response times for New-Order can be found in the full disclosure reports on TPC's website TPC-C Official Result Page. Configuration Summary and Results Hardware Configuration: Server Sun Fire X4800 M2 server 8 x 2.4 GHz Intel Xeon Processor E7-8870 4 TB memory 8 x 300 GB 10K RPM SAS internal disks 8 x Dual port 8 Gbs FC HBA Data Storage 10 x Sun Fire X4270 M2 servers configured as COMSTAR heads, each with 1 x 3.06 GHz Intel Xeon X5675 processor 8 GB memory 10 x 2 TB 7.2K RPM 3.5" SAS disks 2 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array storage (1.92 TB each) 1 x Brocade 5300 switches Redo Storage 2 x Sun Fire X4270 M2 servers configured as COMSTAR heads, each with 1 x 3.06 GHz Intel Xeon X5675 processor 8 GB memory 11 x 2 TB 7.2K RPM 3.5" SAS disks Clients 8 x Sun Fire X4170 M2 servers, each with 2 x 3.06 GHz Intel Xeon X5675 processors 48 GB memory 2 x 300 GB 10K RPM SAS disks Software Configuration: Oracle Linux (Sun Fire 4800 M2) Oracle Solaris 11 Express (COMSTAR for Sun Fire X4270 M2) Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 (Sun Fire X4170 M2) Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition with Partitioning Oracle iPlanet Web Server 7.0 U5 Tuxedo CFS-R Tier 1 Results: System: Sun Fire X4800 M2 tpmC: 5,055,888 Price/tpmC: 0.89 USD Available: 6/26/2012 Database: Oracle Database 11g Cluster: no New Order Average Response: 0.166 seconds Benchmark Description TPC-C is an OLTP system benchmark. It simulates a complete environment where a population of terminal operators executes transactions against a database. The benchmark is centered around the principal activities (transactions) of an order-entry environment. These transactions include entering and delivering orders, recording payments, checking the status of orders, and monitoring the level of stock at the warehouses. Key Points and Best Practices Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition with Partitioning scales easily to this high level of performance. COMSTAR (Common Multiprotocol SCSI Target) is the software framework that enables an Oracle Solaris host to serve as a SCSI Target platform. COMSTAR uses a modular approach to break the huge task of handling all the different pieces in a SCSI target subsystem into independent functional modules which are glued together by the SCSI Target Mode Framework (STMF). The modules implementing functionality at SCSI level (disk, tape, medium changer etc.) are not required to know about the underlying transport. And the modules implementing the transport protocol (FC, iSCSI, etc.) are not aware of the SCSI-level functionality of the packets they are transporting. The framework hides the details of allocation providing execution context and cleanup of SCSI commands and associated resources and simplifies the task of writing the SCSI or transport modules. Oracle iPlanet Web Server middleware is used for the client tier of the benchmark. Each web server instance supports more than a quarter-million users while satisfying the response time requirement from the TPC-C benchmark. See Also Oracle Press Release -- Sun Fire X4800 M2 TPC-C Executive Summary tpc.org Complete Sun Fire X4800 M2 TPC-C Full Disclosure Report tpc.org Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) Home Page Ideas International Benchmark Page Sun Fire X4800 M2 Server oracle.com OTN Oracle Linux oracle.com OTN Oracle Solaris oracle.com OTN Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition oracle.com OTN Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array oracle.com OTN Disclosure Statement TPC Benchmark C, tpmC, and TPC-C are trademarks of the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC). Sun Fire X4800 M2 (8/80/160) with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition with Partitioning, 5,055,888 tpmC, $0.89 USD/tpmC, available 6/26/2012. IBM x3850 X5 (4/40/80) with DB2 ESE 9.7, 3,014,684 tpmC, $0.59 USD/tpmC, available 7/11/2011. IBM x3850 X5 (4/32/64) with DB2 ESE 9.7, 2,308,099 tpmC, $0.60 USD/tpmC, available 5/20/2011. IBM System p 570 (8/16/32) with DB2 9.0, 1,616,162 tpmC, $3.54 USD/tpmC, available 11/21/2007. Source: http://www.tpc.org/tpcc, results as of 7/15/2011.

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• Dotfuscator Deep Dive with WP7

  - by Bil Simser

  I thought I would share some experience with code obfuscation (specifically the Dotfuscator product) and Windows Phone 7 apps. These days twitter is a buzz with black hat and white operations coming out about how the marketplace is insecure and Microsoft failed, blah, blah, blah. So it’s that much more important to protect your intellectual property. You should protect it no matter what when releasing apps into the wild but more so when someone is paying for them. You want to protect the time and effort that went into your code and have some comfort that the casual hacker isn’t going to usurp your next best thing. Enter code obfuscation. Code obfuscation is one tool that can help protect your IP. Basically it goes into your compiled assemblies, rewrites things at an IL level (like renaming methods and classes and hiding logic flow) and rewrites it back so that the assembly or executable is still fully functional but prying eyes using a tool like ILDASM or Reflector can’t see what’s going on.  You can read more about code obfuscation here on Wikipedia. A word to the wise. Code obfuscation isn’t 100% secure. More so on the WP7 platform where the OS expects certain things to be as they were meant to be. So don’t expect 100% obfuscation of every class and every method and every property. It’s just not going to happen. What this does do is give you some level of protection but don’t put all your eggs in one basket and call it done. Like I said, this is just one step in the process. There are a few tools out there that provide code obfuscation and support the Windows Phone 7 platform (see links to other tools at the end of this post). One such tool is Dotfuscator from PreEmptive solutions. The thing about Dotfuscator is that they’ve struck a deal with Microsoft to provide a *free* copy of their commercial product for Windows Phone 7. The only drawback is that it only runs until March 31, 2010. However it’s a good place to start and the focus of this article. Getting Started When you fire up Dotfuscator you’re presented with a dialog to start a new project or load a previous one. We’ll start with a new project. You’re then looking at a somewhat blank screen that shows an Input tab (among others) and you’re probably wondering what to do? Click on the folder icon (first one) and browse to where your xap file is. At this point you can save the project and click on the arrow to start the process. Bam! You’re done. Right? Think again. The program did indeed run and create a new version of your xap (doing it’s thing and rewriting back your *obfuscated* assemblies) but let’s take a look at the assembly in Reflector to see the end result. Remember a xap file is really just a glorified zip file (or cab file if you prefer). When you ran Dotfuscator for the first time with the default settings you’ll see it created a new version of your xap in a folder under “My Documents” called “Dotfuscated” (you can configure the output directory in settings). Here’s the new xap file. Since a xap is just a zip, rename it to .cab or .zip or something and open it with your favorite unarchive program (I use WinRar but it doesn’t matter as long as it can unzip files). If you already have the xap file associated with your unarchive tool the rename isn’t needed. Once renamed extract the contents of the xap to your hard drive: Now you’ll have a folder with the contents of the xap file extracted: Double click or load up your assembly (WindowsPhoneDataBoundApplication1.dll in the example) in Reflector and let’s see the results: Hmm. That doesn’t look right. I can see all the methods and the code is all there for my LoadData method I wanted to protect. Product failure. Let’s return it for a refund. Hold your horses. We need to check out the settings in the program first. Remember when we loaded up our xap file. It started us on the Input tab but there was a settings tab before that. Wonder what it does? Here’s the default settings: Renaming Taking a closer look, all of the settings in Feature are disabled. WTF? Yeah, it leaves me scratching my head why an obfuscator by default doesn’t obfuscate. However it’s a simple fix to change these settings. Let’s enable Renaming as it sounds like a good start. Renaming obscures code by renaming methods and fields to names that are not understandable. Great. Run the tool again and go through the process of unzipping the updated xap and let’s take a look in Reflector again at our project. This looks a lot better. Lots of methods named a, b, c, d, etc. That’ll help slow hackers down a bit. What about our logic that we spent days weeks on? Let’s take a look at the LoadData method: What gives? We have renaming enabled but all of our code is still there. If you look through all your methods you’ll find it’s still sitting there out in the open. Control Flow Back to the settings page again. Let’s enable Control Flow now. Control Flow obfuscation synthesizes branching, conditional, and iterative constructs (such as if, for, and while) that produce valid executable logic, but yield non-deterministic semantic results when decompilation is attempted. In other words, the code runs as before, but decompilers cannot reproduce the original code. Do the dance again and let’s see the results in Reflector. Ahh, that’s better. Methods renamed *and* nobody can look at our LoadData method now. Life is good. More than Minimum This is the bare minimum to obfuscate your xap to at least a somewhat comfortable level. However I did find that while this worked in my Hello World demo, it didn’t work on one of my real world apps. I had to do some extra tweaking with that. Below are the screens that I used on one app that worked. I’m not sure what it was about the app that the approach above didn’t work with (maybe the extra assembly?) but it works and I’m happy with it. YMMV. Remember to test your obfuscated app on your device first before submitting to ensure you haven’t obfuscated the obfuscator. settings tab: rename tab: string encryption tab: premark tab: A few final notes Play with the settings and keep bumping up the bar to try to get as much obfuscation as you can. The more the better but remember you can overdo it. Always (always, always, always) deploy your obfuscated xap to your device and test it before submitting to the marketplace. I didn’t and got rejected because I had gone overboard with the obfuscation so the app wouldn’t launch at all. Not everything is going to be obfuscated. Specifically I don’t see a way to obfuscate auto properties and a few other language features. Again, if you crank the settings up you might hide these but I haven’t spent a lot of time optimizing the process. Some people might say to obfuscate your xaml using string encryption but again, test, test, test. Xaml is picky so too much obfuscation (or any) might disable your app or produce odd rendering effets. Remember, obfuscation is not 100% secure! Don’t rely on it as a sole way of protecting your assets. Other Tools Dotfuscator is one just product and isn’t the end-all be-all to obfuscation so check out others below. For example, Crypto can make it so Reflector doesn’t even recognize the app as a .NET one and won’t open it. Others can encrypt resources and Xaml markup files. Here are some other obfuscators that support the Windows Phone 7 platform. Feel free to give them a try and let people know your experience with them! Dotfuscator Windows Phone Edition Crypto Obfuscator for .NET DeepSea Obfuscation

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• Metro: Promises

  - by Stephen.Walther

  The goal of this blog entry is to describe the Promise class in the WinJS library. You can use promises whenever you need to perform an asynchronous operation such as retrieving data from a remote website or a file from the file system. Promises are used extensively in the WinJS library. Asynchronous Programming Some code executes immediately, some code requires time to complete or might never complete at all. For example, retrieving the value of a local variable is an immediate operation. Retrieving data from a remote website takes longer or might not complete at all. When an operation might take a long time to complete, you should write your code so that it executes asynchronously. Instead of waiting for an operation to complete, you should start the operation and then do something else until you receive a signal that the operation is complete. An analogy. Some telephone customer service lines require you to wait on hold – listening to really bad music – until a customer service representative is available. This is synchronous programming and very wasteful of your time. Some newer customer service lines enable you to enter your telephone number so the customer service representative can call you back when a customer representative becomes available. This approach is much less wasteful of your time because you can do useful things while waiting for the callback. There are several patterns that you can use to write code which executes asynchronously. The most popular pattern in JavaScript is the callback pattern. When you call a function which might take a long time to return a result, you pass a callback function to the function. For example, the following code (which uses jQuery) includes a function named getFlickrPhotos which returns photos from the Flickr website which match a set of tags (such as “dog” and “funny”): function getFlickrPhotos(tags, callback) { $.getJSON( "http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?jsoncallback=?", { tags: tags, tagmode: "all", format: "json" }, function (data) { if (callback) { callback(data.items); } } ); } getFlickrPhotos("funny, dogs", function(data) { $.each(data, function(index, item) { console.log(item); }); }); The getFlickr() function includes a callback parameter. When you call the getFlickr() function, you pass a function to the callback parameter which gets executed when the getFlicker() function finishes retrieving the list of photos from the Flickr web service. In the code above, the callback function simply iterates through the results and writes each result to the console. Using callbacks is a natural way to perform asynchronous programming with JavaScript. Instead of waiting for an operation to complete, sitting there and listening to really bad music, you can get a callback when the operation is complete. Using Promises The CommonJS website defines a promise like this (http://wiki.commonjs.org/wiki/Promises): “Promises provide a well-defined interface for interacting with an object that represents the result of an action that is performed asynchronously, and may or may not be finished at any given point in time. By utilizing a standard interface, different components can return promises for asynchronous actions and consumers can utilize the promises in a predictable manner.” A promise provides a standard pattern for specifying callbacks. In the WinJS library, when you create a promise, you can specify three callbacks: a complete callback, a failure callback, and a progress callback. Promises are used extensively in the WinJS library. The methods in the animation library, the control library, and the binding library all use promises. For example, the xhr() method included in the WinJS base library returns a promise. The xhr() method wraps calls to the standard XmlHttpRequest object in a promise. The following code illustrates how you can use the xhr() method to perform an Ajax request which retrieves a file named Photos.txt: var options = { url: "/data/photos.txt" }; WinJS.xhr(options).then( function (xmlHttpRequest) { console.log("success"); var data = JSON.parse(xmlHttpRequest.responseText); console.log(data); }, function(xmlHttpRequest) { console.log("fail"); }, function(xmlHttpRequest) { console.log("progress"); } ) The WinJS.xhr() method returns a promise. The Promise class includes a then() method which accepts three callback functions: a complete callback, an error callback, and a progress callback: Promise.then(completeCallback, errorCallback, progressCallback) In the code above, three anonymous functions are passed to the then() method. The three callbacks simply write a message to the JavaScript Console. The complete callback also dumps all of the data retrieved from the photos.txt file. Creating Promises You can create your own promises by creating a new instance of the Promise class. The constructor for the Promise class requires a function which accepts three parameters: a complete, error, and progress function parameter. For example, the code below illustrates how you can create a method named wait10Seconds() which returns a promise. The progress function is called every second and the complete function is not called until 10 seconds have passed: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; function wait10Seconds() { return new WinJS.Promise(function (complete, error, progress) { var seconds = 0; var intervalId = window.setInterval(function () { seconds++; progress(seconds); if (seconds > 9) { window.clearInterval(intervalId); complete(); } }, 1000); }); } app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { wait10Seconds().then( function () { console.log("complete") }, function () { console.log("error") }, function (seconds) { console.log("progress:" + seconds) } ); } } app.start(); })(); All of the work happens in the constructor function for the promise. The window.setInterval() method is used to execute code every second. Every second, the progress() callback method is called. If more than 10 seconds have passed then the complete() callback method is called and the clearInterval() method is called. When you execute the code above, you can see the output in the Visual Studio JavaScript Console. Creating a Timeout Promise In the previous section, we created a custom Promise which uses the window.setInterval() method to complete the promise after 10 seconds. We really did not need to create a custom promise because the Promise class already includes a static method for returning promises which complete after a certain interval. The code below illustrates how you can use the timeout() method. The timeout() method returns a promise which completes after a certain number of milliseconds. WinJS.Promise.timeout(3000).then( function(){console.log("complete")}, function(){console.log("error")}, function(){console.log("progress")} ); In the code above, the Promise completes after 3 seconds (3000 milliseconds). The Promise returned by the timeout() method does not support progress events. Therefore, the only message written to the console is the message “complete” after 10 seconds. Canceling Promises Some promises, but not all, support cancellation. When you cancel a promise, the promise’s error callback is executed. For example, the following code uses the WinJS.xhr() method to perform an Ajax request. However, immediately after the Ajax request is made, the request is cancelled. // Specify Ajax request options var options = { url: "/data/photos.txt" }; // Make the Ajax request var request = WinJS.xhr(options).then( function (xmlHttpRequest) { console.log("success"); }, function (xmlHttpRequest) { console.log("fail"); }, function (xmlHttpRequest) { console.log("progress"); } ); // Cancel the Ajax request request.cancel(); When you run the code above, the message “fail” is written to the Visual Studio JavaScript Console. Composing Promises You can build promises out of other promises. In other words, you can compose promises. There are two static methods of the Promise class which you can use to compose promises: the join() method and the any() method. When you join promises, a promise is complete when all of the joined promises are complete. When you use the any() method, a promise is complete when any of the promises complete. The following code illustrates how to use the join() method. A new promise is created out of two timeout promises. The new promise does not complete until both of the timeout promises complete: WinJS.Promise.join([WinJS.Promise.timeout(1000), WinJS.Promise.timeout(5000)]) .then(function () { console.log("complete"); }); The message “complete” will not be written to the JavaScript Console until both promises passed to the join() method completes. The message won’t be written for 5 seconds (5,000 milliseconds). The any() method completes when any promise passed to the any() method completes: WinJS.Promise.any([WinJS.Promise.timeout(1000), WinJS.Promise.timeout(5000)]) .then(function () { console.log("complete"); }); The code above writes the message “complete” to the JavaScript Console after 1 second (1,000 milliseconds). The message is written to the JavaScript console immediately after the first promise completes and before the second promise completes. Summary The goal of this blog entry was to describe WinJS promises. First, we discussed how promises enable you to easily write code which performs asynchronous actions. You learned how to use a promise when performing an Ajax request. Next, we discussed how you can create your own promises. You learned how to create a new promise by creating a constructor function with complete, error, and progress parameters. Finally, you learned about several advanced methods of promises. You learned how to use the timeout() method to create promises which complete after an interval of time. You also learned how to cancel promises and compose promises from other promises.

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