Search Results

Search found 35291 results on 1412 pages for 'start menu'.

Page 455/1412 | < Previous Page | 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462  | Next Page >

• How do you keep code with continuations/callbacks readable?

  - by Heinzi

  Summary: Are there some well-established best-practice patterns that I can follow to keep my code readable in spite of using asynchronous code and callbacks? I'm using a JavaScript library that does a lot of stuff asynchronously and heavily relies on callbacks. It seems that writing a simple "load A, load B, ..." method becomes quite complicated and hard to follow using this pattern. Let me give a (contrived) example. Let's say I want to load a bunch of images (asynchronously) from a remote web server. In C#/async, I'd write something like this: disableStartButton(); foreach (myData in myRepository) { var result = await LoadImageAsync("http://my/server/GetImage?" + myData.Id); if (result.Success) { myData.Image = result.Data; } else { write("error loading Image " + myData.Id); return; } } write("success"); enableStartButton(); The code layout follows the "flow of events": First, the start button is disabled, then the images are loaded (await ensures that the UI stays responsive) and then the start button is enabled again. In JavaScript, using callbacks, I came up with this: disableStartButton(); var count = myRepository.length; function loadImage(i) { if (i >= count) { write("success"); enableStartButton(); return; } myData = myRepository[i]; LoadImageAsync("http://my/server/GetImage?" + myData.Id, function(success, data) { if (success) { myData.Image = data; } else { write("error loading image " + myData.Id); return; } loadImage(i+1); } ); } loadImage(0); I think the drawbacks are obvious: I had to rework the loop into a recursive call, the code that's supposed to be executed in the end is somewhere in the middle of the function, the code starting the download (loadImage(0)) is at the very bottom, and it's generally much harder to read and follow. It's ugly and I don't like it. I'm sure that I'm not the first one to encounter this problem, so my question is: Are there some well-established best-practice patterns that I can follow to keep my code readable in spite of using asynchronous code and callbacks?

  Read the article

• BigData and Customer Experience: Happy Together

  - by Isabel F. Peñuelas

  The two big buzzes of the year may lay closer than it appears. Both concepts intersect at various points: BigData and Return of Investment of Marketing Campaigns On a recent post Big Data Is The Future Of Marketing Jeff Dachis explains very clearly how “Big data analytics finally allows marketers to identify, measure, and manage what is positively impacting their Brand”. Regression analysis applied to big data volumes coming from social media will substitute the failed attempts to justify marketing investments on social media in terms of followers and likes, he continues, “the measurement models applied by marketers on TV Campaigns don´t work on social”, we need to study the data with fresh eyes and maybe then we will start understanding and measuring brand engagemet. Social CRM and BigData The real value of Social CRM start by analyzing mass of big data from social media in order of applying social intelligence techniques that allow us to classify new customer niches and communities and define appropriated strategies to contact potential customers. Gartner Says that the Market for Social CRM is on pace to surpass $1 Billion in Revenue by Year-End 2012 but in words of Zach Hofer-Shall, Analyst at Forrester Research “Social customer relationship management is hard” (The Social CRM Arms Race Heats ). To succeed brands need three things: Investing in new social tools, investing in consultancy and investing in infrastructure for massive data storage and analysis. Neither CeX or BigData are easy and cheap wins. But what are the customer benefits of such investments? Big Data and Brand Engagement Time is the most valuable asset of todays consumers: tired of information overload, exhausted by the terabytes of offering, anxious because of not having the same fast multichannel experience with their services’ marketers or preferred goods providers than the one they found on their social media. Yes, I know you have read this before- me too. But is real. The motto of the Customer Experience philosophy of providing a consistent experience through multiple touchpoints that makes the relationship customer/brand easier and valuable finds it basis on understanding customer/s preferences and context for which BigData analysis is another imperative. In summary, I believe that using BigData Analysis in combination with appropriated CeX strategies and technologies is a promising direction for achieving: efficiency and marketing cost-savings; growing the customer base; and increasing customer conversion and retention. In a world: The Direction of Future Marketing.

  Read the article

• Infinite Scroll WebSites via AutoPagerize - Hacky, but the beginning of something cool

  - by Latest Microsoft Blogs

  One of the things I like the most about Bing Image search (one of the things I prefer about it) is the "infinite scroll" feature. If you search for an image and start scrolling, it'll just keep going and going, moving the scroll bar each Read More......(read more)

  Read the article

• Partner Blog Series: PwC Perspectives - "Is It Time for an Upgrade?"

  - by Tanu Sood

  Is your organization debating their next step with regard to Identity Management? While all the stakeholders are well aware that the one-size-fits-all doesn’t apply to identity management, just as true is the fact that no two identity management implementations are alike. Oracle’s recent release of Identity Governance Suite 11g Release 2 has innovative features such as a customizable user interface, shopping cart style request catalog and more. However, only a close look at the use cases can help you determine if and when an upgrade to the latest R2 release makes sense for your organization. This post will describe a few of the situations that PwC has helped our clients work through. “Should I be considering an upgrade?” If your organization has an existing identity management implementation, the questions below are a good start to assessing your current solution to see if you need to begin planning for an upgrade: Does the current solution scale and meet your projected identity management needs? Does the current solution have a customer-friendly user interface? Are you completely meeting your compliance objectives? Are you still using spreadsheets? Does the current solution have the features you need? Is your total cost of ownership in line with well-performing similar sized companies in your industry? Can your organization support your existing Identity solution? Is your current product based solution well positioned to support your organization's tactical and strategic direction? Existing Oracle IDM Customers: Several existing Oracle clients are looking to move to R2 in 2013. If your organization is on Sun Identity Manager (SIM) or Oracle Identity Manager (OIM) and if your current assessment suggests that you need to upgrade, you should strongly consider OIM 11gR2. Oracle provides upgrade paths to Oracle Identity Manager 11gR2 from SIM 7.x / 8.x as well as Oracle Identity Manager 10g / 11gR1. The following are some of the considerations for migration: Check the end of product support (for Sun or legacy OIM) schedule There are several new features available in R2 (including common Helpdesk scenarios, profiling of disconnected applications, increased scalability, custom connectors, browser-based UI configurations, portability of configurations during future upgrades, etc) Cost of ownership (for SIM customers)\ Customizations that need to be maintained during the upgrade Time/Cost to migrate now vs. waiting for next version If you are already on an older version of Oracle Identity Manager and actively maintaining your support contract with Oracle, you might be eligible for a free upgrade to OIM 11gR2. Check with your Oracle sales rep for more details. Existing IDM infrastructure in place: In the past year and half, we have seen a surge in IDM upgrades from non-Oracle infrastructure to Oracle. If your organization is looking to improve the end-user experience related to identity management functions, the shopping cart style access request model and browser based personalization features may come in handy. Additionally, organizations that have a large number of applications that include ecommerce, LDAP stores, databases, UNIX systems, mainframes as well as a high frequency of user identity changes and access requests will value the high scalability of the OIM reconciliation and provisioning engine. Furthermore, we have seen our clients like OIM's out of the box (OOB) support for multiple authoritative sources. For organizations looking to integrate applications that do not have an exposed API, the Generic Technology Connector framework supported by OIM will be helpful in quickly generating custom connector using OOB wizard. Similarly, organizations in need of not only flexible on-boarding of disconnected applications but also strict access management to these applications using approval flows will find the flexible disconnected application profiling feature an extremely useful tool that provides a high degree of time savings. Organizations looking to develop custom connectors for home grown or industry specific applications will likewise find that the Identity Connector Framework support in OIM allows them to build and test a custom connector independently before integrating it with OIM. Lastly, most of our clients considering an upgrade to OIM 11gR2 have also expressed interest in the browser based configuration feature that allows an administrator to quickly customize the user interface without adding any custom code. Better yet, code customizations, if any, made to the product are portable across the future upgrades which, is viewed as a big time and money saver by most of our clients. Below are some upgrade methodologies we adopt based on client priorities and the scale of implementation. For illustration purposes, we have assumed that the client is currently on Oracle Waveset (formerly Sun Identity Manager).   Integrated Deployment: The integrated deployment is typically where a client wants to split the implementation to where their current IDM is continuing to handle the front end workflows and OIM takes over the back office operations incrementally. Once all the back office operations are moved completely to OIM, the front end workflows are migrated to OIM. Parallel Deployment: This deployment is typically done where there can be a distinct line drawn between which functionality the platforms are supporting. For example the current IDM implementation is handling the password reset functionality while OIM takes over the access provisioning and RBAC functions. Cutover Deployment: A cutover deployment is typically recommended where a client has smaller less complex implementations and it makes sense to leverage the migration tools to move them over immediately. What does this mean for YOU? There are many variables to consider when making upgrade decisions. For most customers, there is no ‘easy’ button. Organizations looking to upgrade or considering a new vendor should start by doing a mapping of their requirements with product features. The recommended approach is to take stock of both the short term and long term objectives, understand product features, future roadmap, maturity and level of commitment from the R&D and build the implementation plan accordingly. As we said, in the beginning, there is no one-size-fits-all with Identity Management. So, arm yourself with the knowledge, engage in industry discussions, bring in business stakeholders and start building your implementation roadmap. In the next post we will discuss the best practices on R2 implementations. We will be covering the Do's and Don't's and share our thoughts on making implementations successful. Meet the Writers: Dharma Padala is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has been implementing medium to large scale Identity Management solutions across multiple industries including utility, health care, entertainment, retail and financial sectors.   Dharma has 14 years of experience in delivering IT solutions out of which he has been implementing Identity Management solutions for the past 8 years. Scott MacDonald is a Director in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has consulted for several clients across multiple industries including financial services, health care, automotive and retail.   Scott has 10 years of experience in delivering Identity Management solutions. John Misczak is a member of the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  He has experience implementing multiple Identity and Access Management solutions, specializing in Oracle Identity Manager and Business Process Engineering Language (BPEL). Praveen Krishna is a Manager in the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  Over the last decade Praveen has helped clients plan, architect and implement Oracle identity solutions across diverse industries.  His experience includes delivering security across diverse topics like network, infrastructure, application and data where he brings a holistic point of view to problem solving. Jenny (Xiao) Zhang is a member of the Advisory Security practice within PwC.  She has consulted across multiple industries including financial services, entertainment and retail. Jenny has three years of experience in delivering IT solutions out of which she has been implementing Identity Management solutions for the past one and a half years.

  Read the article

• No root file system is defined error after installation

  - by LearnCode

  I installed ubuntu through Wubi and once i rebooted I get no root file system defined error. here's the output of the boot_info_script.Could anyone point me out where the error is. Boot Info Script 0.60 from 17 May 2011 ============================= Boot Info Summary: =============================== => Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda. => Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb. sda1: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7 Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Windows 7 Boot files: /bootmgr /Boot/BCD /Windows/System32/winload.exe /ntldr /ntdetect.com /wubildr /ubuntu/winboot/wubildr /wubildr.mbr /ubuntu/winboot/wubildr.mbr /ubuntu/disks/root.disk /ubuntu/disks/swap.disk sda1/Wubi: _____________________________________________________________________ File system: Boot sector type: Unknown Boot sector info: Mounting failed: mount: unknown filesystem type '' sda2: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: vfat Boot sector type: Unknown Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Boot files: /boot.ini /ntldr /NTDETECT.COM sdb1: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7 Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Boot files: ============================ Drive/Partition Info: ============================= Drive: sda _____________________________________________________________________ Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes 240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 20673 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System /dev/sda1 * 63 301,250,879 301,250,817 7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS /dev/sda2 301,250,943 312,575,759 11,324,817 c W95 FAT32 (LBA) GUID Partition Table detected, but does not seem to be used. Partition Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors System /dev/sda1 323,465,741,313,502,988275,962,973,585-323,465,465,350,529,402 - /dev/sda2 242,728,591,638,290,720578,721,383,108,845,578335,992,791,470,554,859 - /dev/sda3 1,827,498,311,425,204,2562,091,935,274,843,009,907264,436,963,417,805,652 - /dev/sda4 579,711,218,081,401,3572,006,665,459,744,645,1521,426,954,241,663,243,796 - /dev/sda11 270,286,346,402,038,1183,786,543,326,404,525,9543,516,256,980,002,487,837 - /dev/sda12 4,179,681,002,230,769,6684,179,389,374,010,033,387-291,628,220,736,280 - /dev/sda13 232,556,480,979,456,1311,160,152,593,793,119,235927,596,112,813,663,105 - /dev/sda14 98,342,784,050,266,9183,691,264,578,843,725,1953,592,921,794,793,458,278 - /dev/sda15 2,307,845,219,957,882,4961,850,841,032,955,276,350-457,004,187,002,606,145 - /dev/sda16 512,592,046,878,946,497368,458,231,024,779,444-144,133,815,854,167,052 - /dev/sda17 2,504,135,232,870,384,3923,665,087,872,719,320,8291,160,952,639,848,936,438 - /dev/sda18 3,783,181,605,270,691,304122,034,509,624,708,942-3,661,147,095,645,982,361 - /dev/sda19 3,519,661,520,275,829,5122,376,243,094,723,723,587-1,143,418,425,552,105,924 - /dev/sda20 3,867,920,076,859,0744,494,691,111,933,625,1044,490,823,191,856,766,031 - /dev/sda21 1,500,144,061,909,253,7612,511,182,033,846,676,3401,011,037,971,937,422,580 - /dev/sda22 13,035,625,499,900,0062,360,168,613,941,394,9472,347,132,988,441,494,942 - /dev/sda23 4,228,978,682,068,599,48813,159,423,631,648,263-4,215,819,258,436,951,224 - /dev/sda24 3,695,955,742,872,046,9084,561,928,726,501,845,776865,972,983,629,798,869 - /dev/sda25 1,297,460,286,683,948,0461,444,350,486,339,417,957146,890,199,655,469,912 - /dev/sda26 1,228,858,248,533,131,831 0-1,228,858,248,533,131,830 - /dev/sda121 3,189,184,846,146,487,1461,849,820,258,006,914,852-1,339,364,588,139,572,293 - /dev/sda122 1,226,215,547,991,800,578389,781,518,734,546,300-836,434,029,257,254,277 - /dev/sda123 3,851,660,168,574,583,4654,046,215,657,583,031,556194,555,489,008,448,092 - /dev/sda124 1,197,460,980,174,153,341699,103,965,005,093,246-498,357,015,169,060,094 - Drive: sdb _____________________________________________________________________ Disk /dev/sdb: 750.2 GB, 750153367552 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91200 cylinders, total 1465143296 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System /dev/sdb1 2,048 1,465,143,295 1,465,141,248 7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS "blkid" output: ________________________________________________________________ Device UUID TYPE LABEL /dev/loop0 iso9660 Ubuntu 11.04 amd64 /dev/loop1 squashfs /dev/sda1 E814B55B14B52E06 ntfs /dev/sda2 01CD-023B vfat HP_RECOVERY /dev/sdb1 7836F22A36F1E8D0 ntfs Elements ================================ Mount points: ================================= Device Mount_Point Type Options /dev/loop0 /cdrom iso9660 (ro,noatime) /dev/loop1 /rofs squashfs (ro,noatime) /dev/sdb1 /mnt fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096) ================================ sda2/boot.ini: ================================ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [boot loader] timeout=0 default=C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ======================== Unknown MBRs/Boot Sectors/etc: ======================== Unknown GPT Partiton Type c104043000e9b9040dff24b580010100 Unknown GPT Partiton Type 46313020746f20737461727420746865 Unknown GPT Partiton Type 65727920706172746974696f6e207761 Unknown GPT Partiton Type 727920706172746974696f6e0d0a0000 Unknown GPT Partiton Type 000f84e5f7668b162404e82804744066 Unknown GPT Partiton Type ce01e8dc038bfe66391624047505e8d9 Unknown GPT Partiton Type 0345086603f0e881030bd2740333d240 Unknown GPT Partiton Type bece01e8db0287fec645041266895508 Unknown GPT Partiton Type 01f60634010175078b363b01e854f5e8 Unknown GPT Partiton Type 313825740ffec03865107408fec03824 Unknown GPT Partiton Type 02f60634014074088bfdbece01e85101 Unknown GPT Partiton Type 263401f9e894f30f858ef4e8e201e8ec Unknown GPT Partiton Type f7e960f35245434f5645525966606633 Unknown GPT Partiton Type 660faf1e00106603dac3668b0e001066 Unknown GPT Partiton Type 8bfd386d04740583c710e2f6c36660c6 Unknown GPT Partiton Type 04ebf132c0b91000f3aac3bf0c04ebf3 Unknown GPT Partiton Type 02662bc1660fb71e0e02662bc366031e Unknown GPT Partiton Type f4b40ebb0700b901003c08751381ff25 Unknown GPT Partiton Type 534f465448494e4b90653f62011b0100 Unknown GPT Partiton Type 0b050900027777772e68702e636f6d00 Unknown GPT Partiton Type d441a0f5030003000ecb744a08bb3746 Unknown GPT Partiton Type f8579a116b4a7aa931cde97a4b9b5c09 Unknown GPT Partiton Type 7229990415b77c0a1970e7e824237a3a Unknown GPT Partiton Type afb6e34d6b4bd8c7c0eada19a9786cc3 Unknown BootLoader on sda1/Wubi 00000000 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 |0000000000000000| * 00000200 Unknown BootLoader on sda2 00000000 e9 a7 00 52 45 43 4f 56 45 52 59 00 02 08 20 00 |...RECOVERY... .| 00000010 02 00 00 00 00 f8 00 00 3f 00 f0 00 7f b9 f4 11 |........?.......| 00000020 8c cd ac 00 1e 2b 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 |.....+..........| 00000030 01 00 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................| 00000040 80 00 29 3b 02 cd 01 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 |..);... | 00000050 20 20 46 41 54 33 32 20 20 20 8b d0 c1 e2 02 80 | FAT32 ......| 00000060 e6 01 66 c1 e8 07 66 3b 46 f8 74 2a 66 89 46 f8 |..f...f;F.t*f.F.| 00000070 66 03 46 f4 66 0f b6 5e 28 80 e3 0f 74 0f 3a 5e |f.F.f..^(...t.:^| 00000080 10 0f 83 90 00 66 0f af 5e 24 66 03 c3 bb e0 07 |.....f..^$f.....| 00000090 b9 01 00 e8 cf 00 8b da 66 8b 87 00 7e 66 25 ff |........f...~f%.| 000000a0 ff ff 0f 66 3d f8 ff ff 0f c3 33 c9 8e d9 8e c1 |...f=.....3.....| 000000b0 8e d1 66 bc f4 7b 00 00 bd 00 7c 66 0f b6 46 10 |..f..{....|f..F.| 000000c0 66 f7 66 24 66 0f b7 56 0e 66 03 56 1c 66 89 56 |f.f$f..V.f.V.f.V| 000000d0 f4 66 03 c2 66 89 46 fc 66 c7 46 f8 ff ff ff ff |.f..f.F.f.F.....| 000000e0 66 8b 46 2c 66 50 e8 af 00 bb 70 00 b9 01 00 e8 |f.F,fP....p.....| 000000f0 73 00 bf 00 07 b1 0b be a9 7d f3 a6 74 2a 03 f9 |s........}..t*..| 00000100 83 c7 15 81 ff 00 09 72 ec 66 40 4a 75 db 66 58 |[email protected]| 00000110 e8 47 ff 72 cf be b4 7d ac 84 c0 74 09 b4 0e bb |.G.r...}...t....| 00000120 07 00 cd 10 eb f2 cd 19 66 58 ff 75 09 ff 75 0f |........fX.u..u.| 00000130 66 58 bb 00 20 66 83 f8 02 72 da 66 3d f8 ff ff |fX.. f...r.f=...| 00000140 0f 73 d2 66 50 e8 50 00 0f b6 4e 0d e8 16 00 c1 |.s.fP.P...N.....| 00000150 e1 05 03 d9 66 58 53 e8 00 ff 5b 72 d8 8a 56 40 |....fXS...[r..V@| 00000160 ea 00 00 00 20 66 60 66 6a 00 66 50 53 6a 00 66 |.... f`fj.fPSj.f| 00000170 68 10 00 01 00 8b f4 b8 00 42 8a 56 40 cd 13 be |h........B.V@...| 00000180 c7 7d 72 94 67 83 44 24 06 20 66 67 ff 44 24 08 |.}r.g.D$. fg.D$.| 00000190 e2 e3 83 c4 10 66 61 c3 66 48 66 48 66 0f b6 56 |.....fa.fHfHf..V| 000001a0 0d 66 f7 e2 66 03 46 fc c3 4e 54 4c 44 52 20 20 |.f..f.F..NTLDR | 000001b0 20 20 20 20 0d 0a 4e 6f 20 53 79 73 74 65 6d 20 | ..No System | 000001c0 44 69 73 6b 20 6f 72 0d 0a 44 69 73 6b 20 49 2f |Disk or..Disk I/| 000001d0 4f 20 65 72 72 6f 72 0d 0a 50 72 65 73 73 20 61 |O error..Press a| 000001e0 20 6b 65 79 20 74 6f 20 72 65 73 74 61 72 74 0d | key to restart.| 000001f0 0a 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 55 aa |..............U.| 00000200 =============================== StdErr Messages: =============================== umount: /isodevice: device is busy. (In some cases useful info about processes that use the device is found by lsof(8) or fuser(1))

  Read the article

• Reg Gets a Job at Red Gate (and what happens behind the scenes)

  - by red(at)work

  Mr Reg Gater works at one of Cambridge’s many high-tech companies. He doesn’t love his job, but he puts up with it because... well, it could be worse. Every day he drives to work around the Red Gate roundabout, wondering what his boss is going to blame him for today, and wondering if there could be a better job out there for him. By late morning he already feels like handing his notice in. He got the hacky look from his boss for being 5 minutes late, and then they ran out of tea. Again. He goes to the local sandwich shop for lunch, and picks up a Red Gate job menu and a Book of Red Gate while he’s waiting for his order. That night, he goes along to Cambridge Geek Nights and sees some very enthusiastic Red Gaters talking about the work they do; it sounds interesting and, of all things, fun. He takes a quick look at the job vacancies on the Red Gate website, and an hour later realises he’s still there – looking at videos, photos and people profiles. He especially likes the Red Gate’s Got Talent page, and is very impressed with Simon Johnson’s marathon time. He thinks that he’d quite like to work with such awesome people. It just so happens that Red Gate recently decided that they wanted to hire another hot shot team member. Behind the scenes, the wheels were set in motion: the recruitment team met with the hiring manager to understand exactly what they’re looking for, and to decide what interview tests to do, who will do the interviews, and to kick-start any interview training those people might need. Next up, a job description and job advert were written, and the job was put on the market. Reg applies, and his CV lands in the Recruitment team’s inbox and they open it up with eager anticipation that Reg could be the next awesome new starter. He looks good, and in a jiffy they’ve arranged an interview. Reg arrives for his interview, and is greeted by a smiley receptionist. She offers him a selection of drinks and he feels instantly relaxed. A couple of interviews and an assessment later, he gets a job offer. We make his day and he makes ours by accepting, and becoming one of the 60 new starters so far this year. Behind the scenes, things start moving all over again. The HR team arranges for a “Welcome” goodie box to be whisked out to him, prepares his contract, sends an email to Information Services (Or IS for short - we’ll come back to them), keeps in touch with Reg to make sure he knows what to expect on his first day, and of course asks him to fill in the all-important wiki questionnaire so his new colleagues can start to get to know him before he even joins. Meanwhile, the IS team see an email in SupportWorks from HR. They see that Reg will be starting in the sales team in a few days’ time, and they know exactly what to do. They pull out a new machine, and within minutes have used their automated deployment software to install every piece of software that a new recruit could ever need. They also check with Reg’s new manager to see if he has any special requirements that they could help with. Reg starts and is amazed to find a fully configured machine sitting on his desk, complete with stationery and all the other tools he’ll need to do his job. He feels even more cared for after he gets a workstation assessment, and realises he’d be comfier with an ergonomic keyboard and a footstool. They arrive minutes later, just like that. His manager starts him off on his induction and sales training. Along with job-specific training, he’ll also have a buddy to help him find his feet, and loads of pre-arranged demos and introductions. Reg settles in nicely, and is great at his job. He enjoys the canteen, and regularly eats one of the 40,000 meals provided each year. He gets used to the selection of teas that are available, develops a taste for champagne launch parties, and has his fair share of the 25,000 cups of coffee downed at Red Gate towers each year. He goes along to some Feel Good Fund events, and donates a little something to charity in exchange for a turn on the chocolate fountain. He’s looking a little scruffy, so he decides to get his hair cut in between meetings, just in time for the Red Gate birthday company photo. Reg starts a new project: identifying existing customers to up-sell to new bundles. He talks with the web team to generate lists of qualifying customers who haven’t recently been sent marketing emails, and sends emails out, using a new in-house developed tool to schedule follow-up calls in CRM for the same group. The customer responds, saying they’d like to upgrade but are having a licensing problem – Reg sends the issue to Support, and it gets routed to the web team. The team identifies a workaround, and the bug gets scheduled into the next maintenance release in a fortnight’s time (hey; they got lucky). With all the new stuff Reg is working on, he realises that he’d be way more efficient if he had a third monitor. He speaks to IS and they get him one - no argument. He also needs a test machine and then some extra memory. Done. He then thinks he needs an iPad, and goes to ask for one. He gets told to stop pushing his luck. Some time later, Reg’s wife has a baby, so Reg gets 2 weeks of paid paternity leave and a bunch of flowers sent to his house. He signs up to the childcare scheme so that he doesn’t have to pay National Insurance on the first £243 of his childcare. The accounts team makes it all happen seamlessly, as they did with his Give As You Earn payments, which come out of his wages and go straight to his favorite charity. Reg’s sales career is going well. He’s grateful for the help that he gets from the product support team. How do they answer all those 900-ish support calls so effortlessly each month? He’s impressed with the patches that are sent out to customers who find “interesting behavior” in their tools, and to the customers who just must have that new feature. A little later in his career at Red Gate, Reg decides that he’d like to learn about management. He goes on some management training specially customised for Red Gate, joins the Management Book Club, and gets together with other new managers to brainstorm how to get the most out of one to one meetings with his team. Reg decides to go for a game of Foosball to celebrate his good fortune with his team, and has to wait for Finance to finish. While he’s waiting, he reflects on the wonderful time he’s had at Red Gate. He can’t put his finger on what it is exactly, but he knows he’s on to a good thing. All of the stuff that happened to Reg didn’t just happen magically. We’ve got teams of people working relentlessly behind the scenes to make sure that everyone here is comfortable, safe, well fed and caffeinated to the max.

  Read the article

• Recording Topics manually and automatically

  - by maria.cozzolino(at)oracle.com

  When you are recording UPK topics, the default mode for recording is manual recording, where you tell the system when to record each screen shot. This mode allows you to take the exact screen shot you need. However, it does get a bit tedious when you are recording long topics, especially if you forget to take a few screen shots. In UPK 3.5, a new version of recording was introduced - Automatic Recording. It was designed to simplify the recording process by automatically capturing screen shots as you perform your transaction. If you haven't experimented with Automatic Recording, I'd recommend you give it a try - it might make your recording life easier. If you are recording with sound, you can also narrate your topic while recording it. To turn on Automatic Recording: 1. In Tools/Options, there are two recorder tabs. The first tab, under content defaults, includes settings that you may want to share between developers, like whether keyboard shortcuts are automatically captured. 2. The second tab is the one that contains the personal preferences, like screen shot capture key and whether to record automatically or manually. On this tab, choose the option for Automatic Recording. 3. Save the settings. Note that this setting will NOT impact content defaults; this is for your user only. When you launch the recorder, you will notice a slightly different message with guidance on how to start and stop automatic recording. Once you start recording, the recorder window is hidden until the end of the recording session to allow you to capture your transaction. In the task tray, there is a series of icons that let you know that you are capturing content. You can pause the recording, as well as set and view your sound levels if you are using sound. A camera appears during each screen capture to help you know when the system is capturing a screen shot, and a context indicator appears to show the recognition. With automatic recording, you can let the system capture the necessary screen shots. It may provide a more natural recording experience, and is probably easier for the untrained developer. On the other hand, you have a bit more control with manual recording on which screen shot appears, but it also means you have to remember to capture the screen shot. :) We'd be interested in hearing which type of recording you do, and any rationale on why you made that choice. Please comment and let us know. --Maria Cozzolino, Manager of UPK Software Requirements and UI Design

  Read the article

• Emit Knowledge - social network for knowledge sharing

  - by hajan

  Emit Knowledge, as the words refer - it's a social network for emitting / sharing knowledge from users by users. Those who can benefit the most out of this network is perhaps all of YOU who have something to share with others and contribute to the knowledge world. I've been closely communicating with the core team of this very, very interesting, brand new social network (with specific purpose!) about the concept, idea and the vision they have for their product and I can say with a lot of confidence that this network has real potential to become something from which we will all benefit. I won't speak much about that and would prefer to give you link and try it yourself - http://www.emitknowledge.com Mainly, through the past few months I've been testing this network and it is getting improved all the time. The user experience is great, you can easily find out what you need and it follows some known patterns that are common for all social networks. They have some real good ideas and plans that are already under development for the next updates of their product. You can do micro blogging or you can do regular normal blogging… it’s up to you, and the way it works, it is seamless. Here is a short Question and Answers (QA) interview I made with the lead of the team, Marijan Nikolovski: 1. Can you please explain us briefly, what is Emit Knowledge? Emit Knowledge is a brand new knowledge based social network, delivering quality content from users to users. We believe that people’s knowledge, experience and professional thoughts compose quality content, worth sharing among millions around the world. Therefore, we created the platform that matches people’s need to share and gain knowledge in the most suitable and comfortable way. Easy to work with, Emit Knowledge lets you to smoothly craft and emit knowledge around the globe. 2. How 'old' is Emit Knowledge? In hamster’s years we are almost five years old start-up :). Just kidding. We’ve released our public beta about three months ago. Our official release date is 27 of June 2012. 3. How did you come up with this idea? Everything started from a simple idea to solve a complex problem. We’ve seen that the social web has become polluted with data and is on the right track to lose its base principles – socialization and common cause. That was our start point. We’ve gathered the team, drew some sketches and started to mind map the idea. After several idea refactoring’s Emit Knowledge was born. 4. Is there any competition out there in the market? Currently we don't have any competitors that share the same cause. What makes our platform different is the ideology that our product promotes and the functionalities that our platform offers for easy socialization based on interests and knowledge sharing. 5. What are the main technologies used to build Emit Knowledge? Emit Knowledge was built on a heterogeneous pallet of technologies. Currently, we have four of separation: UI – Built on ASP.NET MVC3 and Knockout.js; Messaging infrastructure – Build on top of RabbitMQ; Background services – Our in-house solution for job distribution, orchestration and processing; Data storage – Build on top of MongoDB; What are the main reasons you've chosen ASP.NET MVC? Since all of our team members are .NET engineers, the decision was very natural. ASP.NET MVC is the only Microsoft web stack that sticks to the HTTP behavioral standards. It is easy to work with, have a tiny learning curve and everyone who is familiar with the HTTP will understand its architecture and convention without any difficulties. 6. What are the main reasons for choosing ASP.NET MVC? Since all of our team members are .NET engineers, the decision was very natural. ASP.NET MVC is the only Microsoft web stack that sticks to the HTTP behavioral standards. It is easy to work with, have a tiny learning curve and everyone who is familiar with the HTTP will understand its architecture and convention without any difficulties. 7. Did you use some of the latest Microsoft technologies? If yes, which ones? Yes, we like to rock the cutting edge tech house. Currently we are using Microsoft’s latest technologies like ASP.NET MVC, Web API (work in progress) and the best for the last; we are utilizing Windows Azure IaaS to the bone. 8. Can you please tell us shortly, what would be the benefit of regular bloggers in other blogging platforms to join Emit Knowledge? Well, unless you are some of the smoking ace gurus whose blogs are followed by a large number of users, our platform offers knowledge based segregated community equipped with tools that will enable both current and future users to expand their relations and to self-promote in the community based on their activity and knowledge sharing. 10. I see you are working very intensively and there is already integration with some third-party services to make the process of sharing and emitting knowledge easier, which services did you integrate until now and what do you plan do to next? We have “reemit” functionality for internal sharing and we also support external services like: Twitter; LinkedIn; Facebook; For the regular bloggers we have an extra cream, Windows Live Writer support for easy blog posts emitting. 11. What should we expect next? Currently, we are working on a new fancy community feature. This means that we are going to support user groups to be formed. So for all existing communities and user groups out there, wait us a little bit, we are coming for rescue :). One of the top next features they are developing is the Community Feature. It means, if you have your own User Group, Community Group or any other Group on which you and your users are mostly blogging or sharing (emitting) knowledge in various ways, Emit Knowledge as a platform will help you have everything you need to promote your group, make new followers and host all the necessary stuff that you have had need of. I would invite you to try the network and start sharing knowledge in a way that will help you gather new followers and spread your knowledge faster, easier and in a more efficient way! Let’s Emit Knowledge!

  Read the article

• New ways for backup, recovery and restore of Essbase Block Storage databases – part 2 by Bernhard Kinkel

  - by Alexandra Georgescu

  After discussing in the first part of this article new options in Essbase for the general backup and restore, this second part will deal with the also rather new feature of Transaction Logging and Replay, which was released in version 11.1, enhancing existing restore options. Tip: Transaction logging and replay cannot be used for aggregate storage databases. Please refer to the Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management System Backup and Recovery Guide (rel. 11.1.2.1). Even if backups are done on a regular, frequent base, subsequent data entries, loads or calculations would not be reflected in a restored database. Activating Transaction Logging could fill that gap and provides you with an option to capture these post-backup transactions for later replay. The following table shows, which are the transactions that could be logged when Transaction Logging is enabled: In order to activate its usage, corresponding statements could be added to the Essbase.cfg file, using the TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION command. The complete syntax reads: TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION [ appname [ dbname]] LOGLOCATION NATIVE ?ENABLE | DISABLE Where appname and dbname are optional parameters giving you the chance in combination with the ENABLE or DISABLE command to set Transaction Logging for certain applications or databases or to exclude them from being logged. If only an appname is specified, the setting applies to all databases in that particular application. If appname and dbname are not defined, all applications and databases would be covered. LOGLOCATION specifies the directory to which the log is written, e.g. D:\temp\trlogs. This directory must already exist or needs to be created before using it for log information being written to it. NATIVE is a reserved keyword that shouldn’t be changed. The following example shows how to first enable logging on a more general level for all databases in the application Sample, followed by a disabling statement on a more granular level for only the Basic database in application Sample, hence excluding it from being logged. TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION Sample Hyperion/trlog/Sample NATIVE ENABLE TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION Sample Basic Hyperion/trlog/Sample NATIVE DISABLE Tip: After applying changes to the configuration file you must restart the Essbase server in order to initialize the settings. A maybe required replay of logged transactions after restoring a database can be done only by administrators. The following options are available: In Administration Services selecting Replay Transactions on the right-click menu on the database: Here you can select to replay transactions logged after the last replay request was originally executed or after the time of the last restored backup (whichever occurred later) or transactions logged after a specified time. Or you can replay transactions selectively based on a range of sequence IDs, which can be accessed using Display Transactions on the right-click menu on the database: These sequence ID s (0, 1, 2 … 7 in the screenshot below) are assigned to each logged transaction, indicating the order in which the transaction was performed. This helps to ensure the integrity of the restored data after a replay, as the replay of transactions is enforced in the same order in which they were originally performed. So for example a calculation originally run after a data load cannot be replayed before having replayed the data load first. After a transaction is replayed, you can replay only transactions with a greater sequence ID. For example, replaying the transaction with sequence ID of 4 includes all preceding transactions, while afterwards you can only replay transactions with a sequence ID of 5 or greater. Tip: After restoring a database from a backup you should always completely replay all logged transactions, which were executed after the backup, before executing new transactions. But not only the transaction information itself needs to be logged and stored in a specified directory as described above. During transaction logging, Essbase also creates archive copies of data load and rules files in the following default directory: ARBORPATH/app/appname/dbname/Replay These files are then used during the replay of a logged transaction. By default Essbase archives only data load and rules files for client data loads, but in order to specify the type of data to archive when logging transactions you can use the command TRANSACTIONLOGDATALOADARCHIVE as an additional entry in the Essbase.cfg file. The syntax for the statement is: TRANSACTIONLOGDATALOADARCHIVE [appname [dbname]] [OPTION] While to the [appname [dbname]] argument the same applies like before for TRANSACTIONLOGLOCATION, the valid values for the OPTION argument are the following: Make the respective setting for which files copies should be logged, considering from which location transactions are usually taking place. Selecting the NONE option prevents Essbase from saving the respective files and the data load cannot be replayed. In this case you must first manually load the data before you can replay the transactions. Tip: If you use server or SQL data and the data and rules files are not archived in the Replay directory (for example, you did not use the SERVER or SERVER_CLIENT option), Essbase replays the data that is actually in the data source at the moment of the replay, which may or may not be the data that was originally loaded. You can find more detailed information in the following documents: Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management System Backup and Recovery Guide (rel. 11.1.2.1) Oracle Essbase Online Documentation (rel. 11.1.2.1)) Enterprise Performance Management System Documentation (including previous releases) Or on the Oracle Technology Network. If you are also interested in other new features and smart enhancements in Essbase or Hyperion Planning stay tuned for coming articles or check our training courses and web presentations. You can find general information about offerings for the Essbase and Planning curriculum or other Oracle-Hyperion products here; (please make sure to select your country/region at the top of this page) or in the OU Learning paths section, where Planning, Essbase and other Hyperion products can be found under the Fusion Middleware heading (again, please select the right country/region). Or drop me a note directly: [email protected]. About the Author: Bernhard Kinkel started working for Hyperion Solutions as a Presales Consultant and Consultant in 1998 and moved to Hyperion Education Services in 1999. He joined Oracle University in 2007 where he is a Principal Education Consultant. Based on these many years of working with Hyperion products he has detailed product knowledge across several versions. He delivers both classroom and live virtual courses. His areas of expertise are Oracle/Hyperion Essbase, Oracle Hyperion Planning and Hyperion Web Analysis. Disclaimer: All methods and features mentioned in this article must be considered and tested carefully related to your environment, processes and requirements. As guidance please always refer to the available software documentation. This article does not recommend or advise any explicit action or change, hence the author cannot be held responsible for any consequences due to the use or implementation of these features.

  Read the article

• Algorithm to find all tiles within a given radius on staggered isometric map

  - by kasztelan

  Given staggered isometric map and a start tile what would be the best way to get all surrounding tiles within given radius(middle to middle)? I can get all neighbours of a given tile and distance between each of them without any problems but I'm not sure what path to take after that. This feature will be used quite often (along with A*) so I'd like to avoid unecessary calculations. If it makes any difference I'm using XNA and each tile is 64x32 pixels.

  Read the article

• Ten Great CodePlex Projects for ASP.NET Developers

  Interested in learning more about the ASP.NET MVC Framework? Jason Gilmore highlights ten great CodePlex projects in this ASP.NET tutorial which will provide you with all of the source code you need to start learning fast.

  Read the article

• Ten Great CodePlex Projects for ASP.NET Developers

  Interested in learning more about the ASP.NET MVC Framework? Jason Gilmore highlights ten great CodePlex projects in this ASP.NET tutorial which will provide you with all of the source code you need to start learning fast.

  Read the article

• Learning PostgreSql: bulk loading data

  - by Alexander Kuznetsov

  In this post we shall start loading data in bulk. For better performance of inserts, we shall load data into a table without constraints and indexes. This sounds familiar. There is a bulk copy utility, and it is very easy to invoke from C#. The following code feeds the output from a T-SQL stored procedure into a PostgreSql table: using ( var pgTableTarget = new PgTableTarget ( PgConnString , "Data.MyPgTable" , GetColumns ())) using ( var conn = new SqlConnection ( connectionString )) { conn.Open...(read more)

  Read the article

• Silverlight Cream for April 22, 2010 -- #844

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Miroslav Miroslavov, David Anson, Mike Snow, Jason Alderman, Denis Gladkikh, John Papa, Adam Kinney, and CrocusGirl. Shoutout: Mike Snow is moving his blog to Silverlight Tips of The Day... his first is a repeat of number 110 of the last list, but you'll want to bookmark the page. Falling in the 'too cool not to mention' category... Pete Brown posted another MIX10 interview: New Channel 9 Video: Josh Blake on NaturalShow Multi-touch in WPF Adam Kinney announced that the Upgrade to Expression Studio v4 for free – now in writing! From SilverlightCream.com: Visuals staring at the mouse cursor Miroslav Miroslavov at SilverlightShow has a first part post up on the design of the CompleteIT site... going through the 'follow the mouse' effect that is so cool on the main page... with source. Today's DataVisualizationDemos release includes new demos showing off stacked series behavior Falling squarly into the category of "when does he sleep"... David Anson has another Visualization post up today... adding a stacked series and Text-to-Chat sample. Silverlight: Unable to start Debugging. The Silverlight managed debugging package isn’t installed. Mike Snow has a tip up about what to do if you get an "Unable to start debugging" box when you crank up VS ... not a great solution, but it's a solution. Introducing Pillbox for Windows Phone The folks at Veracity definitely have way too much fun with technology :) ... check out the WP7 app that Jason Alderman blogged about... he has a link out to another page with screenshots... oh, AND the code... Export data to Excel from Silverlight/WPF DataGrid Denis Gladkikh demonstrates using COM Interop to export to Excel from both WPF and Silverlight. He discusses isses he had and has all the source for both platforms available. Silverlight TV 21: Silverlight 4 - A Customer's Perspective John Papa has Silverlight TV number 21 up and he's chatting with Franck Jeannin of Ormetis, Ward Bell of IdeaBlade, and Dave Wolf of Cynergy Systems, all presenters in the Keynote at DevConnections. Avatar Mosaic -Experimenting with the Artefact Animator Adam Kinney spent enough time with Artefact Animator to put up a lengthy post about it including his project. Artefact Animator itself is available on CodePlex, and Adam has the link... this looks like good stuff. Windows Phone 7 Design Notes – Part2: Metro + Adrian Frutiger CrocusGirl continues her WP7 Metro discussion with a great long post on background she's researched and some of her own work with typography... a great read. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

  Read the article

• First ASP.NET WebForms application completed, should I jump into MVC now?

  - by farhad

  I just finished my first Asp.net intranet application using WebForms, and now I am considering learning MVC. My questions are: I mainly use LINQ for CRUD purposes instead of SQL, should I also learn hard coded SQL or just stick to LINQ EF? Is it a good idea to start learning MVC now and use it on all my future projects or is it too early for me? Do employers favour MVC over WebForms when recruiting junior developers?

  Read the article

• Remastersys problem with Ubuntu 12.04

  - by Vimal Kumar

  I successfully installed remastersys latest version for precise in Ubuntu 12.04 and created iso by executing backupmode. When installation in final stages I got the following error, "The username you entered is invalid. Note that usernames must start with a lowercase letter, which can be followed by any combination of numbers and more lower case letters." After it quit the installation. Can you help me to solve this problem? Regrads

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – Data Sources and Data Sets in Reporting Services SSRS

  - by Pinal Dave

  This example is from the Beginning SSRS by Kathi Kellenberger. Supporting files are available with a free download from the www.Joes2Pros.com web site. This example is from the Beginning SSRS. Supporting files are available with a free download from the www.Joes2Pros.com web site. Connecting to Your Data? When I was a child, the telephone book was an important part of my life. Maybe I was just a nerd, but I enjoyed getting a new book every year to page through to learn about the businesses in my small town or to discover where some of my school acquaintances lived. It was also the source of maps to my town’s neighborhoods and the towns that surrounded me. To make a phone call, I would need a telephone number. In order to find a telephone number, I had to know how to use the telephone book. That seems pretty simple, but it resembles connecting to any data. You have to know where the data is and how to interact with it. A data source is the connection information that the report uses to connect to the database. You have two choices when creating a data source, whether to embed it in the report or to make it a shared resource usable by many reports. Data Sources and Data Sets A few basic terms will make the upcoming choses make more sense. What database on what server do you want to connect to? It would be better to just ask… “what is your data source?” The connection you need to make to get your reports data is called a data source. If you connected to a data source (like the JProCo database) there may be hundreds of tables. You probably only want data from just a few tables. This means you want to write a specific query against this data source. A query on a data source to get just the records you need for an SSRS report is called a Data Set. Creating a local Data Source You can connect embed a connection from your report directly to your JProCo database which (let’s say) is installed on a server named Reno. If you move JProCo to a new server named Tampa then you need to update the Data Set. If you have 10 reports in one project that were all pointing to the JProCo database on the Reno server then they would all need to be updated at once. It’s possible to make a project level Data Source and have each report use that. This means one change can fix all 10 reports at once. This would be called a Shared Data Source. Creating a Shared Data Source The best advice I can give you is to create shared data sources. The reason I recommend this is that if a database moves to a new server you will have just one place in Report Manager to make the server name change. That one change will update the connection information in all the reports that use that data source. To get started, you will start with a fresh project. Go to Start > All Programs > SQL Server 2012 > Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools to launch SSDT. Once SSDT is running, click New Project to create a new project. Once the New Project dialog box appears, fill in the form, as shown in. Be sure to select Report Server Project this time – not the wizard. Click OK to dismiss the New Project dialog box. You should now have an empty project, as shown in the Solution Explorer. A report is meant to show you data. Where is the data? The first task is to create a Shared Data Source. Right-click on the Shared Data Sources folder and choose Add New Data Source. The Shared Data Source Properties dialog box will launch where you can fill in a name for the data source. By default, it is named DataSource1. The best practice is to give the data source a more meaningful name. It is possible that you will have projects with more than one data source and, by naming them, you can tell one from another. Type the name JProCo for the data source name and click the Edit button to configure the database connection properties. If you take a look at the types of data sources you can choose, you will see that SSRS works with many data platforms including Oracle, XML, and Teradata. Make sure SQL Server is selected before continuing. For this post, I am assuming that you are using a local SQL Server and that you can use your Windows account to log in to the SQL Server. If, for some reason you must use SQL Server Authentication, choose that option and fill in your SQL Server account credentials. Otherwise, just accept Windows Authentication. If your database server was installed locally and with the default instance, just type in Localhost for the Server name. Select the JProCo database from the database list. At this point, the connection properties should look like. If you have installed a named instance of SQL Server, you will have to specify the server name like this: Localhost\InstanceName, replacing the InstanceName with whatever your instance name is. If you are not sure about the named instance, launch the SQL Server Configuration Manager found at Start > All Programs > Microsoft SQL Server 2012 > Configuration Tools. If you have a named instance, the name will be shown in parentheses. A default instance of SQL Server will display MSSQLSERVER; a named instance will display the name chosen during installation. Once you get the connection properties filled in, click OK to dismiss the Connection Properties dialog box and OK again to dismiss the Shared Data Source properties. You now have a data source in the Solution Explorer. What’s next I really need to thank Kathi Kellenberger and Rick Morelan for sharing this material for this 5 day series of posts on SSRS. To get really comfortable with SSRS you will get to know the different SSDT windows, Build reports on your own (without the wizards),  Add report headers and footers, Accept user input,  create levels, charts, or even maps for visual appeal. You might be surprise to know a small 230 page book starts from the very beginning and covers the steps to do all these items. Beginning SSRS 2012 is a small easy to follow book so you can learn SSRS for less than $20. See Joes2Pros.com for more on this and other books. If you want to learn SSRS in easy to simple words – I strongly recommend you to get Beginning SSRS book from Joes 2 Pros. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Reporting Services, SSRS

  Read the article

• Poll Results: Foreign Key Constraints

  - by Darren Gosbell

  A few weeks ago I did the following post asking people – if they used foreign key constraints in their star schemas. The poll is still open if you are interested in adding to it, but here is what the chart looks like as of today. (at the bottom of the poll itself there is a link to the live results, unfortunately I cannot link the live results in here as the blogging platform blocks the required javascript)   Interestingly the results are fairly even. Of the 78 respondents, fractionally over half at least aim to start with referential integrity in their star schemas. I did not want to influence the results by sharing my opinion, but my personal preference is to always aim to have foreign key constraints. But at the same time, I am pragmatic about it, I do have projects where for various reasons some constraints are not defined. And I also have other designs that I have inherited, where it would just be too much work to go back and add foreign key constraints. If you are going to implement foreign keys in your star schema, they really need to be there at the start. In fact this poll was was the result of a feature request for BIDSHelper asking for a feature to check for null/missing foreign keys and I am entirely convinced that BIDS is the wrong place for this sort of functionality. BIDS is a design tool, your data needs to be constantly checked for consistency. It's not that I think that it's impossible to get a design working without foreign key constraints, but I like the idea of failing as soon as possible if there is an error and enforcing foreign key constraints lets me "fail early" if there are constancy issues with my data. By far the biggest concern with foreign keys is performance and I suppose I'm curious as to how often people actually measure and quantify this. I worked on a project a number of years ago that had very large data volumes and we did find that foreign key constraints did have a measurable impact, but what we did was to disable the constraints before loading the data, then enabled and checked them afterwards. This saved as time (although not as much as not having constraints at all), but still let us know early in the process if there were any consistency issues. For the people that do not have consistent data, if you have ETL processes that you control that are building your star schema which you also control, then to be blunt you only have yourself to blame. It is the job of the ETL process to make the data consistent. There are techniques for handling situations like missing data as well as  early and late arriving data. Ralph Kimball's book – The Data Warehouse Toolkit goes through some design patterns for handling data consistency. Having foreign key relationships can also help the relational engine to optimize queries as noted in this recent blog post by Boyan Penev

  Read the article

• PowerPivot Workshop in London #ppws

  - by AlbertoFerrari

  As you might have read in Marco’s post , the PowerPivot Workshop I and Marco Russo have prepared is now starting its European tour. We will be in London on February 7,8 2011 and then touch most of the European countries during the next few months. We have provided the workshop first in Amsterdam and it has been a huge success, it is now time to start the roadshow and meet people who want to learn PowerPivot all over Europe: I am really excited about this! You will find updated information and workshop...(read more)

  Read the article

• CLR Version issues with CorBindRuntimeEx

  - by Rick Strahl

  I’m working on an older FoxPro application that’s using .NET Interop and this app loads its own copy of the .NET runtime through some of our own tools (wwDotNetBridge). This all works fine and it’s fairly straightforward to load and host the runtime and then make calls against it. I’m writing this up for myself mostly because I’ve been bitten by these issues repeatedly and spend 15 minutes each However, things get tricky when calling specific versions of the .NET runtime since .NET 4.0 has shipped. Basically we need to be able to support both .NET 2.0 and 4.0 and we’re currently doing it with the same assembly – a .NET 2.0 assembly that is the AppDomain entry point. This works as .NET 4.0 can easily host .NET 2.0 assemblies and the functionality in the 2.0 assembly provides all the features we need to call .NET 4.0 assemblies via Reflection. In wwDotnetBridge we provide a load flag that allows specification of the runtime version to use. Something like this: do wwDotNetBridge LOCAL loBridge as wwDotNetBridge loBridge = CreateObject("wwDotNetBridge","v4.0.30319") and this works just fine in most cases.  If I specify V4 internally that gets fixed up to a whole version number like “v4.0.30319” which is then actually used to host the .NET runtime. Specifically the ClrVersion setting is handled in this Win32 DLL code that handles loading the runtime for me: /// Starts up the CLR and creates a Default AppDomain DWORD WINAPI ClrLoad(char *ErrorMessage, DWORD *dwErrorSize) { if (spDefAppDomain) return 1; //Retrieve a pointer to the ICorRuntimeHost interface HRESULT hr = CorBindToRuntimeEx( ClrVersion, //Retrieve latest version by default L"wks", //Request a WorkStation build of the CLR STARTUP_LOADER_OPTIMIZATION_MULTI_DOMAIN | STARTUP_CONCURRENT_GC, CLSID_CorRuntimeHost, IID_ICorRuntimeHost, (void**)&spRuntimeHost ); if (FAILED(hr)) { *dwErrorSize = SetError(hr,ErrorMessage); return hr; } //Start the CLR hr = spRuntimeHost->Start(); if (FAILED(hr)) return hr; CComPtr<IUnknown> pUnk; WCHAR domainId[50]; swprintf(domainId,L"%s_%i",L"wwDotNetBridge",GetTickCount()); hr = spRuntimeHost->CreateDomain(domainId,NULL,&pUnk); hr = pUnk->QueryInterface(&spDefAppDomain.p); if (FAILED(hr)) return hr; return 1; } CorBindToRuntimeEx allows for a specific .NET version string to be supplied which is what I’m doing via an API call from the FoxPro code. The behavior of CorBindToRuntimeEx is a bit finicky however. The documentation states that NULL should load the latest version of the .NET runtime available on the machine – but it actually doesn’t. As far as I can see – regardless of runtime overrides even in the .config file – NULL will always load .NET 2.0 even if 4.0 is installed. <supportedRuntime> .config File Settings Things get even more unpredictable once you start adding runtime overrides into the application’s .config file. In my scenario working inside of Visual FoxPro this would be VFP9.exe.config in the FoxPro installation folder (not the current folder). If I have a specific runtime override in the .config file like this: <?xml version="1.0"?> <configuration> <startup> <supportedRuntime version="v2.0.50727" /> </startup> </configuration> Not surprisingly with this I can load a .NET 2.0  runtime, but I will not be able to load Version 4.0 of the .NET runtime even if I explicitly specify it in my call to ClrLoad. Worse I don’t get an error – it will just go ahead and hand me a V2 version of the runtime and assume that’s what I wanted. Yuck! However, if I set the supported runtime to V4 in the .config file: <?xml version="1.0"?> <configuration> <startup> <supportedRuntime version="v4.0.30319" /> </startup> </configuration> Then I can load both V4 and V2 of the runtime. Specifying NULL however will STILL only give me V2 of the runtime. Again this seems pretty inconsistent. If you’re hosting runtimes make sure you check which version of the runtime is actually loading first to ensure you get the one you’re looking for. If the wrong version loads – say 2.0 and you want 4.0 - and you then proceed to load 4.0 assemblies they will all fail to load due to version mismatches. This is how all of this started – I had a bunch of assemblies that weren’t loading and it took a while to figure out that the host was running the wrong version of the CLR and therefore caused the assemblies loading to fail. Arrggh! <supportedRuntime> and Debugger Version <supportedRuntime> also affects the use of the .NET debugger when attached to the target application. Whichever runtime is specified in the key is the version of the debugger that fires up. This can have some interesting side effects. If you load a .NET 2.0 assembly but <supportedRuntime> points at V4.0 (or vice versa) the debugger will never fire because it can only debug in the appropriate runtime version. This has bitten me on several occasions where code runs just fine but the debugger will just breeze by breakpoints without notice. The default version for the debugger is the latest version installed on the system if <supportedRuntime> is not set. Summary Besides all the hassels, I’m thankful I can build a .NET 2.0 assembly and have it host .NET 4.0 and call .NET 4.0 code. This way we’re able to ship a single assembly that provides functionality that supports both .NET 2 and 4 without having to have separate DLLs for both which would be a deployment and update nightmare. The MSDN documentation does point at newer hosting API’s specifically for .NET 4.0 which are way more complicated and even less documented but that doesn’t help here because the runtime needs to be able to host both .NET 4.0 and 2.0. Not pleased about that – the new APIs look way more complex and of course they’re not available with older versions of the runtime installed which in our case makes them useless to me in this scenario where I have to support .NET 2.0 hosting (to provide greater ‘built-in’ platform support). Once you know the behavior above, it’s manageable. However, it’s quite easy to get tripped up here because there are multiple combinations that can really screw up behaviors.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in .NET  FoxPro  

  Read the article

• Time to Check Your Servers

  - by fatherjack

  Do you know how to find the time that your SQL Server started? Since SQL Server 2008 you can use: SELECT sqlserver_start_timeFROM sys.dm_os_sys_info On one of my servers this gives me: This is great, and can be used in lots of ways. I happened across the [sys].[dm_exec_requests]view the other day and out of curiosity ran the query SELECT MIN(start_time) AS [start time]FROM [sys].[dm_exec_requests] AS der And I was surprised to see the result as: Almost exactly an hour different. Now as...(read more)

  Read the article

• The Primary Cause of Failed IT Projects

  - by Paul Nielsen

  During my career I’ve been a part of dozens of projects. Some I was on from the start, most I came in to help bail out. Some went smooth and were a pleasure to build and maintain and some projects failed (failed being broadly defined as projects that were not completed, or were completed but were a horrid mess – very complex, impossible to maintain, refactor, and a royal pain to keep running.) While there are a number of factors that can contribute to a failed project, in my career it seems the primary...(read more)

  Read the article

• Laser Cutter Plays Portal Theme Song While Cutting Aperture Science Logo [Video]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  We’re at a total loss to think of anything more geeky than a laser cutter programmed to simultaneously laser cut the Aperture Science logo while playing “Stile Alive” from Portal. If you’re unfamiliar with the original tune, check out this video. [via Boing Boing] The HTG Guide to Hiding Your Data in a TrueCrypt Hidden Volume Make Your Own Windows 8 Start Button with Zero Memory Usage Reader Request: How To Repair Blurry Photos

  Read the article

• Massive Silverlight Giveaway! DevExpress , Syncfusion, Crypto Obfuscator and SL Spy!

  - by mbcrump

  Oh my, have we grown! Maybe I should change the name to Multiple Silverlight Giveaways. So far, my Silverlight giveaways have been such a success that I’m going to be able to give away more than one Silverlight product every month. Last month, we gave away 3 great products. 1) ComponentOne Silverlight Controls 2)  ComponentOne XAP Optimizer (with obfuscation) and 3) Silverlight Spy. This month, we will give away 4 great Silverlight products and have 4 different winners. This way the Silverlight community can grow with more than just one person winning all the prizes. This month we will be giving away: DevExpress Silverlight Controls – Over 50+ Silverlight Controls Syncfusion User Interface Edition - Create stunning line of business silverlight applications with a wide range of components including a high performance grid, docking manager, chart, gauge, scheduler and much more. Crypto Obfuscator – Works for all .NET including Silverlight/Windows Phone 7. Silverlight Spy – provides a license EVERY month for this giveaway. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Win a FREE developer’s license of one of the products listed above! 4 winners will be announced on April 1st, 2011! To be entered into the contest do the following things: Subscribe to my feed. – Use Google Reader, email or whatever is best for you.  Leave a comment below with a valid email account (I WILL NOT share this info with anyone.) Retweet the following : I just entered to win free #Silverlight controls from @mbcrump . Register here: http://mcrump.me/fTSmB8 ! Don’t change the URL because this will allow me to track the users that Tweet this page. Don’t forget to visit each of the vendors sites because they made this possible. MichaelCrump.Net provides Silverlight Giveaways every month. You can also see the latest giveaway by bookmarking http://giveaways.michaelcrump.net . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DevExpress Silverlight Controls Let’s take a quick look at some of the software that is provided in this giveaway. Before we get started with the Silverlight Controls, here is a couple of links to bookmark for the DevExpress Silverlight Controls: The Live Demos of the Silverlight Controls is located here. Great Video Tutorials of the Silverlight Controls are here. One thing that I liked about the DevExpress is how easy it was to find demos of each control. After you install the controls the following Program Group appears complete with “demos” that include full-source.   So, the first question that you may ask is, “What is included?” Here is the official list below. I wanted to show several of the controls that I think developers will use the most. The Book – Very rich animation between switching pages. Very easy to add your own images and custom text. The Menu – This is another control that just looked great. You can easily add images to the menu items with a few lines of XAML. The Window / Dialog Box – You can use this control to make a very beautiful “Wizard” to help your users navigate between pages. This is useful in setup or installation. Calculator – This would be useful for any type of Banking app. Also a first that I’ve seen from a 3rd party Control company. DatePicker – This controls feels a lot smoother than the one provided by Microsoft. It also provides the ability to “Clear” the selection. Overall the DevExpress Silverlight Controls feature a lot of quality controls that you should check out. You can go ahead and download a trial version of it right now by clicking here. If you win the contest you can simply enter your registration key and continue using the product without reinstalling. Syncfusion User Interface Edition Before we get started with the Syncfusion User Interface Edition, here is a couple of links to bookmark. The Live Demos can be found here. You can download a demo of it now at http://www.syncfusion.com/downloads/evalstart. After you install the Syncfusion, you can view the dashboard to run locally installed samples. You may also download the documentation to your local machine if needed. Since the name of the package is “User Interface Edition”, I decided to share several samples that struck me as “awesome”. Dashboard Gauges – I was very impressed with the various gauges they have included. The digital clock also looks very impressive. Diagram – The diagrams are also very easy to build. In the sample project below you can drag/drop the shapes onto the content pane. More complex lines like the Bezier lines are also easy to create using Syncfusion. Scheduling – Another strong component was the Scheduling with built-in support for Themes. Tools – If all of that wasn’t enough, it also comes with a nice pack of essential tools. Syncfusion has a nice variety of Silverlight Controls that you should check out. You can go ahead and download a trial version of it right now by clicking here. Crypto Obfuscator The following feature set is what is important to me in an Obfuscator since I am a Silverlight/WP7 Developer: And thankfully this is what you get in Crypto Obfuscator. You can download a trial version right now if you want to go ahead and play with it. Let’s spend a few moments taking a look at the application. After you have installed Crypto Obfuscator you will see the following screen: After you click on Assemblies you have the option to add your .XAP file in: I went ahead and loaded my .xap file from a Silverlight Application. At this point, you can simply save your project and hit “Obfuscate” and your done. You don’t have to mess with any of the other settings if you don’t want too. Of course, you can change the settings and add obfuscation rules, watermarks and signing if you wish.  After Obfuscation, it looks like this in .NET Reflector: I was trying to browse through methods and it actually crashed Reflector. This confirms the level of protection the obfuscator is providing. If this were a commercial application that my team built, I would have a huge smile on my face right now. Crypto Obfuscator is a great product and I hope you will spend the time learning more about it. Silverlight Spy Silverlight Spy is a runtime inspector tool that will tell you pretty much everything that is going on with the application. Basically, you give it a URL that contains a Silverlight application and you can explore the element tree, events, xaml and so much more. This has already been reviewed on MichaelCrump.net. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Thanks for reading and don’t forget to leave a comment below in order to win one of the four prizes available! Subscribe to my feed

  Read the article

• Visualization tools for physical simulations

  - by Nick

  I'm interested in starting some physics simulations and I'm getting hung up on the visualization side of things. I have lots of resources for reading how to implement the simulation itself but I'd rather not learn two things at once - the simulation part and a new complex visualization API. Are there any high-level visualization tools that are language independent? I understand that I'll have to learn some new code for visualization but I'd like to start at a high level, OpenGL is my long-term goal and not my prototype goal.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462  | Next Page >