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  • Microsoft Silverlight MVP one more time

    - by pluginbaby
    Another wonderful first email of the year… announcing that I’ve just been re-awarded Most Valuable Professional (MVP) by Microsoft for Silverlight. This is my 5th year as an MVP in a row and I am still very honoured and excited! In 2010 I had the pleasure to be involved in many community events around Silverlight, speaking at Microsoft conferences and user groups (doing the launch of the Vancouver Silverlight User Group was fun!), as well as taking part in worldwide conference like MIX Las Vegas and the MVP Summit in Redmond. Also I did new kind of activities in 2010: I wrote questions for the first Microsoft Silverlight certification exam (70-506), and I was Technical reviewer of 3 Silverlight books. I finally started to share more on Twitter @LaurentDuveau. In 2010 the content of this blog was mostly about Silverlight, I expect it to be the same in 2011, plus a touch of Windows Phone as well. I already know that 2011 will be hell of a good year.. I’ll be at the next MVP Summit in Seattle, also speaker at DevTeach which comes back to Montreal (at last!) and have some nice Silverlight trainings plans for France and Tunisia. More than that, my business RunAtServer is healthy (proud of my team!) and I have insane news and a very big surprise coming on that front.... stay tuned! Happy New Year!

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  • Work Item Visualizer for TFS 2010 - New Extension

    - by MikeParks
    I released another new extension to the Visual Studio Gallery again today called Work Item Visualizer for TFS 2010. I've only heard positive things about it so far, hopefully it stays that way :) Basically, it creates a diagram of all work items linked to a work item ID which the user specifies in a search box. This extension was coded using DGML (the same graph rendering language used for the Visual Studio 2010 Architecture Tools). It was pretty cool getting a chance to create something using some of the newest technology out there. Well, I just wanted to throw a blog up to get the word out on it a little more. If you're using Visual Studio 2010 with Team Foundation Server 2010, feel free to check it out! Thanks everyone. Download Link: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/a35b6010-750b-47f6-a7a5-41f0fa7294d2   What it does: ·         Creates a DGML graph to visualize linked TFS Work Items by entering a Work Item ID in the toolbar search box   How it benefits you: ·         Allows you to easily analyze the hierarchy of your TFS Work Items ·         Gain the ability to perform basic risk/impact analysis when creating or editing Work Items ·         Great for meetings in the case that you need to discuss the entire scope of linked Work Items ·         Easier project planning ·         Eliminates the need to create TFS queries or reports to view tree of Work Items ·         Easily lets you see the entire tree of work items linked to the one you’re working on   Navigation Tips: ·         Use Ctrl + Mouse Wheel Scroll to zoom in and out ·         Use Ctrl + Left Mouse click (and hold) to move document around ·         Right click on DGML area for more options (Like copy image or viewing in groups) ·         Clicking on each node highlights that node and the links connected to it ·         Colors in the legend can be changed ·         When work item nodes are deleted, the view is automatically updated ·         Double clicking on work item node will open up the Work Items URL   Try it out on work items that have several of links and let us know what you think. A big thanks goes out to everyone working on the http://visualization.codeplex.com/ project for publishing the source code on CodePlex which really helped me learn how DGML (Directed Graph Markup Language - New to Visual Studio 2010 Architecture Tools) works!    - Mike

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  • FY13 Partner Kickoff Kick’s off Summer Right

    - by Kristin Rose
    This summer’s blockbuster movie lineup is far from disappointing – From the Avengers to Prometheus and The Dark Knight Rises, there is no shortage of ‘cling-to-your-seat’ entertainment in store, not to mention buttery popcorn fingers. Will all this big screen action taking place, Oracle wanted to take part in some big premiers of its own, which is why we are happy to announce that our FY13 Partner Kickoff event is taking place June 26th. This year we are welcoming several partners from around the globe in person to Oracle’s Headquarters, as well as another 22,000 partners tuning in to help us kickoff FY13. Hosted by Judson Althoff, SVP of WWA&C, the Oracle PartnerNetwork FY13 Kickoff is being held live — five times throughout the day — and will include a special message for each region.  Have a look at the schedule of shows below: EMEA Kickoff – Tuesday, June 26 @ 2:00 pm BST (London) LAD Kickoff – Tuesday, June 26 @ 4:00 pm UTC (San Paulo) North America Kickoff – Tuesday, June 26 @ 8:30 am PT (San Francisco) Japan Kickoff – Wednesday, June 27 @ 10:00 am JST (Tokyo) Asia Pacific Kickoff – Wednesday, June 27 @ 8:30 am IST (Bangalore) / 11:00 am SGT (Singapore) / 1:00 pm AEST (Sydney) Partners near and far will be able to get a first row seat to some exciting Oracle announcements, keynotes, round-tables and a live after-show event hosted by Nick Kritikos, VP of Partner Enablement. Did we mention there is an exciting online component which will allow partners to send in questions or comments and get them answered in real time? Now that deserves two thumbs up!So whether you’re partial to Milk Duds or Junior Mints, grab a box of your favorite candy and sign-up for this strategy driven, partner focused blockbuster event. To get a sneak-peek at what’s in store, watch this short PKO “trailer” below, starring our very own GVP of WWA&C, Lydia Smyers to find out more.   To the Depths and Back,The OPN Communications Team

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  • What’s new in SQL Prompt 6.3?

    - by Tom Crossman
    This post describes some of the improvements we’ve made in the latest version of SQL Prompt. Code suggestions In recent months, the focus of the SQL Prompt development team has been to remove annoyances and improve code suggestions. Here’s just a few of the improvements to code suggestions we’ve made in SQL Prompt 6.3: The suggestions box is no longer shown when there are no suggestions Suggestions are now shown if you continue to type a half-completed word More suggestions for new SQL Server 2014 syntax Improvements to partial match suggestions Improved suggestion ordering As well as improving suggestions, we’ve also added some new features. Select in Object Explorer You can now use SQL Prompt to select an object in the Object Explorer from a query window. This is useful because many SSMS features are available from an object’s Object Explorer context menu (eg select top 1000 rows, design, script as). To select an object in the Object Explorer, place the cursor over the object you want to select and press Ctrl + F12: Here’s a short video of the feature in action. $SELECTIONSTART$ and $SELECTIONEND$ placeholders You can now use $SELECTIONSTART$ and $SELECTIONEND$ placeholders in your snippet code. The code between these placeholders is selected when you insert the snippet. For example, the following snippet: $SELECTIONSTART$SELECT TOP 100 * FROM Table1$SELECTIONEND$ is inserted as: You can then press F5 to run the selected snippet code. For the full list of snippet placeholders you can use, see the documentation. Highlighting matching parentheses If your cursor is next to an opening or closing parenthesis in a query, SQL Prompt now automatically highlights the matching parenthesis: You can then use the SSMS and Visual Studio shortcut Ctrl + ] to move between parentheses. More improvements Those are just a few of the improvements in SQL Prompt 6.3. For the full list of features and bug fixes, see the release notes.

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  • September 2012 Release of the Ajax Control Toolkit

    - by Stephen.Walther
    I’m excited to announce the September 2012 release of the Ajax Control Toolkit! This is the first release of the Ajax Control Toolkit which supports the .NET 4.5 framework. We also continue to support ASP.NET 3.5 and ASP.NET 4.0. With this release, we’ve made several important bug fixes. The Superexpert team focused on fixing the highest voted issues associated with the CascadingDropDown control. I’ve created a list of these bug fixes later in this blog post. You can download the latest release of the Ajax Control Toolkit by visiting the following page at CodePlex: http://AjaxControlToolkit.CodePlex.com Alternatively, you can install the latest version of the Ajax Control Toolkit using NuGet by firing off the following command from the Package Manager Console: Install-Package AjaxControlToolkit Using the Ajax Control Toolkit with ASP.NET 4.5 Let me walk through the steps for using the Ajax Control Toolkit with ASP.NET 4.5. First, I’ll create a new ASP.NET 4.5 website with Visual Studio 2012. I’ll create the new website with the ASP.NET Web Forms Application template: When you create a new ASP.NET 4.5 site with the ASP.NET Web Forms Application template, you get a starter website. If you run the site, then you get a page with default content: Let me show you how you can add the Ajax Control Toolkit Calendar control to the homepage of this starter site. The first step is to use NuGet to install the Ajax Control Toolkit. Right-click the References folder in the Solution Explorer window and select the menu option Manage NuGet Packages. In the Manage NuGet Packages dialog, use the search box to search for the Ajax Control Toolkit (enter “AjaxControlToolkit”). After you find it, click the Install button to add the Ajax Control Toolkit to your project. That’s all you have to do to install the Ajax Control Toolkit! Now we are ready to start using the Ajax Control Toolkit controls. Open the default.aspx page so we can modify the contents of the page. Erase everything contained in the Content control with the ID of BodyContent. After erasing the content, declare the following two controls: <asp:TextBox ID="vacationDate" runat="server" /> <ajaxToolkit:CalendarExtender TargetControlID="vacationDate" runat="server" /> The first control is a standard ASP.NET TextBox control and the second control is an Ajax Control Toolkit Calendar control. You should get intellisense as you type out the Ajax Control Toolkit Calendar control. If you don’t, then close and re-open the Default.aspx page. Now, let’s run our app. Hit the F5 button or select Debug, Start Debugging from the Visual Studio menu. You will get the error message “MsAjaxBundle is not a valid script name”. Don’t despair! We need to update the Master Page so it uses the ToolkitScriptManager instead of the default ScriptManager. Open the Site.Master file and find where the ScriptManager is declared. The ScriptManager should look like this: <asp:ScriptManager runat="server"> <Scripts> <%--Framework Scripts--%> <asp:ScriptReference Name="MsAjaxBundle" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="jquery" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="jquery.ui.combined" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="WebForms.js" Assembly="System.Web" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/WebForms.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="WebUIValidation.js" Assembly="System.Web" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/WebUIValidation.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="MenuStandards.js" Assembly="System.Web" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/MenuStandards.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="GridView.js" Assembly="System.Web" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/GridView.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="DetailsView.js" Assembly="System.Web" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/DetailsView.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="TreeView.js" Assembly="System.Web" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/TreeView.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="WebParts.js" Assembly="System.Web" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/WebParts.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="Focus.js" Assembly="System.Web" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/Focus.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="WebFormsBundle" /> <%--Site Scripts--%> </Scripts> </asp:ScriptManager> We need to make three changes to the ScriptManager: 1) We need to replace the asp:ScriptManager with the ajaxToolkit:ToolkitScriptManager 2) We need to remove the MsAjaxBundle bundle from the ScriptReferences 3) We need to remove the Assembly=”System.Web” attributes from the ScriptReferences After you make these three changes, the ToolkitScriptManager should looks like this: <ajaxToolkit:ToolkitScriptManager runat="server"> <Scripts> <%--Framework Scripts--%> <asp:ScriptReference Name="jquery" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="jquery.ui.combined" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="WebForms.js" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/WebForms.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="WebUIValidation.js" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/WebUIValidation.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="MenuStandards.js" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/MenuStandards.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="GridView.js" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/GridView.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="DetailsView.js" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/DetailsView.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="TreeView.js" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/TreeView.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="WebParts.js" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/WebParts.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="Focus.js" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/Focus.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="WebFormsBundle" /> <%--Site Scripts--%> </Scripts> </ajaxToolkit:ToolkitScriptManager> After we make these changes, the app should run successfully. You’ll get a page which contains a text field. When you click inside the text field, a popup calendar is displayed. Ajax Control Toolkit and jQuery You might have noticed that the ScriptManager includes a reference to jQuery by default. We did not remove that reference when we converted the ScriptManager to a ToolkitScriptManager. You can use the Ajax Control Toolkit and jQuery side-by-side. Here’s how you can modify the Default.aspx page so that it contains two popup calendars. The first popup calendar is created with the Ajax Control Toolkit and the second popup calendar is created with jQuery: <asp:TextBox ID="vacationDate" runat="server" /> <ajaxToolkit:CalendarExtender TargetControlID="vacationDate" runat="server" /> <input id="birthDate" /> <script> $("#birthDate").datepicker(); </script> Before you can start using jQuery UI plugins, you need to complete one more step. You need to add the jQuery UI themes bundle to the HEAD of the Site.Master page like this: <head runat="server"> <meta charset="utf-8" /> <title><%: Page.Title %> - My ASP.NET Application</title> <asp:PlaceHolder runat="server"> <%: Scripts.Render("~/bundles/modernizr") %> </asp:PlaceHolder> <webopt:BundleReference runat="server" Path="~/Content/css" /> <webopt:BundleReference runat="server" Path="~/Content/themes/base/css" /> <link href="~/favicon.ico" rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" /> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" /> <asp:ContentPlaceHolder runat="server" ID="HeadContent" /> </head> The markup above includes a reference to the jQuery UI themes bundle: <webopt:BundleReference runat="server" Path="~/Content/themes/base/css" /> Now that we have made these changes, we can use the Ajax Control Toolkit and jQuery at the same time. When you run your app, you get two popup calendars. When you click in the first text field, the Ajax Control Toolkit calendar appears. When you click in the second text field, the jQuery UI popup calendar appears: Bug Fixes in this Release We made several important bug fixes with this release of the Ajax Control Toolkit and integrated several Pull Requests contributed by the community. Our primary focus during this sprint was fixing issues with the CascadingDropDown control. We fixed the following issues associated with the CascadingDropDown: · 9490 – Don’t disable dropdowns in CascadingDropDown · 14223 – CascadingDropDown Reset or Setting SelectedValue from WebMethod · 12189 – CascadingDropDown not obeying disabled state of DropDownList · 22942 – CascadingDropDown infinite loop (with solution) · 8671 – CascadingDropdown options is null or undefined · 14407 – CascadingDropDown: populated client event happens too often · 17148 – CascadingDropDown – Add “UseHttpGet” property · 10221 – No NotNull check in CascadingDropDown · 12228 – Provide property for case-insensitive DefaultValue lookup in CascadingDropdown We also fixed the following two issues which are not directly related to the CascadingDropDown control: · 27108 – CalendarExtender: Bug when selecting December shifts to January. · 27041 – Input controls with HTML5 types do not post back in Firefox, Chrome, Safari Finally, we integrated several Pull Requests submitted by the community (Thank you community!): · Added French localized resources for the AjaxFileUpload · Resolved an issue which prevented the AjaxFileUpload control from working with pages that require query string variables. · Extended the AjaxFileUploadEventArgs class to include the current file index in the queue and the total number of files in the queue. · Fixed an issue with TabContainer and TabPanel which caused the OnActiveTabChanged event to fire too often. Summary I’m happy to see the Ajax Control Toolkit move forward into the brave new world of ASP.NET 4.5! In this latest release, we focused on ensuring that the Ajax Control Toolkit works smoothly with ASP.NET 4.5 applications. We also fixed the highest voted bugs associated with the CascadingDropDown control and integrated several Pull Request submitted by the community. Once again, I want to thank the Superexpert team for their hard work on this release!

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  • Get MySQL 5.6 Certified at a Much Reduced Price

    - by Antoinette O'Sullivan
    You have already heard the great news that you can now prove your knowledge of MySQL Server 5.6 with the new MySQL certification exams: Oracle Certified Professional, MySQL 5.6 Developer Oracle Certified Professional, MySQL 5.6 Database Administrator Until December 14th 2013, there exams are beta phase so you get a fully-fledged certification at a much reduced price; for example $50 in the United States or 39 euros in the euro zone. There is a lot of excitement around these new certifications as people ramp up to prove their expertise. Here is some information that might help you are you prepare to get MySQL 5.6 certified. Establishing What You Need to Know Your first step is to chose whether you want to take the MySQL 5.6 Developer or MySQL 5.6 Database Administrator certification. Now click on the Exam Topics tab on the corresponding certification page. You will see a list of topics that you will be tested on during the certification exam. These are the areas that you need to improve your knowledge on, if you are not already expert. Register For a Certification Exam Click on the relevant certification and then click on Register for this Exam. The Pearson VUE site will guide you through signing up for an event at a date and location to suit you. Preparing to Take an Exam For each certification, you can click on the Exam Preparation tab. This indicates the recommended training and reference material that can help you prepare to sit the exam. And why not follow the experience of others preparing to take these exams. Todd Farmer Morgan Tocker Moritz Schupp Open Source Dba's blog You could also read MySQL hints and tips from Jeremy Smyth who is part of the team writing the authentic MySQL curriculum.

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  • Back From Microsoft Web Camps Beijing

    - by Dixin
    I am just back from Microsoft Web Camps, where Web developers in Beijing had a good time for 2 days with 2 fantastic speakers, Scott Hanselman and James Senior. On day 1, Scott and James talked about Web Platform Installer, ASP.NET core runtime, ASP.NET MVC, Entity Framework, Visual Studio 2010, … They were humorous and smart, and everyone was excited! On day 2, developers were organized into teams to build Web applications. At the end of day 2, each team had a chance of presentation. Before ending, I also demonstrated my so-called “WebOS”, a tiny but funny Web website developed with ASP.NET MVC and jQuery, which looks like an operating system, to show the power of ASP.NET MVC and jQuery. Scott, James and me were joking there, and people cannot help laughing and applauding… You can play with it here: http://www.coolwebos.com/, if interested. I talked with Scott and James about Web and ASP.NET, and asked some questions. I also helped on some English / Chinese translation. At the end Scott gave me a fabulous gift, which I will post to blog later. Hope Microsoft can have more and more events like this!

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  • Your Day-by-Day Guide to Agile PLM at Oracle OpenWorld 2012

    - by Kerrie Foy
    This year’s Oracle OpenWorld conference is nearly here, and we’re all excited about what we have planned! With five days of activities and customer presenters from market leaders and top innovators like The Coca-Cola Company, Starbucks, JDSU, Facebook, GlobalFoundries, and more, this is an event you don't want to miss. I've compiled this day-by-day guide to help anyone keep track of all the “Product Lifecycle Management and Product Value Chain” sessions and activities at OpenWorld 2012, September 30 – October 4 in San Francisco, California.  Monday, October 1 There are great networking activities on Sunday September 30, but PLM specific sessions start after general conference keynotes on Monday, October 1 at 10:45 a.m. at the InterContinental Hotel in room Telegraph Hill. In fact, most of our sessions this year will be held in this room, which is still close to the conference keynotes in Moscone, but just far enough away to allow some focused networking and discussions.   This first session, 10:45 – 11:45 a.m. is a joint session with the Agile and AutoVue teams, entitled “Streamline PLM Design-to-Manufacturing Processes with AutoVue Visualization Soltuions” featuring presenters from Oracle as well as joint AutoVue and Agile PLM customer GlobalFoundries. In the following 12:15 – 1:15 p.m. slot, there are two sessions to choose from, so if you have a team of representatives attending OpenWorld, you may consider splitting up to catch both of these: a) Our General Session will be held in the InterContinental Hotel Ballroom C, which will cover our complete enterprise PLM strategy, product updates, and roadmaps. It’s our pleasure to feature a customer keynote presentation from Chris Bedi, CIO, and Rajeev Sethi, Director IT Business Engagement, of JDSU. b) A focused session on integrating PLM with Engineering and Supply Chain Systems will be held on the second floor of Moscone West (next to the InterContinental) in room 2022. Join to discover how these types of integrations help companies manage common and integrated design information across all MCAD, ECAD, and software components. After a lunch break and perhaps a visit to the Demogrounds in Moscone West, select from two product roadmap sessions in the next time slot (3:15 – 4:15 p.m.): an Agile 9.3.x session located in the InterContinental’s Ballroom C, and an Agile PLM for Process session located back in the InterContinental’s Telegraph Room. Both sessions will have strong content around each product line’s latest releases, vision, and customer examples. We are very pleased to feature Daniel Soosai of Facebook in the A9 session and Vinnie D’Agostino of The Coca-Cola Company in the PLM for Process session. Afterwards, hang in there for one last session of the day from 4:45 – 5:45 p.m.; it’s an insightful discussion on leveraging Agile PLM as the Foundation for Enterprise Quality Management, and it’s sure to be one of the best. In the Telegraph Room, this session will feature Oracle experts, partner co-presenter David Bartlett from CPG Solutions, and customer co-presenter Thomas Crowe, CIO of PL Developments. Hear their experience around implementing collaborative, integrated solutions to ensure effective knowledge transfer throughout an organization, and how to perform analysis in real time to resolve product quality issues swiftly and efficiently. On Monday evening there will be plenty of industry, product, and partner dinners, so take advantage of all the networking opportunities and catch some great tunes at the 5 day Oracle OpenWorld Music Festival! Tuesday, October 2 Tuesday starts early with a special PLM Networking Brunch, sponsored by several partners, from 8:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. at the B Restaurant that sits atop Yerba Buena Gardens. You’ll have the unique opportunity to meet with like-minded industry peers and a PLM partner to discuss a topic of your choosing while enjoying a delicious meal. Registration is required, so to inquire about attending this brunch, please email Terri.Hiskey-AT-oracle.com. After wrapping up your conversations over brunch, head over to the Marriott Marquis in the Nob Hill CD room for a chance to experience the Oracle Product Lifecycle Analytics solution in a Hands-On Lab, open from 10:15 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. Experts will be there to answer your questions. Back in the InterContinental Hotel’s Telegraph room, the session on “Ideation and Requirements Management: Capturing the Voice of the Customer” begins at 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. This may be the session for you if you’re struggling with challenges like too many repositories of customer needs, requests, and ideas; limited visibility into which ideas are being advanced by customers and field resources; or if you’re unable to leverage internal expertise to expose effort and potential risks. This session will discuss how Agile PLM can help you overcome ideation challenges to deliver the right products to their targeted markets and fulfill customer desires. Next, from 1:15 – 2:15 p.m. join us for a session on Managing Profitable Innovation with Oracle Product Lifecycle Analytics. If you missed the Hands-on Lab, have more questions, or simply want to be inspired by the product’s forward-thinking vision and capabilities, this is a great opportunity to meet the progressive-minded executives behind the application. After this session, it may be a good opportunity to swing by the Demogrounds in Moscone West and visit the Agile PLM demos at exhibit booths #81 for Agile PLM for Discrete Manufacturing, #70 for Agile PLM for Process, and #82 for AutoVue and Agile PLM Enterprise Visualization. Check out the related Supply Chain Management booths close by if you’re interested - here's the map. There’s always lots to see and do around the exhibit area. But don’t forget the last session of the day from 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. in Telegraph Hill on Managing Product Innovation and Compliance in Life Science Companies, a “must-see” if you’re in this industry. Launching innovative products quickly is already a high-stakes challenge, but companies in the life sciences industry face uniquely severe consequences when new products don’t perform or comply as required. In recent years, more and more regulations have become mandatory, and new ones, such as REACH, are currently going into effect for several companies. Customer presenters from pharmaceutical leader Eli Lilly will share how they’ve leveraged Agile PLM to deliver high-quality, innovative products in a fast-paced, heavily regulated market environment. Tuesday evening unwind at the Supply Chain Management Reception from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. at the premier boutique Roe Nightclub and Lounge, which is located about three blocks down on Howard Street (on the other side of Moscone from the InterContinental Hotel). Registration is required. Click here for the details.   Wednesday, October 3 We have another full line-up on Wednesday, so be ready for an action-packed day. We start with a session at 10:15 – 11:15 a.m. in the Telegraph Room where we have a session on “PLM for Consumer Products: Building an Engine for Quality and Innovation” with featured presenters from Starbucks and partner Kalypso. This is a rare opportunity to learn directly from Starbucks how they instill quality and innovation throughout their organization, products, and processes, leveraging PLM disciplines with strong support from their partner.  If you’re not in the consumer products industry, we recommend attending another session at 10:15 – 11:15 a.m. in Moscone West room 3005: “Eco-Enterprise Innovation Awards and the Business Case for Sustainability” featuring Jeff Henley, Oracle’s Chairman of the Board and Jon Chorley, Chief Sustainability Officer. Oracle will honor select customers with Oracle’s Eco-Enterprise Innovation award, which recognizes customers and their respective partners who rely on Oracle products to support their green business practices to reduce their environmental impact while improving business efficiencies and reducing costs. The awards presentation is followed by a panel discussion with customers and Oracle executives, who describe how these award-winning organizations are embracing environmental initiatives as a central part of their business strategy and how information technology plays a pivotal role. Next at 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. in Telegraph Hill attend our session devoted to exploring Product Lifecycle Management’s role in Software Lifecycle Management. This is a thought leadership session with Oracle experts in the field on the importance of change management, and we’ll discuss how Oracle has for years leveraged Agile PLM to develop Agile PLM. If software lifecycle management doesn’t apply to your business or you’d rather engage in some lively one-on-one discussions, we also have a “Supply Chain Meet the Experts” session in Moscone West Room 2001A. Product experts, thought leaders and executives will be on hand to discuss your questions/topics, so come prepared. This session tends to fill up fast so try to get in early. At 1:15 – 2:15 p.m. join us back in Telegraph Hill for a session focused on leveraging the Agile Product Portfolio Management application as the Product Development Master Schedule to improve efficiencies, optimize resources, and gain visibility across projects enterprise-wide to improve portfolio profitability. Customer presenters from Broadcom will explain how they’ve leveraged the product to enable a master schedule with enterprise-level, phase-gate program and project collaboration and resource optimization. Again in Telegraph Hill from 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. we have an interesting session with leading semiconductor customer LSI and partner Kalypso on how LSI leveraged Agile PLM to advance from homegrown applications to complete Product Value Chain Management. That type of transition can be challenging, and LSI details how they were able to achieve their goals and the value they gained along the journey – a fascinating account for any company interested in leveraging best practices to innovate their business processes and even end products. Lastly, we’ll wrap up in Telegraph Hill from 5:00 – 6:00 p.m. with a session on “Ensuring New Product Success by Achieving Excellence in New Product Introduction.” This is a cross-industry session, guaranteed to deliver insight in the often elusive practice of creating winning products, and we’re very excited about. According to IDC Manufacturing Insights analyst Joe Barkai, “Product Failures are not necessarily a result of bad ideas…they are a result of suboptimal decisions.” We’ll show you how to wire your business processes to enhance decision-making and maximize product potential. Now, quickly hit your hotel room to freshen up and then catch one of the many complimentary shuttles to the much-anticipated Oracle Customer Appreciation Event on Treasure Island. We have a very exciting show planned – check out what’s in store here. Thursday, October 4 PLM has a light schedule on Thursday this year with just one session, but this again is one of our best sessions on managing the Product Value Chain: at 11:15 a.m – 12:15 p.m.in Telegraph Hill, it’s a customer and partner driven session with Sonoco Products and Deloitte telling their story about how to achieve integrated change control by interfacing Agile PLM with Oracle E-Business Suite. Sonoco Products, a global manufacturer of consumer and industrial packaging materials, with its systems integrator, Deloitte, is doing this by implementing prebuilt integration (Oracle Design-to-Release Integration Pack for Agile Product Lifecycle Management for Process and Oracle Process) to integrate Agile with Oracle Product Hub/Oracle Product Information Management and Oracle E-Business Suite. This session presents a case study of how Sonoco is leveraging this solution to improve data quality and build a framework for stronger master data governance. Even though that ends our PLM line-up at OpenWorld, there will still be many sessions and activities at the conference, so visit the Oracle OpenWorld website to review agendas and build your schedule. And of course, download and bring this guide and the latest version of the Agile PLM Focus-On Document (available soon!). San Francisco is a wonderful city to explore, and we’re glad you’re considering joining the Agile PLM team at Oracle OpenWorld!  I hope to see you there! Follow me before the conference and on site for real-time updates about #OOW12 on Twitter @Kerrie_Foy or @AgilePLM.

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  • DotNetQuiz 2011 on BeyondRelational.com- Want to be quiz master or participant?

    - by Jalpesh P. Vadgama
    Test your knowledge with 31 Reputed persons (MVPS and bloggers) will ask question on each day of January and you need to give reply on that. You can win cool stuff.My friend Jacob Sebastian organizing this event on his site Beyondrelational.com to sharpen your dot net related knowledge. This Dot NET Quiz is a platform to verify your understanding of Microsoft .NET Technologies and enhance your skills around it. This is a general quiz which covers most of the .NET technology areas. Want to be Quiz Master? Also if you are well known blogger or Microsoft MVP then you can be Quiz master on the dotnetquiz 2011. Following are requirements to be quiz master on beyondrelational.com. I am also a quiz master on beyondrelational.com and Quiz master eligibility: You will be eligible to nominate yourself to become a quiz master if one of the following condition satisfies: You are a Microsoft MVP You are a Former Microsoft MVP You are a recognized blogger You are a recognized web master running one or more technology websites You are an active participant of one or more technical forums You are a consultant with considerable exposure to your technology area You believe that you can be a good Quiz Master and got a passion for that   Selection Process: Once you submit your nomination, the Quiz team will evaluate the details and will inform you the status of your submission. This usually takes a few weeks. Quiz Master's Responsibilities: Once you become a Quiz Master for a specific quiz, you are requested to take the following responsibilities. Moderate the discussion thread after your question is published Answer any clarification about your question that people ask in the forum Review the answers and help us to award grades to the participants For more information Please visit following page on beyondrelational.com http://beyondrelational.com/quiz/nominations/0/new.aspx Hope you liked it. Stay tuned!!!

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  • NuGet 1.1 Released

    - by ScottGu
    This past weekend the ASP.NET team released NuGet 1.1.  Phil Haack recently blogged a bunch of details on the enhancements it brings, as well as how to update to it if you already have NuGet 1.0 installed.  It is definitely a nice update (my favorite improvement is that it no longer blocks the UI when downloading packages). Read Phil’s blog post about the NuGet 1.1 update and how it install it here.  NuGet is Not just for Web Projects NuGet is not just for ASP.NET projects – it supports any .NET project type.  Pete Brown recently did a nice blog post where he talked about using NuGet for WPF and Silverlight Development as well.  You can read Pete’s blog post about NuGet for WPF and Silverlight here. How to Install NuGet if you Don't Already have it Installed If you don’t already have NuGet installed, you can download and install it (as well as browse the 700+ OSS packages now available with it) from the http://NuGet.org website. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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  • My Upcoming Talk at South Florida&rsquo;s ITPalooza 2012 - NuGet for Open Source and Enterprise Environments

    - by Sam Abraham
    I am very excited to be speaking at IT Palooza next week. As this event’s audience will span professionals working in different facets of Information Technology, I chose to speak on NuGet, an essential tool for any Microsoft Stack developer, as the topic can be of value to managers, architects, IT personnel, as well as developers. For more information on ITPalooza, please visit: http://itpalooza.e2mktg.com/ To register please visit: http://www.fladotnet.com/Reg.aspx?EventID=627   Below are the abstract and speaker bio: Leveraging NuGet for Open Source and Enterprise Environments NuGet is an open source package management system for .NET and Visual Studio that makes it easy to add, update, or remove external libraries in a .Net Project. In this session, we will be covering how NuGet makes open source libraries easily discoverable and usable. We will then move to demonstrate "NuGet for the Enterprise" as we setup a local library repository and configure NuGet to ensure external library versioning is consistent among project developers. Speakers: Sam Abraham is a Microsoft Certified Professional, Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS ASP.Net 3.5, 4.0 and Silverlight 4) and Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) striving to leverage proven technology solutions to produce cost-effective, quality software that meets customer needs, timelines and budgets. He is currently a member of the Software Engineering Team at SISCO, the leader in maritime security solutions with customers including Princess, Carnival, and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines as well as the US Coast Guard. A strong believer in learning through sharing and the value of community fellowship, Sam has been actively involved in the local community as leader of the West Palm Beach Developers' Group, volunteer board member at the International Association for All IT Architects South Florida Chapter (IASA), and former volunteer at the South Florida Chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI).

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  • And We’re Off

    - by Kristin Rose
    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:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} We are well into Oracle OpenWorld 2012, and what a couple days it has been! From day one and two of the Oracle PartnerNetwork Exchange Program, a jammin’ AfterDark reception atop the Metreon City View Terrance, and some major keynotes around Cloud to go with it. We think it’s safe to say we are off to a running start! With all the excitement buzzing around the floor, we couldn’t help but ask YOU our partners, just what you’re looking forward to the most this week. Is it our Test Fest, or possibly our Social Media Rally Station at the OPN Lounge, or our 40+ general sessions? Whatever it is, we can’t wait to exceed your expectations! Watch this awesome video below to find out what some other OPN partners like you are talking about this week! See you on the Floor,The OPN Communications Team

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  • I want to hit Apex SQL with a big stick

    - by Michael Stephenson
    <Whinge> Thought id just have a little whinge about this product which caused me a load of grief the other day..... So the background was that my development machine had a completely full hard disk which I needed to sort out.  Upon investigation I found the issue was that the msdb database had managed to get very large. This was caused because a long time ago (and I cant even remember why) I tried out Apex SQL.  After a few days I decided to uninstall it and thought nothing more of it.  What I didnt realise was that uninstalling it doesnt actually uninstall it (and it doesnt inform you about this), but there was still some assemblies left on my machine.  Everytime SQL Server was running it was starting the Apex SQL Connection monitor which was then running in the background and regularly recording information in the msdb database.  Over time it had recorded enough to fill the disk. The below article advises how to sort this out by removing this fully so if your having a problem then try this out:http://knowledgebase.apexsql.com/2007/08/how-to-uninstall-apexsqlconnectionmonit_09.htm Once this was sorted out its interesting to read the above article because I just dont think the approach used by the vendor of this software is a very good one.  So for the Apex team just wanted to pass on a thought: If I want to uninstall your product you should tell me if stuff is left on the machine especially if a process will be running which is going to fill my machine with useless data, </Whinge>

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  • Show Notes: Bob Hensle on IT Strategies from Oracle

    - by Bob Rhubart
    The latest ArchBeat Podcast (RSS) features a conversation with Oracle Enterprise Architecture director Bob Hensle (LinkedIn). Bob talks about IT Strategies from Oracle, an extensive library of reference architectures, best practices, and other documents now available (it’s a freebie!) to registered Oracle Technology Network members. Listen to Part 1 Bob offers some background on the IT Strategies from Oracle project and an overview of the included documents. Listen to Part 2 (Feb 16) A discussion of how SOA and other issues are reflected in the IT Strategies documents. Share your feedback on any of the documents in the IT Strategies from Oracle Library: [email protected] For a nice complement to the IT Strategies from Oracle Library, check out Oracle Experiences in Enterprise Architecture, an ongoing series of short essays from members of the Oracle Enterprise Architecture team based on their field experience. In the Pipeline ArchBeat programs in the works include an interview with Dr. Frank Munz, the author of Middleware and Cloud Computing, excerpts from another architect virtual meet-up, and a conversation with Oracle ACE Director Debra Lilley about her insight into Fusion Applications. . Stayed tuned: RSS Technorati Tags: oracle,oracle technology network,software architecture,enterprise architecture,reference architecture del.icio.us Tags: oracle,oracle technology network,software architecture,enterprise architecture,reference architecture

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  • Easy Credential Caching for Git

    A common question since launching our Git support is whether there is a way to cache your username and password so you don’t have to enter it on every push.  Well thanks to Andrew Nurse from the ASP.Net team, there is now a great solution for this! Credential Caching in Windows to the Rescue Using the Git extension point for credential caching, Andrew created an integration into the Windows Credentials store. After installing git-credential-winstore instead of getting that standard prompt for a username/password, you will get a Windows Security prompt. From here your credentials for CodePlex will be stored securely within the Windows Credential Store. Setup The setup is pretty easy. Download the application from Andrew's git-credential-winstore project. Launch the executable and select yes to have it prompt for credentials. That's it. Make sure you are running the latest version of msysgit, since the credential's API is fairly new. Thanks to Andrew for sharing his work.  If you have suggestions or improvements you can fork the code here.

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  • What's new in ASP.Net 4.5 and VS 2012 - part 1

    - by nikolaosk
    I have downloaded .Net framework 4.5 and Visual Studio 2012 since it was released to MSDN subscribers on the 15th of August.For people that do not know about that yet please have a look at Jason Zander's excellent blog post .Since then I have been investigating the many new features that have been introduced in this release.In this post I will be looking into new features available in ASP.Net 4.5 and VS 2012.In order to follow along this post you must have Visual Studio 2012 and .Net Framework 4.5 installed in your machine.Download and install VS 2012 using this link.My machine runs on Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2012 works just fine. Please find all my posts regarding VS 2012, here .Well I have not exactly kept my promise for writing short blog posts, so I will try to keep this one short. 1) Launch VS 2012 and create a new Web Forms application by going to File - >New Web Site - > ASP.Net Web Forms Site.2) Choose an appropriate name for your web site.3) Build and run your site (CTRL+F5). Then go to View - > Source to see the HTML markup (Javascript e.t.c) that is rendered through the browser.You will see that the ASP.Net team has done a good job to make the markup cleaner and more readable. The ViewState size is significantly smaller compared to its size to earlier versions.Have a look at the picture below 4) Another thing that you must notice is that the new template makes good use of HTML 5 elements.When you view the application through the browser and then go to View Page Source you will see HTML 5 elements like nav,header,section.Have a look at the picture below  5) In VS 2012 we can browse with multiple browsers. There is a very handy dropdown that shows all the browsers available for viewing the website.Have a look at the picture below When I select the option Browse With... I see another window and I can select any of the installed browsers I want and also set the default browser. Have a look at the picture below  When I click Browse, all the selected browsers fire up and I can view the website in all of them.Have a look at the picture below There will be more posts soon looking into new features of ASP.Net 4.5 and VS 2012Hope it helps!!!

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  • Refactoring in domain driven design

    - by Andrew Whitaker
    I've just started working on a project and we're using domain-driven design (as defined by Eric Evans in Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software. I believe that our project is certainly a candidate for this design pattern as Evans describes it in his book. I'm struggling with the idea of constantly refactoring. I know refactoring is a necessity in any project and will happen inevitably as the software changes. However, in my experience, refactoring occurs when the needs of the development team change, not as understanding of the domain changes ("refactoring to greater insight" as Evans calls it). I'm most concerned with breakthroughs in understanding of the domain model. I understand making small changes, but what if a large change in the model is necessary? What's an effective way of convincing yourself (and others) you should refactor after you obtain a clearer domain model? After all, refactoring to improve code organization or performance could be completely separate from how expressive in terms of the ubiquitous language code is. Sometimes it just seems like there's not enough time to refactor. Luckily, SCRUM lends it self to refactoring. The iterative nature of SCRUM makes it easy to build a small piece and change and it. But over time that piece will get larger and what if you have a breakthrough after that piece is so large that it will be too difficult to change? Has anyone worked on a project employing domain-driven design? If so, it would be great to get some insight on this one. I'd especially like to hear some success stories, since DDD seems very difficult to get right. Thanks!

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  • Frederick .NET User Group June 2010 Meeting

    - by John Blumenauer
    FredNUG is pleased to announce our June speaker will be Pete Brown.  Pete was one FredNUG’s first speakers when the group started and we’re very happy to have him visiting us again to present on Silverlight!  On June 15th @ 6:30 PM, we’ll start with a Visual Studio 2010 Launch with pizza, swag and a presentation about what makes Visual Studio 2010 great.  Then, starting at 7 PM, Pete Brown will present “What’s New in Silverlight 4.”  It looks like a evening filled with newness!   The scheduled agenda is:   6:30 PM - 7:15 PM – Visual Studio 2010 Launch Event plus Pizza/Social Networking/Announcements 7:15 PM - 8:30 PM - Main Topic: What’s New in Silverlight 4 with Pete Brown  Main Topic:  What’s New in Silverlight 4? Speaker Bio: Pete Brown is a Senior Program Manager with Microsoft on the developer community team led by Scott Hanselman, as well as a former Microsoft Silverlight MVP, INETA speaker, and RIA Architect for Applied Information Sciences, where he worked for over 13 years. Pete's focus at Microsoft is the community around client application development (WPF, Silverlight, Windows Phone, Surface, Windows Forms, C++, Native Windows API and more). From his first sprite graphics and custom character sets on the Commodore 64 to 3d modeling and design through to Silverlight, Surface, XNA, and WPF, Pete has always had a deep interest in programming, design, and user experience. His involvement in Silverlight goes back to the Silverlight 1.1 alpha application that he co-wrote and put into production in July 2007. Pete has been programming for fun since 1984, and professionally since 1992. In his spare time, Pete enjoys programming, blogging, designing and building his own woodworking projects and raising his two children with his wife in the suburbs of Maryland. Pete's site and blog is at 10rem.net, and you can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pete_brown Twitter: http://twitter.com/pete_brown Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pmbrown Pete is a founding member of the CapArea .NET Silverlight SIG. (Visit the CapArea. NET Silverlight SIG here )    8:30 PM - 8:45 PM – RAFFLE! Please join us and get involved in our .NET developers community!

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  • Start Debugging in Visual Studio

    - by Daniel Moth
    Every developer is familiar with hitting F5 and debugging their application, which starts their app with the Visual Studio debugger attached from the start (instead of attaching later). This is one way to achieve step 1 of the Live Debugging process. Hitting F5, F11, Ctrl+F10 and the other ways to start the process under the debugger is covered in this MSDN "How To". The way you configure the debugging experience, before you hit F5, is by selecting the "Project" and then the "Properties" menu (Alt+F7 on my keyboard bindings). Dependent on your project type there are different options, but if you browse to the Debug (or Debugging) node in the properties page you'll have a way to select local or remote machine debugging, what debug engines to use, command line arguments to use during debugging etc. Currently the .NET and C++ project systems are different, but one would hope that one day they would be unified to use the same mechanism and UI (I don't work on that product team so I have no knowledge of whether that is a goal or if it will ever happen). Personally I like the C++ one better, here is what it looks like (and it is described on this MSDN page): If you were following along in the "Attach to Process" blog post, the equivalent to the "Select Code Type" dialog is the "Debugger Type" dropdown: that is how you change the debug engine. Some of the debugger properties options appear on the standard toolbar in VS. With Visual Studio 11, the Debug Type option has been added to the toolbar If you don't see that in your installation, customize the toolbar to show it - VS 11 tends to be conservative in what you see by default, especially for the non-C++ Visual Studio profiles. Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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  • 4 Top Tips from the Exceptional DBA Award judges

    - by Rebecca Amos
    There's still time to celebrate your achievements as a DBA – or those of a DBA you know – by submitting a nomination for the Exceptional DBA Awards 2011. To help you get started, here are some top tips from the judges on what they're looking for from this year's winner [hint: it's very likely you're already exceptional!]: "An Exceptional DBA must be able to communicate effectively and clearly with both technical people and the client." Steve Jones. "Exceptional DBAs are like police officers: we're here to serve and protect. Both serving and protecting are vital parts of the job, and we can't just focus on one." Brent Ozar "DBA work can be routine. Exceptional DBAs are enthusiastic about their work and are rarely bored, as there is always something new to learn and master." Brad McGehee. "Remember that cost is an important factor for your company. The ability to save your company money with a different technical solution will make you an Exceptional DBA, and can make you exceptionally well liked." Rodney Landrum. So whether you've brought a team together for a project, taken steps to protect the security of your servers, or learnt a new topic to understand an element of your job better, it's likely you’re already taking the steps that make you the Exceptional DBA the judges are looking for. To get more insider info from the judges, download your free poster of their top tips, and then get started on your entry: www.exceptionaldba.com.

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  • How do you research while pair programming?

    - by traffichazard
    I've recently started at a new job and pairing has helped me become effective there very quickly. I am, however, having a hard time when we must do brief joint research during our workflow, covering API features, code examples, or command options. My team lead urges us to do all research on our pairing station, rather than our individual laptops, and to synchronize our research by verbally negotiating the steps between different web resources. I research, read, and absorb information differently from my pairing partner, and I feel much more productive when I can follow a thread of research to the next web page exactly when I want to, rather than trying to keep exact pace and place with what my partner's reading. We're both smart and fast, but we can't help moving in different ways and instantaneous velocities when we're figuring stuff out. It seems so much easier to poke around individually for a minute until one of us says "I've got it," then get back together and code. When you pair program, how do you handle short research tasks? What works best for you, and how to you keep in sync with your partner?

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  • When Your Boss Doesn't Want you to Succeed

    - by Phil Factor
    You're working hard to get an application finished. You are programming long into the evenings sometimes, and eating sandwiches at your desk instead of taking a lunch break. Then one day you glance up at the IT manager, serene in his mysterious round of meetings, and think 'Does he actually care whether this project succeeds or not?'. The question may seem absurd. Of course the project must succeed. The truth, as always, is often far more complex. Your manager may even be doing his best to make sure you don't succeed. Why? There have always been rich pickings for the unscrupulous in IT.  In extreme cases, where administrators struggle with scarcely-comprehended technical issues, huge sums of money can be lost and gained without any perceptible results. In a very few cases can fraud be proven: most of the time, the intricacies of the 'game' are such that one can do little more than harbor suspicion.  Where does over-enthusiastic salesmanship end and fraud begin? The Business of Information Technology provides rich opportunities for White-collar crime. The poor developer has his, or her, hands full with the task of wrestling with the sheer complexity of building an application. He, or she, has no time for following the complexities of the chicanery of the management that is directing affairs.  Most likely, the developers wouldn't even suspect that their company management had ulterior motives. I'll illustrate what I mean with an entirely fictional, hypothetical, example. The Opportunist and the Aged Charities often do good, unexciting work that is funded by the income from a bequest that dates back maybe hundreds of years.  In our example, it isn't exciting work, for it involves the welfare of elderly people who have fallen on hard times.  Volunteers visit, giving a smile and a chat, and check that they are all right, but are able to spend a little money on their discretion to ameliorate any pressing needs for these old folk.  The money is made to work very hard and the charity averts a great deal of suffering and eases the burden on the state. Daisy hears the garden gate creak as Mrs Rainer comes up the path. She looks forward to her twice-weekly visit from the nice lady from the trust. She always asked ‘is everything all right, Love’. Cheeky but nice. She likes her cheery manner. She seems interested in hearing her memories, and talking about her far-away family. She helps her with those chores in the house that she couldn’t manage and once even paid to fill the back-shed with coke, the other year. Nice, Mrs. Rainer is, she thought as she goes to open the door. The trustees are getting on in years themselves, and worry about the long-term future of the charity: is it relevant to modern society? Is it likely to attract a new generation of workers to take it on. They are instantly attracted by the arrival to the board of a smartly dressed University lecturer with the ear of the present Government. Alain 'Stalin' Jones is earnest, persuasive and energetic. The trustees welcome him to the board and quickly forgive his humorless political-correctness. He talks of 'diversity', 'relevance', 'social change', 'equality' and 'communities', but his eye is on that huge bequest. Alain first came to notice as a Trotskyite union official, who insinuated himself into one of the duller Trades Unions and turned it, through his passionate leadership, into a radical, headline-grabbing organization.  Middle age, and the rise of European federal socialism, had brought him quiet prosperity and charcoal suits, an ear in the current government, and a wide influence as a member of various Quangos (government bodies staffed by well-paid unelected courtiers).  He was employed as a 'consultant' by several organizations that relied on government contracts. After gaining the confidence of the trustees, and showing a surprising knowledge of mundane processes and the regulatory framework of charities, Alain launches his plan.  The trust will expand their work by means of a bold IT initiative that will coordinate the interventions of several 'caring agencies', and provide  emergency cover, a special Website so anxious relatives can see how their elderly charges are doing, and a vastly more efficient way of coordinating the work of the volunteer carers. It will also provide a special-purpose site that gives 'social networking' facilities, rather like Facebook, to the few elderly folk on the lists with access to the internet. The trustees perk up. Their own experience of the internet is restricted to the occasional scanning of railway timetables, but they can see that it is 'relevant'. In his next report to the other trustees, Alain proudly announces that all this glamorous and exciting technology can be paid for by a grant from the government. He admits darkly that he has influence. True to his word, the government promises a grant of a size that is an order of magnitude greater than any budget that the trustees had ever handled. There was the understandable proviso that the company that would actually do the IT work would have to be one of the government's preferred suppliers and the work would need to be tendered under EU competition rules. The only company that tenders, a multinational IT company with a long track record of government work, quotes ten million pounds for the work. A trustee questions the figure as it seems enormous for the reasonably trivial internet facilities being built, but the IT Salesmen dazzle them with presentations and three-letter acronyms until they subside into quiescent acceptance. After all, they can’t stay locked in the Twentieth century practices can they? The work is put in hand with a large project team, in a splendid glass building near west London. The trustees see rooms of programmers working diligently at screens, and who talk with enthusiasm of the project. Paul, the project manager, looked through his resource schedule with growing unease. His initial excitement at being given his first major project hadn’t lasted. He’d been allocated a lackluster team of developers whose skills didn’t seem right, and he was allowed only a couple of contractors to make good the deficit. Strangely, the presentation he’d given to his management, where he’d saved time and resources with a OTS solution to a great deal of the development work, and a sound conservative architecture, hadn’t gone down nearly as big as he’d hoped. He almost got the feeling they wanted a more radical and ambitious solution. The project starts slipping its dates. The costs build rapidly. There are certain uncomfortable extra charges that appear, such as the £600-a-day charge by the 'Business Manager' appointed to act as a point of liaison between the charity and the IT Company.  When he appeared, his face permanently split by a 'Mr Sincerity' smile, they'd thought he was provided at the cost of the IT Company. Derek, the DBA, didn’t have to go to the server room quite some much as he did: but It got him away from the poisonous despair of the development group. Wave after wave of events had conspired to delay the project.  Why the management had imposed hideous extra bureaucracy to cover ISO 9000 and 9001:2008 accreditation just as the project was struggling to get back on-schedule was  beyond belief.  Then  the Business manager was coming back with endless changes in scope, sorrowing saying that the Trustees were very insistent, though hopelessly out in touch with the reality of technical challenges. Suddenly, the costs mount to the point of consuming the government grant in its entirety. The project remains tantalizingly just out of reach. Alain Jones gives an emotional rallying speech at the trustees review meeting, urging them not to lose their nerve. Sadly, the trustees dip into the accumulated capital of the trust, the seed-corn of all their revenues, in order to save the IT project. A few months later it is all over. The IT project is never delivered, even though it had seemed so incredibly close.  With the trust's capital all gone, the activities it funded have to be terminated and the trust becomes just a shell. There aren't even the funds to mount a legal challenge against the IT company, even had the trust's solicitor advised such a foolish thing. Alain leaves as suddenly as he had arrived, only to pop up a few months later, bronzed and rested, at another charity. The IT workers who were permanent employees are dispersed to other projects, and the contractors leave to other contracts. Within months the entire project is but a vague memory. One or two developers remain  puzzled that their managers had been so obstructive when they should have welcomed progress toward completion of the project, but they put it down to incompetence and testosterone. Few suspected that they were actively preventing the project from getting finished. The relationships between the IT consultancy, and the government of the day are intricate, and made more complex by the Private Finance initiatives and political patronage.  The losers in this case were the taxpayers, and the beneficiaries of the trust, and, perhaps the soul of the original benefactor of the trust, whose bid to give his name some immortality had been scuppered by smooth-talking white-collar political apparatniks.  Even now, nobody is certain whether a crime was ever committed. The perfect heist, I guess. Where’s the victim? "I hear that Daisy’s cottage is up for sale. She’s had to go into a care home.  She didn’t want to at all, but then there is nobody to keep an eye on her since she had that minor stroke a while back.  A charity used to help out. The ‘social’ don’t have the funding, evidently for community care. Yes, her old cat was put down. There was a good clearout, and now the house is all scrubbed and cleared ready for sale. The skip was full of old photos and letters, memories. No room in her new ‘home’."

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  • 30 in 60 Contest | Standings Update

    - by Staff of Geeks
    The contest has definitely ended the first week with a clear leader.  One of our new bloggers, Enrique Lima, has posted 20 times since the beginning of the contest with some great content on Team Foundation Server.  Another noticeable face we see on the leader board is Chris Williams who is making headway.  Chris, are you going to challenge up D’Arcy Lussier for the lead position on GWB again, notice who isn’t on this list :D.  Also, Chris House who is a new blogger is making some strong strides.  And finally, let us not forget Dave Campbell who writes Silverlight Cream who always has great content for us.  We hope to see more names joining this list soon, what else could be better than a world full of Geekswithblogs.net custom shirts?   Current Leader Board: Enrique Lima (20 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/enriquelima Eric Nelson (7 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/iupdateable Christopher House (7 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/13DaysaWeek StuartBrierley (7 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/StuartBrierley Dave Campbell (6 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/WynApseTechnicalMusings Chris Williams (5 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams Frez (4 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/Frez MarkPearl (4 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/MarkPearl mbcrump (4 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/mbcrump Rajesh Charagandla (3 posts) - http://geekswithblogs.net/crajesh Technorati Tags: 30 in 60,Geekswithblogs,Standings

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  • Mission 26 Captures Endeavour’s Last Trip in Stop Motion

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    On September 21, 2012 the Space Shuttle Endeavour was delivered to the Los Angeles International Airport and spent the next three days being slowly transported 12 miles to the California Science Center. One dedicated team of photographers captured the whole thing. Lead by Matthew Givot, the group followed the shuttle for three straight days, photographing it around the clock. The Endeavor started on Thursday night and went on until Sunday night, with very little sleep to no sleep. The only thing that kept us going was pure love of the art and adrenaline. One thing that stood out the most for me, while I was shooting, was the people of Los Angeles. It was so powerful to see the excitement on peoples faces and the pride of their home town. No matter how many times I would see the Shuttle it would never get old. This has been an amazing experience that I will never forget. My hope is that this film will show you the amount of dedicated people and teamwork that it took to get the Endeavour to its new home. Enjoy. The end result of their labor is the above video, a beautiful time-lapse video of Endeavour’s journey from the airport to its hanger at the California Science Center. Can Dust Actually Damage My Computer? What To Do If You Get a Virus on Your Computer Why Enabling “Do Not Track” Doesn’t Stop You From Being Tracked

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  • Getting More Out of UPK

    - by [email protected]
    Are you getting the most out of UPK? Remember the idea of streamlining your content creation efforts? How about the concept of collaboration during development? How are you leveraging the System Process Documents or Test Scripts? Is your training team benefiting from the creation of process documentation? Is UPK linked into the help menu of your application or your even at the browser level (Smart Help)? Many customers underutilize UPK. Some customers just think of UPK as a training creation solution or just for creating documentation. To get the full value of UPK you need to first evaluate how the UPK developer is installed. Single User or Multi User? If you have more than two developers of UPK, then there is a significant benefit from installing UPK in multi user mode. This helps drive collaboration, automatic version control and better facilitation of the workflow and state features with use of customized views for the developers. Has your organization installed Usage Tracking? How are the outputs deployed and for how many applications? If these questions have you thinking about your overall usage of UPK and you see significant improvement by using more of what UPK has to offer, then it could be time for a UPK Health Check. Contact your UPK Sales Consultant to help understand your environment and how to maximize the value of UPK and start getting more out of the product.

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