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  • SQL Cluster install on Hyper V options

    - by Chris W
    I've been reading up on running a SQL Cluster in a Hyper V environment and there seems to be a couple of options: Install guest cluster on 2 VMs that are themselves part of a fail over cluster. Install SQL cluster on 2 VMs but the VMs themselves are not part of an underlying cluster. With option 1, it's little more complex as there's effectively two clusters in play but this adds some flexibility in the sense that I'm free to migrate the VMs between and physical blades in their cluster for physical maintenance without affecting the status of the SQL guest cluster that's running within them. With option 2, the set-up is a bit simpler as there's only 1 cluster in the mix but my VMs are anchored to the physical blades that they're set-up on (I'll ignore the fact I could manually move the VHDs for the purposes of this question). Are there any other factors that I should consider here when deciding which option to go for? I'm free to test out both options and probably will do but if any one has working experience of these set-ups and can offer some input that would be great.

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  • Set an Excel cell's color based on multiple other cells' colors

    - by Lord Torgamus
    I have an Excel 2007 spreadsheet for a list of products and a bunch of factors to rate each one on, and I'm using Conditional Formatting to set the color of the cells in the individual attribute columns. It looks something like this: I want to fill in the rating column for each item with a color, based on the color ratings of its individual attributes. Examples of ways to determine this: the color of the category in which the item scored worst the statistical mode of the category colors the average of the category ratings, where each color is assigned a numerical value How can I implement any or all of the above rules? (I'm really just asking for a quick overview of the relevant Excel feature; I don't need step-by-step instructions for each rule.)

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  • What is the cost of running a desktop machine at home?

    - by vinc
    How much does it (roughly) cost to leave my personal home computer running 24/7 for a year? I'm not doing anything unusual; I run a webserver for myself, surf the web, write some code. I don't have any specific specs. So for example there might be the cost of electricity, internet connection, and possibly some other factors that I've overlooked. I'm trying to decide whether it would be a good idea to turn off my computer when I'm asleep and not using it. Is the cost negligible, maybe 1 USD per day, something in between or more?

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  • Why are the prices for broadband bandwidth at data centers much higher than consumer/small business offerings?

    - by odemarken
    The prices for broadband bandwidth at data centers are sometimes as much as 10x higher than for a typical small business/consumer connection, at least where I live. Now, I understand those are two differend kind of products, but what exactly are the differences? Is it mainly because the bandwidth you get at a data center is guaranteed (CIR), while a consumer offer lists maximal bandwidth (EIR/MIR)? Or are there other factors as well? (Note: my previous, much more specific question on the same general topic was closed as not constructive. I tried to extract the core issue and present it in a way that can be answered objectively. If you feel that this question is still bad and should be closed, please care to comment and explain why.)

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  • Utility to take daily screenshots of a webpage

    - by Kevin L.
    I would like to have a visual history of my Tomato bandwidth graphs, so that I can roughly/manually correlate them with some other factors. Tomato can squirrel away the actual data points, but I'd rather not deal with importing it into some visualization tool. For sheer simplicity, a single image per day would be preferable. I'd like a program that can wake up at say, midnight, take a screenshot of a given webpage (the URL will always be the same), and save that image to a folder, maybe named after the date/time. I'd prefer OS X, but Windows and Linux are fair game too; I use all three. Any suggestions?

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  • Automatic repair software

    - by ADOConnection
    Do anyone knows any kind of apps or services for "taking care of servers"? (besides managed servers) There are hundreds of ways your server or application can stop working properly. Small things are easy to miss but usually easy to fix. Log overgrouth, configuration issues, etc. Of course there are best practice checklists, but its not a human task to check configuration best practices. Im sure it can be automated: some kind of agent can monitor all system settings, say what is right and wrong and give suggestions on how to make it right. I have to admin several servers and I need some kind of overview of overall situation. As well as a tool, that will fix problems automatically. Can you people suggest something? (I know its a little bit out of rules of SF, but I think this particular question is quite specific) It would be great to have something like http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1451319/asp-net-mvc-view-engine-comparison but for automation software.

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  • How to get the CentOS 5.6 alsa drivers which will really work with one shot, without any internet.

    - by 89899.3K
    I have one chance to install this in my server on site. Server that i am running is CentOS 5.6 (Dell R310, RAID1) where i need to install alsa-sound driver so that anything related to audio recording from rtsp is working (rail station/rail passing video recording including audio, where audio is not working). Unfortunately i do not have any kind of internet in that odd none human location so yum will not work for me. I need a offline way to install alsa drivers including missing dependencies if arise. What and where i can download this to my usb or cd? so that i can successfully install it (like mission complete). Thanks

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  • Fedora: "Login Incorrect"

    - by darkblackcorner
    I've just set up a minimal install on my netbook (the default was too resource hungry, so I figured I'd customize the install and learn something about linux at the same time!) No problems logging in as root, but when I create a new user and try to login as them I just get the "Login incorrect" error. I'm certain the password is correct, though the secure log displays an authentication error. Am I missing a permission somewhere? useradd test usermod -p [pwd] test Shell is added automatically I think (checking password file says shell is /bin/bash) I've tried adding the user to the sudo-ers group usermod -a -G wheel which doesn't help. I've kept the password simple in order to rule out human error.

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  • Why would an ext3 filsystem be rolled back on a Debian VM running in VirtualBox after loss of power to the host

    - by Sevas
    A Debian Virtual machine runs as a Guest VirtualBox VM. It's filesystem is EXT3. The host system loses power and after booting up the host system and guest VM, I find that the VM's filesystem has been rolled back to a previous state, losing changes made to the filesystem some time before losing power. The operations that were rolled back had been fully completed before the loss of power (files fully copied, file handles closed, etc.), but it's possible and even likely that other write operations were occuring on the VM at the point of the crash. So I am trying to figure out if it's the filesystem recovery process that rolls back filesystem operations after encountering corruption post power loss, or is it possibly related to VirtualBox and the way it ignores flush requests for performance gains by default (discussed here) Are there any other factors that would result in the filesystem being rolled back after losing power?

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  • Should I never put a transactional replication distributor on a subscriber server?

    - by Stuart Branham
    What factors into choosing a distribution server for transactional replication? In our topology, we've always had the distributor reside on the publishing server. We rarely generate snapshots and performance is good enough, so this is okay for us today. One of our instances is moving to a cluster, so we need to move the distributor off for resilience/symmetry. Right now our two choices are to use a server physically close to the publishers, or our single subscription server. Our publisher is in our main office, and our subscriber is in a colocation facility off-site which our ISP runs. We have a pretty good line to it. The reason we're even considering the latter is to save work and licensing costs.

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  • How can we recover/restore lost/overwritten data in our MSSQL 2008 table?

    - by TeTe
    I am in serious trouble and I am seeking professional advices here. We are using MSSQL server 2008. We removed primary key, replaced exiting data with new data resulted losing our critical business data in its child tables on MSSQL Server. It was completely human mistake and we didn't have disk failure. 1) The last backup file was a month ago which means it is useless. 2) We created Maintenance Plans to backup our database at 12AM everyday but those files are nohwere to be found 3) A friend of mine said we can recover from Transaction Logs. When I go to TaskRestore Transaction log is dimmed/disabled. 4) I checked ManagementMaintenance Plans. I can't find any restored point there. It seems that our maintenance plan hasn't been working. Is there any third party tool to recover lost/overwritten data from MSSQL table? Thanks a lot.

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  • What monitor specifications should be taken into consideration to avoid eye problems? [closed]

    - by coding crow
    I spent time programming on my 13.3" laptop for 8 to 10 hours a day. I was planning to buy a good monitor. Now that I have developed CVS buying a monitor has became an immediate priority. I have spend some time trying to understand what I should buy and why. I could only zero down on the size (20") and LED. So, I'm looking for advice on many other factors like resolution, pixel density, panel technology and so forth. What should I look for in a computer monitor to avoid further eye problems? Why?

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  • IASA Sessions on Social Networking Note Influence of Millennial Generation on Insurance Technology

    - by [email protected]
    Helen Pitts, senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance is blogging from the 2010 IASA Annual Conference and Business Show this week. Social networking continues to be a buzzword for many in the industry. Erin Esurance, the Geico Gecko and even Nationwide's "The World's Greatest Spokesperson in the World" all have a prominent presence in the social media world. Sessions at the 2010 IASA Annual Conference and Business Show this week in Grapevine, Texas, highlighted how the millennial generation's exploding use of social media is spurring more carriers to leverage tools like Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks to engage prospect and customers. While panelists encouraged carriers to leverage social networking tools for marketing and communications, they expressed the need for caution and corporate governance when it comes to using the tools as a part of claims, underwriting, and human resources recruitment business practices, and interactions with producers. (A previous Oracle Insurance blog entry by my colleague Susan Keuer noted that social networking and its impact on the underwriting process was also a hot topic at the recent AHOU conference.) Speaking of the millennial generation, IASA announced a new scholarship program and awarded three scholarships during the association's conference this week. The IASA Insurance Industry Collegiate Scholarship Program awards $2,000 scholarships to students in their second or third year of college who are studying an insurance-related field at a four-year college or university. The IASA scholarship committee is co-chaired by Wendy Gibson, vice president of business development for Oracle Insurance. Gibson, a long time IASA volunteer, is completing her second term on IASA's volunteer management team as vice president of industry relations. Helen Pitts is senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance.

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  • Con Oracle l’Azienda Sanitaria della Provincia di Trento vince l'HR Innovation Award

    - by Lara Ermacora
    Il 14 giugno, si è tenuto il Convegno di presentazione dei risultati della Ricerca 2011 dell'Osservatorio HR Innovation Practice della School of Management del Politecnico di Milano. La Ricerca ha coinvolto 108 Direttori HR delle più importanti aziende operanti in Italia con l'obiettivo di comprendere l'evoluzione dei modelli organizzativi e promuovere l'innovazione dei processi di gestione e sviluppo delle Risorse Umane attraverso l'utilizzo di nuove tecnologie ICT. La presentazione dei risultati della Ricerca è stata seguita da una Tavola Rotonda a cui hanno partecipato i referenti di alcune delle principali aziende che offrono servizi e soluzioni in ambito HR e dalla consegna dei Premi “HR Innovation Award”, un’importante occasione di confronto su casi di eccellenza nell’innovazione dei processi HR . L’Azienda per i Servizi Sanitari di Trento (APSS) ha ricevuto il premio HR Innovation Award nella categoria “Valutazione delle prestazioni e gestione delle carriere”. Riconoscimento conseguito grazie al progetto di miglioramento della gestione del personale portato avanti facendo leva su Oracle PeopleSoft HCM (Human Capital Management) , la soluzione applicativa integrata di Oracle a supporto della direzione risorse umane. Il progetto nasce da una chiara esigenza dell'azienda sanitaria ad utilizzare un sistema applicativo che consentisse di migliorare i processi di gestione delle risorse umane fornendo una visione univoca delle informazioni relative a ciascun dipendente, contrariamente a quanto accadeva in passato. La scelta è caduta su Oracle Peoplesoft HCM per varie motivazioni. Prima di tutto perchè si tratta di una piattaforma unica e integrata che permette una gestione del personale snella. Questo avviene soprattutto perchè la piattaforma, ricostruendo la soria di ciascun dipendente, lo storico delle sue valutazioni e un quadro chiaro delle gerarchie aziendali, mette l’individuo al centro del sistema e consente di sviluppare assetti organizzativi e modalità operative in grado di garantire il collegamento tra tutte le fasi del processo di gestione delle risorse umane. Per maggiori informazioni sul progetto ecco una breve intervista di cui aveva già parlato ad Ettore Turra , responsabile del programma Sviluppo Risorse Umane APPS Trento:

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  • New Fusion Community, Community Name Changes and Upcoming Webcasts

    - by cwarticki
    v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Check out the new MOS Customer Relationship Management (CRM) community. This community has been featured in marketing events and is one of the more active communities so far. Support has also renamed the Fusion HCM community (now Human Capital Management (HCM)) and the Technical – FA community (now Fusion Applications Technology) in order to standardize our naming convention. Finally, we have two upcoming webcasts: 18-OCT-2012 : Fusion Apps Security - User & Role Management using Oracle Identity Manager featured in our Fusion Applications Technology community 01-NOV-2012: Fusion Apps Security – Troubleshoot Data Role Issues featured in our Fusion Applications Technology community. Check out our new Community. Attend our upcoming webcasts. Participate.  Engage. Contribute. ~Chris

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  • A note to college students using forums to do research

    - by Malcolm Anderson
    Recently, on a software development forum, a person who shall remain nameless posted the following   Hi, Is there good material available on the net/elsewhere for the following topics? 1. Transitioning an Organisation to Scrum 2. Scrum Team Dynamics Thanks Name Withheld to protect the guilty   Of course one of the first answers the nameless one got was a link to LetMeGoogleThatForYou http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Transitioning+an+Organisation+to+Scrum     Here's a quick checklist to follow before asking geeks of any kind, a broad general question. My Suggestion, use the checklist   1) google it 2) spend at least 1 hour reading blogs and articles on the subject before bothering another human 3) ask your question in the following form     a) I am a (position, years and months in positon)     b) I am trying to accomplish (goal)     c) What I have done for my research is (spent x hours reading and y hours interviewing relevant people)     d) What I am (am not) finding in my research is the following     e) Express curiosity as to what resources you may have missed and request suggestions for your next steps. 4) When you come back after doing all the above, then you can ask almost any question you want. This checklist is also useful when you are training a new developer.

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  • How to set the service endPoint URI dynamically in SOA Suite 11gR1 by Sylvain Grosjean’s

    - by JuergenKress
    Use Case : This example demonstrates how to get the URI of the backend service from a repository and how to set it dynamically to our partnerLink (dynamicPartnerLink). Implementation steps : Create a dvm file Create a BPEL component Add the endPointURI variable and assign the uri Set the endpointURI property in the invoke activity 1. Create a DVM file : In order to define our repository, we are going to use DVM (Data Value Maps) : For more explanation regarding DVM, you should read this documentation. 2. Create a BPEL Component : First you need to implement the simple bpel process like this : - The AssignPayload is used to set the inputvariable of our invoke activity. - The AssignEndpointURI is used to dynamically set the endPointURI variable from our DVM repository - The invoke activity to call the external service Read the complete article here. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Technorati Tags: human task,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress,Sylvain Grosjean

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  • Inside Amazon’s Warehouses

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    If you’re expecting the inside of Amazon’s warehouses to be some sort of rigidly organized robot-filled warehouse of tomorrow, you’ll be quite surprised to find that storage technique they employ is called “chaotic storage”. International Business Times paid a visit to a major Amazon warehouse and took a tour. Rather than finding robots they found: Amazon must rely on barcodes and human hands to find the ordered items and drop them into the proper bins — without robots, Amazon utilizes a system known as “chaotic storage,” where products are essentially shelved at random. By storing items randomly instead of categorically, the warehouse has a much better flow of material. Even without robots or automation, Amazon can compile a “picking list” where each item needs to be taken off the shelf and scanned again before it can be shipped. The real advantage to chaotic storage is that it’s significantly more flexible than conventional storage systems. If there are big changes in a product range, the company doesn’t need to plan for more space, because the products or their sales volumes don’t need to be known or planned in advance if they’re simply being stored at random. HTG Explains: Does Your Android Phone Need an Antivirus? How To Use USB Drives With the Nexus 7 and Other Android Devices Why Does 64-Bit Windows Need a Separate “Program Files (x86)” Folder?

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  • Earth’s Radiation Belt Sounds like Whale Song [Video]

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    The radio frequencies of Earth’s radiation belt have uncanny resemblance to a sort of whale/bird song remix. Check out this video to learn more about NASA’s efforts to explore the belts and listen to the Earth’s song. When we hear the “song” of the Earth, exactly what are we hearing? Science@NASA explains: Chorus is an electromagnetic phenomenon caused by plasma waves in Earth’s radiation belts. For years, ham radio operators on Earth have been listening to them from afar. Now, NASA’s twin Radiation Belt Storm Probes are traveling through the region of space where chorus actually comes from–and the recordings are out of this world. “This is what the radiation belts would sound like to a human being if we had radio antennas for ears,” says Kletzing, whose team at the University of Iowa built the “EMFISIS” (Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science) receiver used to pick up the signals. He’s careful to point out that these are not acoustic waves of the kind that travel through the air of our planet. Chorus is made of radio waves that oscillate at acoustic frequencies, between 0 and 10 kHz. The magnetic search coil antennas of the Radiation Belt Storm Probes are designed to detect these kinds of waves. HTG Explains: How Antivirus Software Works HTG Explains: Why Deleted Files Can Be Recovered and How You Can Prevent It HTG Explains: What Are the Sys Rq, Scroll Lock, and Pause/Break Keys on My Keyboard?

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  • Faq and Best tips Regarding Learning Database ?

    - by AdityaGameProgrammer
    For a programmer with no prior exposure to databases What would be a good database to learn Oracle vs SQLserver vs MySQLvs PostgreSQL? I have come across lot of discussion MySQL and PostgreSQL and frankly I am confused on which to start with. Are these very different, in the sense if one had to switch, would the exposure to one be counter-productive to learning the other? Is working with databases heavily platform dependent? What exactly do people mean by Data base programming vs. administration? Do people chose databases based on the programming language used for the application developed? In general, Working with databases is it implicit that we work with some server? Does the choice of databases differ when it comes to game development? If so what factors does it differ by? What are the Best Tips that you have found to be useful when learning databases Edit: Some FAQ i had and found the same on SO What should every developer know about databases? Which database if learning from scratch in 2010? For a beginner, is there much difference between MySQL and PostgreSQL What RDBMS should I learn/use? (MySql/SQL Server/Oracle etc.) To what extent should a developer learn database? How are database programmers different from other programmers? what kind of database are used in games?

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  • Accessing Server-Side Data from Client Script: Using Ajax Web Services, Script References, and jQuery

    Today's websites commonly exchange information between the browser and the web server using Ajax techniques. In a nutshell, the browser executes JavaScript code typically in response to the page loading or some user action. This JavaScript makes an asynchronous HTTP request to the server. The server processes this request and, perhaps, returns data that the browser can then seamlessly integrate into the web page. Typically, the information exchanged between the browser and server is serialized into JSON, an open, text-based serialization format that is both human-readable and platform independent. Adding such targeted, lightweight Ajax capabilities to your ASP.NET website requires two steps: first, you must create some mechanism on the server that accepts requests from client-side script and returns a JSON payload in response; second, you need to write JavaScript in your ASP.NET page to make an HTTP request to this service you created and to work with the returned results. This article series examines a variety of techniques for implementing such scenarios. In Part 1 we used an ASP.NET page and the JavaScriptSerializer class to create a server-side service. This service was called from the browser using the free, open-source jQuery JavaScript library. This article continues our examination of techniques for implementing lightweight Ajax scenarios in an ASP.NET website. Specifically, it examines how to create ASP.NET Ajax Web Services on the server-side and how to use both the ASP.NET Ajax Library and jQuery to consume them from the client-side. Read on to learn more! Read More >

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  • Productivity Tips

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

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  • Do’s and Don’ts Building SharePoint Applications

    - by Bil Simser
    SharePoint is a great platform for building quick LOB applications. Simple things from employee time trackers to server and software inventory to full blown Help Desks can be crafted up using SharePoint from just customizing Lists. No programming necessary. However there are a few tricks I’ve painfully learned over the years that you can use for your own solutions. DO What’s In A Name? When you create a new list, column, or view you’ll commonly name it something like “Expense Reports”. However this has the ugly effect of creating a url to the list as “Expense%20Reports”. Or worse, an internal field name of “Expense_x0x0020_Reports” which is not only cryptic but hard to remember when you’re trying to find the column by internal name. While “Expense Reports 2011” is user friendly, “ExpenseReports2011” is not (unless you’re a programmer). So that’s not the solution. Well, not entirely. Instead when you create your column or list or view use the scrunched up name (I can’t think of the technical term for it right now) of “ExpenseReports2011”, “WomenAtTheOfficeThatAreMen” or “KoalaMeatIsGoodWhenBroiled”. After you’ve created it, go back and change the name to the more friendly “Silly Expense Reports That Nobody Reads”. The original internal name will be the url and code friendly one without spaces while the one used on data entry forms and view headers will be the human version. Smart Columns When building a view include columns that make sense. By default when you add a column the “Add to default view” is checked. Resist the urge to be lazy and leave it checked. Uncheck that puppy and decide consciously what columns should be included in the view. Pick columns that make sense to what the user is trying to do. This means you have to talk to the user. Yes, I know. That can be trying at times and even painful. Go ahead, talk to them. You might learn something. Find out what’s important to them and why. If they’re doing something repetitively as part of their job, try to make their life easier by including what’s most important to them. Do they really need to see the Created *and* Modified date of a document or do they just need the title and author? You’ll only find out after talking to them (or getting them drunk in a bar and leaving them in the back alley handcuffed to a garbage bin, don’t ask). Gotta Keep it Separated Hey, views are there for a reason. Use them. While “All Items” is a fine way to present a list of well, all items, it’s hardly sufficient to present a list of servers built before the Y2K bug hit. You’ll be scrolling the list for hours finally arriving at Page 387 of 12,591 and cursing that SharePoint guy for convincing you that putting your hardware into a list would be of any use to anyone. Next to collecting the data, presenting it is just as important. Views are often overlooked and many times ignored or misused. They’re the way you can slice and dice the data up so that you’re not trying to consume 3,000 years of human evolution on a single web page. Remember views can be filtered so feel free to create a view for each status or one for each operating system or one for each species of Information Worker you might be putting in that list or document library. Not only will it reduce the number of items someone sees at one time, it’ll also make the information that much more relevant. Also remember that each view is a separate page. Use it in navigation by creating a menu on the Quick Launch to each view. The discoverability of the Views menu isn’t overly obvious and if you violate the rule of columns (see Horizontally Scrolling below) the view menu doesn’t even show up until you shuffle the scroll bar to the left. Navigation links, big giant buttons, a screaming flashing “CLICK ME NOW” will help your users find their way. Sort It! Views are great so we’re building nice, rich views for the user. Awesomesauce. However sort is not very discoverable by the user. For example when you’re looking at a view how do you know if it’s ascending or descending and what is it sorted on. Maybe it’s sorted using two fields so what’s that all about? Help your users by letting them know the information they’re looking at is sorted. Maybe you name the view something appropriate like “Bogus Expense Claims Sorted By Deadbeats”. If you use the naming strategy just make sure you keep the name consistent with the description. In the previous example their better be a Deadbeat column so I can see the sort in action. Having a “Loser” column, while equally correct, is a little obtuse to the average Information Worker. Remember, they usually don’t use acronyms and even if they knew how to, it’s not immediately obvious to them that’s what you’re trying to convey. Another option is to simply drop a Content Editor Web Part above the list and explain exactly the view they’re looking at. Each view is it’s own page so one CEWP won’t be used across the board. Be descriptive in what the user is seeing but try to keep it brief. Dumping the first chapter of I, Claudius might be informative to the data but can gobble up screen real estate and miss the point of having the list. DO NOT Useless Attachments The attachments column is, in a word, useless. For the most part. Sure it indicates there’s an attachment on the list item but in the grand scheme of things that’s not overly informative. Maybe it is and by all means, if it makes sense to you include it. Colour it. Make it shine and stand like the Return of Clippy on every SharePoint list. Without it being functional it can be boring. EndUserSharePoint.com has an article to make the son of Clippy that much more useful so feel free to head over and check out this blog post by Paul Grenier on the task (Warning code ahead! Danger Will Robinson!) In any case, I would suggest you remove it from your views. Again if it’s important then include it but consider the jQuery solution above to make it functional. It’s added by default to views and one of things that people forget to clean up. Horizontal Scrolling Screen real estate is premium so building a list that contains 8,000 columns and stretches horizontally across 15 screens probably isn’t the most user friendly experience. Most users can’t figure out how to scroll vertically let alone horizontally so don’t make it even that more confusing for them. Take the Steve Krug approach in your view designs and try not to make the user think. Again views are your friend. Consider splitting up the data into views where one view contains 10 columns and other view contains the other 10. Okay, maybe your information doesn’t work that way but humans can only process 7 pieces of data at a time, 10 at most (then their heads explode and you don’t want to clean that mess up, especially on a Friday night before the big dance). It drives me batshit crazy when I see a view with 80 columns of data. I often ask the user “So what do you do with all this information”. The response is usually “With this data [the first 10 columns] I decide if I’m going to fire everyone, and with this data [the next 10 columns] I decide if I’m going to set the building on fire and collect the insurance”. It’s at that point I show them how to create two new views “People Who Are About To Get The Axe” and “Beach Time For The Executives”. Again, talk to your users and try to reason with them on cutting down the number of columns they see at once. Vertical Scrolling Another big faux pas I find is the use of multi-line comment fields in views. It’s not so bad when you have a statement like this in your view: “I really like, oh my god, thought I was going to scream when I saw this turtle then I decided what I was going to have for dinner and frankly I hate having to work late so when I was talking to the customer I thought, oh my god, what if the customer has turtles and then it appeared to me that I really was hungry so I'm going to have lunch now.” It’s fine if that’s the only column along with two or three others, but once you slap those 20 columns of data into the list, the comment field wraps and forms a new multi-page novel that takes up your entire screen. Do everyone a favour and just avoid adding the column to views. Train the user to just click through to the item if they need to see the contents. Duplicate Information Duplication is never good. Views and great as you can group data together. For example create a view of project status reports grouped by author. Then you can see what project manager is being a dip and not submitting their report. However if you group by author do you really need the Created By field as well in the view? Or if the view is grouped by Project then Author do you need both. Horizontal real estate is always at a premium so try not to clutter up the view with duplicate data like this. Oh  yeah, if you’re scratching your head saying “But Bil, if I don’t include the Project name in the view and I have a lot of items then how do I know which one I’m looking at”. That’s a hint that your grouping is too vague or you have too much data in the view based on that criteria. Filter it down a notch, create some views, and try to keep the group down to a single screen where you can see the group header at the top of the page. Again it’s just managing the information you have. Redundant, See Redundant This partially relates to duplicate information and smart columns but basically remember to not include the obvious in a view. Remember, don’t make me think. If you’ve gone to the trouble (and it was a lot of trouble wasn’t it?) to create separate views of your data by creating a “September Zombie Brain Sales”, “October Zombie Brain Sales”, etc. then please for the love of all that is holy do not include the Month and Product columns in your view. Similarly if you create a “My” view of anything (“My Favourite Brands of Spandex”, “My Co-Workers I Find The Urge To Disinfect”) then again, do not include the owner or author field (or whatever field you use to identify “My”). That’s just silly. Hope that helps! Happy customizing!

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  • Collaborate 2010: Spotlight on Oracle Content Management

    - by [email protected]
    Excitement is building for the Collaborate conference April 18th through the 22nd. Outside of the event being in Las Vegas, which for me often seems to add to the excitement, there will be a great lineup of Oracle Content Management focused sessions. In fact, there are currently over 30 content management sessions scheduled, and attendees will get to hear from customers, partners, as well as Oracle experts. Attendees should expect to hear a lot about Oracle Content Management 11g at Collaborate 2010. Roel Stalman and Andy MacMillan will kick off these discussions on Monday, April 19th as they present Oracle Content Management's product strategy and roadmap (10:45 - 11:45). Monday's lineup also includes sessions on Oracle Imaging and Process Management (I/PM) 11g and Oracle Forms Recognition (2:30 - 3:30), which were both released in January. For those customers using older versions of I/PM or Stellent IBPM, be sure not to miss the "migrating to I/PM 11g" session on Monday as well (1:15 - 2:15) as this should give you some insight into the migration process. Check out the entire list of Oracle Content Management sessions here. Another focus at Collaborate this year is to discuss the benefits of using Oracle Content Management with Oracle Applications - Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and Siebel - so be sure to check out these sessions too: Accelerating Accounts Payable Processes with Integrated Document Imaging(Monday, April 19th, 3:45 - 4:45)Supercharge Your Siebel Sales and Marketing with Integrated Document Management(Tuesday, April 20th, 2:00 - 3:00)Oracle Enterprise 2.0 for Oracle Applications: The Value of an Integrated E2.0 Platform(Tuesday, April 20th, 3:15 - 4:15)Comprehensive Human Resources Automation with Oracle Content Management(Wednesday, April 21st, 1:00 - 2:00) Collaborate is also the perfect opportunity to meet Oracle executives and product experts. Attendees can sign up for 1 on 1 meetings at the event, and there will be someone representing each Oracle Content Management product. These meetings are probably the best way to get your product questions answered in a face-to-face manner. It seems more and more to me that Oracle Content Management customers are viewing Collaborate as "the" conference to attend each year. I hope you have plans to attend and I will see you there.

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  • How many different servers are needed to keep a website running with no downtime? [closed]

    - by Mason Wheeler
    Machines go down. It's a fact of life. They may need to be rebooted for some reason, or they may have a hardware failure, or a power outage. So if I wanted to deploy a website with a server backed by a SQL database, putting the whole thing on one server wouldn't be good enough. It obviously needs at least two servers, so that if one goes down, the other can pick up the slack until the first comes back up. Of course, if I have the server software on two machines, either one of which could go down, I can't place the database on either of those two machines, because it could go down. So the database needs its own server. But that server can go down, so I need a backup database server and some sort of replication system to keep it in sync so the main can fail-over to it. So far, that's a bare minimum of 4 machines to keep one website running with a reasonable chance of no downtime. (Assuming no catastrophic events take place that take down both front-end servers at once or both DB servers at once, and no hacks, DDOS attacks, etc. Am I missing any other factors, or should I consider 4 servers to be the minimum for running a website with a goal of continuing operation without downtime even when a server goes down?

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