Search Results

Search found 14378 results on 576 pages for 'record count'.

Page 437/576 | < Previous Page | 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444  | Next Page >

• SQLAuthority News – Virtual Launch Event for Office 2010 – Contest – Win MS Office License

  - by pinaldave

  Office products are integral products of any PC. I accept that without Office Suites, I can not survive or make enough leaving. I am blogger and use word to create my blogs. I am SQL Server Trainer  and I use PowerPoint as my presentation tool. I am SQL Server consultant and I use Excel to keep my work log. I can not see my life with Office Tools. Just like any other Microsoft Product there is strong community following Office Tools. Please count me in. The same community is hosting a Virtual Launch Event for Office 2010 on May 25 and 26th. The webcasts is FREE to attend and people can take part either online or by going to the nearest available center. The sessions will be delivered by MVPs. To register please visit: http://www.meraoffice.com. In June, limited cities will be hosting Community Launch Events for Office 2010. At the launch events, attendees will get to see Office 2010 in action and learn how to do their work better with Office 2010.  The details are available on http://office.merawindows.com. To support one of the largest community, I am announcing one contents. It is very easy to take part in the contest. You just have to answer one very simple question. Contest: Choose best option: With which Microsoft Office Product Powerpivot is associated? Options: 1) PowerPoint 2) Excel 3) Word Hint: http://search.sqlauthority.com Rules: Winner will be awarded 1 Office 2007 Home and Student. This will be freely upgradeable to Office 2010 once it releases in June. The winners will be sent emails and they will redeem their awards via microsoftstore.co.in The prizes can only be shipped to India and Indian residents are eligible. Winner will be selected by selected community leaders and MVPs at their sole discretion. Winner will be informed by email about the award. Most creative and informative comment will win the contest. Please spread the words about this contest. SQLAuthority.com will also send SQL Server book to the person who generates the most traffic to this blog post using Twitter, Facebook and other social media. This competition is also open to Indian residents only. I will measure the traffic using my wordpress.com stats plugin. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Office

  Read the article

• Extending NerdDinner: Adding Geolocated Flair

  - by Jon Galloway

  NerdDinner is a website with the audacious goal of “Organizing the world’s nerds and helping them eat in packs.” Because nerds aren’t likely to socialize with others unless a website tells them to do it. Scott Hanselman showed off a lot of the cool features we’ve added to NerdDinner lately during his popular talk at MIX10, Beyond File | New Company: From Cheesy Sample to Social Platform. Did you miss it? Go ahead and watch it, I’ll wait. One of the features we wanted to add was flair. You know about flair, right? It’s a way to let folks who like your site show it off in their own site. For example, here’s my StackOverflow flair: Great! So how could we add some of this flair stuff to NerdDinner? What do we want to show? If we’re going to encourage our users to give up a bit of their beautiful website to show off a bit of ours, we need to think about what they’ll want to show. For instance, my StackOverflow flair is all about me, not StackOverflow. So how will this apply to NerdDinner? Since NerdDinner is all about organizing local dinners, in order for the flair to be useful it needs to make sense for the person viewing the web page. If someone visits from Egypt visits my blog, they should see information about NerdDinners in Egypt. That’s geolocation – localizing site content based on where the browser’s sitting, and it makes sense for flair as well as entire websites. So we’ll set up a simple little callout that prompts them to host a dinner in their area: Hopefully our flair works and there is a dinner near your viewers, so they’ll see another view which lists upcoming dinners near them: The Geolocation Part Generally website geolocation is done by mapping the requestor’s IP address to a geographic area. It’s not an exact science, but I’ve always found it to be pretty accurate. There are (at least) three ways to handle it: You pay somebody like MaxMind for a database (with regular updates) that sits on your server, and you use their API to do lookups. I used this on a pretty big project a few years ago and it worked well. You use HTML 5 Geolocation API or Google Gears or some other browser based solution. I think those are cool (I use Google Gears a lot), but they’re both in flux right now and I don’t think either has a wide enough of an install base yet to rely on them. You might want to, but I’ve heard you do all kinds of crazy stuff, and sometimes it gets you in trouble. I don’t mean talk out of line, but we all laugh behind your back a bit. But, hey, it’s up to you. It’s your flair or whatever. There are some free webservices out there that will take an IP address and give you location information. Easy, and works for everyone. That’s what we’re doing. I looked at a few different services and settled on IPInfoDB. It’s free, has a great API, and even returns JSON, which is handy for Javascript use. The IP query is pretty simple. We hit a URL like this: http://ipinfodb.com/ip_query.php?ip=74.125.45.100&timezone=false … and we get an XML response back like this… <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <Response> <Ip>74.125.45.100</Ip> <Status>OK</Status> <CountryCode>US</CountryCode> <CountryName>United States</CountryName> <RegionCode>06</RegionCode> <RegionName>California</RegionName> <City>Mountain View</City> <ZipPostalCode>94043</ZipPostalCode> <Latitude>37.4192</Latitude> <Longitude>-122.057</Longitude> </Response> So we’ll build some data transfer classes to hold the location information, like this: public class LocationInfo { public string Country { get; set; } public string RegionName { get; set; } public string City { get; set; } public string ZipPostalCode { get; set; } public LatLong Position { get; set; } } public class LatLong { public float Lat { get; set; } public float Long { get; set; } } And now hitting the service is pretty simple: public static LocationInfo HostIpToPlaceName(string ip) { string url = "http://ipinfodb.com/ip_query.php?ip={0}&timezone=false"; url = String.Format(url, ip); var result = XDocument.Load(url); var location = (from x in result.Descendants("Response") select new LocationInfo { City = (string)x.Element("City"), RegionName = (string)x.Element("RegionName"), Country = (string)x.Element("CountryName"), ZipPostalCode = (string)x.Element("CountryName"), Position = new LatLong { Lat = (float)x.Element("Latitude"), Long = (float)x.Element("Longitude") } }).First(); return location; } Getting The User’s IP Okay, but first we need the end user’s IP, and you’d think it would be as simple as reading the value from HttpContext: HttpContext.Current.Request.UserHostAddress But you’d be wrong. Sorry. UserHostAddress just wraps HttpContext.Current.Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_ADDR"], but that doesn’t get you the IP for users behind a proxy. That’s in another header, “HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR". So you can either hit a wrapper and then check a header, or just check two headers. I went for uniformity: string SourceIP = string.IsNullOrEmpty(Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"]) ? Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_ADDR"] : Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"]; We’re almost set to wrap this up, but first let’s talk about our views. Yes, views, because we’ll have two. Selecting the View We wanted to make it easy for people to include the flair in their sites, so we looked around at how other people were doing this. The StackOverflow folks have a pretty good flair system, which allows you to include the flair in your site as either an IFRAME reference or a Javascript include. We’ll do both. We have a ServicesController to handle use of the site information outside of NerdDinner.com, so this fits in pretty well there. We’ll be displaying the same information for both HTML and Javascript flair, so we can use one Flair controller action which will return a different view depending on the requested format. Here’s our general flow for our controller action: Get the user’s IP Translate it to a location Grab the top three upcoming dinners that are near that location Select the view based on the format (defaulted to “html”) Return a FlairViewModel which contains the list of dinners and the location information public ActionResult Flair(string format = "html") { string SourceIP = string.IsNullOrEmpty( Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"]) ? Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_ADDR"] : Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"]; var location = GeolocationService.HostIpToPlaceName(SourceIP); var dinners = dinnerRepository. FindByLocation(location.Position.Lat, location.Position.Long). OrderByDescending(p => p.EventDate).Take(3); // Select the view we'll return. // Using a switch because we'll add in JSON and other formats later. string view; switch (format.ToLower()) { case "javascript": view = "JavascriptFlair"; break; default: view = "Flair"; break; } return View( view, new FlairViewModel { Dinners = dinners.ToList(), LocationName = string.IsNullOrEmpty(location.City) ? "you" : String.Format("{0}, {1}", location.City, location.RegionName) } ); } Note: I’m not in love with the logic here, but it seems like overkill to extract the switch statement away when we’ll probably just have two or three views. What do you think? The HTML View The HTML version of the view is pretty simple – the only thing of any real interest here is the use of an extension method to truncate strings that are would cause the titles to wrap. public static string Truncate(this string s, int maxLength) { if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(s) || maxLength <= 0) return string.Empty; else if (s.Length > maxLength) return s.Substring(0, maxLength) + "..."; else return s; }   So here’s how the HTML view ends up looking: <%@ Page Title="" Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<FlairViewModel>" %> <%@ Import Namespace="NerdDinner.Helpers" %> <%@ Import Namespace="NerdDinner.Models" %> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Nerd Dinner</title> <link href="/Content/Flair.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <div id="nd-wrapper"> <h2 id="nd-header">NerdDinner.com</h2> <div id="nd-outer"> <% if (Model.Dinners.Count == 0) { %> <div id="nd-bummer"> Looks like there's no Nerd Dinners near <%:Model.LocationName %> in the near future. Why not <a target="_blank" href="http://www.nerddinner.com/Dinners/Create">host one</a>?</div> <% } else { %> <h3> Dinners Near You</h3> <ul> <% foreach (var item in Model.Dinners) { %> <li> <%: Html.ActionLink(String.Format("{0} with {1} on {2}", item.Title.Truncate(20), item.HostedBy, item.EventDate.ToShortDateString()), "Details", "Dinners", new { id = item.DinnerID }, new { target = "_blank" })%></li> <% } %> </ul> <% } %> <div id="nd-footer"> More dinners and fun at <a target="_blank" href="http://nrddnr.com">http://nrddnr.com</a></div> </div> </div> </body> </html> You’d include this in a page using an IFRAME, like this: <IFRAME height=230 marginHeight=0 src="http://nerddinner.com/services/flair" frameBorder=0 width=160 marginWidth=0 scrolling=no></IFRAME> The Javascript view The Javascript flair is written so you can include it in a webpage with a simple script include, like this: <script type="text/javascript" src="http://nerddinner.com/services/flair?format=javascript"></script> The goal of this view is very similar to the HTML embed view, with a few exceptions: We’re creating a script element and adding it to the head of the document, which will then document.write out the content. Note that you have to consider if your users will actually have a <head> element in their documents, but for website flair use cases I think that’s a safe bet. Since the content is being added to the existing page rather than shown in an IFRAME, all links need to be absolute. That means we can’t use Html.ActionLink, since it generates relative routes. We need to escape everything since it’s being written out as strings. We need to set the content type to application/x-javascript. The easiest way to do that is to use the <%@ Page ContentType%> directive. <%@ Page Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<NerdDinner.Models.FlairViewModel>" ContentType="application/x-javascript" %> <%@ Import Namespace="NerdDinner.Helpers" %> <%@ Import Namespace="NerdDinner.Models" %> document.write('<script>var link = document.createElement(\"link\");link.href = \"http://nerddinner.com/content/Flair.css\";link.rel = \"stylesheet\";link.type = \"text/css\";var head = document.getElementsByTagName(\"head\")[0];head.appendChild(link);</script>'); document.write('<div id=\"nd-wrapper\"><h2 id=\"nd-header\">NerdDinner.com</h2><div id=\"nd-outer\">'); <% if (Model.Dinners.Count == 0) { %> document.write('<div id=\"nd-bummer\">Looks like there\'s no Nerd Dinners near <%:Model.LocationName %> in the near future. Why not <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://www.nerddinner.com/Dinners/Create\">host one</a>?</div>'); <% } else { %> document.write('<h3> Dinners Near You</h3><ul>'); <% foreach (var item in Model.Dinners) { %> document.write('<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://nrddnr.com/<%: item.DinnerID %>\"><%: item.Title.Truncate(20) %> with <%: item.HostedBy %> on <%: item.EventDate.ToShortDateString() %></a></li>'); <% } %> document.write('</ul>'); <% } %> document.write('<div id=\"nd-footer\"> More dinners and fun at <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://nrddnr.com\">http://nrddnr.com</a></div></div></div>'); Getting IP’s for Testing There are a variety of online services that will translate a location to an IP, which were handy for testing these out. I found http://www.itouchmap.com/latlong.html to be most useful, but I’m open to suggestions if you know of something better. Next steps I think the next step here is to minimize load – you know, in case people start actually using this flair. There are two places to think about – the NerdDinner.com servers, and the services we’re using for Geolocation. I usually think about caching as a first attack on server load, but that’s less helpful here since every user will have a different IP. Instead, I’d look at taking advantage of Asynchronous Controller Actions, a cool new feature in ASP.NET MVC 2. Async Actions let you call a potentially long-running webservice without tying up a thread on the server while waiting for the response. There’s some good info on that in the MSDN documentation, and Dino Esposito wrote a great article on Asynchronous ASP.NET Pages in the April 2010 issue of MSDN Magazine. But let’s think of the children, shall we? What about ipinfodb.com? Well, they don’t have specific daily limits, but they do throttle you if you put a lot of traffic on them. From their FAQ: We do not have a specific daily limit but queries that are at a rate faster than 2 per second will be put in "queue". If you stay below 2 queries/second everything will be normal. If you go over the limit, you will still get an answer for all queries but they will be slowed down to about 1 per second. This should not affect most users but for high volume websites, you can either use our IP database on your server or we can whitelist your IP for 5$/month (simply use the donate form and leave a comment with your server IP). Good programming practices such as not querying our API for all page views (you can store the data in a cookie or a database) will also help not reaching the limit. So the first step there is to save the geolocalization information in a time-limited cookie, which will allow us to look up the local dinners immediately without having to hit the geolocation service.

  Read the article

• A few things I learned regarding Azure billing policies

  - by Vincent Grondin

  An hour of small computing time: 0,12$ per hour A Gig of storage in the cloud: 0,15$ per hour 1 Gig of relational database using Azure SQL: 9,99$  per month A Visual Studio Professional with MSDN Premium account: 2500$ per year Winning an MSDN Professional account that comes preloaded with 750 free hours of Azure per month:  PRICELESS !!!      But was it really free???? Hmmm… Let’s see.....   Here's a few things I learned regarding Azure billing policies when I attended a promotional training at Microsoft last week...   1)  An instance deployed in the cloud really means whatever you upload in there... it doesn't matter if it's in STAGING OR PRODUCTION!!!!   Your MSDN account comes with 750 free hours of small computing time per month which should be enough hours per month for one instance of one application deployed in the cloud...  So we're cool, the application you run in the cloud doesn't cost you a penny....  BUT the one that's in staging is still consuming time!!!   So if you don’t want to end up having to pay 42$ at the end of the month on your credit card like this happened to a friend of mine, DELETE them staging applications once you’ve put them in production! This also applies to the instance count you can modify in the configuration file… So stop and think before you decide you want to spawn 50 of those hello world apps  .     2) If you have an MSDN account, then you have the promotional 750 hours of Azure credits per month and can use the Azure credits to explore the Cloud! But be aware, this promotion ends in 8 months (maybe more like 7 now) and then you will most likely go back to the standard 250 hours of Azure credits. If you do not delete your applications by then, you’ll get billed for the extra hours, believe me…   There is a switch that you can toggle and which will STOP your automatic enrollment after the promotion and prevent you from renewing the Azure Account automatically. Yes the default setting is to automatically renew your account and remember, you entered your credit card information in the registration process so, yes, you WILL be billed…  Go disable that ASAP    Log into your account, go to “Windows Azure Platform” then click the “Subscriptions” tab and on the right side, you’ll see a drop down with different “Actions” into it… Choose “Opt out of auto renew” and, NOW you’re safe…   Still, this is a great offer by Microsoft and I think everyone that has a chance should play a bit with Azure to get to know this technology a bit more...     Happy Cloud Computing All

  Read the article

• HPC Server Dynamic Job Scheduling: when jobs spawn jobs

  - by JoshReuben

  HPC Job Types HPC has 3 types of jobs http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc972750(v=ws.10).aspx · Task Flow – vanilla sequence · Parametric Sweep – concurrently run multiple instances of the same program, each with a different work unit input · MPI – message passing between master & slave tasks But when you try go outside the box – job tasks that spawn jobs, blocking the parent task – you run the risk of resource starvation, deadlocks, and recursive, non-converging or exponential blow-up. The solution to this is to write some performance monitoring and job scheduling code. You can do this in 2 ways: manually control scheduling - allocate/ de-allocate resources, change job priorities, pause & resume tasks , restrict long running tasks to specific compute clusters Semi-automatically - set threshold params for scheduling. How – Control Job Scheduling In order to manage the tasks and resources that are associated with a job, you will need to access the ISchedulerJob interface - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.hpc.scheduler.ischedulerjob_members(v=vs.85).aspx This really allows you to control how a job is run – you can access & tweak the following features: max / min resource values whether job resources can grow / shrink, and whether jobs can be pre-empted, whether the job is exclusive per node the creator process id & the job pool timestamp of job creation & completion job priority, hold time & run time limit Re-queue count Job progress Max/ min Number of cores, nodes, sockets, RAM Dynamic task list – can add / cancel jobs on the fly Job counters When – poll perf counters Tweaking the job scheduler should be done on the basis of resource utilization according to PerfMon counters – HPC exposes 2 Perf objects: Compute Clusters, Compute Nodes http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc720058(v=ws.10).aspx You can monitor running jobs according to dynamic thresholds – use your own discretion: Percentage processor time Number of running jobs Number of running tasks Total number of processors Number of processors in use Number of processors idle Number of serial tasks Number of parallel tasks Design Your algorithms correctly Finally , don’t assume you have unlimited compute resources in your cluster – design your algorithms with the following factors in mind: · Branching factor - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branching_factor - dynamically optimize the number of children per node · cutoffs to prevent explosions - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_of_a_sequence - not all functions converge after n attempts. You also need a threshold of good enough, diminishing returns · heuristic shortcuts - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic - sometimes an exhaustive search is impractical and short cuts are suitable · Pruning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruning_(algorithm) – remove / de-prioritize unnecessary tree branches · avoid local minima / maxima - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_minima - sometimes an algorithm cant converge because it gets stuck in a local saddle – try simulated annealing, hill climbing or genetic algorithms to get out of these ruts   watch out for rounding errors – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round-off_error - multiple iterations can in parallel can quickly amplify & blow up your algo ! Use an epsilon, avoid floating point errors,  truncations, approximations Happy Coding !

  Read the article

• Last GUID used up - new ScottGuID unique ID to replace it

  - by Eilon

  You might have heard in recent news that the last ever GUID was used up. The GUID {FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF} was just consumed by a soon to be released project at Microsoft. Immediately after the GUID's creation the word spread around the Microsoft campuses around the globe. Microsoft's approximately 100,000 worldwide employees then started blogging, tweeting, and facebooking about the dubious "achievement." The following screenshot shows GUIDGEN (the Windows tool for creating GUIDs) with the last ever GUID. All GUIDs created by projects at Microsoft must be registered in a central repository for record keeping. This allows quick-fix engineers, security engineers, anti-malware developers, and testers to do a quick look up of an unknown GUID and find out if it belongs to Microsoft. The following screenshot shows the Microsoft GUID Tracker internal application and the last few GUIDs being used up by various Microsoft projects. What is perhaps more interesting than the news about the GUID is the project that used that last GUID. The recent announcements regarding the development experience for the Windows Phone 7 Series (WP7S) all involve free editions of Visual Studio 2010. One of the lesser known developer tools is based on a resurrected project that many of you are probably familiar with, but have never used. The tool is in fact Microsoft Bob 7 Series (MB7S). MB7S is an agent-based approach for mobile phone app development. The UI incorporates both natural language interfaces and motion gesture behaviors, similar to the Windows Phone 7 Series “Metro” interface. If it works, it will help to expand the breadth of mobile app developers. After the GUID: The ScottGuID It came as no big surprise that eventually the last GUID would be used up. Knowing this, a group of engineers at Microsoft has designed, implemented, and tested a replacement to the GUID: The ScottGuID. There are several core principles of the ScottGuID: 1. The concepts used in ScottGuIDs must be easily understood by a developer who is already familiar with GUIDs 2. There must exist a compatibility layer between ScottGuIDs and GUIDs 3. A ScottGuID must be usable in a practical manner in non-computing environments 4. There must exist ScottGuID APIs for all common platforms: Win32/Win64/WinCE, .NET (incl. Silverlight), Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS (incl. iPhone OS), Symbian, RIM BlackBerry, Google Android, etc. 5. ScottGuIDs must never run out ScottGuID use cases One of the more subtle principles of the ScottGuID is principle #3. While technically a GUID could be used in any environment, it was not practical to do so in terms of data entry and error detection. In order to have the ScottGuID be a true universal ID it must be usable in non-computing environments. Prior to the announcement of the ScottGuID there have been a number of until-now confidential projects. One of the tools that will soon become public is ScottGuIDGen, which is in essence an updated version of GUIDGEN that can create ScottGuIDs. The following screenshot shows a sample ScottGuID. To demonstrate the various applications of the ScottGuID there were test deployments around the globe. The following examples are a small showcase of the applications that have already been prototyped. Log in to Hotmail: Pay for gas: Sign in to Twitter: Dispense cat food: Conclusion I hope that this brief introduction to the ScottGuID shows how technology can continue to move forward, even when it appears there is a point that cannot be passed. With a small number of principles, a team of smart engineers, and a passion for "getting it right" the ScottGuID should last well past our lifetimes. In the coming months expect further announcements regarding additional developer tools, samples, whitepapers, podcasts, and videos. Please leave a comment on this post if you have any questions about the ScottGuID or what you would like to see us do with it. With ScottGuID, the possibilities are nearly endless and we want to stretch their reach as far as possible.

  Read the article

• Syncing Data with a Server using Silverlight and HTTP Polling Duplex

  - by dwahlin

  Many applications have the need to stay in-sync with data provided by a service. Although web applications typically rely on standard polling techniques to check if data has changed, Silverlight provides several interesting options for keeping an application in-sync that rely on server “push” technologies. A few years back I wrote several blog posts covering different “push” technologies available in Silverlight that rely on sockets or HTTP Polling Duplex. We recently had a project that looked like it could benefit from pushing data from a server to one or more clients so I thought I’d revisit the subject and provide some updates to the original code posted. If you’ve worked with AJAX before in Web applications then you know that until browsers fully support web sockets or other duplex (bi-directional communication) technologies that it’s difficult to keep applications in-sync with a server without relying on polling. The problem with polling is that you have to check for changes on the server on a timed-basis which can often be wasteful and take up unnecessary resources. With server “push” technologies, data can be pushed from the server to the client as it changes. Once the data is received, the client can update the user interface as appropriate. Using “push” technologies allows the client to listen for changes from the data but stay 100% focused on client activities as opposed to worrying about polling and asking the server if anything has changed. Silverlight provides several options for pushing data from a server to a client including sockets, TCP bindings and HTTP Polling Duplex.  Each has its own strengths and weaknesses as far as performance and setup work with HTTP Polling Duplex arguably being the easiest to setup and get going.  In this article I’ll demonstrate how HTTP Polling Duplex can be used in Silverlight 4 applications to push data and show how you can create a WCF server that provides an HTTP Polling Duplex binding that a Silverlight client can consume.   What is HTTP Polling Duplex? Technologies that allow data to be pushed from a server to a client rely on duplex functionality. Duplex (or bi-directional) communication allows data to be passed in both directions.  A client can call a service and the server can call the client. HTTP Polling Duplex (as its name implies) allows a server to communicate with a client without forcing the client to constantly poll the server. It has the benefit of being able to run on port 80 making setup a breeze compared to the other options which require specific ports to be used and cross-domain policy files to be exposed on port 943 (as with sockets and TCP bindings). Having said that, if you’re looking for the best speed possible then sockets and TCP bindings are the way to go. But, they’re not the only game in town when it comes to duplex communication. The first time I heard about HTTP Polling Duplex (initially available in Silverlight 2) I wasn’t exactly sure how it was any better than standard polling used in AJAX applications. I read the Silverlight SDK, looked at various resources and generally found the following definition unhelpful as far as understanding the actual benefits that HTTP Polling Duplex provided: "The Silverlight client periodically polls the service on the network layer, and checks for any new messages that the service wants to send on the callback channel. The service queues all messages sent on the client callback channel and delivers them to the client when the client polls the service." Although the previous definition explained the overall process, it sounded as if standard polling was used. Fortunately, Microsoft’s Scott Guthrie provided me with a more clear definition several years back that explains the benefits provided by HTTP Polling Duplex quite well (used with his permission): "The [HTTP Polling Duplex] duplex support does use polling in the background to implement notifications – although the way it does it is different than manual polling. It initiates a network request, and then the request is effectively “put to sleep” waiting for the server to respond (it doesn’t come back immediately). The server then keeps the connection open but not active until it has something to send back (or the connection times out after 90 seconds – at which point the duplex client will connect again and wait). This way you are avoiding hitting the server repeatedly – but still get an immediate response when there is data to send." After hearing Scott’s definition the light bulb went on and it all made sense. A client makes a request to a server to check for changes, but instead of the request returning immediately, it parks itself on the server and waits for data. It’s kind of like waiting to pick up a pizza at the store. Instead of calling the store over and over to check the status, you sit in the store and wait until the pizza (the request data) is ready. Once it’s ready you take it back home (to the client). This technique provides a lot of efficiency gains over standard polling techniques even though it does use some polling of its own as a request is initially made from a client to a server. So how do you implement HTTP Polling Duplex in your Silverlight applications? Let’s take a look at the process by starting with the server. Creating an HTTP Polling Duplex WCF Service Creating a WCF service that exposes an HTTP Polling Duplex binding is straightforward as far as coding goes. Add some one way operations into an interface, create a client callback interface and you’re ready to go. The most challenging part comes into play when configuring the service to properly support the necessary binding and that’s more of a cut and paste operation once you know the configuration code to use. To create an HTTP Polling Duplex service you’ll need to expose server-side and client-side interfaces and reference the System.ServiceModel.PollingDuplex assembly (located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight\v4.0\Libraries\Server on my machine) in the server project. For the demo application I upgraded a basketball simulation service to support the latest polling duplex assemblies. The service simulates a simple basketball game using a Game class and pushes information about the game such as score, fouls, shots and more to the client as the game changes over time. Before jumping too far into the game push service, it’s important to discuss two interfaces used by the service to communicate in a bi-directional manner. The first is called IGameStreamService and defines the methods/operations that the client can call on the server (see Listing 1). The second is IGameStreamClient which defines the callback methods that a server can use to communicate with a client (see Listing 2).   [ServiceContract(Namespace = "Silverlight", CallbackContract = typeof(IGameStreamClient))] public interface IGameStreamService { [OperationContract(IsOneWay = true)] void GetTeamData(); } Listing 1. The IGameStreamService interface defines server operations that can be called on the server.   [ServiceContract] public interface IGameStreamClient { [OperationContract(IsOneWay = true)] void ReceiveTeamData(List<Team> teamData); [OperationContract(IsOneWay = true, AsyncPattern=true)] IAsyncResult BeginReceiveGameData(GameData gameData, AsyncCallback callback, object state); void EndReceiveGameData(IAsyncResult result); } Listing 2. The IGameStreamClient interfaces defines client operations that a server can call.   The IGameStreamService interface is decorated with the standard ServiceContract attribute but also contains a value for the CallbackContract property.  This property is used to define the interface that the client will expose (IGameStreamClient in this example) and use to receive data pushed from the service. Notice that each OperationContract attribute in both interfaces sets the IsOneWay property to true. This means that the operation can be called and passed data as appropriate, however, no data will be passed back. Instead, data will be pushed back to the client as it’s available.  Looking through the IGameStreamService interface you can see that the client can request team data whereas the IGameStreamClient interface allows team and game data to be received by the client. One interesting point about the IGameStreamClient interface is the inclusion of the AsyncPattern property on the BeginReceiveGameData operation. I initially created this operation as a standard one way operation and it worked most of the time. However, as I disconnected clients and reconnected new ones game data wasn’t being passed properly. After researching the problem more I realized that because the service could take up to 7 seconds to return game data, things were getting hung up. By setting the AsyncPattern property to true on the BeginReceivedGameData operation and providing a corresponding EndReceiveGameData operation I was able to get around this problem and get everything running properly. I’ll provide more details on the implementation of these two methods later in this post. Once the interfaces were created I moved on to the game service class. The first order of business was to create a class that implemented the IGameStreamService interface. Since the service can be used by multiple clients wanting game data I added the ServiceBehavior attribute to the class definition so that I could set its InstanceContextMode to InstanceContextMode.Single (in effect creating a Singleton service object). Listing 3 shows the game service class as well as its fields and constructor.   [ServiceBehavior(ConcurrencyMode = ConcurrencyMode.Multiple, InstanceContextMode = InstanceContextMode.Single)] public class GameStreamService : IGameStreamService { object _Key = new object(); Game _Game = null; Timer _Timer = null; Random _Random = null; Dictionary<string, IGameStreamClient> _ClientCallbacks = new Dictionary<string, IGameStreamClient>(); static AsyncCallback _ReceiveGameDataCompleted = new AsyncCallback(ReceiveGameDataCompleted); public GameStreamService() { _Game = new Game(); _Timer = new Timer { Enabled = false, Interval = 2000, AutoReset = true }; _Timer.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(_Timer_Elapsed); _Timer.Start(); _Random = new Random(); }} Listing 3. The GameStreamService implements the IGameStreamService interface which defines a callback contract that allows the service class to push data back to the client. By implementing the IGameStreamService interface, GameStreamService must supply a GetTeamData() method which is responsible for supplying information about the teams that are playing as well as individual players.  GetTeamData() also acts as a client subscription method that tracks clients wanting to receive game data.  Listing 4 shows the GetTeamData() method. public void GetTeamData() { //Get client callback channel var context = OperationContext.Current; var sessionID = context.SessionId; var currClient = context.GetCallbackChannel<IGameStreamClient>(); context.Channel.Faulted += Disconnect; context.Channel.Closed += Disconnect; IGameStreamClient client; if (!_ClientCallbacks.TryGetValue(sessionID, out client)) { lock (_Key) { _ClientCallbacks[sessionID] = currClient; } } currClient.ReceiveTeamData(_Game.GetTeamData()); //Start timer which when fired sends updated score information to client if (!_Timer.Enabled) { _Timer.Enabled = true; } } Listing 4. The GetTeamData() method subscribes a given client to the game service and returns. The key the line of code in the GetTeamData() method is the call to GetCallbackChannel<IGameStreamClient>().  This method is responsible for accessing the calling client’s callback channel. The callback channel is defined by the IGameStreamClient interface shown earlier in Listing 2 and used by the server to communicate with the client. Before passing team data back to the client, GetTeamData() grabs the client’s session ID and checks if it already exists in the _ClientCallbacks dictionary object used to track clients wanting callbacks from the server. If the client doesn’t exist it adds it into the collection. It then pushes team data from the Game class back to the client by calling ReceiveTeamData().  Since the service simulates a basketball game, a timer is then started if it’s not already enabled which is then used to randomly send data to the client. When the timer fires, game data is pushed down to the client. Listing 5 shows the _Timer_Elapsed() method that is called when the timer fires as well as the SendGameData() method used to send data to the client. void _Timer_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e) { int interval = _Random.Next(3000, 7000); lock (_Key) { _Timer.Interval = interval; _Timer.Enabled = false; } SendGameData(_Game.GetGameData()); } private void SendGameData(GameData gameData) { var cbs = _ClientCallbacks.Where(cb => ((IContextChannel)cb.Value).State == CommunicationState.Opened); for (int i = 0; i < cbs.Count(); i++) { var cb = cbs.ElementAt(i).Value; try { cb.BeginReceiveGameData(gameData, _ReceiveGameDataCompleted, cb); } catch (TimeoutException texp) { //Log timeout error } catch (CommunicationException cexp) { //Log communication error } } lock (_Key) _Timer.Enabled = true; } private static void ReceiveGameDataCompleted(IAsyncResult result) { try { ((IGameStreamClient)(result.AsyncState)).EndReceiveGameData(result); } catch (CommunicationException) { // empty } catch (TimeoutException) { // empty } } LIsting 5. _Timer_Elapsed is used to simulate time in a basketball game. When _Timer_Elapsed() fires the SendGameData() method is called which iterates through the clients wanting to be notified of changes. As each client is identified, their respective BeginReceiveGameData() method is called which ultimately pushes game data down to the client. Recall that this method was defined in the client callback interface named IGameStreamClient shown earlier in Listing 2. Notice that BeginReceiveGameData() accepts _ReceiveGameDataCompleted as its second parameter (an AsyncCallback delegate defined in the service class) and passes the client callback as the third parameter. The initial version of the sample application had a standard ReceiveGameData() method in the client callback interface. However, sometimes the client callbacks would work properly and sometimes they wouldn’t which was a little baffling at first glance. After some investigation I realized that I needed to implement an asynchronous pattern for client callbacks to work properly since 3 – 7 second delays are occurring as a result of the timer. Once I added the BeginReceiveGameData() and ReceiveGameDataCompleted() methods everything worked properly since each call was handled in an asynchronous manner. The final task that had to be completed to get the server working properly with HTTP Polling Duplex was adding configuration code into web.config. In the interest of brevity I won’t post all of the code here since the sample application includes everything you need. However, Listing 6 shows the key configuration code to handle creating a custom binding named pollingDuplexBinding and associate it with the service’s endpoint.   <bindings> <customBinding> <binding name="pollingDuplexBinding"> <binaryMessageEncoding /> <pollingDuplex maxPendingSessions="2147483647" maxPendingMessagesPerSession="2147483647" inactivityTimeout="02:00:00" serverPollTimeout="00:05:00"/> <httpTransport /> </binding> </customBinding> </bindings> <services> <service name="GameService.GameStreamService" behaviorConfiguration="GameStreamServiceBehavior"> <endpoint address="" binding="customBinding" bindingConfiguration="pollingDuplexBinding" contract="GameService.IGameStreamService"/> <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" /> </service> </services>   Listing 6. Configuring an HTTP Polling Duplex binding in web.config and associating an endpoint with it. Calling the Service and Receiving “Pushed” Data Calling the service and handling data that is pushed from the server is a simple and straightforward process in Silverlight. Since the service is configured with a MEX endpoint and exposes a WSDL file, you can right-click on the Silverlight project and select the standard Add Service Reference item. After the web service proxy is created you may notice that the ServiceReferences.ClientConfig file only contains an empty configuration element instead of the normal configuration elements created when creating a standard WCF proxy. You can certainly update the file if you want to read from it at runtime but for the sample application I fed the service URI directly to the service proxy as shown next: var address = new EndpointAddress("http://localhost.:5661/GameStreamService.svc"); var binding = new PollingDuplexHttpBinding(); _Proxy = new GameStreamServiceClient(binding, address); _Proxy.ReceiveTeamDataReceived += _Proxy_ReceiveTeamDataReceived; _Proxy.ReceiveGameDataReceived += _Proxy_ReceiveGameDataReceived; _Proxy.GetTeamDataAsync(); This code creates the proxy and passes the endpoint address and binding to use to its constructor. It then wires the different receive events to callback methods and calls GetTeamDataAsync().  Calling GetTeamDataAsync() causes the server to store the client in the server-side dictionary collection mentioned earlier so that it can receive data that is pushed.  As the server-side timer fires and game data is pushed to the client, the user interface is updated as shown in Listing 7. Listing 8 shows the _Proxy_ReceiveGameDataReceived() method responsible for handling the data and calling UpdateGameData() to process it.   Listing 7. The Silverlight interface. Game data is pushed from the server to the client using HTTP Polling Duplex. void _Proxy_ReceiveGameDataReceived(object sender, ReceiveGameDataReceivedEventArgs e) { UpdateGameData(e.gameData); } private void UpdateGameData(GameData gameData) { //Update Score this.tbTeam1Score.Text = gameData.Team1Score.ToString(); this.tbTeam2Score.Text = gameData.Team2Score.ToString(); //Update ball visibility if (gameData.Action != ActionsEnum.Foul) { if (tbTeam1.Text == gameData.TeamOnOffense) { AnimateBall(this.BB1, this.BB2); } else //Team 2 { AnimateBall(this.BB2, this.BB1); } } if (this.lbActions.Items.Count > 9) this.lbActions.Items.Clear(); this.lbActions.Items.Add(gameData.LastAction); if (this.lbActions.Visibility == Visibility.Collapsed) this.lbActions.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; } private void AnimateBall(Image onBall, Image offBall) { this.FadeIn.Stop(); Storyboard.SetTarget(this.FadeInAnimation, onBall); Storyboard.SetTarget(this.FadeOutAnimation, offBall); this.FadeIn.Begin(); } Listing 8. As the server pushes game data, the client’s _Proxy_ReceiveGameDataReceived() method is called to process the data. In a real-life application I’d go with a ViewModel class to handle retrieving team data, setup data bindings and handle data that is pushed from the server. However, for the sample application I wanted to focus on HTTP Polling Duplex and keep things as simple as possible.   Summary Silverlight supports three options when duplex communication is required in an application including TCP bindins, sockets and HTTP Polling Duplex. In this post you’ve seen how HTTP Polling Duplex interfaces can be created and implemented on the server as well as how they can be consumed by a Silverlight client. HTTP Polling Duplex provides a nice way to “push” data from a server while still allowing the data to flow over port 80 or another port of your choice.   Sample Application Download

  Read the article

• More SQL Smells

  - by Nick Harrison

  Let's continue exploring some of the SQL Smells from Phil's list. He has been putting together. Datatype mis-matches in predicates that rely on implicit conversion.(Plamen Ratchev) This is a great example poking holes in the whole theory of "If it works it's not broken" Queries will this probably will generally work and give the correct response. In fact, without careful analysis, you probably may be completely oblivious that there is even a problem. This subtle little problem will needlessly complicate queries and slow them down regardless of the indexes applied. Consider this example: CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Page](     [PageId] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,     [Title] [varchar](75) NOT NULL,     [Sequence] [int] NOT NULL,     [ThemeId] [int] NOT NULL,     [CustomCss] [text] NOT NULL,     [CustomScript] [text] NOT NULL,     [PageGroupId] [int] NOT NULL;  CREATE PROCEDURE PageSelectBySequence ( @sequenceMin smallint , @sequenceMax smallint ) AS BEGIN SELECT [PageId] , [Title] , [Sequence] , [ThemeId] , [CustomCss] , [CustomScript] , [PageGroupId] FROM [CMS].[dbo].[Page] WHERE Sequence BETWEEN @sequenceMin AND @SequenceMax END  Note that the Sequence column is defined as int while the sequence parameter is defined as a small int. The problem is that the database may have to do a lot of type conversions to evaluate the query. In some cases, this may even negate the indexes that you have in place. Using Correlated subqueries instead of a join   (Dave_Levy/ Plamen Ratchev) There are two main problems here. The first is a little subjective, since this is a non-standard way of expressing the query, it is harder to understand. The other problem is much more objective and potentially problematic. You are taking much of the control away from the optimizer. Written properly, such a query may well out perform a corresponding query written with traditional joins. More likely than not, performance will degrade. Whenever you assume that you know better than the optimizer, you will most likely be wrong. This is the fundmental problem with any hint. Consider a query like this:  SELECT Page.Title , Page.Sequence , Page.ThemeId , Page.CustomCss , Page.CustomScript , PageEffectParams.Name , PageEffectParams.Value , ( SELECT EffectName FROM dbo.Effect WHERE EffectId = dbo.PageEffects.EffectId ) AS EffectName FROM Page INNER JOIN PageEffect ON Page.PageId = PageEffects.PageId INNER JOIN PageEffectParam ON PageEffects.PageEffectId = PageEffectParams.PageEffectId  This can and should be written as:  SELECT Page.Title , Page.Sequence , Page.ThemeId , Page.CustomCss , Page.CustomScript , PageEffectParams.Name , PageEffectParams.Value , EffectName FROM Page INNER JOIN PageEffect ON Page.PageId = PageEffects.PageId INNER JOIN PageEffectParam ON PageEffects.PageEffectId = PageEffectParams.PageEffectId INNER JOIN dbo.Effect ON dbo.Effects.EffectId = dbo.PageEffects.EffectId  The correlated query may just as easily show up in the where clause. It's not a good idea in the select clause or the where clause. Few or No comments. This one is a bit more complicated and controversial. All comments are not created equal. Some comments are helpful and need to be included. Other comments are not necessary and may indicate a problem. I tend to follow the rule of thumb that comments that explain why are good. Comments that explain how are bad. Many people may be shocked to hear the idea of a bad comment, but hear me out. If a comment is needed to explain what is going on or how it works, the logic is too complex and needs to be simplified. Comments that explain why are good. Comments may explain why the sql is needed are good. Comments that explain where the sql is used are good. Comments that explain how tables are related should not be needed if the sql is well written. If they are needed, you need to consider reworking the sql or simplify your data model. Use of functions in a WHERE clause. (Anil Das) Calling a function in the where clause will often negate the indexing strategy. The function will be called for every record considered. This will often a force a full table scan on the tables affected. Calling a function will not guarantee that there is a full table scan, but there is a good chance that it will. If you find that you often need to write queries using a particular function, you may need to add a column to the table that has the function already applied.

  Read the article

• The Incremental Architect&acute;s Napkin &ndash; #3 &ndash; Make Evolvability inevitable

  - by Ralf Westphal

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/06/04/the-incremental-architectacutes-napkin-ndash-3-ndash-make-evolvability-inevitable.aspxThe easier something to measure the more likely it will be produced. Deviations between what is and what should be can be readily detected. That´s what automated acceptance tests are for. That´s what sprint reviews in Scrum are for. It´s no small wonder our software looks like it looks. It has all the traits whose conformance with requirements can easily be measured. And it´s lacking traits which cannot easily be measured. Evolvability (or Changeability) is such a trait. If an operation is correct, if an operation if fast enough, that can be checked very easily. But whether Evolvability is high or low, that cannot be checked by taking a measure or two. Evolvability might correlate with certain traits, e.g. number of lines of code (LOC) per function or Cyclomatic Complexity or test coverage. But there is no threshold value signalling “evolvability too low”; also Evolvability is hardly tangible for the customer. Nevertheless Evolvability is of great importance - at least in the long run. You can get away without much of it for a short time. Eventually, though, it´s needed like any other requirement. Or even more. Because without Evolvability no other requirement can be implemented. Evolvability is the foundation on which all else is build. Such fundamental importance is in stark contrast with its immeasurability. To compensate this, Evolvability must be put at the very center of software development. It must become the hub around everything else revolves. Since we cannot measure Evolvability, though, we cannot start watching it more. Instead we need to establish practices to keep it high (enough) at all times. Chefs have known that for long. That´s why everybody in a restaurant kitchen is constantly seeing after cleanliness. Hygiene is important as is to have clean tools at standardized locations. Only then the health of the patrons can be guaranteed and production efficiency is constantly high. Still a kitchen´s level of cleanliness is easier to measure than software Evolvability. That´s why important practices like reviews, pair programming, or TDD are not enough, I guess. What we need to keep Evolvability in focus and high is… to continually evolve. Change must not be something to avoid but too embrace. To me that means the whole change cycle from requirement analysis to delivery needs to be gone through more often. Scrum´s sprints of 4, 2 even 1 week are too long. Kanban´s flow of user stories across is too unreliable; it takes as long as it takes. Instead we should fix the cycle time at 2 days max. I call that Spinning. No increment must take longer than from this morning until tomorrow evening to finish. Then it should be acceptance checked by the customer (or his/her representative, e.g. a Product Owner). For me there are several resasons for such a fixed and short cycle time for each increment: Clear expectations Absolute estimates (“This will take X days to complete.”) are near impossible in software development as explained previously. Too much unplanned research and engineering work lurk in every feature. And then pervasive interruptions of work by peers and management. However, the smaller the scope the better our absolute estimates become. That´s because we understand better what really are the requirements and what the solution should look like. But maybe more importantly the shorter the timespan the more we can control how we use our time. So much can happen over the course of a week and longer timespans. But if push comes to shove I can block out all distractions and interruptions for a day or possibly two. That´s why I believe we can give rough absolute estimates on 3 levels: Noon Tonight Tomorrow Think of a meeting with a Product Owner at 8:30 in the morning. If she asks you, how long it will take you to implement a user story or bug fix, you can say, “It´ll be fixed by noon.”, or you can say, “I can manage to implement it until tonight before I leave.”, or you can say, “You´ll get it by tomorrow night at latest.” Yes, I believe all else would be naive. If you´re not confident to get something done by tomorrow night (some 34h from now) you just cannot reliably commit to any timeframe. That means you should not promise anything, you should not even start working on the issue. So when estimating use these four categories: Noon, Tonight, Tomorrow, NoClue - with NoClue meaning the requirement needs to be broken down further so each aspect can be assigned to one of the first three categories. If you like absolute estimates, here you go. But don´t do deep estimates. Don´t estimate dozens of issues; don´t think ahead (“Issue A is a Tonight, then B will be a Tomorrow, after that it´s C as a Noon, finally D is a Tonight - that´s what I´ll do this week.”). Just estimate so Work-in-Progress (WIP) is 1 for everybody - plus a small number of buffer issues. To be blunt: Yes, this makes promises impossible as to what a team will deliver in terms of scope at a certain date in the future. But it will give a Product Owner a clear picture of what to pull for acceptance feedback tonight and tomorrow. Trust through reliability Our trade is lacking trust. Customers don´t trust software companies/departments much. Managers don´t trust developers much. I find that perfectly understandable in the light of what we´re trying to accomplish: delivering software in the face of uncertainty by means of material good production. Customers as well as managers still expect software development to be close to production of houses or cars. But that´s a fundamental misunderstanding. Software development ist development. It´s basically research. As software developers we´re constantly executing experiments to find out what really provides value to users. We don´t know what they need, we just have mediated hypothesises. That´s why we cannot reliably deliver on preposterous demands. So trust is out of the window in no time. If we switch to delivering in short cycles, though, we can regain trust. Because estimates - explicit or implicit - up to 32 hours at most can be satisfied. I´d say: reliability over scope. It´s more important to reliably deliver what was promised then to cover a lot of requirement area. So when in doubt promise less - but deliver without delay. Deliver on scope (Functionality and Quality); but also deliver on Evolvability, i.e. on inner quality according to accepted principles. Always. Trust will be the reward. Less complexity of communication will follow. More goodwill buffer will follow. So don´t wait for some Kanban board to show you, that flow can be improved by scheduling smaller stories. You don´t need to learn that the hard way. Just start with small batch sizes of three different sizes. Fast feedback What has been finished can be checked for acceptance. Why wait for a sprint of several weeks to end? Why let the mental model of the issue and its solution dissipate? If you get final feedback after one or two weeks, you hardly remember what you did and why you did it. Resoning becomes hard. But more importantly youo probably are not in the mood anymore to go back to something you deemed done a long time ago. It´s boring, it´s frustrating to open up that mental box again. Learning is harder the longer it takes from event to feedback. Effort can be wasted between event (finishing an issue) and feedback, because other work might go in the wrong direction based on false premises. Checking finished issues for acceptance is the most important task of a Product Owner. It´s even more important than planning new issues. Because as long as work started is not released (accepted) it´s potential waste. So before starting new work better make sure work already done has value. By putting the emphasis on acceptance rather than planning true pull is established. As long as planning and starting work is more important, it´s a push process. Accept a Noon issue on the same day before leaving. Accept a Tonight issue before leaving today or first thing tomorrow morning. Accept a Tomorrow issue tomorrow night before leaving or early the day after tomorrow. After acceptance the developer(s) can start working on the next issue. Flexibility As if reliability/trust and fast feedback for less waste weren´t enough economic incentive, there is flexibility. After each issue the Product Owner can change course. If on Monday morning feature slices A, B, C, D, E were important and A, B, C were scheduled for acceptance by Monday evening and Tuesday evening, the Product Owner can change her mind at any time. Maybe after A got accepted she asks for continuation with D. But maybe, just maybe, she has gotten a completely different idea by then. Maybe she wants work to continue on F. And after B it´s neither D nor E, but G. And after G it´s D. With Spinning every 32 hours at latest priorities can be changed. And nothing is lost. Because what got accepted is of value. It provides an incremental value to the customer/user. Or it provides internal value to the Product Owner as increased knowledge/decreased uncertainty. I find such reactivity over commitment economically very benefical. Why commit a team to some workload for several weeks? It´s unnecessary at beast, and inflexible and wasteful at worst. If we cannot promise delivery of a certain scope on a certain date - which is what customers/management usually want -, we can at least provide them with unpredecented flexibility in the face of high uncertainty. Where the path is not clear, cannot be clear, make small steps so you´re able to change your course at any time. Premature completion Customers/management are used to premeditating budgets. They want to know exactly how much to pay for a certain amount of requirements. That´s understandable. But it does not match with the nature of software development. We should know that by now. Maybe there´s somewhere in the world some team who can consistently deliver on scope, quality, and time, and budget. Great! Congratulations! I, however, haven´t seen such a team yet. Which does not mean it´s impossible, but I think it´s nothing I can recommend to strive for. Rather I´d say: Don´t try this at home. It might hurt you one way or the other. However, what we can do, is allow customers/management stop work on features at any moment. With spinning every 32 hours a feature can be declared as finished - even though it might not be completed according to initial definition. I think, progress over completion is an important offer software development can make. Why think in terms of completion beyond a promise for the next 32 hours? Isn´t it more important to constantly move forward? Step by step. We´re not running sprints, we´re not running marathons, not even ultra-marathons. We´re in the sport of running forever. That makes it futile to stare at the finishing line. The very concept of a burn-down chart is misleading (in most cases). Whoever can only think in terms of completed requirements shuts out the chance for saving money. The requirements for a features mostly are uncertain. So how does a Product Owner know in the first place, how much is needed. Maybe more than specified is needed - which gets uncovered step by step with each finished increment. Maybe less than specified is needed. After each 4–32 hour increment the Product Owner can do an experient (or invite users to an experiment) if a particular trait of the software system is already good enough. And if so, she can switch the attention to a different aspect. In the end, requirements A, B, C then could be finished just 70%, 80%, and 50%. What the heck? It´s good enough - for now. 33% money saved. Wouldn´t that be splendid? Isn´t that a stunning argument for any budget-sensitive customer? You can save money and still get what you need? Pull on practices So far, in addition to more trust, more flexibility, less money spent, Spinning led to “doing less” which also means less code which of course means higher Evolvability per se. Last but not least, though, I think Spinning´s short acceptance cycles have one more effect. They excert pull-power on all sorts of practices known for increasing Evolvability. If, for example, you believe high automated test coverage helps Evolvability by lowering the fear of inadverted damage to a code base, why isn´t 90% of the developer community practicing automated tests consistently? I think, the answer is simple: Because they can do without. Somehow they manage to do enough manual checks before their rare releases/acceptance checks to ensure good enough correctness - at least in the short term. The same goes for other practices like component orientation, continuous build/integration, code reviews etc. None of that is compelling, urgent, imperative. Something else always seems more important. So Evolvability principles and practices fall through the cracks most of the time - until a project hits a wall. Then everybody becomes desperate; but by then (re)gaining Evolvability has become as very, very difficult and tedious undertaking. Sometimes up to the point where the existence of a project/company is in danger. With Spinning that´s different. If you´re practicing Spinning you cannot avoid all those practices. With Spinning you very quickly realize you cannot deliver reliably even on your 32 hour promises. Spinning thus is pulling on developers to adopt principles and practices for Evolvability. They will start actively looking for ways to keep their delivery rate high. And if not, management will soon tell them to do that. Because first the Product Owner then management will notice an increasing difficulty to deliver value within 32 hours. There, finally there emerges a way to measure Evolvability: The more frequent developers tell the Product Owner there is no way to deliver anything worth of feedback until tomorrow night, the poorer Evolvability is. Don´t count the “WTF!”, count the “No way!” utterances. In closing For sustainable software development we need to put Evolvability first. Functionality and Quality must not rule software development but be implemented within a framework ensuring (enough) Evolvability. Since Evolvability cannot be measured easily, I think we need to put software development “under pressure”. Software needs to be changed more often, in smaller increments. Each increment being relevant to the customer/user in some way. That does not mean each increment is worthy of shipment. It´s sufficient to gain further insight from it. Increments primarily serve the reduction of uncertainty, not sales. Sales even needs to be decoupled from this incremental progress. No more promises to sales. No more delivery au point. Rather sales should look at a stream of accepted increments (or incremental releases) and scoup from that whatever they find valuable. Sales and marketing need to realize they should work on what´s there, not what might be possible in the future. But I digress… In my view a Spinning cycle - which is not easy to reach, which requires practice - is the core practice to compensate the immeasurability of Evolvability. From start to finish of each issue in 32 hours max - that´s the challenge we need to accept if we´re serious increasing Evolvability. Fortunately higher Evolvability is not the only outcome of Spinning. Customer/management will like the increased flexibility and “getting more bang for the buck”.

  Read the article

• Global Cache CR Requested But Current Block Received

  - by Liu Maclean(???)

  ????????«MINSCN?Cache Fusion Read Consistent» ????,???????????? ??????????????????: SQL> select * from V$version; BANNER -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production PL/SQL Release 11.2.0.3.0 - Production CORE 11.2.0.3.0 Production TNS for Linux: Version 11.2.0.3.0 - Production NLSRTL Version 11.2.0.3.0 - Production SQL> select count(*) from gv$instance; COUNT(*) ---------- 2 SQL> select * from global_name; GLOBAL_NAME -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.oracledatabase12g.com ?11gR2 2??RAC??????????status???XG,????Xcurrent block???INSTANCE 2?hold?,?????INSTANCE 1?????????,?????: SQL> select * from test; ID ---------- 1 2 SQL> select dbms_rowid.rowid_block_number(rowid),dbms_rowid.rowid_relative_fno(rowid) from test; DBMS_ROWID.ROWID_BLOCK_NUMBER(ROWID) DBMS_ROWID.ROWID_RELATIVE_FNO(ROWID) ------------------------------------ ------------------------------------ 89233 1 89233 1 SQL> alter system flush buffer_cache; System altered. INSTANCE 1 Session A: SQL> update test set id=id+1 where id=1; 1 row updated. INSTANCE 1 Session B: SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 1 0 3 1755287 SQL> oradebug setmypid; Statement processed. SQL> oradebug dump gc_elements 255; Statement processed. SQL> oradebug tracefile_name; /s01/orabase/diag/rdbms/vprod/VPROD1/trace/VPROD1_ora_19111.trc GLOBAL CACHE ELEMENT DUMP (address: 0xa4ff3080): id1: 0x15c91 id2: 0x1 pkey: OBJ#76896 block: (1/89233) lock: X rls: 0x0 acq: 0x0 latch: 3 flags: 0x20 fair: 0 recovery: 0 fpin: 'kdswh11: kdst_fetch' bscn: 0x0.146e20 bctx: (nil) write: 0 scan: 0x0 lcp: (nil) lnk: [NULL] lch: [0xa9f6a6f8,0xa9f6a6f8] seq: 32 hist: 58 145:0 118 66 144:0 192 352 197 48 121 113 424 180 58 LIST OF BUFFERS LINKED TO THIS GLOBAL CACHE ELEMENT: flg: 0x02000001 lflg: 0x1 state: XCURRENT tsn: 0 tsh: 2 addr: 0xa9f6a5c8 obj: 76896 cls: DATA bscn: 0x0.1ac898 BH (0xa9f6a5c8) file#: 1 rdba: 0x00415c91 (1/89233) class: 1 ba: 0xa9e56000 set: 5 pool: 3 bsz: 8192 bsi: 0 sflg: 3 pwc: 0,15 dbwrid: 0 obj: 76896 objn: 76896 tsn: 0 afn: 1 hint: f hash: [0x91f4e970,0xbae9d5b8] lru: [0x91f58848,0xa9f6a828] lru-flags: debug_dump obj-flags: object_ckpt_list ckptq: [0x9df6d1d8,0xa9f6a740] fileq: [0xa2ece670,0xbdf4ed68] objq: [0xb4964e00,0xb4964e00] objaq: [0xb4964de0,0xb4964de0] st: XCURRENT md: NULL fpin: 'kdswh11: kdst_fetch' tch: 2 le: 0xa4ff3080 flags: buffer_dirty redo_since_read LRBA: [0x19.5671.0] LSCN: [0x0.1ac898] HSCN: [0x0.1ac898] HSUB: [1] buffer tsn: 0 rdba: 0x00415c91 (1/89233) scn: 0x0000.001ac898 seq: 0x01 flg: 0x00 tail: 0xc8980601 frmt: 0x02 chkval: 0x0000 type: 0x06=trans data ??????block: (1/89233)?GLOBAL CACHE ELEMENT DUMP?LOCK????X ??XG , ??????Current Block????Instance??modify???,????????????? ????Instance 2 ????: Instance 2 Session C: SQL> update test set id=id+1 where id=2; 1 row updated. Instance 2 Session D: SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 1 0 3 1756658 SQL> oradebug setmypid; Statement processed. SQL> oradebug dump gc_elements 255; Statement processed. SQL> oradebug tracefile_name; /s01/orabase/diag/rdbms/vprod/VPROD2/trace/VPROD2_ora_13038.trc GLOBAL CACHE ELEMENT DUMP (address: 0x89fb25a0): id1: 0x15c91 id2: 0x1 pkey: OBJ#76896 block: (1/89233) lock: XG rls: 0x0 acq: 0x0 latch: 3 flags: 0x20 fair: 0 recovery: 0 fpin: 'kduwh01: kdusru' bscn: 0x0.1acdf3 bctx: (nil) write: 0 scan: 0x0 lcp: (nil) lnk: [NULL] lch: [0x96f4cf80,0x96f4cf80] seq: 61 hist: 324 21 143:0 19 16 352 329 144:6 14 7 352 197 LIST OF BUFFERS LINKED TO THIS GLOBAL CACHE ELEMENT: flg: 0x0a000001 state: XCURRENT tsn: 0 tsh: 1 addr: 0x96f4ce50 obj: 76896 cls: DATA bscn: 0x0.1acdf6 BH (0x96f4ce50) file#: 1 rdba: 0x00415c91 (1/89233) class: 1 ba: 0x96bd4000 set: 5 pool: 3 bsz: 8192 bsi: 0 sflg: 2 pwc: 0,15 dbwrid: 0 obj: 76896 objn: 76896 tsn: 0 afn: 1 hint: f hash: [0x96ee1fe8,0xbae9d5b8] lru: [0x96f4d0b0,0x96f4cdc0] obj-flags: object_ckpt_list ckptq: [0xbdf519b8,0x96f4d5a8] fileq: [0xbdf519d8,0xbdf519d8] objq: [0xb4a47b90,0xb4a47b90] objaq: [0x96f4d0e8,0xb4a47b70] st: XCURRENT md: NULL fpin: 'kduwh01: kdusru' tch: 1 le: 0x89fb25a0 flags: buffer_dirty redo_since_read remote_transfered LRBA: [0x11.9e18.0] LSCN: [0x0.1acdf6] HSCN: [0x0.1acdf6] HSUB: [1] buffer tsn: 0 rdba: 0x00415c91 (1/89233) scn: 0x0000.001acdf6 seq: 0x01 flg: 0x00 tail: 0xcdf60601 frmt: 0x02 chkval: 0x0000 type: 0x06=trans data GCS CLIENT 0x89fb2618,6 resp[(nil),0x15c91.1] pkey 76896.0 grant 2 cvt 0 mdrole 0x42 st 0x100 lst 0x20 GRANTQ rl G0 master 1 owner 2 sid 0 remote[(nil),0] hist 0x94121c601163423c history 0x3c.0x4.0xd.0xb.0x1.0xc.0x7.0x9.0x14.0x1. cflag 0x0 sender 1 flags 0x0 replay# 0 abast (nil).x0.1 dbmap (nil) disk: 0x0000.00000000 write request: 0x0000.00000000 pi scn: 0x0000.00000000 sq[(nil),(nil)] msgseq 0x1 updseq 0x0 reqids[6,0,0] infop (nil) lockseq x2b8 pkey 76896.0 hv 93 [stat 0x0, 1->1, wm 32768, RMno 0, reminc 18, dom 0] kjga st 0x4, step 0.0.0, cinc 20, rmno 6, flags 0x0 lb 0, hb 0, myb 15250, drmb 15250, apifrz 0 ?Instance 2??????block: (1/89233)? GLOBAL CACHE ELEMENT Lock Convert?lock: XG ????GC_ELEMENTS DUMP???XCUR Cache Fusion?,???????X$ VIEW,??? X$LE X$KJBR X$KJBL, ???X$ VIEW???????????????????: INSTANCE 2 Session D: SELECT * FROM x$le WHERE le_addr IN (SELECT le_addr FROM x$bh WHERE obj IN (SELECT data_object_id FROM dba_objects WHERE owner = 'SYS' AND object_name = 'TEST') AND class = 1 AND state != 3); ADDR INDX INST_ID LE_ADDR LE_ID1 LE_ID2 ---------------- ---------- ---------- ---------------- ---------- ---------- LE_RLS LE_ACQ LE_FLAGS LE_MODE LE_WRITE LE_LOCAL LE_RECOVERY ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------- LE_BLKS LE_TIME LE_KJBL ---------- ---------- ---------------- 00007F94CA14CF60 7003 2 0000000089FB25A0 89233 1 0 0 32 2 0 1 0 1 0 0000000089FB2618 PCM Resource NAME?[ID1][ID2],[BL]???, ID1?ID2 ??blockno? fileno????, ??????????GC_elements dump?? id1: 0x15c91 id2: 0×1 pkey: OBJ#76896 block: (1/89233)?? ,?  kjblname ? kjbrname ??”[0x15c91][0x1],[BL]” ??: INSTANCE 2 Session D: SQL> set linesize 80 pagesize 1400 SQL> SELECT * 2 FROM x$kjbl l 3 WHERE l.kjblname LIKE '%[0x15c91][0x1],[BL]%'; ADDR INDX INST_ID KJBLLOCKP KJBLGRANT KJBLREQUE ---------------- ---------- ---------- ---------------- --------- --------- KJBLROLE KJBLRESP KJBLNAME ---------- ---------------- ------------------------------ KJBLNAME2 KJBLQUEUE ------------------------------ ---------- KJBLLOCKST KJBLWRITING ---------------------------------------------------------------- ----------- KJBLREQWRITE KJBLOWNER KJBLMASTER KJBLBLOCKED KJBLBLOCKER KJBLSID KJBLRDOMID ------------ ---------- ---------- ----------- ----------- ---------- ---------- KJBLPKEY ---------- 00007F94CA22A288 451 2 0000000089FB2618 KJUSEREX KJUSERNL 0 00 [0x15c91][0x1],[BL][ext 0x0,0x 89233,1,BL 0 GRANTED 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 76896 SQL> SELECT r.* FROM x$kjbr r WHERE r.kjbrname LIKE '%[0x15c91][0x1],[BL]%'; no rows selected Instance 1 session B: SQL> SELECT r.* FROM x$kjbr r WHERE r.kjbrname LIKE '%[0x15c91][0x1],[BL]%'; ADDR INDX INST_ID KJBRRESP KJBRGRANT KJBRNCVL ---------------- ---------- ---------- ---------------- --------- --------- KJBRROLE KJBRNAME KJBRMASTER KJBRGRANTQ ---------- ------------------------------ ---------- ---------------- KJBRCVTQ KJBRWRITER KJBRSID KJBRRDOMID KJBRPKEY ---------------- ---------------- ---------- ---------- ---------- 00007F801ACA68F8 1355 1 00000000B5A62AE0 KJUSEREX KJUSERNL 0 [0x15c91][0x1],[BL][ext 0x0,0x 0 00000000B48BB330 00 00 0 0 76896 ??????Instance 1???block: (1/89233),??????Instance 2 build cr block ????Instance 1, ?????????? ????? Instance 1? Foreground Process ? Instance 2?LMS??????RAC  TRACE: Instance 2: [oracle@vrh2 ~]$ ps -ef|grep ora_lms|grep -v grep oracle 23364 1 0 Apr29 ? 00:33:15 ora_lms0_VPROD2 SQL> oradebug setospid 23364 Oracle pid: 13, Unix process pid: 23364, image: [email protected] (LMS0) SQL> oradebug event 10046 trace name context forever,level 8:10708 trace name context forever,level 103: trace[rac.*] disk high; Statement processed. SQL> oradebug tracefile_name /s01/orabase/diag/rdbms/vprod/VPROD2/trace/VPROD2_lms0_23364.trc Instance 1 session B : SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 3 1756658 3 1756661 3 1755287 Instance 1 session A : SQL> alter session set events '10046 trace name context forever,level 8:10708 trace name context forever,level 103: trace[rac.*] disk high'; Session altered. SQL> select * from test; ID ---------- 2 2 SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 3 1761520 ?x$BH?????,???????Instance 1???build??CR block,????? TRACE ??: Instance 1 foreground Process: PARSING IN CURSOR #140336527348792 len=18 dep=0 uid=0 oct=3 lid=0 tim=1335939136125254 hv=1689401402 ad='b1a4c828' sqlid='c99yw1xkb4f1u' select * from test END OF STMT PARSE #140336527348792:c=2999,e=2860,p=0,cr=0,cu=0,mis=1,r=0,dep=0,og=1,plh=1357081020,tim=1335939136125253 EXEC #140336527348792:c=0,e=40,p=0,cr=0,cu=0,mis=0,r=0,dep=0,og=1,plh=1357081020,tim=1335939136125373 WAIT #140336527348792: nam='SQL*Net message to client' ela= 6 driver id=1650815232 #bytes=1 p3=0 obj#=0 tim=1335939136125420 *** 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125 kclscrs: req=0 block=1/89233 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125574 : kjbcro[0x15c91.1 76896.0][4] *** 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125 kclscrs: req=0 typ=nowait-abort *** 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125 kclscrs: bid=1:3:1:0:f:1e:0:0:10:0:0:0:1:2:4:1:20:0:0:0:c3:49:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:4:3:2:1:2:0:1c:0:4d:26:a3:52:0:0:0:0:c7:c:ca:62:c3:49:0:0:0:0:1:0:14:8e:47:76:1:2:dc:5:a9:fe:17:75:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:99:ed:0:0:0:0:0:0:10:0:0:0 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125718 : kjbcro[0x15c91.1 76896.0][4] 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125751 : GSIPC:GMBQ: buff 0xba0ee018, queue 0xbb79a7b8, pool 0x60013fa0, freeq 0, nxt 0xbb79a7b8, prv 0xbb79a7b8 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125780 : kjbsentscn[0x0.1ae0f0][to 2] 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125806 : GSIPC:SENDM: send msg 0xba0ee088 dest x20001 seq 177740 type 36 tkts xff0000 mlen x1680198 2012-05-02 02:12:16.125918 : kjbmscr(0x15c91.1)reqid=0x8(req 0xa4ff30f8)(rinst 1)hldr 2(infosz 200)(lseq x2b8) 2012-05-02 02:12:16.126959 : GSIPC:KSXPCB: msg 0xba0ee088 status 30, type 36, dest 2, rcvr 1 *** 2012-05-02 02:12:16.127 kclwcrs: wait=0 tm=1233 *** 2012-05-02 02:12:16.127 kclwcrs: got 1 blocks from ksxprcv WAIT #140336527348792: nam='gc cr block 2-way' ela= 1233 p1=1 p2=89233 p3=1 obj#=76896 tim=1335939136127199 2012-05-02 02:12:16.127272 : kjbcrcomplete[0x15c91.1 76896.0][0] 2012-05-02 02:12:16.127309 : kjbrcvdscn[0x0.1ae0f0][from 2][idx 2012-05-02 02:12:16.127329 : kjbrcvdscn[no bscn <= rscn 0x0.1ae0f0][from 2] ???? kjbcro[0x15c91.1 76896.0][4] kjbsentscn[0x0.1ae0f0][to 2] ?Instance 2??SCN=1ae0f0=1761520? block: (1/89233),???’gc cr block 2-way’ ??,?????????CR block? Instance 2 LMS TRACE 2012-05-02 02:12:15.634057 : GSIPC:RCVD: ksxp msg 0x7f16e1598588 sndr 1 seq 0.177740 type 36 tkts 0 2012-05-02 02:12:15.634094 : GSIPC:RCVD: watq msg 0x7f16e1598588 sndr 1, seq 177740, type 36, tkts 0 2012-05-02 02:12:15.634108 : GSIPC:TKT: collect msg 0x7f16e1598588 from 1 for rcvr -1, tickets 0 2012-05-02 02:12:15.634162 : kjbrcvdscn[0x0.1ae0f0][from 1][idx 2012-05-02 02:12:15.634186 : kjbrcvdscn[no bscn1, wm 32768, RMno 0, reminc 18, dom 0] kjga st 0x4, step 0.0.0, cinc 20, rmno 6, flags 0x0 lb 0, hb 0, myb 15250, drmb 15250, apifrz 0 GCS CLIENT END 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635211 : kjbdowncvt[0x15c91.1 76896.0][1][options x0] 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635230 : GSIPC:AMBUF: rcv buff 0x7f16e1c56420, pool rcvbuf, rqlen 1103 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635308 : GSIPC:GPBMSG: new bmsg 0x7f16e1c56490 mb 0x7f16e1c56420 msg 0x7f16e1c564b0 mlen 152 dest x101 flushsz -1 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635334 : kjbmslset(0x15c91.1)) seq 0x4 reqid=0x6 (shadow 0xb48bb330.xb)(rsn 2)(mas@1) 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635355 : GSIPC:SPBMSG: send bmsg 0x7f16e1c56490 blen 184 msg 0x7f16e1c564b0 mtype 33 attr|dest x30101 bsz|fsz x1ffff 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635377 : GSIPC:SNDQ: enq msg 0x7f16e1c56490, type 65521 seq 118669, inst 1, receiver 1, queued 1 *** 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635 kclccctx: cleanup copy 0x7f16e1d94798 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635479 : [kjmpmsgi:compl][type 36][msg 0x7f16e1598588][seq 177740.0][qtime 0][ptime 1257] 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635511 : GSIPC:BSEND: flushing sndq 0xb491dd28, id 1, dcx 0xbc516778, inst 1, rcvr 1 qlen 0 1 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635536 : GSIPC:BSEND: no batch1 msg 0x7f16e1c56490 type 65521 len 184 dest (1:1) 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635557 : kjbsentscn[0x0.1ae0f1][to 1] 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635578 : GSIPC:SENDM: send msg 0x7f16e1c56490 dest x10001 seq 118669 type 65521 tkts x10002 mlen xb800e8 WAIT #0: nam='gcs remote message' ela= 180 waittime=1 poll=0 event=0 obj#=0 tim=1335939135635819 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635853 : GSIPC:RCVD: ksxp msg 0x7f16e167e0b0 sndr 1 seq 0.177741 type 32 tkts 0 2012-05-02 02:12:15.635875 : GSIPC:RCVD: watq msg 0x7f16e167e0b0 sndr 1, seq 177741, type 32, tkts 0 2012-05-02 02:12:15.636012 : GSIPC:TKT: collect msg 0x7f16e167e0b0 from 1 for rcvr -1, tickets 0 2012-05-02 02:12:15.636040 : kjbrcvdscn[0x0.1ae0f1][from 1][idx 2012-05-02 02:12:15.636060 : kjbrcvdscn[no bscn <= rscn 0x0.1ae0f1][from 1] 2012-05-02 02:12:15.636082 : GSIPC:TKT: dest (1:1) rtkt not acked 1  unassigned bufs 0  tkts 0  newbufs 0 2012-05-02 02:12:15.636102 : GSIPC:TKT: remove ctx dest (1:1) 2012-05-02 02:12:15.636125 : [kjmxmpm][type 32][seq 0.177741][msg 0x7f16e167e0b0][from 1] 2012-05-02 02:12:15.636146 : kjbmpocr(0xb0.6)seq 0x1,reqid=0x23a,(client 0x9fff7b58,0x1)(from 1)(lseq xdf0) 2????LMS????????? ??gcs remote message GSIPC ????SCN=[0x0.1ae0f0] block=1/89233???,??BAST kjbmpbast(0x15c91.1),?? block=1/89233??????? ??fairness??(?11.2.0.3???_fairness_threshold=2),?current block?KCL: F156: fairness downconvert,?Xcurrent DownConvert? Scurrent: Instance 2: SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 2 0 3 1756658 ??Instance 2 LMS ?cr block??? kjbmslset(0x15c91.1)) ????SEND QUEUE GSIPC:SNDQ: enq msg 0x7f16e1c56490? ???????Instance 1???? block: (1/89233)??? ??????: Instance 2: SQL> select CURRENT_RESULTS,LIGHT_WORKS from v$cr_block_server; CURRENT_RESULTS LIGHT_WORKS --------------- ----------- 29273 437 Instance 1 session A: SQL> SQL> select * from test; ID ---------- 2 2 SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 3 1761942 3 1761932 1 0 3 1761520 Instance 2: SQL> select CURRENT_RESULTS,LIGHT_WORKS from v$cr_block_server; CURRENT_RESULTS LIGHT_WORKS --------------- ----------- 29274 437 select * from test END OF STMT PARSE #140336529675592:c=0,e=337,p=0,cr=0,cu=0,mis=0,r=0,dep=0,og=1,plh=1357081020,tim=1335939668940051 EXEC #140336529675592:c=0,e=96,p=0,cr=0,cu=0,mis=0,r=0,dep=0,og=1,plh=1357081020,tim=1335939668940204 WAIT #140336529675592: nam='SQL*Net message to client' ela= 5 driver id=1650815232 #bytes=1 p3=0 obj#=0 tim=1335939668940348 *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940 kclscrs: req=0 block=1/89233 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940676 : kjbcro[0x15c91.1 76896.0][5] *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940 kclscrs: req=0 typ=nowait-abort *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940 kclscrs: bid=1:3:1:0:f:21:0:0:10:0:0:0:1:2:4:1:20:0:0:0:c3:49:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:4:3:2:1:2:0:1f:0:4d:26:a3:52:0:0:0:0:c7:c:ca:62:c3:49:0:0:0:0:1:0:17:8e:47:76:1:2:dc:5:a9:fe:17:75:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:99:ed:0:0:0:0:0:0:10:0:0:0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940799 : kjbcro[0x15c91.1 76896.0][5] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940833 : GSIPC:GMBQ: buff 0xba0ee018, queue 0xbb79a7b8, pool 0x60013fa0, freeq 0, nxt 0xbb79a7b8, prv 0xbb79a7b8 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940859 : kjbsentscn[0x0.1ae28c][to 2] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940870 : GSIPC:SENDM: send msg 0xba0ee088 dest x20001 seq 177810 type 36 tkts xff0000 mlen x1680198 2012-05-02 02:21:08.940976 : kjbmscr(0x15c91.1)reqid=0xa(req 0xa4ff30f8)(rinst 1)hldr 2(infosz 200)(lseq x2b8) 2012-05-02 02:21:08.941314 : GSIPC:KSXPCB: msg 0xba0ee088 status 30, type 36, dest 2, rcvr 1 *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.941 kclwcrs: wait=0 tm=707 *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.941 kclwcrs: got 1 blocks from ksxprcv 2012-05-02 02:21:08.941818 : kjbassume[0x15c91.1][sender 2][mymode x1][myrole x0][srole x0][flgs x0][spiscn 0x0.0][swscn 0x0.0] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.941852 : kjbrcvdscn[0x0.1ae28d][from 2][idx 2012-05-02 02:21:08.941871 : kjbrcvdscn[no bscn ??????????????SCN=[0x0.1ae28c]=1761932 Version?CR block, ????receive????Xcurrent Block??SCN=1ae28d=1761933,Instance 1???Xcurrent Block???build????????SCN=1761932?CR BLOCK, ????????Current block,?????????'gc current block 2-way'? ?????????????request current block,?????kjbcro;?????Instance 2?LMS???????Current Block: Instance 2 LMS trace: 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448743 : GSIPC:RCVD: ksxp msg 0x7f16e14a4398 sndr 1 seq 0.177810 type 36 tkts 0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448778 : GSIPC:RCVD: watq msg 0x7f16e14a4398 sndr 1, seq 177810, type 36, tkts 0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448798 : GSIPC:TKT: collect msg 0x7f16e14a4398 from 1 for rcvr -1, tickets 0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448816 : kjbrcvdscn[0x0.1ae28c][from 1][idx 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448834 : kjbrcvdscn[no bscn <= rscn 0x0.1ae28c][from 1] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448857 : GSIPC:TKT: dest (1:1) rtkt not acked 2  unassigned bufs 0  tkts 0  newbufs 0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448875 : GSIPC:TKT: remove ctx dest (1:1) 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448970 : [kjmxmpm][type 36][seq 0.177810][msg 0x7f16e14a4398][from 1] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.448993 : kjbmpbast(0x15c91.1) reqid=0x6 (req 0xa4ff30f8)(reqinst 1)(reqid 10)(flags x0) *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449 kclcrrf: req=48054 block=1/89233 *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449 kcl_compress_block: compressed: 6 free space: 7680 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449085 : kjbsentscn[0x0.1ae28d][to 1] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449142 : kjbdeliver[to 1][0xa4ff30f8][10][current 1] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449164 : kjbmssch(reqlock 0xa4ff30f8,10)(to 1)(bsz 344) 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449183 : GSIPC:AMBUF: rcv buff 0x7f16e18bcec8, pool rcvbuf, rqlen 1102 *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449 kclccctx: cleanup copy 0x7f16e1d94838 *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449 kcltouched: touch seconds 3271 *** 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449 kclgrantlk: req=48054 2012-05-02 02:21:08.449347 : [kjmpmsgi:compl][type 36][msg 0x7f16e14a4398][seq 177810.0][qtime 0][ptime 1119] WAIT #0: nam='gcs remote message' ela= 568 waittime=1 poll=0 event=0 obj#=0 tim=1335939668449962 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450001 : GSIPC:RCVD: ksxp msg 0x7f16e1bb22a0 sndr 1 seq 0.177811 type 32 tkts 0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450024 : GSIPC:RCVD: watq msg 0x7f16e1bb22a0 sndr 1, seq 177811, type 32, tkts 0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450043 : GSIPC:TKT: collect msg 0x7f16e1bb22a0 from 1 for rcvr -1, tickets 0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450060 : kjbrcvdscn[0x0.1ae28e][from 1][idx 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450078 : kjbrcvdscn[no bscn <= rscn 0x0.1ae28e][from 1] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450097 : GSIPC:TKT: dest (1:1) rtkt not acked 3  unassigned bufs 0  tkts 0  newbufs 0 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450116 : GSIPC:TKT: remove ctx dest (1:1) 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450136 : [kjmxmpm][type 32][seq 0.177811][msg 0x7f16e1bb22a0][from 1] 2012-05-02 02:21:08.450155 : kjbmpocr(0xb0.6)seq 0x1,reqid=0x23e,(client 0x9fff7b58,0x1)(from 1)(lseq xdf4) ???Instance 2??LMS???,???build cr block,??????Instance 1?????Current Block??????Instance 2??v$cr_block_server??????LIGHT_WORKS?????current block transfer??????,??????? CR server? Light Work Rule(Light Work Rule?8i Cr Server?????????,?Remote LMS?? build CR????????,resource holder?LMS???????block,????CR build If creating the consistent read version block involves too much work (such as reading blocks from disk), then the holder sends the block to the requestor, and the requestor completes the CR fabrication. The holder maintains a fairness counter of CR requests. After the fairness threshold is reached, the holder downgrades it to lock mode.)? ??????? CR Request ????Current Block?? ???:??????class?block,CR server??????? ??undo block?? undo header block?CR quest, LMS????Current Block, ????? ???? ??????? block cleanout? CR  Version??????? ???????? data blocks, ??????? CR quest  & CR received?(???????Light Work Rule,LMS"??"), ??Current Block??DownConvert???S lock,??LMS???????ship??current version?block? ??????? , ?????? ,???????DownConvert?????”_fairness_threshold“???200,????Xcurrent Block?????Scurrent, ????LMS?????Current Version?Data Block: SQL> show parameter fair NAME TYPE VALUE ------------------------------------ ----------- ------------------------------ _fairness_threshold integer 200 Instance 1: SQL> update test set id=id+1 where id=4; 1 row updated. Instance 2: SQL> update test set id=id+1 where id=2; 1 row updated. SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 1 0 3 1838166 ?Instance 1? ????,? ??instance 2? v$cr_block_server?? instance 1 SQL> select * from test; ID ---------- 10 3 instance 2: SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 1 0 3 1883707 8 0 SQL> select * from test; ID ---------- 10 3 SQL> select state,cr_scn_bas from x$bh where file#=1 and dbablk=89233 and state!=0; STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 1 0 3 1883707 8 0 ................... SQL> / STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 2 0 3 1883707 3 1883695 repeat cr request on Instance 1 SQL> / STATE CR_SCN_BAS ---------- ---------- 8 0 3 1883707 3 1883695 ??????_fairness_threshold????????,?????200 ????????CR serve??Downgrade?lock, ????data block? CR Request????Receive? Current Block?

  Read the article

• When Less is More

  - by aditya.agarkar

  How do you reconcile the fact that while the overall warehouse volume is down you still need more workers in the warehouse to ship all the orders? A WMS customer recently pointed out this seemingly perplexing fact in a customer conference. So what is going on? Didn't we tell you before that for a warehouse the customer is really the "king"? In this case customers are merely responding to a low overall low demand and uncertainty. They do not want to hold down inventory and one of the ways to do that is by decreasing the order size and ordering more frequently. Overall impact to the warehouse? Two words: "More work!!" This is not all. Smaller order sizes also mean challenges from a transportation perspective including a rise in costlier parcel or LTL shipments instead of cheaper TL shipments. Here is a hypothetical scenario where a customer reduces the order size by 10% and increases the order frequency by 10%. As you can see in the following table, the overall volume declines by 1% but the warehouse has to ship roughly 10% more lines. Order Frequency (Line Count)Order Size (Units)Total VolumeChange (%)10010010,000 -110909,900-1% If you want to see how "Less is More" in graphical terms, this is how it appears: Even though the volume is down, there is going to be more work in the warehouse in terms of number of lines shipped. The operators need to pick more discrete orders, pack them into more shipping containers and ship more deliveries. What do you do differently if you are facing this situation?In this case here are some obvious steps to take:Uno: Change your pick methods. If you are used to doing order picks, it needs to go out the door. You need to evaluate batch picking and grouping techniques. Go for cluster picking, go for zone picking, pick and pass...anything that improves your picker productivity. More than anything, cluster picking works like a charm and above all, its simple and very effective. Dos: Are you minimize "touch" points in your pick process? Consider doing one step pick, pack and confirm i.e. pick and pack stuff directly into shipping cartons. Done correctly the container will not require any more "touch" points all the way to the trailer loading. Use cartonization!Tres: Are the being picked from an optimized pick face? Are the items slotted correctly? This needs to be looked into. Consider automated "pull" or "push" replenishment into your pick face and also make sure that high demand items are occupying the golden zones.  Cuatro: Are you tracking labor productivity? If not there needs to be a concerted push for having labor standards in place. Hope you found these ideas useful.

  Read the article

• Listen to Online Radio with Antenna

  - by Asian Angel

  Are you looking for some fresh new music to listen to at home or at work? With Antenna you can listen to online radio stations from all over the world. Note: Requires Adobe AIR (download link at bottom of article). Antenna in Action Once you have completed the installation and started Antenna up this is the window that you will see. The left side will have a “browsing pane” where you can search for the stations that you would like to listen to using the various categories. Based on the stations that you choose the background map will change location to match the stations locations. Here is a closer look at the “Categories Bar”. For our first example we used the “Country Category” to find our first station to listen to. When you choose a country you will be presented with a list of the stations available for that country. To start listening to a particular station just double click on the appropriate entry line. A closer look at the “browser pane” with our first station playing. Notice the “Reliability Indicator” that will be available for each listing…some may be better than others and you can use this to choose the best streaming stations from the list. In the upper left corner you will notice three icons…each will open a small pop-up window with a specific purpose. The first icon will open up the “About Window”. If you need to contact Antenna’s creator or would like to place a request for a station to be added to the app then this is the best way to do it. The second icon will open up a Antenna specific chat window. The third icon will allow you to set a default location and make adjustments to some of the app’s settings. Recording Audio The “Recording Function” is the only area where we experienced some “quirkiness” with the app. To start recording press the “Round White Button”… Note: Based on feedback on the app creator’s webpage some people have experienced the same problem as we did during our tests with the app failing to complete the recordings. Hopefully this bug will be fixed with the next release. Once recording has started the button will turn red. Click on the button again to stop recording. Once you have stopped recording you will see the following message window appear and the main window will be shaded over with a whitish color until you click “OK”. Conclusion Regardless of the slight quirkiness in recording online music Antenna more than makes up for it with the terrific selection of online stations and streaming capability. New fresh music for you to listen to is only a click or two away… Links Download Antenna (Antenna Homepage) Download Antenna at Softpedia Download Adobe AIR Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Listen to Local FM Radio in Windows 7 Media CenterListen to Over 100,000 Radio Stations in Windows Media CenterListen To XM Radio with Windows Media Center in Windows 7Listen and Record Over 12,000 Online Radio Stations with RadioSureWeekend Fun: Watch Television on Your PC with AnyTV TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Will it Blend? iPad Edition Penolo Lets You Share Sketches On Twitter Visit Woolyss.com for Old School Games, Music and Videos Add a Custom Title in IE using Spybot or Spyware Blaster When You Need to Hail a Taxi in NYC Live Map of Marine Traffic

  Read the article

• Set App Windows to Always be on Top

  - by Asian Angel

  Sometimes you have a small app or other software that you want to keep topmost but how do you keep it on top without a lot of hassle? If this sounds like your situation then you might want to have a look at OnTop. Before For our example we had four individual apps open…any of the four could easily be on top at the moment. OnTop in Action The exe file for the app comes in a zip file. Simply unzip the file, place it in the Program Files Folder, create a shortcut and you are ready to go. Once you start OnTop you will see a new System Tray Icon…right click to access the Context Menu with a list of currently open apps. We decided to set Winamp to be always topmost first. Note: OnTop detected all three individual sections of our Winamp Player along with the individual monitors running in our Taskbar. Clicking on Paint.NET brought it forward over Firefox and Microsoft Word but Winamp was still sitting on top. Clicking on Microsoft Word next still did not affect Winamp’s topmost status. Nice. As soon as we switched the topmost status to Microsoft Word you can see that it immediately came to the front. One thing that we did note in our tests…the best method for switching topmost status is either to choose a different app or close the app that was topmost. Conclusion OnTop might be considered niche software but if you have an app window that you need to keep on top of other windows then you might want to give this small app a try. Links Download OnTop at Softpedia Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Use the Windows Key for the "Start" Menu in Ubuntu LinuxIncrease the Cached Logon Count for Windows Computers on a DomainUsing Windows 7 or Vista Compatibility ModeQuick Tip: Change the Registered Owner in WindowsMake Safari Stop Crashing Every 20 Seconds on Windows Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate Customize Everything Related to Dates, Times, Currency and Measurement in Windows 7 Google Earth replacement Icon (Icons we like) Build Great Charts in Excel with Chart Advisor tinysong gives a shortened URL for you to post on Twitter (or anywhere)

  Read the article

• Chunking a List - .NET vs Python

  - by Abhijeet Patel

  Chunking a List As I mentioned last time, I'm knee deep in python these days. I come from a statically typed background so it's definitely a mental adjustment. List comprehensions is BIG in Python and having worked with a few of them I can see why. Let's say we need to chunk a list into sublists of a specified size. Here is how we'd do it in C#  static class Extensions   {       public static IEnumerable<List<T>> Chunk<T>(this List<T> l, int chunkSize)       {           if (chunkSize <0)           {               throw new ArgumentException("chunkSize cannot be negative", "chunkSize");           }           for (int i = 0; i < l.Count; i += chunkSize)           {               yield return new List<T>(l.Skip(i).Take(chunkSize));           }       }    }    static void Main(string[] args)  {           var l = new List<string> { "a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f","g" };             foreach (var list in l.Chunk(7))           {               string str = list.Aggregate((s1, s2) => s1 + "," + s2);               Console.WriteLine(str);           }   }   A little wordy but still pretty concise thanks to LINQ.We skip the iteration number plus chunkSize elements and yield out a new List of chunkSize elements on each iteration. The python implementation is a bit more terse. def chunkIterable(iter, chunkSize):      '''Chunks an iterable         object into a list of the specified chunkSize     '''        assert hasattr(iter, "__iter__"), "iter is not an iterable"      for i in xrange(0, len(iter), chunkSize):          yield iter[i:i + chunkSize]    if __name__ == '__main__':      l = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f']      generator = chunkIterable(l,2)      try:          while(1):              print generator.next()      except StopIteration:          pass   xrange generates elements in the specified range taking in a seed and returning a generator. which can be used in a for loop(much like using a C# iterator in a foreach loop) Since chunkIterable has a yield statement, it turns this method into a generator as well. iter[i:i + chunkSize] essentially slices the list based on the current iteration index and chunksize and creates a new list that we yield out to the caller one at a time. A generator much like an iterator is a state machine and each subsequent call to it remembers the state at which the last call left off and resumes execution from that point. The caveat to keep in mind is that since variables are not explicitly typed we need to ensure that the object passed in is iterable using hasattr(iter, "__iter__").This way we can perform chunking on any object which is an "iterable", very similar to accepting an IEnumerable in the .NET land

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – Various Leap Year Logics

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier I wrote one article on Leap Year and created one video about Leap Year. My point of view was to demonstrate how we can use SQL Server 2012 features to identify Leap year. How ever during the conversation I had some really good conversation. Here are updates for those who have missed reading the excellent comments on the blog. Incorrect Logic There are so many people still think Leap Year is the event which is consistently happening at every four year and the way to find it is divide the year with 4 and if the remainder is 0. That year is leap year. Well, it is not correct. Comment by David Bridge Check out this excerpt from wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year “most years that are evenly divisible by 4 are leap years…” “…Some exceptions to this rule are required since the duration of a solar year is slightly less than 365.25 days. Years that are evenly divisible by 100 are not leap years, unless they are also evenly divisible by 400, in which case they are leap years. For example, 1600 and 2000 were leap years, but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not. Similarly, 2100, 2200, 2300, 2500, 2600, 2700, 2900 and 3000 will not be leap years, but 2400 and 2800 will be.” If you use logic of divide by 4 and remainder is 0 to find leap year, you will may end up with inaccurate result. The correct way to identify the year is to figure out the days of February and if the count is 29, the year is for sure leap year. Valid Alternate Solutions Comment by sainswor99insworth IIF((@Year%4=0 AND @Year%100 != 0) OR @Year%400=0, 1,0) Comment by Madhivanan Madhivanan has written a blog post about an year ago where he listed multiple ways to find leap year. Comment by Jayan DECLARE @year INT SET @year = 2012 IF (((@year % 4 = 0) AND (@year % 100 != 0)) OR (@year % 400 = 0)) PRINT ’1' ELSE print ’0' Comment by David DECLARE @Year INT = 2012 SELECT ISDATE('2/29/' + CAST(@Year AS CHAR(4))) Comment by David Bridge Incidentally – Another approach would be to take one day off March 1st and see if it is 29. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DateTime, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

  Read the article

• Playing NSF music in FMOD.net

  - by Tesserex

  So, as the title says, I want to be able to play NSF files using FMOD, because my project already uses FMOD and I'd rather not replace it. This will involve figuring out how existing players and emulators work and porting it. I haven't yet found an existing player that uses FMOD. My starting point is the MyNes source from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mynes/. There are two big steps between here and what I'm looking for. MyNes plays from a ROM, not NSF. So, I have to rip out the APU and get it to play NSF files. The MyNes APU uses SlimDX, so I have to convert that to FMOD.NET. I am really stuck about how to go about either of these, because I'm not that familiar with audio formats and it's hard finding resources online. So here are a few questions: From what I can tell from the NSF spec at http://kevtris.org/nes/nsfspec.txt, it's just contains the relevant memory section of the ROM, plus the header. If anyone can verify or correct this that would be great. The emulator APU uses data from the rest of the emulator to play, including things like cycle counts. I'm not sure what replaces this in a standalone player. Can't I just load all the music data at once into a stream and play it? Joining #1 and #2, does the header data from the NSF substitute for some of the ROM data in the emulator code? Using FMOD, will I be following the usercreatedsound example for loading a stream? And does this format count as PCM? Specifically MyNes says PCM8. Any tips on loading / playing the stream in FMOD are appreciated. As an aside, I don't really understand the loading / playing sections of the spec I linked at all. It seems to apply to 6502 systems / emulators only and not to my situation. I know it's a long shot for anyone here to have enough experience in this area to help, but anything you can provide is definitely appreciated. A link to an existing .NET library that does this would be even better, but I don't believe one exists.

  Read the article

• 'pip install carbon' looks like it works, but pip disagrees afterward

  - by fennec

  I'm trying to use pip to install the package carbon, a package related to statistics collection. When I run pip install carbon, it looks like everything works. However, pip is unconvinced that the package is actually installed. (This ultimately causes trouble because I'm using Puppet, and have a rule to install carbon using pip, and when puppet asks pip "is this package installed?" it says "no" and it reinstalls it again.) How do I figure out what's preventing pip from recognizing the success of this installation? Here is the output of the regular install: root@statsd:/opt/graphite# pip install carbon Downloading/unpacking carbon Downloading carbon-0.9.9.tar.gz Running setup.py egg_info for package carbon package init file 'lib/twisted/plugins/__init__.py' not found (or not a regular file) Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): twisted in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (from carbon) Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): txamqp in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (from carbon) Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): zope.interface in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (from twisted->carbon) Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): distribute in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (from zope.interface->twisted->carbon) Installing collected packages: carbon Running setup.py install for carbon package init file 'lib/twisted/plugins/__init__.py' not found (or not a regular file) changing mode of build/scripts-2.7/validate-storage-schemas.py from 664 to 775 changing mode of build/scripts-2.7/carbon-aggregator.py from 664 to 775 changing mode of build/scripts-2.7/carbon-cache.py from 664 to 775 changing mode of build/scripts-2.7/carbon-relay.py from 664 to 775 changing mode of build/scripts-2.7/carbon-client.py from 664 to 775 changing mode of /opt/graphite/bin/validate-storage-schemas.py to 775 changing mode of /opt/graphite/bin/carbon-aggregator.py to 775 changing mode of /opt/graphite/bin/carbon-cache.py to 775 changing mode of /opt/graphite/bin/carbon-relay.py to 775 changing mode of /opt/graphite/bin/carbon-client.py to 775 Successfully installed carbon Cleaning up... root@statsd:/opt/graphite# pip freeze | grep carbon root@statsd: Here is the verbose version of the install: root@statsd:/opt/graphite# pip install carbon -v Downloading/unpacking carbon Using version 0.9.9 (newest of versions: 0.9.9, 0.9.9, 0.9.8, 0.9.7, 0.9.6, 0.9.5) Downloading carbon-0.9.9.tar.gz Running setup.py egg_info for package carbon running egg_info creating pip-egg-info/carbon.egg-info writing requirements to pip-egg-info/carbon.egg-info/requires.txt writing pip-egg-info/carbon.egg-info/PKG-INFO writing top-level names to pip-egg-info/carbon.egg-info/top_level.txt writing dependency_links to pip-egg-info/carbon.egg-info/dependency_links.txt writing manifest file 'pip-egg-info/carbon.egg-info/SOURCES.txt' warning: manifest_maker: standard file '-c' not found package init file 'lib/twisted/plugins/__init__.py' not found (or not a regular file) reading manifest file 'pip-egg-info/carbon.egg-info/SOURCES.txt' writing manifest file 'pip-egg-info/carbon.egg-info/SOURCES.txt' Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): twisted in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (from carbon) Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): txamqp in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (from carbon) Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): zope.interface in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (from twisted->carbon) Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): distribute in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (from zope.interface->twisted->carbon) Installing collected packages: carbon Running setup.py install for carbon running install running build running build_py creating build creating build/lib.linux-i686-2.7 creating build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/amqp_publisher.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/manhole.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/instrumentation.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/cache.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/management.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/relayrules.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/events.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/protocols.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/conf.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/rewrite.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/hashing.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/writer.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/client.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/util.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/service.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/amqp_listener.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/routers.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/storage.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/log.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/__init__.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon copying lib/carbon/state.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon creating build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/aggregator copying lib/carbon/aggregator/receiver.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/aggregator copying lib/carbon/aggregator/rules.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/aggregator copying lib/carbon/aggregator/buffers.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/aggregator copying lib/carbon/aggregator/__init__.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/aggregator package init file 'lib/twisted/plugins/__init__.py' not found (or not a regular file) creating build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/twisted creating build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/twisted/plugins copying lib/twisted/plugins/carbon_relay_plugin.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/twisted/plugins copying lib/twisted/plugins/carbon_aggregator_plugin.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/twisted/plugins copying lib/twisted/plugins/carbon_cache_plugin.py -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/twisted/plugins copying lib/carbon/amqp0-8.xml -> build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon running build_scripts creating build/scripts-2.7 copying and adjusting bin/validate-storage-schemas.py -> build/scripts-2.7 copying and adjusting bin/carbon-aggregator.py -> build/scripts-2.7 copying and adjusting bin/carbon-cache.py -> build/scripts-2.7 copying and adjusting bin/carbon-relay.py -> build/scripts-2.7 copying and adjusting bin/carbon-client.py -> build/scripts-2.7 changing mode of build/scripts-2.7/validate-storage-schemas.py from 664 to 775 changing mode of build/scripts-2.7/carbon-aggregator.py from 664 to 775 changing mode of build/scripts-2.7/carbon-cache.py from 664 to 775 changing mode of build/scripts-2.7/carbon-relay.py from 664 to 775 changing mode of build/scripts-2.7/carbon-client.py from 664 to 775 running install_lib copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/amqp_publisher.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/manhole.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/amqp0-8.xml -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/instrumentation.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/cache.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/management.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/relayrules.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/events.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/protocols.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/conf.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/rewrite.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/hashing.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/writer.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/client.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/util.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/aggregator/receiver.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/aggregator copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/aggregator/rules.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/aggregator copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/aggregator/buffers.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/aggregator copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/aggregator/__init__.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/aggregator copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/service.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/amqp_listener.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/routers.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/storage.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/log.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/__init__.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/carbon/state.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/twisted/plugins/carbon_relay_plugin.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/twisted/plugins copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/twisted/plugins/carbon_aggregator_plugin.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/twisted/plugins copying build/lib.linux-i686-2.7/twisted/plugins/carbon_cache_plugin.py -> /opt/graphite/lib/twisted/plugins byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/amqp_publisher.py to amqp_publisher.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/manhole.py to manhole.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/instrumentation.py to instrumentation.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/cache.py to cache.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/management.py to management.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/relayrules.py to relayrules.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/events.py to events.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/protocols.py to protocols.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/conf.py to conf.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/rewrite.py to rewrite.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/hashing.py to hashing.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/writer.py to writer.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/client.py to client.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/util.py to util.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/aggregator/receiver.py to receiver.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/aggregator/rules.py to rules.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/aggregator/buffers.py to buffers.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/aggregator/__init__.py to __init__.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/service.py to service.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/amqp_listener.py to amqp_listener.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/routers.py to routers.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/storage.py to storage.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/log.py to log.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/__init__.py to __init__.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/carbon/state.py to state.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/twisted/plugins/carbon_relay_plugin.py to carbon_relay_plugin.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/twisted/plugins/carbon_aggregator_plugin.py to carbon_aggregator_plugin.pyc byte-compiling /opt/graphite/lib/twisted/plugins/carbon_cache_plugin.py to carbon_cache_plugin.pyc running install_data copying conf/storage-schemas.conf.example -> /opt/graphite/conf copying conf/rewrite-rules.conf.example -> /opt/graphite/conf copying conf/relay-rules.conf.example -> /opt/graphite/conf copying conf/carbon.amqp.conf.example -> /opt/graphite/conf copying conf/aggregation-rules.conf.example -> /opt/graphite/conf copying conf/carbon.conf.example -> /opt/graphite/conf running install_egg_info running egg_info creating lib/carbon.egg-info writing requirements to lib/carbon.egg-info/requires.txt writing lib/carbon.egg-info/PKG-INFO writing top-level names to lib/carbon.egg-info/top_level.txt writing dependency_links to lib/carbon.egg-info/dependency_links.txt writing manifest file 'lib/carbon.egg-info/SOURCES.txt' warning: manifest_maker: standard file '-c' not found reading manifest file 'lib/carbon.egg-info/SOURCES.txt' writing manifest file 'lib/carbon.egg-info/SOURCES.txt' removing '/opt/graphite/lib/carbon-0.9.9-py2.7.egg-info' (and everything under it) Copying lib/carbon.egg-info to /opt/graphite/lib/carbon-0.9.9-py2.7.egg-info running install_scripts copying build/scripts-2.7/validate-storage-schemas.py -> /opt/graphite/bin copying build/scripts-2.7/carbon-aggregator.py -> /opt/graphite/bin copying build/scripts-2.7/carbon-cache.py -> /opt/graphite/bin copying build/scripts-2.7/carbon-relay.py -> /opt/graphite/bin copying build/scripts-2.7/carbon-client.py -> /opt/graphite/bin changing mode of /opt/graphite/bin/validate-storage-schemas.py to 775 changing mode of /opt/graphite/bin/carbon-aggregator.py to 775 changing mode of /opt/graphite/bin/carbon-cache.py to 775 changing mode of /opt/graphite/bin/carbon-relay.py to 775 changing mode of /opt/graphite/bin/carbon-client.py to 775 writing list of installed files to '/tmp/pip-9LuJTF-record/install-record.txt' Successfully installed carbon Cleaning up... Removing temporary dir /opt/graphite/build... root@statsd:/opt/graphite# For reference, this is pip 1.0 from /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (python 2.7)

  Read the article

• Angry Bird Makers: Developers Love iOS Over Android To Make Money

  - by Gopinath

  These days web is buzzing with Apple iOS vs Google Android debates. Recently Fortune predicted that Android is going to explode in 2011 and it will surpass Apple’s iOS market share. Yes Android is set to spread its wings across all the devices – smartphones, TVs, set top boxes, in car entertainment devices, what not. Think of any device that requires operating system, Android can be used. On the other than iOS is only available on very selective Apple devices – iPods, iPhones and iPads. When it comes to the count of devices running on a specific OS, Android will be far ahead of iOS but when you consider a quality of devices and providing an eco system for business to make money iOS seems to be the winner. That is what experts and analysts are saysing. Here is an excerpt from Peter Vesterbacka, maker of the popular Angry Birds game, interview to Tech N Marketing site.  He says Apple will be the number one platform for a long time from a developer perspective, they have gotten so many things right. And they know what they are doing and they call the shots. Android is growing, but it’s also growing complexity at the same time. Device fragmentation not the issue, but rather the fragmentation of the ecosystem. So many different shops, so many different models. The carriers messing with the experience again. Open but not really open, a very Google centric ecosystem. And paid content just doesn’t work on Android. Peter says developer prefer iOS over Android as it’s not very easy to make money on Android market. That’s why they released a free version of Angry Birds game with ads support for Android devices. Free is the way to go with Android. Nobody has been successful selling content on Android. We will offer a way to remove the ads by paying for the app, but we don’t expect that to be a huge revenue stream. You can read full interview here. cc image credit: flickr/johanl This article titled,Angry Bird Makers: Developers Love iOS Over Android To Make Money, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

  Read the article

• LINQ and ordering of the result set

  - by vik20000in

  After filtering and retrieving the records most of the time (if not always) we have to sort the record in certain order. The sort order is very important for displaying records or major calculations. In LINQ for sorting data the order keyword is used. With the help of the order keyword we can decide on the ordering of the result set that is retrieved after the query.  Below is an simple example of the order keyword in LINQ.     string[] words = { "cherry", "apple", "blueberry" };     var sortedWords =         from word in words         orderby word         select word; Here we are ordering the data retrieved based on the string ordering. If required the order can also be made on any of the property of the individual like the length of the string.     var sortedWords =         from word in words         orderby word.Length         select word; You can also make the order descending or ascending by adding the keyword after the parameter.     var sortedWords =         from word in words         orderby word descending         select word; But the best part of the order clause is that instead of just passing a field you can also pass the order clause an instance of any class that implements IComparer interface. The IComparer interface holds a method Compare that Has to be implemented. In that method we can write any logic whatsoever for the comparision. In the below example we are making a string comparison by ignoring the case. string[] words = { "aPPLE", "AbAcUs", "bRaNcH", "BlUeBeRrY", "cHeRry"}; var sortedWords = words.OrderBy(a => a, new CaseInsensitiveComparer());  public class CaseInsensitiveComparer : IComparer<string> {     public int Compare(string x, string y)     {         return string.Compare(x, y, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase);     } }  But while sorting the data many a times we want to provide more than one sort so that data is sorted based on more than one condition. This can be achieved by proving the next order followed by a comma.     var sortedWords =         from word in words         orderby word , word.length         select word; We can also use the reverse() method to reverse the full order of the result set.     var sortedWords =         from word in words         select word.Reverse();                                 Vikram

  Read the article

• Windows Azure Use Case: High-Performance Computing (HPC)

  - by BuckWoody

  This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx  Description: High-Performance Computing (also called Technical Computing) at its most simplistic is a layout of computer workloads where a “head node” accepts work requests, and parses them out to “worker nodes'”. This is useful in cases such as scientific simulations, drug research, MatLab work and where other large compute loads are required. It’s not the immediate-result type computing many are used to; instead, a “job” or group of work requests is sent to a cluster of computers and the worker nodes work on individual parts of the calculations and return the work to the scheduler or head node for the requestor in a batch-request fashion. This is typical to the way that many mainframe computing use-cases work. You can use commodity-based computers to create an HPC Cluster, such as the Linux application called Beowulf, and Microsoft has a server product for HPC using standard computers, called the Windows Compute Cluster that you can read more about here. The issue with HPC (from any vendor) that some organization have is the amount of compute nodes they need. Having too many results in excess infrastructure, including computers, buildings, storage, heat and so on. Having too few means that the work is slower, and takes longer to return a result to the calling application. Unless there is a consistent level of work requested, predicting the number of nodes is problematic. Implementation: Recently, Microsoft announced an internal partnership between the HPC group (Now called the Technical Computing Group) and Windows Azure. You now have two options for implementing an HPC environment using Windows. You can extend the current infrastructure you have for HPC by adding in Compute Nodes in Windows Azure, using a “Broker Node”.  You can then purchase time for adding machines, and then stop paying for them when the work is completed. This is a common pattern in groups that have a constant need for HPC, but need to “burst” that load count under certain conditions. The second option is to install only a Head Node and a Broker Node onsite, and host all Compute Nodes in Windows Azure. This is often the pattern for organizations that need HPC on a scheduled and periodic basis, such as financial analysis or actuarial table calculations. References: Blog entry on Hybrid HPC with Windows Azure: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ignitionshowcase/archive/2010/12/13/high-performance-computing-on-premise-and-in-the-windows-azure-cloud.aspx  Links for further research on HPC, includes Windows Azure information: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ncdevguy/archive/2011/02/16/handy-links-for-hpc-and-azure.aspx 

  Read the article

• Editor's Notebook - Social Aura: Insights from the Oracle Social Media Summit

  - by user462779

  Panelists talk social marketing at the Oracle Social Media Summit On November 14, I traveled to Las Vegas for the first-ever Oracle Social Media Summit. The two day event featured an impressive collection of social media luminaries including: David Kirkpatrick (founder and CEO of Techonomy Media and author of The Facebook Effect), John Yi (Head of Marketing Partnerships, Facebook), Matt Dickman (EVP of Social Business Innovation, Weber Shandwick), and Lyndsay Iorio (Social Media & Communications Manager, NBC Sports Group) among others. It was also a great opportunity to talk shop with some of our new Vitrue and Involver colleagues who have been returning great social media results even before their companies were acquired by Oracle. I was live tweeting the event from @OracleProfit which was great for those who wanted to follow along with the proceedings from the comfort of their office or blackjack table. But I've also found over the years that live tweeting an event is a handy way to take notes: I can sift back through my record of what people said or thoughts I had at the time and organize the Twitter messages into some kind of summary account of the proceedings. I've had nearly a month to reflect on the presentations and conversations at the event and a few key topics have emerged: David Kirkpatrick's comment during the opening presentation really set the stage for the conversations that followed. Especially if you are a marketer or publisher, the idea that you are in a one-way broadcast relationship with your audience is a thing of the past. "Rising above the noise" does not mean reaching for a megaphone, ALL CAPS, or exclamation marks. Hype will not motivate social media denizens to do anything but unfollow and tune you out. But knowing your audience, creating quality content and/or offers for them, treating them with respect, and making an authentic effort to please them: that's what I believe is now necessary. And Kirkpatrick's comment early in the day really made the point. Later in the day, our friends @Vitrue demonstrated this point by elaborating on a comment by Facebook's John Yi. If a social strategy is comprised of nothing more than cutting/pasting the same message into different social media properties, you're missing the opportunity to have an actual conversation. That's not shouting at your audience, but it does feel like an empty gesture. Walter Benjamin, perplexed by auraless Twitter messages Not to get too far afield, but 20th century cultural critic Walter Benjamin has a concept that is useful for understanding the dynamics of the empty social media gesture: Aura. In his work The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Benjamin struggled to understand the difference he percieved between the value of a hand-made art object (a painting, wood cutting, sculpture, etc.) and a photograph. For Benjamin, aura is similar to the "soul" of an artwork--the intangible essence that is created when an artist picks up a tool and puts creative energy and effort into a work. I'll defer to Wikipedia: "He argues that the "sphere of authenticity is outside the technical" so that the original artwork is independent of the copy, yet through the act of reproduction something is taken from the original by changing its context. He also introduces the idea of the "aura" of a work and its absence in a reproduction." So make sure you put aura into your social interactions. Don't just mechanically reproduce them. Keeping aura in your interactions requires the intervention of an actual human being. That's why @NoahHorton's comment about content curation struck me as incredibly important. Maybe it's just my own prejudice, being in the content curation business myself. And it's not to totally discount machine-aided content management systems, content recommendation engines, and other tech-driven tools for building an exceptional content experience. It's just that without that human interaction--that editor who reviews the analytics and responds to user feedback--interactions over social media feel a bit empty. It is SOCIAL media, right? (We'll leave the conversation about social machines for another day). At the end of the day, experimentation is key. Just like trying to find that right joke to tell at the beginning of your presentation or that good opening like at a cocktail party, social media messages and interactions can take some trial and error. Don't be afraid to try things, tinker with incomplete ideas, abandon things that don't work, and engage in the conversation. And make sure your heart is in it, otherwise your audience can tell. And finally:

  Read the article

• BoundingBox created from mesh to origin, making it bigger

  - by Gunnar Södergren

  I'm working on a level-based survival game and I want to design my scenes in Maya and export them as a single model (with multiple meshes) into XNA. My problem is that when I try to create Bounding Boxes(for Collision purposes) for each of the meshes, the are calculated from origin to the far-end of the current mesh, so to speak. I'm thinking that it might have something to do with the position each mesh brings from Maya and that it's interpreted wrongly... or something. Here's the code for when I create the boxes: private static BoundingBox CreateBoundingBox(Model model, ModelMesh mesh) { Matrix[] boneTransforms = new Matrix[model.Bones.Count]; model.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(boneTransforms); BoundingBox result = new BoundingBox(); foreach (ModelMeshPart meshPart in mesh.MeshParts) { BoundingBox? meshPartBoundingBox = GetBoundingBox(meshPart, boneTransforms[mesh.ParentBone.Index]); if (meshPartBoundingBox != null) result = BoundingBox.CreateMerged(result, meshPartBoundingBox.Value); } result = new BoundingBox(result.Min, result.Max); return result; } private static BoundingBox? GetBoundingBox(ModelMeshPart meshPart, Matrix transform) { if (meshPart.VertexBuffer == null) return null; Vector3[] positions = VertexElementExtractor.GetVertexElement(meshPart, VertexElementUsage.Position); if (positions == null) return null; Vector3[] transformedPositions = new Vector3[positions.Length]; Vector3.Transform(positions, ref transform, transformedPositions); for (int i = 0; i < transformedPositions.Length; i++) { Console.WriteLine(" " + transformedPositions[i]); } return BoundingBox.CreateFromPoints(transformedPositions); } public static class VertexElementExtractor { public static Vector3[] GetVertexElement(ModelMeshPart meshPart, VertexElementUsage usage) { VertexDeclaration vd = meshPart.VertexBuffer.VertexDeclaration; VertexElement[] elements = vd.GetVertexElements(); Func<VertexElement, bool> elementPredicate = ve => ve.VertexElementUsage == usage && ve.VertexElementFormat == VertexElementFormat.Vector3; if (!elements.Any(elementPredicate)) return null; VertexElement element = elements.First(elementPredicate); Vector3[] vertexData = new Vector3[meshPart.NumVertices]; meshPart.VertexBuffer.GetData((meshPart.VertexOffset * vd.VertexStride) + element.Offset, vertexData, 0, vertexData.Length, vd.VertexStride); return vertexData; } } Here's a link to the picture of the mesh(The model holds six meshes, but I'm only rendering one and it's bounding box to make it clearer: http://www.gsodergren.se/portfolio/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Screen-shot-2011-10-24-at-1.16.37-AM.png The mesh that I'm refering to is the Cubelike one. The cylinder is a completely different model and not part of any bounding box calculation. I've double- (and tripple-)-checked that this mesh corresponds to this bounding box. Any thoughts on what I'm doing wrong?

  Read the article

• Failure Sucks, But Does It Have To?

  - by steve.diamond

  Hey Folks--It's "elephant in the room" time. Imagine a representative from a CRM VENDOR discussing CRM FAILURES. Well. I recently saw this blog post from Michael Krigsman on "six ways CRM projects go wrong." Now, I know this may come off defensive, but my comments apply to ALL CRM vendors, not just Oracle. As I perused the list, I couldn't find any failures related to technology. They all seemed related to people or process. Now, this isn't about finger pointing, or impugning customers. I love customers! And when they fail, WE fail. Although I sit in the cheap seats, i.e., I haven't funded any multi-million dollar CRM initiatives lately, I kept wondering how to convert the perception of failure as something that ends and is never to be mentioned again (see Michael's reason #4), to something that one learns from and builds upon. So to continue my tradition of speaking in platitudes, let me propose the following three tenets: 1) Try and get ahead of your failures while they're very very small. 2) Immediately assess what you can learn from those failures. 3) With more than 15 years of CRM deployments, seek out those vendors that have a track record both in learning from "misses" and in supporting MANY THOUSANDS of CRM successes at companies of all types and sizes. Now let me digress briefly with an unpleasant (for me, anyway) analogy. I really don't like flying. Call it 'fear of dying' or 'fear of no control.' Whatever! I've spoken with quite a few commercial pilots over the years, and they reassure me that there are multiple failures on most every flight. We as passengers just don't know about them. Most of them are too miniscule to make a difference, and most of them are "caught" before they become LARGER failures. It's typically the mid-sized to colossal failures we hear about, and a significant percentage of those are due to human error. What's the point? I'd propose that organizations consider the topic of FAILURE in five grades. On one end, FAILURE Grade 1 is a minor/miniscule failure. On the other end, FAILURE Grade 5 is a colossal failure A Grade 1 CRM FAILURE could be that a particular interim milestone was missed. Why? What can we learn from that? How can we prevent that from happening as we proceed through the project? Individual organizations will need to define their own Grade 2 and Grade 3 failures. The opportunity is to keep those Grade 3 failures from escalating any further. Because honestly, a GRADE 5 failure may not be recoverable. It could result in a project being pulled, countless amounts of hours and dollars lost, and jobs lost. We don't want to go there. In closing, I want to thank Michael for opening my eyes up to the world of "color," versus thinking of failure as both "black and white" and a dead end road that organizations can't learn from and avoid discussing like the plague.

  Read the article

• Validating Petabytes of Data with Regularity and Thoroughness

  - by rickramsey

  by Brian Zents When former Intel CEO Andy Grove said “only the paranoid survive,” he wasn’t necessarily talking about tape storage administrators, but it’s a lesson they’ve learned well. After all, tape storage is the last line of defense to prevent data loss, so tape administrators are extra cautious in making sure their data is secure. Not surprisingly, we are often asked for ways to validate tape media and the files on them. In the past, an administrator could validate the media, but doing so was often tedious or disruptive or both. The debut of the Data Integrity Validation (DIV) and Library Media Validation (LMV) features in the Oracle T10000C drive helped eliminate many of these pains. Also available with the Oracle T10000D drive, these features use hardware-assisted CRC checks that not only ensure the data is written correctly the first time, but also do so much more efficiently. Traditionally, a CRC check takes at least 25 seconds per 4GB file with a 2:1 compression ratio, but the T10000C/D drives can reduce the check to a maximum of nine seconds because the entire check is contained within the drive. No data needs to be sent to a host application. A time savings of at least 64 percent is extremely beneficial over the course of checking an entire 8.5TB T10000D tape. While the DIV and LMV features are better than anything else out there, what storage administrators really need is a way to check petabytes of data with regularity and thoroughness. With the launch of Oracle StorageTek Tape Analytics (STA) 2.0 in April, there is finally a solution that addresses this longstanding need. STA bundles these features into one interface to automate all media validation activities across all Oracle SL3000 and SL8500 tape libraries in an environment. And best of all, the validation process can be associated with the health checks an administrator would be doing already through STA. In fact, STA validates the media based on any of the following policies: Random Selection – Randomly selects media for validation whenever a validation drive in the standalone library or library complex is available. Media Health = Action – Selects media that have had a specified number of successive exchanges resulting in an Exchange Media Health of “Action.” You can specify from one to five exchanges. Media Health = Evaluate – Selects media that have had a specified number of successive exchanges resulting in an Exchange Media Health of “Evaluate.” You can specify from one to five exchanges. Media Health = Monitor – Selects media that have had a specified number of successive exchanges resulting in an Exchange Media Health of “Monitor.” You can specify from one to five exchanges. Extended Period of Non-Use – Selects media that have not had an exchange for a specified number of days. You can specify from 365 to 1,095 days (one to three years). Newly Entered – Selects media that have recently been entered into the library. Bad MIR Detected – Selects media with an exchange resulting in a “Bad MIR Detected” error. A bad media information record (MIR) indicates degraded high-speed access on the media. To avoid disrupting host operations, an administrator designates certain drives for media validation operations. If a host requests a file from media currently being validated, the host’s request takes priority. To ensure that the administrator really knows it is the media that is bad, as opposed to the drive, STA includes drive calibration and qualification features. In addition, validation requests can be re-prioritized or cancelled as needed. To ensure that a specific tape isn’t validated too often, STA prevents a tape from being validated twice within 24 hours via one of the policies described above. A tape can be validated more often if the administrator manually initiates the validation. When the validations are complete, STA reports the results. STA does not report simply a “good” or “bad” status. It also reports if media is even degraded so the administrator can migrate the data before there is a true failure. From that point, the administrators’ paranoia is relieved, as they have the necessary information to make a sound decision about the health of the tapes in their environment. About the Photograph Photograph taken by Rick Ramsey in Death Valley, California, May 2014 - Brian Follow OTN Garage on: Web | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

  Read the article

• It was worth the wait… Welcome Oracle GoldenGate 11g Release 2

  - by Irem Radzik

  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";} 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";} It certainly was worth the wait to meet Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2, because it is full of new features on multiple fronts. In fact, this release has the longest and strongest list of new features in Oracle GoldenGate’s history. The new release brings GoldenGate closer to the Oracle Database while expanding the support for global implementations and heterogeneous systems. It is more secure, more flexible, and faster. We announced the availability of Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2 via a press release. If you haven’t seen it yet, please check it out. As covered in this announcement, there are a variety of improvements in the product: Integrated Capture for Oracle Database: brings Oracle GoldenGate’s Capture process closer to the Oracle Database engine and enables support for Advanced Compression among other benefits. Enhanced Conflict Detection & Resolution, speeds and simplifies the conflict detection and resolution process for Active-Active deployments. Globalization, meaning Oracle GoldenGate can be deployed for databases that use multi-byte/Unicode character sets. Security and Performance Improvements, includes support Federal Information Protection Standard (FIPS). Increased Extensibility by kicking off actions based on an event record in the transaction log or in the Trail file. Integration with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c , in addition to the Oracle GoldenGate Monitor product. Expanded Heterogeneity, including capture from IBM DB2 for i on iSeries (AS/400) and delivery to Postgres We will explain these new features in more detail at our upcoming launch webcast: Harness the Power of the New Release of Oracle GoldenGate 11g- (Sept 12 8am/10am PT) In addition to learning more about these new features, the webcast will allow you to ask your questions to product management via live Q&A section. So, I hope you will not miss this opportunity to explore the new release of Oracle GoldenGate 11g and see how it can deliver enterprise-class real-time data integration solutions.. I look forward to a great webcast to unveil GoldenGate’s new capabilities.

  Read the article

• Book review (Book 6) - Wikinomics

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for year. You can read my first book review here. The book I chose for November 2011 was: Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Don Tapscott   Why I chose this Book: I’ve heard a lot about this book - was one of the “must read” kind of business books (many of which are very “fluffy”) and supposedly deals with collaborating using technology - so I want to see what it says about collaborative efforts and how I can leverage them. What I learned: I really disliked this book. I’ve never been a fan of the latest “business book”, and sadly that’s what this felt like to me. A “business book” is what I call a work that has a fairly simple concept to get across, and then proceeds to use various made-up terms, analogies and other mechanisms to fill hundreds of pages doing it. This perception is at my own – the book is pretty old, and these things go stale quickly. The author’s general point (at least what I took away from it) was: Open Source is good, proprietary is bad. Collaboration is the hallmark of successful companies. In my mind, you can save yourself the trouble of reading this work if you get these two concepts down. Don’t get me wrong – open source is awesome, and collaboration is a good thing, especially in places where it fits. But it’s not a panacea as the author seems to indicate. For instance, he continuously uses the example of MySpace to show a “2.0” company, which I think means that you can enter text as well as read it on a web page. All well and good. But we all know what happened to MySpace, and of course he missed the point entirely about this new web environment: low barriers to entry often mean low barriers to exit. And the open, collaborative company being the best model – well, I think we all know a certain computer company famous for phones and music that is arguably quite successful, and is probably one of the most closed, non-collaborative (at least with its customers) on the planet. So that sort of takes away that argument. The reality of business is far more complicated. Collaboration is an amazing tool, and should be leveraged heavily. However, at the end of the day, after you do your research you need to pick a strategy and stick with it. Asking thousands of people to assist you in building your product probably will not work well. Open Source is great – but some proprietary products are quite functional as well, have a long track record, are well supported, and will probably be upgraded. Everything has its place, so use what works where it is needed. There is no single answer, sadly. So did I waste my time reading the book? Did I make a bad choice? Not at all! Reading the opinions and thoughts of others is almost always useful, and it’s important to consider opinions other than your own. If nothing else, thinking through the process either convinces you that you are wrong, or helps you understand better why you are right.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444  | Next Page >