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• SQLBeat Podcast – Episode 4 – Mark Rasmussen on Machine Guns,Jelly Fish and SQL Storage Engine

  - by SQLBeat

  In this this 4th SQLBeat Podcast I talk with fellow Dane Mark Rasmussen on SQL, machine guns and jelly fish fights; apparently they are common in our homeland. Who am I kidding, I am not Danish, but I try to be in this podcast. Also, we exchange knowledge on SQL Server storage engine particulars as well as some other “internals” like password hashes and contained databases. And then it just gets weird and awesome. There is lots of background noise from people who did not realize we were recording. And I call them out and make fun of them as they deserve; well just one person who is well known in these parts. I also learn the correct (almost) pronunciation of “fjord”. Seriously, a word with an “F” followed by a “J”. And there are always the hippies and hipsters to discuss. Should be fun.

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• Migrating a Windows Server to Ubuntu Server to provide Samba, AFP and Roaming Profiles

  - by Dan

  I'm replacing our old Windows XP Pro office server with a HP Microserver running Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS. I'm not a Linux expert but I can find my way around a terminal prompt, I'm a Mac user by choice. The office use a mix of Windows XP Pro machines and OSX Lion laptops. I included Samba during installation, and I'm planning on using Netatalk for the AFP and Bonjour sharing. I'd quite like to have samba make the server appear in 'My network places' on the Windows machines the way Bonjour makes it appear in finder on the Macs, if this is possible? I want to get to a point so that a user logging into Windows, gets connected to the Ubuntu server (do they need an Ubuntu user account?) which get them their shares and their Windows user profile (though a standard profile across users would do). The upshot is to make centralised control of user accounts (e.g. If a person leaves, killing their account on the server stops their Windows logon and ability to access Samba shares) and to ensure files aren't stored on the individual machines for backup/security purposes. I want to make this as simple as possible, so don't want to have loads of stuff I don't need, I just can't figure out: What I need at the server end: - will Samba be enough (already installed as part of initial installation), or will I need to cock around with LDAP (and how does this interact with Samba) - For someone of moderate Linux competence like me, is there a package that offers easy admin of user accounts, e.g. a GUI like phpLDAPadmin (if LDAP is necessary) How to configure the XP machines: - do I need to have the XP machines set up as a domain controller (I've no idea, really) - roaming profiles looks to offer the feature of putting the user's files on the server rather than the machine itself along with a profile that follows the user from machine to machine. Syncing Mac user's home folders with the server This is less of a concern because I can set up Time Machine if it comes to it, but I'd appreciate any recommendations of what approach I should take having the Mac home folders synced to the server.

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• Back up a single table in SQL Server

  - by BuckWoody

  SQL Server doesn’t have an easy way to take a table backup, so I often use the bcp (Bulk Copy Program) to accomplish the same goal. I’ve mentioned this before, and someone told me when they tried it they couldn’t restore the table – ah the dangers of telling people half the information! I should have mentioned that you need to have a “format file” ready if the table does not exist at the destination. In my case I already had the table, in this person’s case they did not. The format file can be used to rebuild that table structure before the data is bcp’d in, and you can read more about it here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms191516.aspx There’s another way to back up a table, and that’s to create a Filegroup and place the table there. Then you can take a Filegroup backup to back up a single table. Of course, there are other methods of moving a single table’s data in an out, including SQL Server Integration Services and even the older Data Transformation Services, or simply by using hte SQLCMD or PowerShell utilities to run a query and just save the output to a file. In fact, these days I’m using a PowerShell script to build INSERT statements from that query. That could also easily be modified to create the table structure (or modify one if needed) quite easily. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Keep your Root Authorities up to date

  - by John Breakwell

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Plumbersmate/archive/2013/06/20/keep-your-root-authorities-up-to-date.aspxBy default, Windows will automatically update it’s internal list of trusted root authorities as long as the Update Root Certificates function is installed. This should be enabled by default and takes manual intervention to remove it. With this component enabled, the following happens: If you are presented with a certificate issued by an untrusted root authority, your computer will contact the Windows Update Web site to see if Microsoft has added the CA to its list of trusted authorities. If it has been added to the Microsoft list of trusted authorities, its certificate will automatically be added to your trusted certificate store. If the component is not installed and a certificate from an untrusted CA is encountered then the following text will be seen: This is an inconvenience for the person browsing the site as they need to click to continue. Applications, though, will be unable to proceed and will throw an exception. Example: ERROR_WINHTTP_SECURE_FAILURE 12175 (0x00002F8F) One or more errors were found in the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate sent by the server. If you look at the certificate’s properties, you can see the “Issued by:” value:   This must match a Trusted Root Certificate Authority in the current user’s certificate store.   So turn on automatic updating of trusted root authority certificates. For Windows Vista and above, this option is controlled through Group Policy. See the “To Turn Off the Update Root Certificates Feature by Using Group Policy” section of the following Technet article: Certificate Support and Resulting Internet Communication in Windows Vista If Windows Update is a blocked site then download and deploy the latest pack of root certificates from Microsoft: Update for Root Certificates For Windows XP [May 2013] (KB931125)   Failing that, find a machine that has the latest root certificates installed and export them from there: Open up the Certificates console. Right-click the required Trusted Root Certificate Authority certificate Choose Export from “All Tasks” to open up the Certificate Export Wizard Choose an export file format – DER should be fine Provide a file name and complete the export. Move the file to the machine that’s missing the certificate Right-click the file and choose “Install Certificate” to open up the Certificate Import Wizard Allow the wizard to automatically select the certificate store and complete the import On a side note, for troubleshooting certificate issues it can be helpful to clear the SSL state:

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• Developing professionally for iOS, Android and web - an insight

  - by Scott Roberts

  This is not really a question on how to develop all three, I know various cross platform ways and so on. But I more want to know from developer standpoint how hard it is to basically develop iOS, Android and web apps? I am currently in my first job as a mobile/web developer. I have already developed my first iPhone/iPad app and now I have to develop the app for android because the web version I tried just didn't perform as well as needed and web databases just did not seem to make the cut. But I am not sure it's possible to be good at developing all 3 in terms of remembering all the api's etc. I wouldn't say I have an issue with the programming languages just how to use the api's for the various platforms. Also, all the other languages I look at, in my spare time, just feel like I am spreading myself to thin. Is it feasible for one person to be developing ios, android and web apps? Should I think about reducing it to iOS and web based apps? I develop everything by myself, so I have no one to discuss what the best solutions are for everything and I am just trying to workout as I go along. So any cross platform developers out there? Do companies have different teams for different platforms? Any insight would just help me get my head together. Hopefully this question makes sense.

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• Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Will Arrive Tomorrow (4/22/2010)

  - by chung.wu

  Launch Checklist: . Software - checked . User Manual - checked . Release Notes - checked . Launch Venue - checked . Camera - checked . Sound System - checked . Network Connection - checked . Catering - checked . Webcast Setup - checked . Las Vegas Simulcast - checked Checked ... checked ... checked ... We are in the final hours of preparing for Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g launch. Team OEM has descended in New York City to get ready, and our team in Las Vegas is in place for the simulcast. We are going to be making some noise. In fact, we made so much noise this morning that we even woke up the stock market. :-) This is going to be an awesome launch event. Please join us either in person or over the web by registering using one of the links below. Click here to register for the live event in New York City. Click here to register for the webcast. The simulcast event at Collaborate will be held in Palm B room on Level 3 of Mandalay Bay Convention Center starting at 9:45 a.m. local time.

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• NetBeans PHP Community Council

  - by Tomas Mysik

  Hi all, today we would like to inform all of you that now you have a chance to improve NetBeans via NetBeans PHP Community Council. The author of this activity is Timur Poperecinii and he would like to tell you a few words about it. Hello passionate technical people, First of all let me introduce myself: my name is Timur, I’m a developer from Moldova (that little country between Romania and Ukraine), I develop mostly in .NET and JQuery, but I love to learn more, not being an expert I am familiar with Java (Struts2, Play), PHP (Symfony2), Ruby (Rails), Sencha Touch 2 and other technologies. I was “introduced” in PHP recently by a client of mine who requested to make the work specifically in PHP. Let me tell you a little story about my experience with open source and IDEs: when I was studying in university in 2007 I think, I did a simple little application in PHP and thought “Damn, if only there was a good IDE for PHP so I could relax and no having to remember all the function names”, then when I searched on internet pretty much everyone was using Vim or Emacs on Linux, but it had no autocomplete anyway, just syntax highlighting. I remember using some tool like Notepad++ I think. Nowadays everything changed, we have highlighting and autocomplete for about all standard things in PHP in many IDEs. I use NetBeans for PHP, and I really am happy with the experience I have there with standard PHP code, but for frameworks I still think there is lots of room for improvements. For example we have some Symfony 2 and Twig support. But I’d love to see more of that coming, for example I’m a big fan of file templates, where the main goal is to not waste time on writing over and over again something that can be generated, and it counts even more when you don’t have a lot of autocomplete. So what I thought, “Hey I know Java a little, and NetBeans has plugins, so may be it worth trying to do a file templates plugin”, and so I did, you can find details about my Unified Udevi Symfony2 Plugin for NetBeans 7.2 on my blog. It wasn’t hard, and it even was fun! Give back to open source Now think a little, NetBeans is an open source project and PHP support is just a part of it, so the resources are pretty limited in this area. But we as a community that uses this product, want to have the best possible experience with PHP and frameworks(!!!). So why don’t we GIVE BACK TO OPENSOURCE ? Imagine an IDE that can do all the things you wanted + it is free. Now how far is NetBeans from that point? I guess not so far – you might miss a little niche thing that you use on a daily basis, but then the question appears why don’t you make it happen on your own? NetBeans PHP Community Council What I proposed is to create a NetBeans PHP Community Council that will be formed of people willing to change something, willing to create plugins for their own needs and for the needs of the community, test the plugins created by them too, and basically evolve NetBeans in direction they want to reach. I already talked with the NetBeans PHP team. They are only happy to help this Council, with technical advises, opening some APIs we might need to have access to, and other things. One important thing to mention is that this Council is a Community project, so though we’ll have direct discussions with NetBeans PHP Dev team, NetBeans is not the leading force here, it is the community. You can see more details about the goals and structure I proposed at NetBeans PHP Community Council wiki page. We use this mail list: [email protected] for discussions and topics related to the Council. How can I join To join the NetBeans PHP Community Council please send an email to [email protected] with the subject of the mail starting with [Council New Member]. You can subscribe to this mail list here:http://netbeans.org/projects/php/lists. in your mail please indicate your location, age and experience both in Java and PHP. I need these data to assign you to a team. A response will be send to you with your next assignment and some people to contact. I really hope that you’ll make a step forward and try to make your everyday use of NetBeans even more fun.

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• How to use a list of values in Excel as filter in a query

  - by Luca Zavarella

  It often happens that a customer provides us with a list of items for which to extract certain information. Imagine, for example, that our clients wish to have the header information of the sales orders only for certain orders. Most likely he will give us a list of items in a column in Excel, or, less probably, a simple text file with the identification code:     As long as the given values ??are at best a dozen, it costs us nothing to copy and paste those values ??in our SSMS and place them in a WHERE clause, using the IN operator, making sure to include the quotes in the case of alphanumeric elements (the database sample is AdventureWorks2008R2): SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader AS SOH WHERE SOH.SalesOrderNumber IN ( 'SO43667' ,'SO43709' ,'SO43726' ,'SO43746' ,'SO43782' ,'SO43796') Clearly, the need to add commas and quotes becomes an hassle when dealing with hundreds of items (which of course has happened to us!). It’d be comfortable to do a simple copy and paste, leaving the items as they are pasted, and make sure the query works fine. We can have this commodity via a User Defined Function, that returns items in a table. Simply we’ll provide the function with an input string parameter containing the pasted items. I give you directly the T-SQL code, where comments are there to clarify what was written: CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[SplitCRLFList] (@List VARCHAR(MAX)) RETURNS @ParsedList TABLE ( --< Set the item length as your needs Item VARCHAR(255) ) AS BEGIN DECLARE --< Set the item length as your needs @Item VARCHAR(255) ,@Pos BIGINT --< Trim TABs due to indentations SET @List = REPLACE(@List, CHAR(9), '') --< Trim leading and trailing spaces, then add a CR\LF at the end of the list SET @List = LTRIM(RTRIM(@List)) + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10) --< Set the position at the first CR/LF in the list SET @Pos = CHARINDEX(CHAR(13) + CHAR(10), @List, 1) --< If exist other chars other than CR/LFs in the list then... IF REPLACE(@List, CHAR(13) + CHAR(10), '') <> '' BEGIN --< Loop while CR/LFs are over (not found = CHARINDEX returns 0) WHILE @Pos > 0 BEGIN --< Get the heading list chars from the first char to the first CR/LF and trim spaces SET @Item = LTRIM(RTRIM(LEFT(@List, @Pos - 1))) --< If the so calulated item is not empty... IF @Item <> '' BEGIN --< ...insert it in the @ParsedList temporary table INSERT INTO @ParsedList (Item) VALUES (@Item) --(CAST(@Item AS int)) --< Use the appropriate conversion if needed END --< Remove the first item from the list... SET @List = RIGHT(@List, LEN(@List) - @Pos - 1) --< ...and set the position to the next CR/LF SET @Pos = CHARINDEX(CHAR(13) + CHAR(10), @List, 1) --< Repeat this block while the upon loop condition is verified END END RETURN END At this point, having created the UDF, our query is transformed trivially in: SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader AS SOH WHERE SOH.SalesOrderNumber IN ( SELECT Item FROM SplitCRLFList('SO43667 SO43709 SO43726 SO43746 SO43782 SO43796') AS SCL) Convenient, isn’t it? You can find the script DBA_SplitCRLFList.sql here. Bye!!

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• Choosing the right language for the job

  - by Ampt

  I'm currently working for a company on the engineering team of about 5-6 people and have been given the job of heading up the redesign of an embedded system tester. We've decided the general requirements and attributes that would be desirable in the system, and now I have to decide on a language to use for the system, or at the very least come up with a list of languages with pros and cons to present to the team. The general idea of the project is that we currently have a tester written in c++, which was never designed to be a tester, but instead has evolved to be such over the course of 3-4 years due to need. Writing tests for a new product requires modifying the 'framework' and writing code that is completely non-human readable or intuitive due to the way the system was originally designed. Now, we've decided that the time to modify this tester for each new product that we want to test has become too high and want to partially re-write the system so that we can program the actual tests in a scripting language that would then use the modified c++ framework on the back end to test the actual systems. The c++ framework would be responsible for doing all the actual work and the scripting language would just integrate with that to tell the framework what to do. Never having programmed in a scripting language (we program embedded systems), I've run into a wall where I have no experience with any of the languages that we could possibly use, but must somehow give pros and cons of each language so that we can choose the best one for the job. Currently my short list of possibilities includes: Python TCL Lua Perl My question is this: How can a person evaluate a language that he/she has never used before? What criteria are good indicators for a languages potential usability on a project? While helpful suggestions for my particular case are appreciated, I feel that this is a good skill to possess and would like to be able to apply this to many different projects if at all possible

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• JMSContext, @JMSDestinationDefintion, DefaultJMSConnectionFactory with simplified JMS API: TOTD #213

  - by arungupta

  "What's New in JMS 2.0" Part 1 and Part 2 provide comprehensive introduction to new messaging features introduced in JMS 2.0. The biggest improvement in JMS 2.0 is introduction of the "new simplified API". This was explained in the Java EE 7 Launch Technical Keynote. You can watch a complete replay here. Sending and Receiving a JMS message using JMS 1.1 requires lot of boilerplate code, primarily because the API was designed 10+ years ago. Here is a code that shows how to send a message using JMS 1.1 API: @Statelesspublic class ClassicMessageSender { @Resource(lookup = "java:comp/DefaultJMSConnectionFactory") ConnectionFactory connectionFactory; @Resource(mappedName = "java:global/jms/myQueue") Queue demoQueue; public void sendMessage(String payload) { Connection connection = null; try { connection = connectionFactory.createConnection(); connection.start(); Session session = connection.createSession(false, Session.AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE); MessageProducer messageProducer = session.createProducer(demoQueue); TextMessage textMessage = session.createTextMessage(payload); messageProducer.send(textMessage); } catch (JMSException ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } finally { if (connection != null) { try { connection.close(); } catch (JMSException ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } } } }} There are several issues with this code: A JMS ConnectionFactory needs to be created in a application server-specific way before this application can run. Application-specific destination needs to be created in an application server-specific way before this application can run. Several intermediate objects need to be created to honor the JMS 1.1 API, e.g. ConnectionFactory -> Connection -> Session -> MessageProducer -> TextMessage. Everything is a checked exception and so try/catch block must be specified. Connection need to be explicitly started and closed, and that bloats even the finally block. The new JMS 2.0 simplified API code looks like: @Statelesspublic class SimplifiedMessageSender { @Inject JMSContext context; @Resource(mappedName="java:global/jms/myQueue") Queue myQueue; public void sendMessage(String message) { context.createProducer().send(myQueue, message); }} The code is significantly improved from the previous version in the following ways: The JMSContext interface combines in a single object the functionality of both the Connection and the Session in the earlier JMS APIs.  You can obtain a JMSContext object by simply injecting it with the @Inject annotation.  No need to explicitly specify a ConnectionFactory. A default ConnectionFactory under the JNDI name of java:comp/DefaultJMSConnectionFactory is used if no explicit ConnectionFactory is specified. The destination can be easily created using newly introduced @JMSDestinationDefinition as: @JMSDestinationDefinition(name = "java:global/jms/myQueue",        interfaceName = "javax.jms.Queue") It can be specified on any Java EE component and the destination is created during deployment. JMSContext, Session, Connection, JMSProducer and JMSConsumer objects are now AutoCloseable. This means that these resources are automatically closed when they go out of scope. This also obviates the need to explicitly start the connection JMSException is now a runtime exception. Method chaining on JMSProducers allows to use builder patterns. No need to create separate Message object, you can specify the message body as an argument to the send() method instead. Want to try this code ? Download source code! Download Java EE 7 SDK and install. Start GlassFish: bin/asadmin start-domain Build the WAR (in the unzipped source code directory): mvn package Deploy the WAR: bin/asadmin deploy <source-code>/jms/target/jms-1.0-SNAPSHOT.war And access the application at http://localhost:8080/jms-1.0-SNAPSHOT/index.jsp to send and receive a message using classic and simplified API. A replay of JMS 2.0 session from Java EE 7 Launch Webinar provides complete details on what's new in this specification: Enjoy!

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• How does this game loop actually work?

  - by Nicolai

  I read this playfulJS post, about ray-casting: http://www.playfuljs.com/a-first-person-engine-in-265-lines/ It looks really interested, so I decided to look at his javascript. I am no expert in javascript, so I quickly got lost. It's the game loop "object" that really gets me. I simply don't understand how it works. From the code: function GameLoop() { this.frame = this.frame.bind(this); this.lastTime = 0; this.callback = function() {}; } GameLoop.prototype.start = function(callback) { this.callback = callback; requestAnimationFrame(this.frame); }; GameLoop.prototype.frame = function(time) { var seconds = (time - this.lastTime) / 1000; this.lastTime = time; if (seconds < 0.2) this.callback(seconds); requestAnimationFrame(this.frame); }; var loop = new GameLoop(); loop.start(function frame(seconds) { map.update(seconds); player.update(controls.states, map, seconds); camera.render(player, map); }); Now, what really confuses me here, is this bind stuff and how this actually loops. I am guessing, that if less than 0.2 seconds have passed, since the last time the loop was run, it simply goes back to re-check the time. If more than 0.2 seconds have passed, it leaves the frame function, and executes the 3 lines in the loop. But, if this is true, then how does the loop.start() get called again? And what on earth is the meaning of this.frame = this.frame.bind(this);? I've looked up prototypes bind() but I really don't understand it.

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• Should we have a database independent SQL like query language in Django?

  - by Yugal Jindle

  Note : I know we have Django ORM already that keeps things database independent and converts to the database specific SQL queries. Once things starts getting complicated it is preferred to write raw SQL queries for better efficiency. When you write raw sql queries your code gets trapped with the database you are using. I also understand its important to use the full power of your database that can-not be achieved with the django orm alone. My Question : Until I use any database specific feature, why should one be trapped with the database. For instance : We have a query with multiple joins and we decided to write a raw sql query. Now, that makes my website postgres specific. Even when I have not used any postgres specific feature. I feel there should be some fake sql language which can translate to any database's sql query. Even Django's ORM can be built over it. So, that if you go out of ORM but not database specific - you can still remain database independent. I asked the same question to Jacob Kaplan Moss (In person) : He advised me to stay with the database that I like and endure its whole power, to which I agree. But my point was not that we should be database independent. My point is we should be database independent until we use a database specific feature. Please explain, why should be there a fake sql layer over the actual sql ?

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• How to slow down a sprite that updates every frame?

  - by xiaohouzi79

  I am going through a Allegro 5 tutorial which has a game loop. There is also a variable "active" which determines if a key is being held down. Thus if the left key is being held down active is on and it begins looping through the row on the sprite sheet that corresponds to moving left. The problem is that this logic is checked everytime the loop is performed thus at approximately 60 fps the three images that are used to do the left walking animation cycle round super fast which means my character looks like it is in a rush. Total beginner question: so what is the correct way to slow down the transition between sprites so that the walking looks like it is done at a moderate pace. Here is the code used to transition across the sprite between the three different phases of the person walking: if (active) { sourceX += al_get_bitmap_width(player) / 3; } else { sourceX = 32; } if (sourceX >= al_get_bitmap_width(player)) { sourceX = 0; } I can kind of guess what it should be in plain English: update sourceX only every certain part of a second but I can't think of how to put this into code.

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• Growing mobile developers inside a web development org

  - by Arkaaito

  I work for a "mature web startup" as a web developer (mainly using PHP). Our main site has about 8 million registered members at the moment. However, the site is basically impossible to use on anything that's not a real computer. One of our most-requested features, if not the most requested, is a mobile app or mobile version of the site. I think we need to do it. Management thinks we need to do it. In fact, everyone in the company thinks we need to do it. But it's nigh impossible to hire someone with iPhone/Android skills in the present market. I'm the only person at the company with any level of mobile development experience currently, and I'm not that good (yet), so I'm seeking comments on how to bootstrap a capacity for mobile development. Anything from general tips (should I focus on developing my personal skills first or try to pick up a more experienced mobile dev?) to specific recommendations on training, etc., may be helpful, as long as it doesn't reduce to "sucks to be you." :-)

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• AT&T - Customer service hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

  - by AreYouSerious

  Okay, I'm a separated 2 time Iraq war veteran, living in Germany Supporting the military. About a year and a hald ago I bought an iPhone 4 off a guy from Craigslist. I thought the phone was unlocked, but when I got to Germany I realized it was not. I called AT&T and they told me that due to the contract with Apple they could not unlock any iPhone period. After the lawsuit with Apple, they started unlocking iPhones. So Today I called up their customer support and asked if they could unlock my phone. They said that they would only do it if I were a previous customer, could provide the information from the person that I had bought it from, or if I bought one at cost.-note, it has a baseband that is not able to be "unlocked" by software.Hello I already own the device, and a year and a half ago I bought it off someone that couldn't afford it... so no, I don't have the at&t account information from him. Just another example of why I won't ever use AT&T again. and I still have this iPhone that I have to jail break, and can't use a a phone. STAY AWAY FROM AT&T. They don't know the meaning of customer service!

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• Are project managers useful in Scrum?

  - by Martin Wickman

  There are three roles defined in Scrum: Team, Product Owner and Scrum Master. There is no project manager, instead the project manager job is spread across the three roles. For instance: The Scrum Master: Responsible for the process. Removes impediments. The Product Owner: Manages and prioritizes the list of work to be done to maximize ROI. Represents all interested parties (customers, stakeholders). The Team: Self manage its work by estimating and distributing it among themselves. Responsible for meeting their own commitments. So in Scrum, there is no longer a single person responsible for project success. There is no command-and-control structure in place. That seems to baffle a lot of people, specifically those not used to agile methods, and of course, PM's. I'm really interested in this and what your experiences are, as I think this is one of the things that can make or break a Scrum implementation. Do you agree with Scrum that a project manager is not needed? Do you think such a role is still required? Why?

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• Advice for Storing and Displaying Dates and Times Across Different Time Zones

  A common question I receive from clients, colleagues, and 4Guys readers is for recommendations on how best to store and display dates and times in a data-driven web application. One of the challenges in storing and displaying dates in a web application is that it is quite likely that the visitors arriving at your site are not in the same time zone as your web server; moreover, it's very likely that your site attracts visitors from many different time zones from around the world. Consider an online messageboard site, like ASPMessageboard.com, where each of 1,000,000+ posts includes the date and time it was made. Imagine a user from New York leaves a post on April 7th at 4:30 PM and that the web server hosting the site is located in Dallas, Texas, which is one hour earlier than New York. When storing that post to the database do you record the post's date and time relative to the visitor (4:30 PM), the relative to the web server (3:30 PM), or some other value? And when displaying this post how do you show that date and time to a reader in San Francisco, which is three hours earlier than New York? Do you show the time relative to the person who made the post (4:30 PM), relative to the web server (3:30 PM), or relative to the user (1:30 PM)? And if you decide to store or display the date based on the poster's or visitor's time zone then how do you know their time zone and its offset? How do you account for daylight savings, and so on? This article provides guidance on how to store and display dates and times for visitors across different time zones and includes a demo that gives a working example of some of these techniques. Read on to learn more! Read More >

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• Subterranean IL: Custom modifiers

  - by Simon Cooper

  In IL, volatile is an instruction prefix used to set a memory barrier at that instruction. However, in C#, volatile is applied to a field to indicate that all accesses on that field should be prefixed with volatile. As I mentioned in my previous post, this means that the field definition needs to store this information somehow, as such a field could be accessed from another assembly. However, IL does not have a concept of a 'volatile field'. How is this information stored? Attributes The standard way of solving this is to apply a VolatileAttribute or similar to the field; this extra metadata notifies the C# compiler that all loads and stores to that field should use the volatile prefix. However, there is a problem with this approach, namely, the .NET C++ compiler. C++ allows methods to be overloaded using properties, like volatile or const, on the parameters; this is perfectly legal C++: public ref class VolatileMethods { void Method(int *i) {} void Method(volatile int *i) {} } If volatile was specified using a custom attribute, then the VolatileMethods class wouldn't be compilable to IL, as there is nothing to differentiate the two methods from each other. This is where custom modifiers come in. Custom modifiers Custom modifiers are similar to custom attributes, but instead of being applied to an IL element separately to its declaration, they are embedded within the field or parameter's type signature itself. The VolatileMethods class would be compiled to the following IL: .class public VolatileMethods { .method public instance void Method(int32* i) {} .method public instance void Method( int32 modreq( [mscorlib]System.Runtime.CompilerServices.IsVolatile)* i) {} } The modreq([mscorlib]System.Runtime.CompilerServices.IsVolatile) is the custom modifier. This adds a TypeDef or TypeRef token to the signature of the field or parameter, and even though they are mostly ignored by the CLR when it's executing the program, this allows methods and fields to be overloaded in ways that wouldn't be allowed using attributes. Because the modifiers are part of the signature, they need to be fully specified when calling such a method in IL: call instance void Method( int32 modreq([mscorlib]System.Runtime.CompilerServices.IsVolatile)*) There are two ways of applying modifiers; modreq specifies required modifiers (like IsVolatile), and modopt specifies optional modifiers that can be ignored by compilers (like IsLong or IsConst). The type specified as the modifier argument are simple placeholders; if you have a look at the definitions of IsVolatile and IsLong they are completely empty. They exist solely to be referenced by a modifier. Custom modifiers are used extensively by the C++ compiler to specify concepts that aren't expressible in IL, but still need to be taken into account when calling method overloads. C++ and C# That's all very well and good, but how does this affect C#? Well, the C++ compiler uses modreq(IsVolatile) to specify volatility on both method parameters and fields, as it would be slightly odd to have the same concept represented using a modifier or attribute depending on what it was applied to. Once you've compiled your C++ project, it can then be referenced and used from C#, so the C# compiler has to recognise the modreq(IsVolatile) custom modifier applied to fields, and vice versa. So, even though you can't overload fields or parameters with volatile using C#, volatile needs to be expressed using a custom modifier rather than an attribute to guarentee correct interoperability and behaviour with any C++ dlls that happen to come along. Next up: a closer look at attributes, and how certain attributes compile in unexpected ways.

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• Knowledge Transfer without a Plan

  - by Kanini

  Hello...We are doing work for a particular client managing their CRM implementation. (The CRM itself is a product which has been largely customized to suit my client's needs). Now, they want us to manage the Oracle batch jobs/ETL as well. And for this, they are ready to provide us with Knowledge Transfer. (The Oracle batch jobs/ETL is managed in-house by the client now). After much persuasion, I got one of the Project Lead (designation-wise) to email the client asking for a KT Plan. (The Project Lead kept saying that they have never had KT plans before and all that for which I offered I will draft a template and even that was rejected!). Email from us to them - Can you please share with us the KT Plan? Response from them - Not sure what is expected from my side? The KT is planned for tomorrow from 11 am onwards where Functional knowledge of existing ETL Data migration package will be shared. How do you handle such a client? Most likely what is going to happen is this. The person who is giving the KT will say that I have given complete Knowledge Transfer and we will go back and say that "No, this was not covered. For this, they provided an overview alone and left it at that!" and so on... My Project Lead also did not respond to that email. He just said that the meeting is scheduled to happen at 11 AM (basically repeating whatever the email said and left for the day!). What could I possibly do? PS: Look for another job is a very helpful answer, but I am not looking for it. :-)

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• SQLAuthority News – Presenting at Tech-Ed On Road – Ahmedabad – June 11, 2011 – Wait Types and Queues

  - by pinaldave

  I will be presenting in person on the subject SQL Server Wait Types and Queues at Ahmedabad on June 11, 2011. Here is the quick summary of the session. SQL Server Waits and Queues – Your Gateway to Perf. Troubleshooting Time: 11:15am – 12:15pm – June 11, 2011 Just like a horoscope, SQL Server Waits and Queues can reveal your past, explain your present and predict your future. SQL Server Performance Tuning uses the Waits and Queues as a proven method to identify the best opportunities to improve performance. A glance at Wait Types can tell where there is a bottleneck. Learn how to identify bottlenecks and potential resolutions in this fast paced, advanced performance tuning session. This session is based on my performance tuning Wait Types and Queues series. SQL SERVER – Summary of Month – Wait Type – Day 28 of 28 During the session there will be Quiz and those who gets right answer will get very interesting gifts from me. Do not miss a single minute of the event. We are also going to have two rock star speakers – Harish Vaidyanathan and Jacob Sebastian. Here is the details for the event: SQLAuthority News – Community Tech Days – TechEd on The Road – Ahmedabad – June 11, 2011 Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, T SQL, Technology

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• Who writes the words? A rant with graphs.

  - by Roger Hart

  If you read my rant, you'll know that I'm getting a bit of a bee in my bonnet about user interface text. But rather than just yelling about the way the world should be (short version: no UI text would suck), it seemed prudent to actually gather some data. Rachel Potts has made an excellent first foray, by conducting a series of interviews across organizations about how they write user interface text. You can read Rachel's write up here. She presents the facts as she found them, and doesn't editorialise. The result is insightful, but impartial isn't really my style. So here's a rant with graphs. My method, and how it sucked I sent out a short survey. Survey design is one of my hobby-horses, and since some smartarse in the comments will mention it if I don't, I'll step up and confess: I did not design this one well. It was potentially ambiguous, implicitly excluded people, and since I only really advertised it on Twitter and a couple of mailing lists the sample will be chock full of biases. Regardless, these were the questions: What do you do? Select the option that best describes your role What kind of software does your organization make? (optional) In your organization, who writes the text on your software user interfaces? (for example: button names, static text, tooltips, and so on) Tick all that apply. In your organization who is responsible for user interface text? Who "owns" it? The most glaring issue (apart from question 3 being a bit broken) was that I didn't make it clear that I was asking about applications. Desktop, mobile, or web, I wouldn't have minded. In fact, it might have been interesting to categorize and compare. But a few respondents commented on the seeming lack of relevance, since they didn't really make software. There were some other issues too. It wasn't the best survey. So, you know, pinch of salt time with what follows. Despite this, there were 100 or so respondents. This post covers the overview, and you can look at the raw data in this spreadsheet What did people do? Boring graph number one: I wasn't expecting that. Given I pimped the survey on twitter and a couple of Tech Comms discussion lists, I was more banking on and even Content Strategy/Tech Comms split. What the "Others" specified: Three people chipped in with Technical Writer. Author, apparently, doesn't cut it. There's a "nobody reads the instructions" joke in there somewhere, I'm sure. There were a couple of hybrid roles, including Tech Comms and Testing, which sounds gruelling and thankless. There was also, an Intranet Manager, a Creative Director, a Consultant, a CTO, an Information Architect, and a Translator. That's a pretty healthy slice through the industry. Who wrote UI text? Boring graph number two: Annoyingly, I made this a "tick all that apply" question, so I can't make crude and inflammatory generalizations about percentages. This is more about who gets involved in user interface wording. So don't panic about the number of developers writing UI text. First off, it just means they're involved. Second, they might be good at it. What? It could happen. Ours are involved - they write a placeholder and flag it to me for changes. Sometimes I don't make any. It's also not surprising that there's so much UX in the mix. Some of that will be people taking care, and crafting an understandable interface. Some of it will be whatever text goes on the wireframe making it into production. I'm going to assume that's what happened at eBay, when their iPhone app purportedly shipped with the placeholder text "Some crappy content goes here". Ahem. Listing all 17 "other" responses would make this post lengthy indeed, but you can read them in the raw data spreadsheet. The award for the approach that sounds the most like a good idea yet carries the highest risk of ending badly goes to whoever offered up "External agencies using focus groups". If you're reading this, and that actually works, leave a comment. I'm fascinated. Who owned UI text Stop. Bar chart time: Wow. Let's cut to the chase, and by "chase", I mean those inflammatory generalizations I was talking about: In around 60% of cases the person responsible for user interface text probably lacks the relevant expertise. Even in the categories I count as being likely to have relevant skills (Marketing Copywriters, Content Strategists, Technical Authors, and User Experience Designers) there's a case for each role being unsuited, as you'll see in Rachel's blog post So it's not as simple as my headline. Does that mean that you personally, Mr Developer reading this, write bad button names? Of course not. I know nothing about you. It rather implies that as a category, the majority of people looking after UI text have neither communication nor user experience as their primary skill set, and as such will probably only be good at this by happy accident. I don't have a way of measuring those frequency of those accidents. What the Others specified: I don't know who owns it. I assume the project manager is responsible. "copywriters" when they wish to annoy me. the client's web maintenance person, often PR or MarComm That last one chills me to the bone. Still, at least nobody said "the work experience kid". You can see the rest in the spreadsheet. My overwhelming impression here is of user interface text as an unloved afterthought. There were fewer "nobody" responses than I expected, and a much broader split. But the relative predominance of developers owning and writing UI text suggests to me that organizations don't see it as something worth dedicating attention to. If true, that's bothersome. Because the words on the screen, particularly the names of things, are fundamental to the ability to understand an use software. It's also fascinating that Technical Authors and Content Strategists are neck and neck. For such a nascent discipline, Content Strategy appears to have made a mark on software development. Or my sample is skewed. But it feels like a bit of validation for my rant: Content Strategy is eating Tech Comms' lunch. That's not a bad thing. Well, not if the UI text is getting done well. And that's the caveat to this whole post. I couldn't care less who writes UI text, provided they consider the user and don't suck at it. I care that it may be falling by default to people poorly disposed to doing it right. And I care about that because so much user interface text sucks. The most interesting question Was one I forgot to ask. It's this: Does your organization have technical authors/writers? Like a lot of survey data, that doesn't tell you much on its own. But once we get a bit dimensional, it become more interesting. So taken with the other questions, this would have let me find out what I really want to know: What proportion of organizations have Tech Comms professionals but don't use them for UI text? Who writes UI text in their place? Why this happens? It's possible (feasible is another matter) that hundreds of companies have tech authors who don't work on user interfaces because they've empirically discovered that someone else, say the Marketing Copywriter, is better at it. And once we've all finished laughing, I'll point out that I've met plenty of tech authors who just aren't used to thinking about users at the point of need in the way UI text and embedded user assistance require. If you've got what I regard, perhaps unfairly, as the bad kind of tech author - the old-school kind with the thousand-page pdf and the grammar obsession - if you've got one of those then you probably are better off getting the UX folk or the copywriters to do your UI text. At the very least, they'll derive terminology from user research.

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• Duke at JavaOne

  - by Tori Wieldt

  A living, life-size Duke is a popular feature at every JavaOne developer conference.  One of the highlights for attendees is to meet Duke "in person" and get their picture taken. It's fun to show to your friends...and try to explain why you are standing next to a tooth.* While Duke refused any interviews, I found a slip of paper stuck to Duke's foot. If you wonder why I give 100%,The community deserves no less.Neither JavaOne.They both deserve the best! So much of the world we enjoy today,and the places we're sure to advanceis due to engineering brillianceand gives our species that chance. So when I dance and give it my allas Duke, to rally some cheer,the honor and the privilegemakes me smile, ear to ear. *Duke was designed to represent a "software agent" that performed tasks for the user. In 2006, Duke was officially open sourced under a BSD license. Developers and designers can play around with Duke and have access to Duke’s graphical specifications through a java.net project at http://duke.kenai.com. JavaOne attendees can find Duke in the Zone all week.

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• How to Generate Spritesheet from a 'problematic' animated Symbol in Flash Pro CS6?

  - by Arthur Wulf White

  In the new Flash Pro CS6 there is an option to generate spriteheet from a symbol. I used these tutorials: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/using-sprite-sheet-generator.html http://tv.adobe.com/watch/cs6-creative-cloud-feature-tour-for-web/generating-sprite-sheets-using-flash-professional-cs6/ And it works really well! An artist I'm working with created a bunch of assets for a game. One of them is a walking person as seen from a top-down view. You can find the .fla here: https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B3L2bumwc4onRGhLcGNId1p2Szg/edit (If this does not work let me know, it is the first time I used Google Drive to share files) 1 .When I press ctrl+enter I can see it is moving. When I look for the animation, I do not seem to find it. When I select to create a spritesheet, flash suggest creating a spritesheet with one frame in the base pose and no other (animation) frames. What is causing this and how do I correct it? 2 .I want to convert it to a sprite sheet for 32 angles of movement. Is there any magical easy way to get this done? Is there a workaround without using Flash CS6 to do the same thing?

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• Oracle’s Java Community Outreach Plan

  - by Tori Wieldt

  As the steward of Java, Oracle recognizes the importance and value of the Java community, and the relevant role it plays in keeping Java the largest, most vibrant developer community in the world.   In order to increase Oracle’s touch with Java developers worldwide, we are shifting our focus from a flagship JavaOne event followed by several regional JavaOne conferences, to a new outreach model which continues with the JavaOne flagship event, as well as a mix of online content, regional Java Tours, and regional 3rd party event participation.  1. JavaOne JavaOne continues to remain the premier hub for Java developers where you are given the opportunity to improve your Java technical skills, and interact with other members of the Java community. JavaOne is centered on open collaboration and sharing, and Oracle will continue to invest in JavaOne as a unique stand-alone event for the Java community. Oracle recognizes that many developers cannot attend JavaOne in person, therefore Oracle will share the wealth of the unique event material to those developers through a new and easy-to-access online Java program. While online JavaOne content cannot address the importance of actual face-to-face community/developer engagements and networking, online content does aide in extending the Java technical learning opportunity to a broader collection of developers. 2. Java Developer Day Tours Oracle will execute regional Java Developer Days with recognized Java User Groups (JUGs) with participation from Java Evangelist and Java Champions. This allows local, regional specific Java topics to be addressed both by Oracle and the Java community. In addition, Oracle will deliver more virtual technical content programs to reach developers where an existing JUG may not have a presence. 3. Sponsorship of Community-Driven Regional Events/Conferences Oracle also recognizes that improved community dialog and relations are achievable by continued Oracle sponsorship and onsite participation at both established/well-recognized 3rd party events and new emerging/growing 3rd party events. Oracle’s ultimate goal is to be an even better steward for Java by reaching more of the Java ecosystem with face-to-face and online community engagements. We look forward to planning tours and events with you, members of the Java community.

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• Are programmers a bunch of heartless robots who are lacking of empathy? [closed]

  - by Graviton

  OK, the provocative title got your attention. My experience as a programmer and dealing with my fellow programmers is that, a programmer is also usually someone who is so consumed by his programming work, so absorbed in his algorithmic construction that he has little passion/ time left for anything else, which includes empathy for other people, love and care for the people whom he love or should love ( such as their spouses, parents, kids, colleagues etc). The better a person is in terms of his programming powers, the more defective he is in terms of love/care because both honing programming skills and loving the surrounding takes time and one has only so much time to be allocated among so many different things. Also, programming ( especially INTERESTING programming job, like, writing an AI to predict the future search trend) is a highly consuming job; it doesn't just consume you from 9 to 5, it will also consume you after 5 and practically every second of your waking hours because a good programmer can't just magically switch off his thinking hat after the office lights go off ( If you can then I don't really think you are a passionate programmer, and the prerequisite of a good programmer is passion). So, a good programmer is necessarily someone who can't love as much as others do because the very nature of the programming job prevents him from loving others as much as he wants to. Do you concur with my observation/ reasoning?

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