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• SQLAuthority News – Getting Ready to Learn SQL Server

  - by pinaldave

  If you have read my earlier blog post you must be aware of how I am always eager to learn new things. I have signed up for three days learning course at Koenig Solutions for End to End SQL Server Business Intelligence. You may wonder why I sign up for the course on SQL Server when it seems that I know a lot about it. Well, the belief is incorrect that I know a lot. I think there are plenty of things which I have been dreaming to learn. Why am I learning SQL Server? First of all – I do not know everything and second it is always a good idea to learn more. No matter how old we get or how much we think we know – there are always details which we can learn and refresh few concepts. Learning is never ending process philosophically but it is true as well in reality. SQL Server 2012 is already released earlier this year and there are plenty of enhancements released. Recently I was going over the list of the all the new feature and enhancement and I realized that there few things about SQL Server 2008 R2 I never got a chance to have a hand’s on experience and we have entered into the era of SQL Server 2012. I feel a bit bad about it and I decided to make it a priority for me to learn all the missing experiences. Quick Action – Registration The very same day I called up my friend who owns Koenig Solution and expressed my concern and requested his help. During my early career when I was a SQL Server Trainer, we had some good synergy between us and now they are very successful offshore training company by having a physical location in Delhi,  Goa, Dahradun, Shimla, Goa and Bangalore. I quickly visited their Bangalore Center and paid my fees for learning SQL Server Business Intelligence course. Very next second I got call from my friend suggesting that I learn this course from Delhi instead of Bangalore. As per him I should travel to Delhi and learn the course how other students are learning “Away from Home”. This made sense as I stay in Bangalore and if I return home after a long day of learning, I will be not able to practice for the next day as there will be “sweet distraction” of the family. Well I opted for Delhi. What Registration Fees Included I learned from registration processes that the following were included in the fees. 3 meals every day (hearty breakfast, lunch from premium restaurants and home cooked like dinner) Airport pick up and drop Hotel Stay Internet at hotel and at learning institute Unlimited coffee and snacks at learning institute Printed Learning Material Certification Fees (if applicable) Learning material … And of course classroom training I thought registration process was over when I paid fees. Well, I was in for a very nice surprise. Registration Experience – Bliss! Within few hours I received emails from Center Manager of Delhi with all the necessary details I need to know about my learning experience. The email contained following information in detail and it blew me away. Details of the pick up from airport – driver information Details of Delhi and important information List of all the important people and emergency contact details Internet connection details Detail of the trainer and all the training details and lots of other relevant information Well so far everything looks great. Tomorrow I will reach to Delhi and I will share how things go on. Any suggestion for things to do in Delhi? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, T SQL, Technology

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• Silverlight Cream for February 21, 2011 -- #1049

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Rob Eisenberg(-2-), Gill Cleeren, Colin Eberhardt, Alex van Beek, Ishai Hachlili, Ollie Riches, Kevin Dockx, WindowsPhoneGeek(-2-), Jesse Liberty(-2-), and John Papa. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Silverlight 4: Creating useful base classes for your views and viewmodels with PRISM 4" Alex van Beek WP7: "Google Sky on Windows Phone 7" Colin Eberhardt Shoutouts: My friends at SilverlightShow have their top 5 for last week posted: SilverlightShow for Feb 14 - 20, 2011 From SilverlightCream.com: Rob Eisenberg MVVMs Us with Caliburn.Micro! Rob Eisenberg chats with Carl and Richard on .NET Rocks episode 638 about Caliburn.Micro which takes Convention-over-Configuration further, utilizing naming conventions to handle a large number of data binding, validation and other action-based characteristics in your app. Two Caliburn Releases in One Day! Rob Eisenberg also announced that release candidates for both Caliburn 2.0 and Caliburn.Micro 1.0 are now available. Check out the docs and get the bits. Getting ready for Microsoft Silverlight Exam 70-506 (Part 6) Gill Cleeren has Part 6 of his series on getting ready for the Silverlight Exam up at SilverlightShow.... this time out, Gill is discussing app startup, localization, and using resource dictionaries, just to name a few things. Google Sky on Windows Phone 7 Colin Eberhardt has a very cool WP7 app described where he's using Google Sky as the tile source for Bing Maps, and then has a list of 110 Messier Objects.. interesting astronomical objects that you can look at... all with source! Silverlight 4: Creating useful base classes for your views and viewmodels with PRISM 4 Alex van Beek has some Prism4/Unity MVVM goodness up with this discussion of a login module using View and ViewModel base classes. Windows Phone 7 and WCF REST – Authentication Solutions Ishai Hachlili sent me this link to his post about WCF REST web service and authentication for WP7, and he offers up 2 solutions... from the looks of this, I'm also putting his blog on my watch list WP7Contrib: Isolated Storage Cache Provider Ollie Riches has a complete explanation and code example of using the IsolatedStorageCacheProvider in their WP7Contrib library. Using a ChannelFactory in Silverlight, part two: binary cows & new-born calves Kevin Dockx follows-up his post on Channel Factories with this part 2, expanding the knowledge-base into usin parameters and custom binding with binary encoding, both from reader suggestions. All about UriMapping in WP7 WindowsPhoneGeek has a post up about URI mappings in WP7 ... what it is, how to enable it in code behind or XAML, then using it either with a hyperlink button or via the NavigationService class... all with code. Passing WP7 Memory Consumption requirements with the Coding4Fun MemoryCounter tool WindowsPhoneGeek's latest is a tutorial on the use of the Memory Counter control from the Coding4Fun toolkit and WP7 Memory consumption. Getting Started With Linq Jesse Liberty gets into LINQ in his Episode 33 of his WP7 'From Scratch' series... looks like a good LINQ starting point, and he's going to be doing a series on it. Linq with Objects In his second post on LINQ, Jesse Liberty is looking at creating a Linq query against a collection of objects... always good stuff, Jesse! Silverlight TV Silverlight TV 62: The Silverlight 5 Triad Unplugged John Papa is joined by Sam George, Larry Olson, and Vijay Devetha (the Silverlight Triad) on this Silverlight TV episode 62 to discuss how the team works together, and hey... they're hiring! Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• What is a resonable workflow for designing webapps?

  - by Evan Plaice

  It has been a while since I have done any substantial web development and I'd like to take advantage of the latest practices but I'm struggling to visualize the workflow to incorporate everything. Here's what I'm looking to use: CakePHP framework jsmin (JavaScript Minify) SASS (Synctactically Awesome StyleSheets) Git CakePHP: Pretty self explanatory, make modifications and update the source. jsmin: When you modify a script, do you manually run jsmin to output the new minified code, or would it be better to run a pre-commit hook that automatically generates jsmin outputs of javascript files that have changed. Assume that I have no knowledge of implementing commit hooks. SASS: I really like what SASS has to offer but I'm also aware that SASS code isn't supported by browsers by default so, at some point, the SASS code needs to be transformed to normal CSS. At what point in the workflow is this done. Git I'm terrified to admit it but, the last time I did any substantial web development, I didn't use SCM source control (IE, I did use source control but it consisted of a very detailed change log with backups). I have since had plenty of experience using Git (as well as mercurial and SVN) for desktop development but I'm wondering how to best implement it for web development). Is it common practice to implement a remote repository on the web host so I can push the changes directly to the production server, or is there some cross platform (windows/linux) tool that makes it easy to upload only changed files to the production server. Are there web hosting companies that make it eas to implement a remote repository, do I need SSH access, etc... I know how to accomplish this on my own testing server with a remote repository with a separate remote tracking branch already but I've never done it on a remote production web hosting server before so I'm not aware of the options yet. Extra: I was considering implementing a javascript framework where separate javascript files used on a page are compiled into a single file for each page on the production server to limit the number of file downloads needed per page. Does something like this already exist? Is there already an open source project out in the wild that implements something similar that I could use and contribute to? Considering how paranoid web devs are about performance (and the fact that the number of file requests on a website is a big hit to performance) I'm guessing that there is some wizard hacker on the net who has already addressed this issue.

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• Manageability at Oracle Openworld: a Guide to sessions for Partners

  - by Javier Puerta

  A large number of sessions focusing on Manageability will be taking place during the week of Oracle Openworld in San Francisco. To help you organize your schedule I am including below a list of sessions and events around Manageability that you will find of interest. PARTNER SPECIFIC SESSIONS Date/Time/Location  Session   Monday, October 1st, 2011 at 15:30 - 18:00 PST Grand Hyatt San Francisco 345 Stockton Street, San Francisco (Conference Theater) (It is a 15 minute walk from OOW Moscone Center. See directions here) Exadata & Manageability EMEA Partner Community Forum.- Listen to other partners share their experiences in selling and implementing Exadata and Manageability projects, and have a direct dialogue with some of the Oracle executives that are driving the strategy of the company in these areas. Agenda Welcome - Hans-Peter Kipfer, VP, Engineered Systems Oracle EMEA Next challenges in building and managing clouds - Javier Cabrerizo, VP, Business Development for Exadata, Oracle Corp. Partner Experiences: IT modernization, simplification and cost reduction: The case of a customer in Transportation & Logistics with custom applications and SAP. - Francisco Bermudez, Country Leader Infrastructure Services, Capgemini, Spain Nvision cloud project - Dmitry Krasilov, Head of Oracle Competence Center, Nvision Group, Russia From Exadata Ready to Exadata Optimized: An ISV Experience - Miguel Alves, Product Business Solutions Manager, WeDo Technologies, Portugal To confirm your participation send an email to [email protected] Tuesday, Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM - Marriott Marquis - Golden Gate A Developing Services for Private and Public Clouds.- The Oracle Cloud provides new business opportunities, secures business applications and data, and provides operational efficiencies and cost savings. For customers lacking the skill or time to architect, develop, or build a cloud, there is a growing demand for services practice partners that can deliver and manage Oracle Cloud solutions. In this session,• Become familiar with services examples and use cases that demonstrate how an Oracle Cloud can provide a solution to a customer’s needs today• Learn about Oracle architecture and best practices available for an Oracle Cloud instances• Identify the right Oracle technology and the optimal model for meeting customer needs while providing excellent revenues and an optimal margin for services delivered Wednesday, Oct 3, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Marriott Marquis - Golden Gate B Using Management Already Built into Oracle Products: Oracle Enterprise Manager .- Engineered into Oracle products are management capabilities ready to be used. In this session, applicable to all partners, understand the growing market opportunities and how to use or include Oracle Enterprise Manager as part of your solution or services. Other Cloud sessions for Partners at the Oracle PartnerNetwork Exchange  Click here.-     OOW CUSTOMER SESSIONS   Download the Focus On Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c (and Private Cloud) guide for a full list of Exadata OOW sessions.  

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• Access Denied

  - by Tony Davis

  When Microsoft executives wake up in the night screaming, I suspect they are having a nightmare about their own version of Frankenstein's monster. Created with the best of intentions, without thinking too hard of the long-term strategy, and having long outlived its usefulness, the monster still lives on, occasionally wreaking vengeance on the innocent. Its name is Access; a living synthesis of disparate body parts that is resistant to all attempts at a mercy-killing. In 1986, Microsoft had no database products, and needed one for their new OS/2 operating system, the successor to MSDOS. In 1986, they bought exclusive rights to Sybase DataServer, and were also intent on developing a desktop database to capture Ashton-Tate's dominance of that market, with dbase. This project, first called 'Omega' and later 'Cirrus', eventually spawned two products: Visual Basic in 1991 and Access in late 1992. Whereas Visual Basic battled with PowerBuilder for dominance in the client-server market, Access easily won the desktop database battle, with Dbase III and DataEase falling away. Access did an excellent job of abstracting and simplifying the task of building small database applications in a short amount of time, for a small number of departmental users, and often for a transient requirement. There is an excellent front end and forms generator. We not only see it in Access but parts of it also reappear in SSMS. It's good. A business user can pull together useful reports, without relying on extensive technical support. A skilled Access programmer can deliver a fairly sophisticated application, whilst the traditional client-server programmer is still sharpening his pencil. Even for the SQL Server programmer, the forms generator of Access is useful for sketching out application designs. So far, so good, but here's where the problems start; Access ties together two different products and the backend of Access is the bugbear. The limitations of Jet/ACE are well-known and documented. They range from MDB files that are prone to corruption, especially as they grow in size, pathetic security, and "copy and paste" Backups. The biggest problem though, was an infamous lack of scalability. Because Microsoft never realized how long the product would last, they put little energy into improving the beast. Microsoft 'ate their own dog food' by using Access for Microsoft Exchange and Outlook. They choked on it. For years, scalability and performance problems with Exchange Server have been laid at the door of the Jet Blue engine on which it relies. Substantial development work in Exchange 2010 was required, just in order to improve the engine and storage schema so that it more efficiently handled the reading and writing of mails. The alternative of using SQL Server just never panned out. The Jet engine was designed to limit concurrent users to a small number (10-20). When Access applications outgrew this, bitter experience proved that there really is no easy upgrade path from Access to SQL Server, beyond rewriting the whole lot from scratch. The various initiatives to do this never quite bridged the cultural gulf between Access and a true relational database So, what are the obvious alternatives for small, strategic database applications? I know many users who, for simple 'list maintenance' requirements are very happy using Excel databases. Surely, now that PowerPivot has led the way, it is time for Microsoft to offer a new RAD package for database application development; namely an Excel-based front end for SQL Server Express. In that way, we'll have a powerful and familiar front end, to a scalable database, and a clear upgrade path when an app takes off and needs to go enterprise. Cheers, Tony.

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• Canonicalization of single, small pages like reviews or product categories [SEO]

  - by Valorized

  In general I pretty much like the idea of canonicalization. And in most cases, Google explains possible procedures in a clear way. For example: If I have duplicates because of parameters (eg: &sort=desc) it's clear to use the canonical for the site, provided the within the head-tag. However I'm wondering how to handle "small - no to say thin content - sites". What's my definition of a small site? An Example: On one of my main sites, we use a directory based url-structure. Let's see: example.com/ (root) example.com/category-abc/ example.com/category-abc/produkt-xy/ Moreover we provide on page, that includes all products example.com/all-categories/ (lists all products the same way as in the categories) In case of reviews, we use a similar structure: example.com/reviews/product-xy/ shows all review for one certain product example.com/reviews/product-xy/abc-your-product-is-great/ shows one certain review example.com/reviews/ shows all reviews for all products (latest first) Let's make it even more complicated: On every product site, there are the latest 2 reviews at the end of the page. So you see, a lot of potential duplicates. Q1: Should I create canonicals for a: example.com/category-abc/ to example.com/all-categories/ b: example.com/reviews/product-xy/abc-your-product-is-great/ to example.com/reviews/product-xy/ or to example.com/review/ or none of them? Q2: Can I link the collection of categories (all-categories/) and collection of all reviews (reviews/ and reviews/product-xy/) to the single category respectively to the single review. Example: example.com/reviews/ includes - let's say - 100 reviews. Can I somehow use a markup that tells search engines: "Hey, wait, you are now looking at a collection of 100 reviews - do not index this collection, you should rather prefer indexing every single review as a single page!". In HTML it might be something like that (which - of course - does not work, it's only to show you what I mean): <div class="review" rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/reviews/product-xz/abc-your-product-is-great/">HERE GOES THE REVIEW</div> Reason: I don't think it is a great user experience if the user searches for "your product is great" and lands on example.com/reviews/ instead of example.com/reviews/product-xy/abc-your-product-is-great/. On the first site, he will have to search and might stop because of frustration. The second result, however, might lead to a conversion. The same applies for categories. If the user is searching for category-Z, he might land on the all-categories page and he has to scroll down to the (last) category, to find what he searched for (Z). So what's best practice? What should I do? Thank you for your help!

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• Inside Red Gate - Experimenting In Public

  - by Simon Cooper

  Over the next few weeks, we'll be performing experiments on SmartAssembly to confirm or refute various hypotheses we have about how people use the product, what is stopping them from using it to its full extent, and what we can change to make it more useful and easier to use. Some of these experiments can be done within the team, some within Red Gate, and some need to be done on external users. External testing Some external testing can be done by standard usability tests and surveys, however, there are some hypotheses that can only be tested by building a version of SmartAssembly with some things in the UI or implementation changed. We'll then be able to look at how the experimental build is used compared to the 'mainline' build, which forms our baseline or control group, and use this data to confirm or refute the relevant hypotheses. However, there are several issues we need to consider before running experiments using separate builds: Ideally, the user wouldn't know they're running an experimental SmartAssembly. We don't want users to use the experimental build like it's an experimental build, we want them to use it like it's the real mainline build. Only then will we get valid, useful, and informative data concerning our hypotheses. There's no point running the experiments if we can't find out what happens after the download. To confirm or refute some of our hypotheses, we need to find out how the tool is used once it is installed. Fortunately, we've applied feature usage reporting to the SmartAssembly codebase itself to provide us with that information. Of course, this then makes the experimental data conditional on the user agreeing to send that data back to us in the first place. Unfortunately, even though this does limit the amount of useful data we'll be getting back, and possibly skew the data, there's not much we can do about this; we don't collect feature usage data without the user's consent. Looks like we'll simply have to live with this. What if the user tries to buy the experiment? This is something that isn't really covered by the Lean Startup book; how do you support users who give you money for an experiment? If the experiment is a new feature, and the user buys a license for SmartAssembly based on that feature, then what do we do if we later decide to pivot & scrap that feature? We've either got to spend time and money bringing that feature up to production quality and into the mainline anyway, or we've got disgruntled customers. Either way is bad. Again, there's not really any good solution to this. Similarly, what if we've removed some features for an experiment and a potential new user downloads the experimental build? (As I said above, there's no indication the build is an experimental build, as we want to see what users really do with it). The crucial feature they need is missing, causing a bad trial experience, a lost potential customer, and a lost chance to help the customer with their problem. Again, this is something not really covered by the Lean Startup book, and something that doesn't have a good solution. So, some tricky issues there, not all of them with nice easy answers. Turns out the practicalities of running Lean Startup experiments are more complicated than they first seem!

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• Github Organization Repositories, Issues, Multiple Developers, and Forking - Best Workflow Practices

  - by Jim Rubenstein

  A weird title, yes, but I've got a bit of ground to cover I think. We have an organization account on github with private repositories. We want to use github's native issues/pull-requests features (pull requests are basically exactly what we want as far as code reviews and feature discussions). We found the tool hub by defunkt which has a cool little feature of being able to convert an existing issue to a pull request, and automatically associate your current branch with it. I'm wondering if it is best practice to have each developer in the organization fork the organization's repository to do their feature work/bug fixes/etc. This seems like a pretty solid work flow (as, it's basically what every open source project on github does) but we want to be sure that we can track issues and pull requests from ONE source, the organization's repository. So I have a few questions: Is a fork-per-developer approach appropriate in this case? It seems like it could be a little overkill. I'm not sure that we need a fork for every developer, unless we introduce developers who don't have direct push access and need all their code reviewed. In which case, we would want to institute a policy like that, for those developers only. So, which is better? All developers in a single repository, or a fork for everyone? Does anyone have experience with the hub tool, specifically the pull-request feature? If we do a fork-per-developer (or even for less-privileged devs) will the pull-request feature of hub operate on the pull requests from the upstream master repository (the organization's repository?) or does it have different behavior? EDIT I did some testing with issues, forks, and pull requests and found that. If you create an issue on your organization's repository, then fork the repository from your organization to your own github account, do some changes, merge to your fork's master branch. When you try to run hub -i <issue #> you get an error, User is not authorized to modify the issue. So, apparently that work flow won't work.

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• SQLAuthority News – Who I Am And How I Got Here – True Story as Blog Post

  - by pinaldave

  Here are few of the sample questions I get every day? “Give me shortcut to become superstar?” “How do I become like you?” “Which book I should read so I know everything?” “Can you share your secret to be successful? I want to know it but do not share with others.” There is generic answer I always give is to work hard and read good educational material or watch good online videos. One of the emails really caught my attention. It was from a friend and SQL Server Expert John Sansom (Blog | Twitter). He wrote if I would like to share my story with the world about “Who I am and How I got Here”. I was very much intrigued with his suggestion. John is one guy I respect a lot. Every single topic he writes, I read it with dedication. I eagerly wait for his Weekly Summary of Best SQL Links. If you have not read them, you are missing something out. Writing a guest post for him was like walking in memory lane. I remembered the time when I was beginning my career and I was bit overconfident and bit naive. I had my share of mistakes when I started my career. As time passed by I realize the truth. Well, we all do mistakes. Though, I am proud that as soon as I know my mistakes I corrected them. I never acted on impulse or when I am angry. I think that alone has helped me analysis the situation better and become better human being. During the course, I have lost my ego and it is replaced by passion. I am much more happy and successful in my work. Quite often people ask me if I am always online and wether I have family or not. Honestly, I am able to work hard because of my family. They support me and they encourage me to be enjoy in what I do. They support everything I do and personally, I do not miss a single occasion to join them in daily chores of fun. If there was a shortcut to success – I want know. I learnt SQL Server hard way and I am still learning. There are so many things, I have to learn. There is not enough time to learn everything which we want to learn. I am constantly working on it every day. I welcome you to join my journey as well. Please join me with my journey to learn SQL Server – more the merrier. I have written a story of my life as a guest post.  Read Here: A Journey to SQL Authority Special thanks to John Sansom (Blog | Twitter) for giving me space to talk my story. Indeed I am honored. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Best Practices, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• A view from the call center for the Nashville Flood telethon

  - by Rob Foster

  I want to break away from my usual topic of something technical and talk about what I experienced tonight while working in the call center for the Nashville Flood telethon, which was broadcast on WSMV, CNN, and The Weather Channel.  We started receiving calls about 7pm local time and to be honest, I had no idea what to expect when going into this.  I mean, I'm a pretty good talker, but this is different...We had a good script of what to say and how we were supposed to say it, as well as paper forms and pens that we used to collect information from people who wanted to donate their money to help.  I took my first few calls pretty easily and it went pretty quick and easy.  Everyone was upbeat and happy to be in the call center as well as people happy to be donating money. Pizza, snacks, and soft drinks were flowing well.  Everyone is smiling and happy.  :) About 3 or 4 calls into my night, I got a call from a lady that had lost 2 family members in West Nashville who drowned in the floods.  She was crying when she called and I of course tried to console her.  She told me how bad her situation was, losing family members and much of her neighborhood.  After all this, she still just wanted to help other people.  She was donating all the money that she could to the telethon and I want to share a direct quote from her: "I want to donate this instead of buying flowers for my family members' funeral because people out there need help.". Please let me pause while I get myself together <again>.  That caught me so off guard (and still does). I had kids calling wanting to donate their allowance, open their piggy banks, whatever they could do.  These are kids.  Kids not much older than my boys.  Kids who should be focused on buying the next cool video game or toy or whatever but wanted to do something.  Everyone just seemed to want to help. I took calls from as far away as British Columbia as well and pretty much coast to coast.  how cool is that? Yet another thing that caught me off guard.  This kind lady that called from British Columbia told me how much she loved visiting Nashville and just hated to see this happen.  I belive that she said that she will be attending the CMA Fest this year too.  I was sure to tell her not to cancel her plans!  :) It felt like every call I took (and I took A LOT, as did everyone else) was very personal and heartfelt.  I've never had the privelage to do anything like this and fell lucky to have been able to help out with answering phones and logging donations.  Nashville will bounce back very quickly, people are out there day and night helping each other, and the spirits are very high here.  I hope that one day, my kids read this blog and better understand who they are, where they come from, and what the human spirt is and can be.  I love this city, I love the people here, I love the culture and even more than ever am proud to say that this is me.  This is us.  We are Nashville!

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• Silverlight Cream for June 01, 2010 -- #874

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Michael Washington, Alan Beasley and Michael Washington, Miroslav Miroslavov, Max Paulousky, Teresa and Ronald Burger, Laurent Duveau, Tim Heuer, Jeff Brand, Mike Snow, and John Papa. Shoutouts: To pay homage to the Advanced Options button in Expression Blend, Adam Kinney posted: Expression Blend Advanced Options square wallpaper SilverLaw stood his drag and drop ripple on it's head for this one: Silver Soccer - A Case Study for the Flexible Surface Effect (Silverlight 4) From SilverlightCream.com: Expression Blend DataStore - A Powerful Tool For Designers Michael Washington dug into the documentation and with some Microsoft assistance has figured out how to use the SetDataStoreAction in SketchFlow... good tutorial and a game to demonstrate it's use. Windows Phone 7 View Model Style Video Player Alan Beasley and Michael Washington teamed up again to produce a ViewModel-Style Video Player for WP7 ... very nice interface I might add... very detailed tutorial and all the code... oh, and did you notice it uses MVVMLight... on WP7? ... just thought I'd mention that :) Navigation in 3D world of 2D objects In part 7 of the CompleteIT code explenation, Miroslav Miroslavov is discussing some of the very cool animation they did... 3D, moving camera... cool stuff! Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Silverlight Applications. Part 2 Max Paulousky has part 2 of his Silverlight 4 and SEO series up. In part 2 he's discussing sitemaps and html content providing. He also has good links showing where to submit your sitemaps and information. Mousin’ down the PathListBox Teresa and Ronald Burger (not sure which) has a post up about the PathListBox and how they drew the path that they ended up using, and the code used to enable animation. Dynamically apply and change Theme with the Silverlight Toolkit We've all had fun playing with themes, but Laurent Duveau has an example up of letting your users change the theme at run-time. Microsoft Translator client library for Silverlight Tim Heuer has been playing with the Microsoft Translator for Silverlight and he has a "Works on My Machine" license on what he's making available .. but considering his access to resources... I'd say go for it :) Custom Per-Page Transitions in Windows Phone 7 Jeff Brand has a follow-on to his other WP7 post about page transitions and is now discussing per-page transitions Silverlight Tip of the Day #26 – Changing the Startup Class Mike Snow's latest 'tip' is a little more involved than a tip ... changing the startup class and actually removing (in his example), the page and app classes... code and xaml! I've seen this before but never explained as clean... fun stuff. Behaviors in Blend 4 (Silverlight TV #30) Episode 30 of Silverlight TV (now a tag at Silverlight Cream) finds John Papa talking to Adam Kinney about Behaviors in Blend 4... not only using them but creating a custom one. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Internships at Oracle &ndash; a truly multicultural experience!

  - by cristian.condurache(at)oracle.com

  Hello everybody!!! Our names are Lena and Laura, we both study in the same Grande Ecole in France, IPAG and we are about to complete our 16 week-internship in Oracle in the UK. Below a summary of our experience! My name is Lena. I am 20 years old and joined Oracle UK in September 2010 – more specifically, I joined the EMEA Graduate's Recruitment Team (EMEA stands for Europe, Middle East and Africa), and I have learned a lot about working life. It was a really good experience, which made me realize that I soon will be looking for a fulltime employee in a company in less than 3 years. I am glad to have had this first experience in Oracle. First of all because it's a very welcoming company which treats interns as employees and gives them the opportunity to show their potential. I also discovered that it is nice to work in a company where everybody knows everybody, and where the atmosphere is really good. The multicultural aspect is one of the most important and beautiful elements of Oracle. It gives you the opportunity to have contacts in many parts of the world and discover a lot of nice people. During my internship I learned a lot about Recruitment. I discovered I want to work in a Human Resources role after I graduate. I like the contact I will have with candidates and the fact that I have to be in touch with managers and understand their needs. I would be glad to work for the company in the near future. I would like to thank all my team members for welcoming me like they did. It was a real pleasure to share this experience in Oracle and in this team and I hope to return after I graduate.   Hi all! I am Laura. My wish for this internship was to focus on training of personal skills for employees and, by the same time of course, for the company’s development.... and I did it in the OTD team (EMEA Organization Talent Development Team). I could not have done something better than this! It was truly instructive. I learnt how to work in such a big international company, the values and the rules to follow and to interact and be part of the organisation. In Oracle, there are so different aspects of every department, so many possibilities in HR as well as in Finance or Sales... The jobs are very various and the employees’ cultures are also really different thanks to this international and multicultural company. I am working with OTD for the entire EMEA region, having many of my colleagues in other countries, with other cultures, other ways to work, and other ways to think... this is so inspiring! Oracle offers the best environment to learn about a job, as well as to learn about work life in such large companies. This company is about new technologies, it always goes fast, and everything changes quickly! You have to be aware of these changes and keep track of the wishes of customers. For OTD of course, these customers are the employees. Looking back I have learnt more then I would have ever thought and I know that it is what I want to do... And now I hope to come back again! I want to thank all my team for welcoming me and integrating me with such happiness. I will truly miss them!! If you have any questions related to this article feel free to contact [email protected]. You can find our job opportunities via http://campus.oracle.com. Technorati Tags: Oracle,EMEA,Recruitment,internship,ODT,team

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• SQL SERVER – How to easily work with Database Diagrams

  - by Pinal Dave

  Databases are very widely used in the modern world. Regardless of the complexity of a database, each one requires in depth designing. To practice along please Download dbForge Studio now.  The right methodology of designing a database is based on the foundations of data normalization, according to which we should first define database’s key elements – entities. Afterwards the attributes of entities and relations between them are determined. There is a strong opinion that the process of database designing should start with a pencil and a blank sheet of paper. This might look old-fashioned nowadays, because SQL Server provides a much wider functionality for designing databases – Database Diagrams. When using SSMS for working with Database Diagrams I realized two things – on the one hand, visualization of a scheme allows designing a database more efficiently; on the other – when it came to creating a big scheme, some difficulties occurred when designing with SSMS. The alternatives haven’t taken long to wait and dbForge Studio for SQL Server is one of them. Its functions offer more advantages for working with Database Diagrams. For example, unlike SSMS, dbForge Studio supports an opportunity to drag-and-drop several tables at once from the Database Explorer. This is my opinion but personally I find this option very useful. Another great thing is that a diagram can be saved as both a graphic file and a special XML file, which in case of identical environment can be easily opened on the other server for continuing the work. During working with dbForge Studio it turned out that it offers a wide set of elements to operate with on the diagram. Noteworthy among such elements are containers which allow aggregating diagram objects into thematic groups. Moreover, you can even place an image directly on the diagram if the scheme design is based on a standard template. Each of the development environments has a different approach to storing a diagram (for example, SSMS stores them on a server-side, whereas dbForge Studio – in a local file). I haven’t found yet an ability to convert existing diagrams from SSMS to dbForge Studio. However I hope Devart developers will implement this feature in one of the following releases. All in all, editing Database Diagrams through dbForge Studio was a nice experience and allowed speeding-up the common database designing tasks. Download dbForge Studio now. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL

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• Windows Phone 7 Series - Tools and Resources

  - by TechTwaddle

  Unless you've been living in the caves of Lascaux for the past couple of days, you probably know what's happening in the world of Windows Phone. Microsoft unveiled the developer tools required to develop applications and games for Windows Phone 7 at MIX10 a couple of days back. Silverlight and XNA being the major frameworks, no big surprise there. And the best news of all is that all the development tools are free! So if you are planning to develop apps for Windows Phone 7, read on. The first place, or more appropriately hub, for you is the Windows Phone Developer Portal. It has most of the information you need to get you started. Now there is a ton of information available at other places too. In this post, I take time to put all the information that I found useful at one place, and I'll keep updating this as and when I find new stuff.   Setting up the development environment 1. Install Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP (Community Technology Preview) This will install Visual Studio 2010 Express, Silverlight, XNA framework and emulator for Windows Phone 7. It also installs a few support tools. 2. Expression Blend 4 for Windows Phone:     - Install Expression Blend 4 beta     - Install Expression Blend Add-in Preview for Windows Phone     - Install Expression Blend SDK Preview for Windows Phone Installing the above tools should set your machine up for development. I installed the tools on my Windows Vista SP1 machine and the process went smoothly without running into any major hitch. Note that the tools won't install on Windows XP, read the release notes of the CTP. Resources and Documentation 1. Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series Developer Training Kit 2. Programming Windows Phone 7 Series by Charles Petzold. Contains few chapters only. Gives a good preview. 3. MSDN documentation for Windows Phone 7 Development 4. A sample chapter from Learning Windows Phone Programming [PDF] by Yochay Kiriaty and Jaime Rodriguez. Complete book will be available at a later time. 5. Windows Phone 7 Developer Forum - where you can ask questions and problems you run into and the experts are there to help you. 6. For Silverlight visit silverlight.net and for XNA game development, the XNA Creators Club is the place to go, also make sure you follow Michael Klutcher's and Shawn Hargreaves' blog. 7. And finally the MIX'10 website. Most of the sessions will be available for download later (some are already available). Click on the Windows Phone tag to get all the session details and downloads.   If you are completely new to Silverlight and XNA (like me), and C# makes some sense to you then I suggest you go through the Developer Training Kit. It gives a good start and ramps you up pretty quickly.

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• Java Certification Exams and Their Move to Pearson VUE

  - by Harold Green

  You may be aware that Oracle recently migrated all Sun-branded certification exams from Prometric to Pearson VUE. Below are answers to some frequently-asked questions that we've been getting recently: What changes to the exams should I be aware of?Only minor changes were made to the exams during the transition to Pearson VUE: Renumbering of all exams to the Oracle exam numbering structure (i.e. 1Z0...). Most exam score reports were enhanced to provide more detailed feedback. Score reports now list every exam objective for which a question (or questions) were answered incorrectly. The previous format provided only section-level performance feedback. For three Java exams, some lengthy (time-consuming) questions were removed & replaced with shorter (less time-consuming) questions. This was done in order to shorten the required exam time (to 150 minutes). Some interactive question types were removed from several Java and Solaris exams (including "matching" and "drag-and-drop" questions). The passing scores (for the exams that were revised) were statistically adjusted to make them equal to their prior passing scores, thus ensuring that the exams maintained the same level of difficulty as before. The exam objectives and the exam questions themselves did not change. Candidates should study the same material and objectives. Are there also new testing practices I should be aware of?Oracle follows a common industry practice of placing occasional un-scored questions on our certification exams. Candidates will not know which questions are unscored. At the time of this blog post, only one of the migrated exams (1Z0-898) contains unscored questions.I started the Master certification path through Prometric, and now I need to complete the requirements through Pearson VUE. Where can I get guidance on this process?Visit our Vendor Transition FAQs to find comprehensive instructions. Oracle has created several specific paths to accommodate candidates who were at at varying stages of completion of their master path when the transition occurred. Make sure to follow the specific path designed for your case, as you will need to know which exam number to select in order to submit/re-submit your requirements. QUICK LINKS Oracle Certification Blog Post: Java, Oracle Solaris, MySQL and Other Former Sun Certification Exams Now Being Delivered At Pearson VUE Oracle Certification Website: Vendor Transition Announcement

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• So You Want to Be a Social Media Director

  - by Mike Stiles

  Do you want to be a Social Media Director? Some say the title is already losing its relevance; that social should be a basic skill that is required and used no matter what your position is inside the enterprise. I suppose that’s visionary, and a fun thing for thought leaders to say. But in the vast majority of business organizations, we’re so far away from that reality that the thought of not having someone driving social’s implementation and guiding its proper usage conjures up images of anarchy. That said, social media has become so broad, so catch-all, and so extended across business functions, that today’s Social Media Director, depending on the size of their staff, must make jacks-of-all-trades look like one-trick-ponies. Just as the purview of the CMO has grown all-encompassing, the disciplines required of their heads of social are stacking up. Master of Content Every social pipeline you build must stay filled, with quantity and quality. Content takes time, and the job never stops. Never. And no, it’s not true that anybody can write. Master of Customer Experience You must have a passion for hearing from customers and making them really happy. Master of PR You must know how to communicate and leverage the trust you’ve built when crises strike. Couldn’t hurt to be a Master of Politics. Master of Social Technology So many social management tools on the market. You have to know what social tech ecosystem makes sense and avoid piecemeal point solutions. Master of Business Development Social for selling and prospecting is hot, and you have to know how to use social to do it. Master of Analytics Nothing else matters if you can’t prove social is helping the brand. That’s right, creative content guy has to also be a math and stats geek. Good luck with that. Master of Paid Media You’ve got to learn the language, learn the tactics, learn the vendors and learn how to measure results. Master of Education Guess who gets to teach everyone who has no clue how to use social for business. Master of Personal Likability You’ll be leading the voice, tone, image and personality of the brand. If you don’t instinctively know how to be liked by actual people, the brand will be starting from a deficit. How deep must you go in this parade of masteries? Again, that depends on your employer’s maturity level in social. Serious players recognize these as distinct disciplines requiring true experts for maximum effect. Less serious players will need you to execute personally in many of these areas. Do the best you can, and try to grow quickly at each. If you’re the sole person executing all social…well…you’re in the game of managing expectations and trying to socially educate your employer. The good news is, you should be making a certifiable killing. If you’re alone and your salary is modest, time to understand how many brands out there crave what you’ve mastered. Not to push back against thought leaders, but the need for brand social leadership has not gone away…not even a little bit. @mikestiles @oraclesocialPhoto: Stefan Wagner, freeimages.com

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• Getting Started with StreamInsight 2.1

  - by Roman Schindlauer

  If you're just beginning to get familiar with StreamInsight, you may be looking for a way to get started. What are the basics? How can I get my first StreamInsight application running so I can see how it works? Where is the 'front door' that will get me going? If that describes you, then this blog entry might be just what you need. If you're already a StreamInsight wiz, keep reading anyway - you may find some helpful links here that you weren't aware of. But here's what we'd like from you experienced readers in particular: if you know of other good resources that we missed, please feel free to add them in the comments below. We appreciate you sharing your expertise. The Book The basic documentation for StreamInsight is located in the MSDN Library (Microsoft StreamInsight 2.1). You'll notice that previous versions of StreamInsight are still there (1.2 and 2.0), but if you're just getting started you can stick to the 2.1 section. The documentation has been organized to function as reference material, which is fine after you're familiar with the technology. But if you're trying to learn the basics, you might want to take a different path instead of just starting at the top. The following is one map you can use. What Is StreamInsight? Here is a sequence of topics that should give you a good overview of what StreamInsight is and how it works: Overview answers the question, "what is it?" StreamInsight Server Architecture gives you a quick look at a high-level architectural drawing StreamInsight Concepts lays out an overview of the basic components Deploying StreamInsight Entities to a StreamInsight Server describes the mechanics of how these components work together Getting an Example Running Once you have this background, go ahead and install StreamInsight and get a basic example up and running: Installation download and install the software StreamInsight Examples walk through a set of 3 simple StreamInsight applications that work together to demonstrate what you learned in the topics above; you can copy and paste the code into Visual Studio, compile, and run That's it - you now have a real, functioning StreamInsight system! Now that you have a handle on the basics, you might want to start digging deeper. Digging Deeper Here's a suggested path through the documentation to help you understand the next layer of StreamInsight technologies: Using Event Sources and Event Sinks sources supply data and sinks consume it; this topic gives you an overview of how they work Publishing and Connecting to the StreamInsight Server practical details on how to set up a StreamInsight server A Hitchhiker’s Guide to StreamInsight 2.1 Queries queries are the heart of how StreamInsight performs data analytics, and this whitepaper will help you really understand how they work Using StreamInsight LINQ root through this section for technical details on specific query components Using the StreamInsight Event Flow Debugger in addition to troubleshooting, the debugger is a great way to learn more about what goes on inside a StreamInsight application And Even Deeper Finally, to get a handle on some of the more complex things you can do with StreamInsight, dig into these: Input and Output Adapters adapters can be useful for handling more complex sources and sinks Building Resilient StreamInsight Applications a resilient application is able to recover from system failures Operations this section will help you monitor and troubleshoot a running StreamInsight system The StreamInsight Community As you're designing and developing your StreamInsight solutions, you probably will find it helpful to see working examples or to learn tips and tricks from others. Or maybe you need a place to post a vexing question. Here are some community resources that we have found useful. If you know of others, please add them in the comments below. Code samples and tools Official StreamInsight code samples Introduction to LinqPad Driver for StreamInsight 2.1 - LinqPad is a very useful tool for developing queries The following case studies are based on earlier versions of StreamInsight, but they still are useful examples: Microsoft Media Analytics - real-time monitoring and analytic Edgenet - responding to information from multiple source ICONICS - managing energy usage Blogs Microsoft StreamInsight Ruminations of J.net Richard Seroter's Architecture Musings pluralsight Forums MSDN StreamInsight Forum stackoverflow Training Microsoft StreamInsight Fundamentals (“Introducing StreamInsight” is free) from pluralsight Twitter @streaminsight   You’re a StreamInsight Expert That should get you going. Please add any other resources you have found useful in the comments below.   Regards, The StreamInsight Team

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• Class Design -- Multiple Calls from One Method or One Call from Multiple Methods?

  - by Andrew

  I've been working on some code recently that interfaces with a CMS we use and it's presented me with a question on class design that I think is applicable in a number of situations. Essentially, what I am doing is extracting information from the CMS and transforming this information into objects that I can use programatically for other purposes. This consists of two steps: Retrieve the data from the CMS (we have a DAL that I use, so this is essentially just specifying what data from the CMS I want--no connection logic or anything like that) Map the parsed data to my own [C#] objects There are basically two ways I can approach this: One call from multiple methods public void MainMethodWhereIDoStuff() { IEnumerable<MyObject> myObjects = GetMyObjects(); // Do other stuff with myObjects } private static IEnumerable<MyObject> GetMyObjects() { IEnumerable<CmsDataItem> cmsDataItems = GetCmsDataItems(); List<MyObject> mappedObjects = new List<MyObject>(); // do stuff to map the CmsDataItems to MyObjects return mappedObjects; } private static IEnumerable<CmsDataItem> GetCmsDataItems() { List<CmsDataItem> cmsDataItems = new List<CmsDataItem>(); // do stuff to get the CmsDataItems I want return cmsDataItems; } Multiple calls from one method public void MainMethodWhereIDoStuff() { IEnumerable<CmsDataItem> cmsDataItems = GetCmsDataItems(); IEnumerable<MyObject> myObjects = GetMyObjects(cmsDataItems); // do stuff with myObjects } private static IEnumerable<MyObject> GetMyObjects(IEnumerable<CmsDataItem> itemsToMap) { // ... } private static IEnumerable<CmsDataItem> GetCmsDataItems() { // ... } I am tempted to say that the latter is better than the former, as GetMyObjects does not depend on GetCmsDataItems, and it is explicit in the calling method the steps that are executed to retrieve the objects (I'm concerned that the first approach is kind of an object-oriented version of spaghetti code). On the other hand, the two helper methods are never going to be used outside of the class, so I'm not sure if it really matters whether one depends on the other. Furthermore, I like the fact that in the first approach the objects can be retrieved from one line-- most likely anyone working with the main method doesn't care how the objects are retrieved, they just need to retrieve the objects, and the "daisy chained" helper methods hide the exact steps needed to retrieve them (in practice, I actually have a few more methods but am still able to retrieve the object collection I want in one line). Is one of these methods right and the other wrong? Or is it simply a matter of preference or context dependent?

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• Kill all the project files!

  - by jamiet

  Like many folks I’m a keen podcast listener and yesterday my commute was filled by listening to Scott Hunter being interviewed on .Net Rocks about the next version of ASP.Net. One thing Scott said really struck a chord with me. I don’t remember the full quote but he was talking about how the ASP.Net project file (i.e. the .csproj file) is going away. The rationale being that the main purpose of that file is to list all the other files in the project, and that’s something that the file system is pretty good at. In Scott’s own words (that someone helpfully put in the comments): A file that lists files is really redundant when the OS already does this Romeliz Valenciano correctly pointed out on Twitter that there will still be a project.json file however no longer will there be a need to keep a list of files in a project file. I suspect project.json will simply contain a list of exclusions where necessary rather than the current approach where the project file is a list of inclusions. On the face of it this seems like a pretty good idea. I’ve long been a fan of convention over configuration and this is a great example of that. Instead of listing all the files in a separate file, just treat all the files in the directory as being part of the project. Ostensibly the approach is if its in the directory, its part of the project. Simple. Now I’m not an ASP.net developer, far from it, but it did occur to me that the same approach could be applied to the two Visual Studio project types that I am most familiar with, SSIS & SSDT. Like many people I’ve long been irritated by SSIS projects that display a faux file system inside Solution Explorer. As you can see in the screenshot below the project has Miscellaneous and Connection Managers folders but no such folders exist on the file system: This may seem like a minor thing but it means useful Solution Explorer features like Show All Files and Open Folder in Windows Explorer don’t work and quite frankly it makes me feel like a second class citizen in the Microsoft ecosystem. I’m a developer, treat me like one. Don’t try and hide the detail of how a project works under the covers, show it to me. I’m a big boy, I can handle it! Would it not be preferable to simply treat all the .dtsx files in a directory as being part of a project? I think it would, that’s pretty much all the .dtproj file does anyway (that, and present things in a non-alphabetic order – something else that wildly irritates me), so why not just get rid of the .dtproj file? In the case of SSDT the .sqlproj actually does a whole lot more than simply list files because it also states the BuildAction of each file (Build, NotInBuild, Post-Deployment, etc…) but I see no reason why the convention over configuration approach can’t help us there either. Want to know which is the Post-deployment script? Well, its the one called Post-DeploymentScript.sql! Simple! So that’s my new crusade. Let’s kill all the project files (well, the .dtproj & .sqlproj ones anyway). Are you with me? @Jamiet

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• Where would my different development rhythm be suitable for the work?

  - by DarenW

  Over the years I have worked on many projects, with some successful and a great benefit to the company, and some total failures with me getting fired or otherwise leaving. What is the difference? Naturally I prefer the former and wish to avoid the latter, so I'm pondering this issue. The key seems to be that my personal approach differs from the norm. I write code first, letting it be all spaghetti and chaos, using whatever tools "fit my hand" that I'm fluent in. I try to organize it, then give up and start over with a better design. I go through cycles, from thinking-design to coding-testing. This may seem to be the same as any other development process, Agile or whatever, cycling between design and coding, but there does seem to be a subtle difference: The methods (ideally) followed by most teams goes design, code; design, code; ... while I'm going code, design; code, design; (if that makes any sense.) Music analogy: some types of music have a strong downbeat while others have prominent syncopation. In practice, I just can't think in terms of UML, specifications and so on, but grok things only by attempting to code and debug and refactor ad-hoc. I need the grounding provided by coding in order to think constructively, then to offer any opinions, advice or solutions to the team and get real work done. In positions where I can initially hack up cowboy code without constraints of tool or language choices, I easily gain a "feel" for the data, requirements etc and eventually do good work. In formalized positions where paperwork and pure "design" comes first and only later any coding (even for small proof-of-concept projects), I am lost at sea and drown. Therefore, I'd like to know how to either 1) change my rhythm to match the more formalized methodology-oriented team ways of doing things, or 2) find positions at organizations where my sense of development rhythm is perfect for the work. It's probably unrealistic for a person to change their fundamental approach to things. So option 2) is preferred. So where I can I find such positions? How common is my approach and where is it seen as viable but different, and not dismissed as undisciplined or cowboy coder ways?

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• Strange Happenings

  - by MOSSLover

  There are weeks we go about our life thinking nothing is going to change nothing will happen.  Then there are other weeks a billion things happen at once.  Friday started off very weird for me.  I flew into Atlanta and I met some cool people for another SharePoint event.  I had some good conversations.  Saturday then hit me and my virtual machine bombed in my presentation after the auto updater ran.  I was writing code on the board and describing everything in notepad.  I would say as presentations go it was the best and the worst presentation all wrapped into one.  The next day I was in Baltimore and I hung out with my aunt which was relatively uneventful and great.  Then Monday hit and half my presentations failed or succeeded and my screen freezes so I start describing the code.  I was on top of my game until Monday night.  On top of the world.  I'm exhausted I get into Raleigh and one of the craziest stories of my life happens.  So my boss has been renting cars through Priceline this week I got a different company than the other weeks. The company gives me a Ford Focus and I plug in the coordinates on my IPhone where I want go.  I head out and then I get to the destination hotel (or I thought I did). I go inside it's the wrong hotel the other one is a few miles away.  I walk outside hop into the car and it sounds like a gunshot.  Nothing is starting...Am I doing something wrong?  No I'm not the car is completely dead in the water.  I call the rental car facility and they tell me to call roadside they are closing for the night.  Roadside says they can't give me a new car but they can get me a jump then I have to take it up with the facility.  They send me a tow truck to give me a jump the guy can't jump the car.  He tells me this vehicle was towed about an hour ago.  He shows me a copy of a slip from when he towed it.  We also notice the rental car company left one of there price scanning guns in the vehicle.  I call up roadside and now they are interested in getting me a car because I need to be onsite tomorrow.  They get the manager of the facility on the phone he apologizes profusely and he says he'll be there in 10 minutes.  About 30 minutes pass and him plus another dude show up with a Ford Escape leather interior.  At this point I hand him the gun tell him someone left it in the vehicle and that I'm not so happy with them.  I ask them to comp my rental they can't due to Priceline, however if I call him again this week he can get me a voucher.  It's about 2 am and I'm ready to get to the hotel I don't make it in the next morning until 10 am.  I would say this was a crazy week all forms of technology are trying to tell me something.  What I have no idea, but we'll see the outcome soon.  I feel so weird tons of change is about to happen.  I don't know if it's good or bad.  I think this week is some form of omen.

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• Returning null vs Throwing exceptions

  - by Svish

  Is in a bit of disagreement with a more experienced developer on this issue, and was wondering what you guys here think about this. Environment is Java, EJB 3, services, etc. The code I wrote calls a service to get things and to create things. Problem was that I got null pointer exceptions in places that didn't make sense. For example when I asked the service to create an object, I got null back. And when I tried to look up an object with an id I knew existed, I still got null back. Was like it was ignoring me. Spent some time trying to figure out what was wrong in my code (since I'm less experienced I usually assume I have messed up). Turns out the reason was security. If the user principal using my service didn't have the right permissions to use the service I called from my service, then that service simply returned null. The services that are here already are usually not documented either, so this is just something you have to know... somehow... So here is the thing: I mean that this is rather confusing as a developer interacting with this service. To me it would make much more sense if that service thew an exception which would tell me that hey, you don't have the proper permissions to get info about this thing or to create this new thing. I would then immediately know why my service wasn't working as expected. However, he argued that asking is not wrong. Exceptions should only be thrown when there is an error and asking for a thing is not an error. Even if you don't have permission to "see" that the thing you asked for. The things are often looked up in a GUI by users and for those users not having the right permissions, these things simply "do not exist". So, in short: Asking is not wrong, hence no exception. Get methods return null because to those users those things "doesn't exist". Create methods return null because nothing was created, since the user wasn't allowed to create anything. So, what do you guys think? Is this normal and/or good practice? I prefer exceptions as I prefer throwing and catching exceptions because I find it much easier to know what's going on. So I would for example also prefer to throw a NotFoundException if you asked for an id which didn't exist, rather than returning null. Anyways, just curious to what others think about this as I'm not the most experienced developer yet.

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• Canonicalization of single, small pages like reviews or product categories

  - by Valorized

  In general I pretty much like the idea of canonicalization. And in most cases, Google explains possible procedures in a clear way. For example: If I have duplicates because of parameters (eg: &sort=desc) it's clear to use the canonical for the site, provided the within the head-tag. However I'm wondering how to handle "small - no to say thin content - sites". What's my definition of a small site? An Example: On one of my main sites, we use a directory based url-structure. Let's see: example.com/ (root) example.com/category-abc/ example.com/category-abc/produkt-xy/ Moreover we provide on page, that includes all products example.com/all-categories/ (lists all products the same way as in the categories) In case of reviews, we use a similar structure: example.com/reviews/product-xy/ shows all review for one certain product example.com/reviews/product-xy/abc-your-product-is-great/ shows one certain review example.com/reviews/ shows all reviews for all products (latest first) Let's make it even more complicated: On every product site, there are the latest 2 reviews at the end of the page. So you see, a lot of potential duplicates. Q1: Should I create canonicals for a: example.com/category-abc/ to example.com/all-categories/ b: example.com/reviews/product-xy/abc-your-product-is-great/ to example.com/reviews/product-xy/ or to example.com/review/ or none of them? Q2: Can I link the collection of categories (all-categories/) and collection of all reviews (reviews/ and reviews/product-xy/) to the single category respectively to the single review. Example: example.com/reviews/ includes - let's say - 100 reviews. Can I somehow use a markup that tells search engines: "Hey, wait, you are now looking at a collection of 100 reviews - do not index this collection, you should rather prefer indexing every single review as a single page!". In HTML it might be something like that (which - of course - does not work, it's only to show you what I mean): <div class="review" rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/reviews/product-xz/abc-your-product-is-great/"> HERE GOES THE REVIEW</div> Reason: I don't think it is a great user experience if the user searches for "your product is great" and lands on example.com/reviews/ instead of example.com/reviews/product-xy/abc-your-product-is-great/. On the first site, he will have to search and might stop because of frustration. The second result, however, might lead to a conversion. The same applies for categories. If the user is searching for category-Z, he might land on the all-categories page and he has to scroll down to the (last) category, to find what he searched for (Z). So what's best practice? What should I do?

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• Speaking at Mix11

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  In April Microsoft will hold the next MIX event. MIX was usually targeted at web designers and developers but has grown over the years to be more a general conference focused on the web and devices. In other words: everything the normal consumer might encounter. It’s not your typical developers conference, although you’ll find many developers there as well. But next to the developers you’ll probably run into designers and user experience specialists as well. This year I am proud to say that I will be one of the people presenting there. Together with all the Surface MVP’s in the world (sounds impressive, but there are only 7 of us) we’ll host a panel discussion on all things Surface, NUI and everything else that matches those subjects. Here’s what the abstract says: The Natural User Interface (NUI) is a hot topic that generates a lot of excitement, but there are only a handful of companies doing real innovation with NUIs and most of the practical experience in the NUI style of design and development is limited to a small number of experts. The Microsoft Surface MVPs are a subset of these experts that have extensive real-world experience with Microsoft Surface and other NUI devices. This session is a panel featuring the Microsoft Surface MVPs and an unfiltered discussion with each other and the audience about the state of the art in NUI design and development. We will share our experiences and ideas, discuss what we think NUI will look like in the near future, and back up our statements with cutting-edge demonstrations prepared by the panelists involving combinations of Microsoft Surface 2.0, Kinect, and Windows Phone 7. We, as Surface MVPs think we are more than just Surface oriented. We like to think we are more NUI MVP’s. But since that’s not a technology with Microsoft you can’t actually become a NUI MVP so Surface is the one that comes the closest. We are currently working on the details of our session but believe me: it will blow you away. Several people we talked to have said this could potentially be the best session of Mix. Quite a challenge, but we’re up for it! Of course I won’t be telling you exactly what we’re going to do in Las Vegas but rest assured that when you visit our session you’ll leave with a lot of new ideas and hopefully be inspired to bring into practice what you’ve seen. Even if the technology we’ll show you isn’t readily available yet. So, if you are in Las Vegas between April 12th and 14th, please join Joshua Blake, Neil Roodyn, Rick Barraza, Bart Roozendaal, Josh Santangelo, Nicolas Calvi and myself for some NUI fun! See you in Vegas! Tags van Technorati: mix11,las vegas,surface,nui,kinecct

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• Tap into MySQL's Amazing Performance Results with the Performance Tuning Course

  - by Antoinette O'Sullivan

  Want to leverage the high-speed load utilities, distinctive memory caches, full text indexes, and other performance-enhancing mechanisms that MySQL offers to fuel today's critical business systems. The authentic MySQL Performance Tuning course, in 4 days, teaches you to evaluate the MySQL architecture, learn to use the tools, configure the database for performance, tune application and SQL code, tune the server, examine the storage engines, assess the application architecture, and learn general tuning concepts. You can take this course in one the following three ways: Training-on-Demand: Access the streaming video, instructor delivery of this course from your own desk, at your own pace. Book time for hands-on practice when it suits you. Live-Virtual Class: Take this instructor-led class live from your own desk. With 700 events on the schedule you are sure to find a time and date to suit you! In-Class: Travel to a classroom to take this class. A sample of events on the schedule are as follows.  Location  Date  Delivery Language  Hamburg, Germany  22 October 2012  German  Prague, Czech Republic  1 October 2012  Czech  Warsaw, Poland  3 December 2012  Polish  London, England  19 November 2012  English  Rome, Italy  23 October 2012  Italian Lisbon, Portugal  6 November 2012  European Portugese  Aix en Provence, France  4 September 2012   French  Strasbourg, France 16 October 2012   French  Nieuwegein, Netherlands 26 November 2012   Dutch  Madrid, Spain 17 December 2012   Spanish  Mechelen, Belgium  1 October 2012  English  Riga, Latvia  10 December 2012  Latvian  Petaling Jaya, Malaysia  10 September 2012 English   Edmonton, Canada 10 December 2012   English  Vancouver, Canada 10 December 2012   English  Ottawa, Canada 26 November 2012   English  Toronto, Canada 26 November 2012   English  Montreal, Canada 26 November 2012   English  Mexico City, Mexico 10 September 2012   Spanish  Sao Paolo, Brazil 26 November 2012  Brazilian Portugese   Tokyo, Japan 19 November 2012   Japanese  Tokyo, Japan  19 November 2012  Japanese For further information on this class, or to register your interest in additional events, go to the Oracle University Portal: http://oracle.com/education/mysql

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