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• Summit Time!

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  Boy, how time flies!  I can hardly believe that the 2011 PASS Summit is just one week away.  Maybe it snuck up on me because it’s a few weeks earlier than last year.  Whatever the cause, I am really looking forward to next week.  The PASS Summit is the largest SQL Server conference in the world and a fantastic networking opportunity thrown in for no additional charge.  Here are a few thoughts to help you maximize the week. Networking As Karen Lopez (blog | @DataChick) mentioned in her presentation for the Professional Development Virtual Chapter just a couple of weeks ago, “Don’t wait until you need a new job to start networking.”  You should always be working on your professional network.  Some people, especially technical-minded people, get confused by the term networking.  The first image that used to pop into my head was the image of some guy standing, awkwardly, off to the side of a cocktail party, trying to shmooze those around him.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  If you’re good at that sort of thing, and you can strike up a conversation with some stranger and learn all about them in 5 minutes, and walk away with your next business deal all but approved by the lawyers, then congratulations.  But if you’re not, and most of us are not, I have two suggestions for you.  First, register for Don Gabor’s 2-hour session on Tuesday at the Summit called Networking to Build Business Contacts.  Don is a master at small talk, and at teaching others, and in just those two short hours will help you with important tips about breaking the ice, remembering names, and smooth transitions into and out of conversations.  Then go put that great training to work right away at the Tuesday night Welcome Reception and meet some new people; which is really my second suggestion…just meet a few new people.  You see, “networking” is about meeting new people and being friendly without trying to “work it” to get something out of the relationship at this point.  In fact, Don will tell you that a better way to build the connection with someone is to look for some way that you can help them, not how they can help you. There are a ton of opportunities as long as you follow this one key point: Don’t stay in your hotel!  At the least, get out and go to the free events such as the Tuesday night Welcome Reception, the Wednesday night Exhibitor Reception, and the Thursday night Community Appreciation Party.  All three of these are perfect opportunities to meet other professionals with a similar job or interest as you, and you never know how that may help you out in the future.  Maybe you just meet someone to say HI to at breakfast the next day instead of eating alone.  Or maybe you cross paths several times throughout the Summit and compare notes on different sessions you attended.  And you just might make new friends that you look forward to seeing year after year at the Summit.  Who knows, it might even turn out that you have some specific experience that will help out that other person a few months’ from now when they run into the same challenge that you just overcame, or vice-versa.  But the point is, if you don’t get out and meet people, you’ll never have the chance for anything else to happen in the future. One more tip for shy attendees of the Summit…if you can’t bring yourself to strike up conversation with strangers at these events, then at the least, after you sit through a good session that helps you out, go up to the speaker and introduce yourself and thank them for taking the time and effort to put together their presentation.  Ideally, when you do this, tell them WHY it was beneficial to you (e.g. “Now I have a new idea of how to tackle a problem back at the office.”)  I know you think the speakers are all full of confidence and are always receiving a ton of accolades and applause, but you’re wrong.  Most of them will be very happy to hear first-hand that all the work they put into getting ready for their presentation is paying off for somebody. Training With over 170 technical sessions at the Summit, training is what it’s all about, and the training is fantastic!  Of course there are the big-name trainers like Paul Randall, Kimberly Tripp, Kalen Delaney, Itzik Ben-Gan and several others, but I am always impressed by the quality of the training put on by so many other “regular” members of the SQL Server community.  It is amazing how you don’t have to be a published author or otherwise recognized as an “expert” in an area in order to make a big impact on others just by sharing your personal experience and lessons learned.  I would rather hear the story of, and lessons learned from, “some guy or gal” who has actually been through an issue and came out the other side, than I would a trained professor who is speaking just from theory or an intellectual understanding of a topic. In addition to the three full days of regular sessions, there are also two days of pre-conference intensive training available.  There is an extra cost to this, but it is a fantastic opportunity.  Think about it…you’re already coming to this area for training, so why not extend your stay a little bit and get some in-depth training on a particular topic or two?  I did this for the first time last year.  I attended one day of extra training and it was well worth the time and money.  One of the best reasons for it is that I am extremely busy at home with my regular job and family, that it was hard to carve out the time to learn about the topic on my own.  It worked out so well last year that I am doubling up and doing two days or “pre-cons” this year. And then there are the DVDs.  I think these are another great option.  I used the online schedule builder to get ready and have an idea of which sessions I want to attend and when they are (much better than trying to figure this out at the last minute every day).  But the problem that I have run into (seems this happens every year) is that nearly every session block has two different sessions that I would like to attend.  And some of them have three!  ACK!  That won’t work!  What is a guy supposed to do?  Well, one option is to purchase the DVDs which are recordings of the audio and projected images from each session so you can continue to attend sessions long after the Summit is officially over.  Yes, many (possibly all) of these also get posted online and attendees can access those for no extra charge, but those are not necessarily all available as quickly as the DVD recording are, and the DVDs are often more convenient than downloading, especially if you want to share the training with someone who was not able to attend in person. Remember, I don’t make any money or get any other benefit if you buy the DVDs or from anything else that I have recommended here.  These are just my own thoughts, trying to help out based on my experiences from the 8 or so Summits I have attended.  There is nothing like the Summit.  It is an awesome experience, fantastic training, and a whole lot of fun which is just compounded if you’ll take advantage of the first part of this article and make some new friends along the way.

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• Windows Phone Developer Spotlight: Nikolai Joukov

  - by Lori Lalonde

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/lorilalonde/archive/2014/06/04/windows-phone-developer-spotlight-nikolai-joukov.aspxAs part of an ongoing series, I plan to include a spotlight post on people within the community that are stars in their field and area of expertise. For my first spotlight post, I interviewed Nikolai Joukov, who is a regular attendee at my local area .NET User Group (CTTDNUG), and has also participated in many of the Mobile and Cloud workshops we have hosted over the past few years. Nikolai stood out immediately, because of his passion for developing mobile apps, his interest in continuous learning, and his drive to publish quality apps that people will find useful and entertaining. Background: Nikolai immigrated to Canada in 1995, and has been working in IT since 1997. He moved on to become an independent contractor in 2005, and has worked at various large scale organizations over the course of his career, including BMO, Enbridge, Economical Insurance, Equitable Life, Manulife and Sun Life. Nikolai is an accomplished Windows Phone and Windows Store publisher, with 11 published Windows Phone apps, and 8 published Windows Store apps. He has almost 6000 downloads and favourable reviews. Q & A with Nikolai How many years have you been developing Windows Phone apps? 2 years When did you develop your very first Windows Phone app, and what was it about? Actually, the very first app I wrote was for the Microsoft “Smart Phone” back in 2004. This phone was given to me by Microsoft during the Developers Days Conference in Toronto. It was some kind of experimental model named Smart Phone, but you had to use VB 3 to develop the applications. Needless to say, this was not very successful at that time. My app was a Stock Trades Calculator. Very primitive, but it was working for me. The phone was heavy and the battery barely lasted 4 hours. Microsoft stopped supporting it few months later and the phone stopped working shortly after, but I still have it as a souvenir. For Windows Phone, my first app was “Trip Packing Assistant”. This is a simple trip packing check list that allows you to list items by category, set required quantity of items, and mark off the item in the list when it is packed. I designed it for me and my wife Galina, since we love to travel and this program helps manage our list for us. How did you get started in Windows Phone development? I have to say thanks to our .NET User Group for introducing me to Windows Phone development. I was intrigued and decided to give it a try. In October 2012 during a 2 day training event that ObjectSharp hosted in London, I met Bruce Johnson. On his advice, I registered for Developer Movement, and it is was a good push to actually complete the apps that I started. You have a great series of travel guide apps both for Windows Phone and Windows Store. Tell us about how you came up with the idea to develop those apps and what process you went through to put it all together. Like I said earlier, my wife and I love to travel. Before I created Trip Packing Assistant, every time we were planning to travel somewhere new, Galina would spend 3-4 weeks doing research. She would create a Word document with all of the information. We didn’t want to have to carry our laptop with us all the time, so we printed out the Word document she created, and would take it with us. After we returned from the trip, we would bring back tons of pictures and materials. Then our friends started to ask us about our materials before they planned their trips to the same places we had visited. So I decided to give it a try and started making apps for Windows Phone and for Windows 8. I hope these applications will help people who are planning to travel. So, all of the pictures used in the travel apps you created were actually taken by you during these amazing trips? Yes Do you have another Windows Store/Windows Phone project in development right now? If so, can you give us a hint at what it will be about? I want to stay with travel apps for now. But this time I will try to write an app for us (Galina and I). Usually we go on the trip, then I write the apps after we have all this beautiful pictures in our hands. We are planning a trip to Rome. This app will not have the pictures, but I want to add a map with points of interest and all information that can be useful for us. Then we will go on our trip and test it on location. As well I am planning to work on my existing apps to make them better. What learning resources would you recommend for other developers that want to get started in Window Store and Windows Phone development? I would start with dev.windowsphone.com to get all tools and samples, also links to training materials. I like MVA (Microsoft Virtual Academy). Their videos are really useful and it is free. Pluralsight is good too but it is not free and I do not have a subscription anymore. Our .NET User Group meetings give good insights too. I went to all meetings and full day training events. When you start to develop your app, you need to do research for specific questions that arise during development. The Developer Portal and Nokia Developer are good resources too. Wrap Up Thanks Nikolai for participating in my first Spotlight blog post! Shown below is Nikolai’s publisher page in the Windows Phone Store and his publisher page in the Windows Store. Simply click on it to be taken to there to check out his portfolio of apps. Be sure to download his apps and try them out! They are all free! Nikolai’s Windows Phone apps   Nikolai’s Windows Store Apps

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• OpenGL font rendering

  - by DEElekgolo

  I am trying to make an openGL text rendering class using FreeType. I was originally following this code but it doesn't seem to work out for me. I get nothing reguardless of what parameters I put for Draw(). class Font { public: Font() { if (FT_Init_FreeType(&ftLibrary)) { printf("Could not initialize FreeType library\n"); return; } glGenBuffers(1,&iVerts); } bool Load(std::string sFont, unsigned int Size = 12.0f) { if (FT_New_Face(ftLibrary,sFont.c_str(),0,&ftFace)) { printf("Could not open font: %s\n",sFont.c_str()); return true; } iSize = Size; FT_Set_Pixel_Sizes(ftFace,0,(int)iSize); FT_GlyphSlot gGlyph = ftFace->glyph; //Generating the texture atlas. //Rather than some amazing rectangular packing method, I'm just going //to have one long strip of letters with the height being that of the font size. int width = 0; int height = 0; for (int i = 32; i < 128; i++) { if (FT_Load_Char(ftFace,i,FT_LOAD_RENDER)) { printf("Error rendering letter %c for font %s.\n",i,sFont.c_str()); } width += gGlyph->bitmap.width; height += std::max(height,gGlyph->bitmap.rows); } //Generate the openGL texture glActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE0); //if I texture exists then delete it. iTexture ? glDeleteBuffers(1,&iTexture):0; glGenTextures(1,&iTexture); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D,iTexture); glPixelStorei(GL_UNPACK_ALIGNMENT,1); glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D,0,GL_ALPHA,width,height,0,GL_ALPHA,GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE,0); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); //load the glyphs and set the glyph data int x = 0; for (int i = 32; i < 128; i++) { if (FT_Load_Char(ftFace,i,FT_LOAD_RENDER)) { //if it cant load the character continue; } //load the glyph map into the texture glTexSubImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D,0,x,0, gGlyph->bitmap.width, gGlyph->bitmap.rows, GL_ALPHA, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, gGlyph->bitmap.buffer); //move the "pen" down the strip x += gGlyph->bitmap.width; chars[i].ax = (float)(gGlyph->advance.x >> 6); chars[i].ay = (float)(gGlyph->advance.y >> 6); chars[i].bw = (float)gGlyph->bitmap.width; chars[i].bh = (float)gGlyph->bitmap.rows; chars[i].bl = (float)gGlyph->bitmap_left; chars[i].bt = (float)gGlyph->bitmap_top; chars[i].tx = (float)x/width; } printf("Loaded font: %s\n",sFont.c_str()); return true; } void Draw(std::string sString,Vector2f vPos = Vector2f(0,0),Vector2f vScale = Vector2f(1,1)) { struct pPoint { pPoint() { x = y = s = t = 0; } pPoint(float a,float b,float c,float d) { x = a; y = b; s = c; t = d; } float x,y; float s,t; }; pPoint* cCoordinates = new pPoint[6*sString.length()]; int n = 0; for (const char *p = sString.c_str(); *p; p++) { float x2 = vPos.x() + chars[*p].bl * vScale.x(); float y2 = -vPos.y() - chars[*p].bt * vScale.y(); float w = chars[*p].bw * vScale.x(); float h = chars[*p].bh * vScale.y(); float x = vPos.x() + chars[*p].ax * vScale.x(); float y = vPos.y() + chars[*p].ay * vScale.y(); //skip characters with no pixels //still advances though if (!w || !h) { continue; } //triangle one cCoordinates[n++] = pPoint( x2 , -y2 , chars[*p].tx , 0); cCoordinates[n++] = pPoint( x2+w , -y2 , chars[*p].tx + chars[*p].bw / w , 0); cCoordinates[n++] = pPoint( x2 , -y2-h , chars[*p].tx , chars[*p].bh / h); cCoordinates[n++] = pPoint( x2+w , -y2 , chars[*p].tx + chars[*p].bw / w , 0); cCoordinates[n++] = pPoint( x2 , -y2-h , chars[*p].tx , chars[*p].bh / h); cCoordinates[n++] = pPoint( x2+w , -y2-h , chars[*p].tx + chars[*p].bw / w , chars[*p].bh / h); } glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER,iVerts); glBindBuffer(GL_TEXTURE_2D,iTexture); //Vertices glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); glVertexPointer(2,GL_FLOAT,sizeof(pPoint),&cCoordinates[0].x); //TexCoord 0 glClientActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE0); glEnableClientState(GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); glTexCoordPointer(2,GL_FLOAT,sizeof(pPoint),&cCoordinates[0].s); glCullFace(GL_NONE); glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER,6*sString.length(),cCoordinates,GL_DYNAMIC_DRAW); glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES,0,n); glCullFace(GL_BACK); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER,0); glBindBuffer(GL_TEXTURE_2D,0); glDisableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); glDisableClientState(GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); } ~Font() { glDeleteBuffers(1,&iVerts); glDeleteBuffers(1,&iTexture); } private: unsigned int iSize; //openGL texture atlas unsigned int iTexture; //openGL geometry buffer; unsigned int iVerts; FT_Library ftLibrary; FT_Face ftFace; struct Character { float ax,ay;//Advance float bw,bh;//bitmap size float bl,bt;//bitmap left and top float tx; } chars[128]; };

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• How to Never Use iTunes With Your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch

  - by Chris Hoffman

  iTunes isn’t an amazing program on Windows. There was a time when Apple device users had to plug their devices into their PCs or Macs and use iTunes for device activation, updates, and syncing, but iTunes is no longer necessary. Apple still allows you to use iTunes for these things, but you don’t have to. Your iOS device can function independently from iTunes, so you should never be forced to plug it into a PC or Mac. Device Activation When the iPad first came out, it was touted as a device that could replace full PCs and Macs for people who only needed to perform light computing tasks. Yet, to set up a new iPad, users had to plug it into a PC or Mac running iTunes and use iTunes to activate the device. This is no longer necessary. With new iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches, you can simply go through the setup process after turning on your new device without ever having to plug it into iTunes. Just connect to a Wi-Fi or cellular data network and log in with your Apple ID when prompted. You’ll still see an option that allows you to activate the device via iTunes, but this should only be necessary if you don’t have a wireless Internet connection available for your device. Operating System Updates You no longer have to use Apple’s iTunes software to update to a new version of Apple’s iOS operating system, either. Just open the Settings app on your device, select the General category, and tap Software Update. You’ll be able to update right from your device without ever opening iTunes. Purchased iTunes Media Apple allows you to easily access content you’ve purchased from the iTunes Store on any device. You don’t have to connect your device to your computer and sync via iTunes. For example, you can purchase a movie from the iTunes Store. Then, without any syncing, you can open the iTunes Store app on any of your iOS devices, tap the Purchased section, and see stuff you’ve downloaded. You can download the content right from the store to your device. This also works for apps — apps you purchase from the App Store can be accessed in the Purchased section on the App Store on your device later. You don’t have to sync apps from iTunes to your device, although iTunes still allows you to. You can even set up automatic downloads from the iTunes & App Store settings screen. This would allow you to purchase content on one device and have it automatically download to your other devices without any hassle. Music Apple allows you to re-download purchased music from the iTunes Store in the same way. However, there’s a good chance you have your own music you didn’t purchase from iTunes. Maybe you spent time ripping it all from your old CDs and you’ve been syncing it to your devices via iTunes ever since. Apple’s solution for this is named iTunes Match. This feature isn’t free, but it’s not a bad deal at all. For $25 per year, Apple allows you to upload all your music to your iCloud account. You can then access all your music from any iPhone, IPad, or iPod Touch. You can stream all your music — perfect if you have a huge library and little storage on your device — and choose which songs you want to download to your device for offline use. When you add additional music to your computer, iTunes will notice it and upload it using iTunes Match, making it available for streaming and downloading directly from your iOS devices without any syncing. This feature is named iTunes Match because it doesn’t just upload music — if Apple already has a song you upload, it will “match” your song with Apple’s copy. This means you may get higher-quality versions of your songs if you ripped them from CD at a lower bitrate. Podcasts You don’t have to use iTunes to subscribe to podcasts and sync them to your devices. Even if you have a lowly iPod Touch, you can install APple’s Podcasts app from the app store. Use it to subscribe to podcasts and configure them to automatically download directly to your device. You can use other podcast apps for this, too. Backups You can continue backing up your device’s data through iTunes, generating local backups that are stored on your computer. However, new iOS devices are configured to automatically back up their data to iCloud. This happens automatically in the background without you even having to think about it, and you can restore such backups when setting up a device simply by logging in with your Apple ID. Personal Data In the days of PalmPilots, people would use desktop programs like iTunes to sync their email, contacts, and calendar events with their mobile devices. You probably shouldn’t have to sync this data form your computer. Just sign into your email account — for example, a Gmail account — on your device and iOS will automatically pull your email, contacts, and calendar events from your associated account. Photos Rather than connecting your iOS device to your computer and syncing photos from it, you can use an app that automatically uploads your photos to a web service. Dropbox, Google+, and even Flickr all have this feature in their apps. You’ll be able to access your photos from any computer and have a backup copy without any syncing required. You may still need to use iTunes if you want to sync local music without paying for iTunes Match or copy local video files to your device. Copying large local files over is the only real scenario where you’d need iTunes. If you don’t need to copy such files over, you can go ahead and uninstall iTunes from your Windows PC if you like. You shouldn’t need it.     

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• Oracle OpenWorld 2013 – Wrap up by Sven Bernhardt

  - by JuergenKress

  OOW 2013 is over and we’re heading home, so it is time to lean back and reflecting about the impressions we have from the conference. First of all: OOW was great! It was a pleasure to be a part of it. As already mentioned in our last blog article: It was the biggest OOW ever. Parallel to the conference the America’s Cup took place in San Francisco and the Oracle Team America won. Amazing job by the team and again congratulations from our side Back to the conference. The main topics for us are: Oracle SOA / BPM Suite 12c Adaptive Case management (ACM) Big Data Fast Data Cloud Mobile Below we will go a little more into detail, what are the key takeaways regarding the mentioned points: Oracle SOA / BPM Suite 12c During the five days at OOW, first details of the upcoming major release of Oracle SOA Suite 12c and Oracle BPM Suite 12c have been introduced. Some new key features are: Managed File Transfer (MFT) for transferring big files from a source to a target location Enhanced REST support by introducing a new REST binding Introduction of a generic cloud adapter, which can be used to connect to different cloud providers, like Salesforce Enhanced analytics with BAM, which has been totally reengineered (BAM Console now also runs in Firefox!) Introduction of templates (OSB pipelines, component templates, BPEL activities templates) EM as a single monitoring console OSB design-time integration into JDeveloper (Really great!) Enterprise modeling capabilities in BPM Composer These are only a few points from what is coming with 12c. We are really looking forward for the new realese to come out, because this seems to be really great stuff. The suite becomes more and more integrated. From 10g to 11g it was an evolution in terms of developing SOA-based applications. With 12c, Oracle continues it’s way – very impressive. Adaptive Case Management Another fantastic topic was Adaptive Case Management (ACM). The Oracle PMs did a great job especially at the demo grounds in showing the upcoming Case Management UI (will be available in 11g with the next BPM Suite MLR Patch), the roadmap and the differences between traditional business process modeling. They have been very busy during the conference because a lot of partners and customers have been interested Big Data Big Data is one of the current hype themes. Because of huge data amounts from different internal or external sources, the handling of these data becomes more and more challenging. Companies have a need for analyzing the data to optimize their business. The challenge is here: the amount of data is growing daily! To store and analyze the data efficiently, it is necessary to have a scalable and flexible infrastructure. Here it is important that hardware and software are engineered to work together. Therefore several new features of the Oracle Database 12c, like the new in-memory option, have been presented by Larry Ellison himself. From a hardware side new server machines like Fujitsu M10 or new processors, such as Oracle’s new M6-32 have been announced. The performance improvements, when using one of these hardware components in connection with the improved software solutions were really impressive. For more details about this, please take look at our previous blog post. Regarding Big Data, Oracle also introduced their Big Data architecture, which consists of: Oracle Big Data Appliance that is preconfigured with Hadoop Oracle Exdata which stores a huge amount of data efficently, to achieve optimal query performance Oracle Exalytics as a fast and scalable Business analytics system Analysis of the stored data can be performed using SQL, by streaming the data directly from Hadoop to an Oracle Database 12c. Alternatively the analysis can be directly implemented in Hadoop using “R”. In addition Oracle BI Tools can be used to analyze the data. Fast Data Fast Data is a complementary approach to Big Data. A huge amount of mostly unstructured data comes in via different channels with a high frequency. The analysis of these data streams is also important for companies, because the incoming data has to be analyzed regarding business-relevant patterns in real-time. Therefore these patterns must be identified efficiently and performant. To do so, in-memory grid solutions in combination with Oracle Coherence and Oracle Event Processing demonstrated very impressive how efficient real-time data processing can be. One example for Fast Data solutions that was shown during the OOW was the analysis of twitter streams regarding customer satisfaction. The feeds with negative words like “bad” or “worse” have been filtered and after a defined treshold has been reached in a certain timeframe, a business event was triggered. Cloud Another key trend in the IT market is of course Cloud Computing and what it means for companies and their businesses. Oracle announced their Cloud strategy and vision – companies can focus on their real business while all of the applications are available via Cloud. This also includes Oracle Database or Oracle Weblogic, so that companies can also build, deploy and run their own applications within the cloud. Three different approaches have been introduced: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Platform as a Service (PaaS) Software as a Service (SaaS) Using the IaaS approach only the infrastructure components will be managed in the Cloud. Customers will be very flexible regarding memory, storage or number of CPUs because those parameters can be adjusted elastically. The PaaS approach means that besides the infrastructure also the platforms (such as databases or application servers) necessary for running applications will be provided within the Cloud. Here customers can also decide, if installation and management of these infrastructure components should be done by Oracle. The SaaS approach describes the most complete one, hence all applications a company uses are managed in the Cloud. Oracle is planning to provide all of their applications, like ERP systems or HR applications, as Cloud services. In conclusion this seems to be a very forward-thinking strategy, which opens up new possibilities for customers to manage their infrastructure and applications in a flexible, scalable and future-oriented manner. As you can see, our OOW days have been very very interresting. We collected many helpful informations for our projects. The new innovations presented at the confernce are great and being part of this was even greater! We are looking forward to next years’ conference! Links: http://www.oracle.com/openworld/index.html http://thecattlecrew.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/first-impressions-from-oracle-open-world-2013 SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Mix Forum Technorati Tags: cattleCrew,Sven Bernhard,OOW2013,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Experiences with learning Chinese

  - by Greg Low

  I've had a few friends asking me about learning Chinese and what I've found works and doesn't work. I was answering a question on a mailing list today and I thought I should post this info where it might be useful to many. The question that was initially asked was whether Rosetta Stone was useful but I've provided much more info on learning the language here. I’ve used Rosetta Stone with Chinese but it’s really hard to know whether to recommend it or not. Rosetta Stone works the same way in all languages. They show you photos and then let you both see and hear the target language and get you to work out what they’re talking about. The thinking is that that’s how children learn. However, at first, I found it very frustrating. I’d be staring at photos trying to work out what they were really trying to get at. Sometimes it’s far from obvious. I could not have survived without Google Translate open at the same time. The other weird thing is that the photos are from a mixture of countries. While that’s good in a way, it also means that they are endlessly showing pictures of something that would never happen in the target language and culture. For any language, constant interaction with a speaker of the target language is needed. Rosetta Stone has a “Studio” option. That’s the best part of the program. In my case, it lets me connect around twice a week to a live online class from Beijing. Classes usually have the teacher plus two to four students. You get some Studio access with the initial packages but need to purchase it for ongoing use. I find it very inexpensive. It seems to work out to about $70 (AUD/USD) for six months. That’s a real bargain. The other downside to Rosetta Stone is that they tend to teach very formal language, but as with other languages, that’s not how the locals speak. It might have been correct at one point but no-one actually says that. As an example, Rosetta Stone teach Gonggòng qìche (pronounced roughly like “gong gong chee chure” for bus. Most of my friends from areas like Taiwan would just say Gongche. Google Translate says Zongxiàn (pronounced somewhat like “dzong sheean”) instead. Mind you, the Rosetta Stone option isn't really as bad as "omnibus"; it's more like saying "public bus". If you say the option they provide, people would understand you. I also listen to ChinesePod in the car. They also have SpanishPod. Each podcast is about five minutes of spoken conversation. It is very good for providing current language. Another resource I use is local Meetup groups. Most cities have these and for a variety of languages. It’s way less structured (just standard conversation) but good for getting interaction. The obvious challenge for Asian languages is reading/writing. The input editors for Chinese that are part of Windows are excellent. Many of my Chinese friends speak fluently but cannot read or write. I was determined to learn to do both. For writing, I’m talking about on a computer, not with a pen. (Mind you, I can barely write English with a pen nowadays). When using Rosetta Stone, you can choose to have the Chinese words displayed in pinyin (Wo xihuan xuéxí zhongguó) or in Chinese characters (???????) or both. This year, I’ve been forcing myself to just use the Chinese characters. I use a pinyin input editor in Windows though, as it’s very fast.  (The character recognition input in the iPad is also amazing). Notice from the example that I provided above that the pronunciation of the pinyin isn’t that obvious to us at first either.  Since changing to only using characters, I find I can now read many more Chinese characters fluently. It’s a major challenge though. I can read about 300 now and yet you need around 2,500 to be able to read a newspaper fairly well. Tones are a major issue for some Asian languages. Mandarin has four tones (plus a neutral tone) and there is a major difference in meaning between two words that are spelled the same in pinyin but with different tones. For example, Ma (3rd tone?) is a horse, Ma (1st tone?) is like “mom”, and ma (neutral tone?) is a question mark and so on. Clearly you don’t want to mix these up. As in English, they also have words that do sound the same but mean different things in different contexts. What’s interesting is that even though we see two words that differ only by tone as very similar, to a native speaker, if you say the right words with the wrong tone, you might as well have said a completely different word. My wife’s dialect of Chinese has eight tones. It’s much worse. The reason I’m so keen to learn to read/write Chinese is that even though the different dialects are pronounced so differently that speakers of one dialect often cannot understand another dialect, the writing is generally the same. The only difference is that many years ago, the Chinese government created a simplified set of characters for some of the most commonly used ones. Older Chinese and most Cantonese speakers often struggle with the simplified characters. This is the simplified form of “three apples”: ????   This is the traditional form of the same words: ????  Note that two of the characters are the same but the middle two are quite different. For most languages, the best thing is to watch current movies in the target language but to watch them with the target language as subtitles, not your native language. You want to know what they actually said, not what it roughly means (which is what the English subtitle would give you). The difficulty with Asian languages like Chinese is that you have the added challenge of understanding the subtitles when they are written in the target language. I wish there were Mandarin Chinese movies with pinyin subtitles. For learning to read characters, I also recommend HanCard on the iPad. It is targeted at the HSK language proficiency levels. (I’m intending to take the first HSK exam as soon as I’m ready). Hope that info helps someone get started.  

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• Feedback on meeting of the Linux User Group of Mauritius

  Once upon a time in a country far far away... Okay, actually it's not that bad but it has been a while since the last meeting of the Linux User Group of Mauritius (LUGM). There have been plans in the past but it never really happened. Finally, Selven took the opportunity and organised a new meetup with low administrative overhead, proper scheduling on alternative dates and a small attendee's survey on the preferred option. All the pre-work was nicely executed. First, I wasn't sure whether it would be possible to attend. Luckily I got some additional information, like children should come, too, and I was sold to this community gathering. According to other long-term members of the LUGM it was the first time 'ever' that a gathering was organised outside of Quatre Bornes, and I have to admit it was great! LUGM - user group meeting on the 15.06.2013 in L'Escalier Quick overview of Linux & the LUGM With a little bit of delay the LUGM meeting officially started with a quick overview and introduction to Linux presented by Avinash. During the session he told the audience that there had been quite some activity over the island some years ago but unfortunately it had been quiet during recent times. Of course, we also spoke about the acknowledged world dominance of Linux - thanks to Android - and the interesting possibilities for countries like Mauritius. It is known that a couple of public institutions have there back-end infrastructure running on Red Hat Linux systems but the presence on the desktop is still very low. Users are simply hanging on to Windows XP and older versions of Microsoft Office. Following the introduction of the LUGM Ajay joined into the session and it quickly changed into a panel discussion with lots of interesting questions and answers, sharing of first-hand experience either on the job or in private use of Linux, and a couple of ideas about how the LUGM could promote Linux a bit more in Mauritius. It was great to get an insight into other attendee's opinion and activities. Especially taking into consideration that I'm already using Linux since around 1996/97. Frankly speaking, I bought a SuSE 4.x distribution back in those days because I couldn't achieve certain tasks on Windows NT 4.0 without spending a fortune. OpenELEC Mediacenter Next, Selven gave us decent introduction on OpenELEC: Open Embedded Linux Entertainment Center (OpenELEC) is a small Linux distribution built from scratch as a platform to turn your computer into an XBMC media center. OpenELEC is designed to make your system boot fast, and the install is so easy that anyone can turn a blank PC into a media machine in less than 15 minutes. I didn't know about it until this presentation. In the past, I was mainly attached to Video Disk Recorder (VDR) as it allows the use of satellite receiver cards very easily. Hm, somehow I'm still missing my precious HTPC that I had to leave back in Germany years ago. It was great piece of hardware and software; self-built PC in a standard HiFi-sized (43cm) black desktop casing with 2 full-featured Hauppauge DVB-s cards, an old-fashioned Voodoo graphics card, WiFi card, Pioneer slot-in DVD drive, and fully remote controlled via infra-red thanks to Debian, VDR and LIRC. With EP Guide, scheduled recordings and general multimedia centre it offered all the necessary comfort in the living room, besides a Nintendo game console; actually a GameCube at that time... But I have to admit that putting OpenELEC on a Raspberry Pi would be a cool DIY project in the near future. LUGM - our next generation of linux users (15.06.2013) Project Evil Genius (PEG) Don't be scared of the paragraph header. Ish gave us a cool explanation why he named it PEG - Project Evil Genius; it's because of the time of the day when he was scripting down his ideas to be able to build, package and provide software applications to various Linux distributions. The main influence came from openSuSE but the platform didn't cater for his needs and ideas, so he started to work out something on his own. During his passionate session he also talked about the amazing experience he had due to other Linux users from all over the world. During the next couple of days Ish promised to put his script to GitHub... Looking forward to that. Check out Ish's personal blog over at hacklog.in. Highly recommended to read. Why India? Simply because the registration fees per year for an Indian domain are approximately 20 times less than for a Mauritian domain (.mu). Exploring the beach of L'Escalier af the meeting 'After-party' at the beach of L'Escalier Puh, after such interesting sessions, ideas around Linux and good conversation during the breaks and over lunch it was time for a little break-out. Selven suggested that we all should head down to the beach of L'Escalier and get some impressions of nature down here in the south of the island. Talking about 'beach' ;-) - absolutely not comparable to the white-sanded ones here in Flic en Flac... There are no lagoons down at the south coast of Mauriitus, and watching the breaking waves is a different experience and joy after all. Unfortunately, I was a little bit worried about the thoughtless littering at such a remote location. You have to drive on natural paths through the sugar cane fields and I was really shocked by the amount of rubbish lying around almost everywhere. Sad, really sad and it concurs with Yasir's recent article on the same topic. Resumé & outlook It was a great event. I met with new people, had some good conversations, and even my children enjoyed themselves the whole day. The location was well-chosen, enough space for each and everyone, parking spaces and even a playground for the children. Also, a big "Thank You" to Selven and his helpers for the organisation and preparation of lunch. I'm kind of sure that this was an exceptional meeting of LUGM and I'm really looking forward to the next gathering of Linux geeks. Hopefully, soon. All images are courtesy of Avinash Meetoo. More pictures are available on Flickr.

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• How to delete files and folders that cannot be deleted?

  - by glenneroo

  I have a backup copy of a previous Windows' Documents and Settings folder which only contains my original user and within 2 more directories: Favorites and Local Settings. When I try to delete Local Settings I get this error: When I try to delete Favorites, I get this error: I ran this in a cmd shell: attrib *.* -r -a -s -h /s ...but it did not help, nor did it return any errors/warnings. I used Unlocker v1.8.5 and LockHunter repeatedly at multiple levels to see if any files are in use, but both always say: No Files Locked. Update #1: I was able to rename the directory, which now gives me this warning before (trying to) delete: If I press Yes (or Yes to All) then I get this error: Update #2: I let chkdsk /f run which required a reboot since it's on my primary system partition. During Stage 2 scanning, I received about 40 of these: Deleting an index entry from index $0 of file 25. ...followed by: Deleting index entry cookies in index $I30 of file 37576. ...but I still get the first error dialog above when trying to delete. I ran chkdsk again, this time: chkdsk /f /r. Produced no messages. Same result when deleting. Update #3: Digging deeper, the 99 is the name of one of many directories located deep in here: C:\Documents and Settings.OLD\User\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Messenger\[email protected]\SharingMetadata\[email protected]\DFSR\Staging\CS{D4E4AE55-B5E2-F03B-5189-6C4DA6E41788}\ Inside each of those directories were files with names such as: 2300-{C93D01AC-0739-4FD9-88C7-13D2F21A208E}-v2300-{C93D01AC-0739-4FD9-88C7-13D2F21A208E}-v2300-Downloaded.frx I noticed that, unlike all the directories, I couldn't rename any of these files. I also noticed that the file + dir names were extremely long: Original directory = 194 characters Filenames = 100+ characters Together the length exceeds the 255-char limit which is bad and would explain the error message I posted in Update #1. Partial Solution: Rename all directories until the total path length is less than 100. Afterwards I was able to rename the .frx files, not to mention delete everything inside the Local Settings directory. This is only a partial solution because these (empty) directories are still not deleteable, C:\1\2\Favorites\Wien\What To Do.. C:\1\2\Favorites\Photography\FIRE Same error as above: Here is what Explorer properties shows for both folders: Update #4 (another partial solution): Using harrymc's answer combined with thoroughly reading through this amazing MS-KB article which contains nearly everyone's idea and then some, inconspicuously titled: You cannot delete a file or a folder on an NTFS file system volume. I was able to delete the 2nd folder C:\1\2\Favorites\Photography\FIRE - the problem being that there was an invisible trailing space at the end. I got lucky when I did an auto-complete whilst playing around with the del "\\?\<path>" command which he suggested. NOTE: A normal del did NOT work, nor did deleting from explorer. Now all that is left is the first directory C:\1\2\Favorites\Wien\What To Do.. (yes I tried endlessly with multiple combinations of the above solution ;) Keep 'em coming! =)

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• “It’s only test code…”

  - by Chris George

  “Let me hack this in, it’s only test code”, “Don’t worry about getting it reviewed, it’s only test code”, “It doesn’t have to be elegant or efficient, it’s only test code”… do these phrases sound familiar? Chances are if you’ve working with test automation, at one point or other you will have heard these phrases, you have probably even used them yourself! What is certain is that code written under this “it’s only test code” mantra will come back and bite you in the arse! I’ve recently encountered a case where a test was giving a false positive, therefore hiding a real product bug because that test code was very badly written. Firstly it was very difficult to understand what the test was actually trying to achieve let alone how it was doing it, and this complexity masked a simple logic error. These issues are real and they do happen. Let’s take a step back from this and look at what we are trying to do. We are writing test code that tests product code, and we do this to create a suite of tests that will help protect our software against regressions. This test code is making sure that the product behaves as it should by employing some sort of expected result verification. The simple cases of these are generally not a problem. However, automation allows us to explore more complex scenarios in many more permutations. As this complexity increases then so does the complexity of the test code. It is at this point that code which has not been architected properly will cause problems.   Keep your friends close… So, how do we make sure we are doing it right? The development teams I have worked on have always had Test Engineers working very closely with their Software Engineers. This is something that I have always tried to take full advantage of. They are coding experts! So run your ideas past them, ask for advice on how to structure your code, help you design your data structures. This may require a shift in your teams viewpoint, as contrary to this section title and folklore, Software Engineers are not actually the mortal enemy of Test Engineers. As time progresses, and test automation becomes more and more ingrained in what we do, the two roles are converging more than ever. Over the 16 years I have spent as a Test Engineer, I have seen the grey area between the two roles grow significantly larger. This serves to strengthen the relationship and common bond between the two roles which helps to make test code activities so much easier!   Pair for the win Possibly the best thing you could do to write good test code is to pair program on the task. This will serve a few purposes. you will get the benefit of the Software Engineers knowledge and experience the Software Engineer will gain knowledge on the testing process. Sharing the love is a wonderful thing! two pairs of eyes are always better than one… And so are two brains. Between the two of you, I will guarantee you will derive more useful test cases than if it was just one of you.   Code reviews Another policy which certainly pays dividends is the practice of code reviews. By having one of your peers review your code before you commit it serves two purposes. Firstly, it forces you to explain your code. Just the act of doing this will often pick up errors in your code. Secondly, it gets yet another pair of eyes on your code! I cannot stress enough how important code reviews are. The benefits they offer apply as much to product code as test code. In short, Software and Test Engineers should all be doing them! It can be extended even further by getting test code reviewed by a Software Engineer and a Test Engineer, and likewise product code. This serves to keep both functions in the loop with changes going on within your code base.   Learn from your devs I briefly touched on this earlier but I’d like to go into more detail here. Pairing with your Software Engineers when writing your test code is such an amazing opportunity to improve your coding skills. As I sit here writing this article waiting to be called into court for jury service, it reminds me that it takes a lot of patience to be a Test Engineer, almost as much as it takes to be a juror! However tempting it is to go rushing in and start writing your automated tests, resist that urge. Discuss what you want to achieve then talk through the approach you’re going to take. Then code it up together. I find it really enlightening to ask questions like ‘is there a better way to do this?’ Or ‘is this how you would code it?’ The latter question, especially, is where I learn the most. I’ve found that most Software Engineers will be reluctant to show you the ‘right way’ to code something when writing tests because they perceive the ‘right way’ to be too complicated for the Test Engineer (e.g. not mentioning LINQ and instead doing something verbose). So by asking how THEY would code it, it unleashes their true dev-ness and advanced code usually ensues! I would like to point out, however, that you don’t have to accept their method as the final answer. On numerous occasions I have opted for the more simple/verbose solution because I found the code written by the Software Engineer too advanced and therefore I would find it unreadable when I return to the code in a months’ time! Always keep the target audience in mind when writing clever code, and in my case that is mostly Test Engineers.  

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• Let your Signature Experience drive IT-decision making

  - by Tania Le Voi

  Today’s CIO job description:  ‘’Align IT infrastructure and solutions with business goals and objectives ; AND while doing so reduce costs; BUT ALSO, be innovative, ensure the architectures are adaptable and agile as we need to act today on the changes that we may request tomorrow.”   Sound like an unachievable request? The fact is, reality dictates that CIO’s are put under this type of pressure to deliver more with less. In a past career phase I spent a few years as an IT Relationship Manager for a large Insurance company. This is a role that we see all too infrequently in many of our customers, and it’s a shame.  The purpose of this role was to build a bridge, a relationship between IT and the business. Key to achieving that goal was to ensure the same language was being spoken and more importantly that objectives were commonly understood - hence service and projects were delivered to time, to budget and actually solved the business problems. In reality IT and the business are already married, but the relationship is most often defined as ‘supplier’ of IT rather than a ‘trusted partner’. To deliver business value they need to understand how to work together effectively to attain this next level of partnership. The Business cannot compete if they do not get a new product to market ahead of the competition, or for example act in a timely manner to address a new industry problem such as a legislative change. An even better example is when the Application or Service fails and the Business takes a hit by bad publicity, being trending topics on social media and losing direct revenue from online channels. For this reason alone Business and IT need the alignment of their priorities and deliverables now more than ever! Take a look at Forrester’s recent study that found ‘many IT respondents considering themselves to be trusted partners of the business but their efforts are impaired by the inadequacy of tools and organizations’.  IT Meet the Business; Business Meet IT So what is going on? We talk about aligning the business with IT but the reality is it’s difficult to do. Like any relationship each side has different goals and needs and language can be a barrier; business vs. technology jargon! What if we could translate the needs of both sides into actionable information, backed by data both sides understand, presented in a meaningful way?  Well now we can with the Business-Driven Application Management capabilities in Oracle Enterprise Manager 12cR2! Enterprise Manager’s Business-Driven Application Management capabilities provide the information that IT needs to understand the impact of its decisions on business criteria.  No longer does IT need to be focused solely on speeds and feeds, performance and throughput – now IT can understand IT’s impact on business KPIs like inventory turns, order-to-cash cycle, pipeline-to-forecast, and similar.  Similarly, now the line of business can understand which IT services are most critical for the KPIs they care about. There are a good deal of resources on Oracle Technology Network that describe the functionality of these products, so I won’t’ rehash them here.  What I want to talk about is what you do with these products. What’s next after we meet? Where do you start? Step 1:  Identify the Signature Experience. This is THE business process (or set of processes) that is core to the business, the one that drives the economic engine, the process that a customer recognises the company brand for, reputation, the customer experience, the process that a CEO would state as his number one priority. The crème de la crème of your business! Once you have nailed this it gets easy as Enterprise Manager 12c makes it easy. Step 2:  Map the Signature Experience to underlying IT.  Taking the signature experience, map out the touch points of the components that play a part in ensuring this business transaction is successful end to end, think of it like mapping out a critical path; the applications, middleware, databases and hardware. Use the wealth of Enterprise Manager features such as Systems, Services, Business Application Targets and Business Transaction Management (BTM) to assist you. Adding Real User Experience Insight (RUEI) into the mix will make the end to end customer satisfaction story transparent. Work with the business and define meaningful key performance indicators (KPI’s) and thresholds to enable you to report and action upon. Step 3:  Observe the data over time.  You now have meaningful insight into every step enabling your signature experience and you understand the implication of that experience on your underlying IT.  Watch if for a few months, see what happens and reconvene with your business stakeholders and set clear and measurable targets which can re-define service levels.  Step 4:  Change the information about which you and the business communicate.  It’s amazing what happens when you and the business speak the same language.  You’ll be able to make more informed business and IT decisions. From here IT can identify where/how budget is spent whether on the level of support, performance, capacity, HA, DR, certification etc. IT SLA’s no longer need be focused on metrics such as %availability but structured around business process requirements. The power of this way of thinking doesn’t end here. IT staff get to see and understand how their own role contributes to the business making them accountable for the business service. Take a step further and appraise your staff on the business competencies that are linked to the service availability. For the business, the language barrier is removed by producing targeted reports on the signature experience core to the business and therefore key to the CEO. Chargeback or show back becomes easier to justify as the ‘cost of day per outage’ can be more easily calculated; the business will be able to translate the cost to the business to the cost/value of the underlying IT that supports it. Used this way, Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c is a key enabler to a harmonious relationship between the end customer the business and IT to deliver ultimate service and satisfaction. Just engage with the business upfront, make the signature experience visible and let Enterprise Manager 12c do the rest. In the next blog entry we will cover some of the Enterprise Manager features mentioned to enable you to implement this new way of working.  

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• Right-Time Retail Part 1

  - by David Dorf

  This is the first in a three-part series. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; 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;} Right-Time Revolution Technology enables some amazing feats in retail. I can order flowers for my wife while flying 30,000 feet in the air. I can order my groceries in the subway and have them delivered later that day. I can even see how clothes look on me without setting foot in a store. Who knew that a TV, diamond necklace, or even a car would someday be as easy to purchase as a candy bar? Can technology make a mattress an impulse item? Wake-up and your back is hurting, so you rollover and grab your iPad, then a new mattress is delivered the next day. Behind the scenes the many processes are being choreographed to make the sale happen. This includes moving data between systems with the least amount for friction, which in some cases is near real-time. But real-time isn’t appropriate for all the integrations. Think about what a completely real-time retailer would look like. A consumer grabs toothpaste off the shelf, and all systems are immediately notified so that the backroom clerk comes running out and pushes the consumer aside so he can replace the toothpaste on the shelf. Such a system is not only cost prohibitive, but it’s also very inefficient and ineffectual. Retailers must balance the realities of people, processes, and systems to find the right speed of execution. That’ what “right-time retail” means. Retailers used to sell during the day and count the money and restock at night, but global expansion and the Web have complicated that simplistic viewpoint. Our 24hr society demands not only access but also speed, which constantly pushes the boundaries of our IT systems. In the last twenty years, there have been three major technology advancements that have moved us closer to real-time systems. Networking is the first technology that drove the real-time trend. As systems became connected, it became easier to move data between them. In retail we no longer had to mail the daily business report back to corporate each day as the dial-up modem could transfer the data. That was soon replaced with trickle-polling, when sale transactions were occasionally sent from stores to corporate throughout the day, often through VSAT. Then we got terrestrial networks like DSL and Ethernet that allowed the constant stream of data between stores and corporate. When corporate could see the sales transactions coming from stores, it could better plan for replenishment and promotions. That drove the need for speed into the supply chain and merchandising, but for many years those systems were stymied by the huge volumes of data. Nordstrom has 150 million SKU/Store combinations when planning (RPAS); The Gap generates 110 million price changes during end-of-season (RPM); Argos does 1.78 billion calculations executed each day for replenishment planning (AIP). These areas are now being alleviated by the second technology, storage. The typical laptop disk drive runs at 5,400rpm with PCs stepping up to 7,200rpm and servers hitting 15,000rpm. But the platters can only spin so fast, so to squeeze more performance we’ve had to rely on things like disk striping. Then solid state drives (SSDs) were introduced and prices continue to drop. (Augmenting your harddrive with a SSD is the single best PC upgrade these days.) RAM continues to be expensive, but compressing data in memory has allowed more efficient use. So a few years back, Oracle decided to build a box that incorporated all these advancements to move us closer to real-time. This family of products, often categorized as engineered systems, combines the hardware and software so that they work together to provide better performance. How much better? If Exadata powered a 747, you’d go from New York to Paris in 42 minutes, and it would carry 5,000 passengers. If Exadata powered baseball, games would last only 18 minutes and Boston’s Fenway would hold 370,000 fans. The Exa-family enables processing more data in less time. So with faster networks and storage, that brings us to the third and final ingredient. If we continue to process data in traditional ways, we won’t be able to take advantage of the faster networks and storage. Enter what Harvard calls “The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century” – the data scientist. New technologies like the Hadoop-powered Oracle Big Data Appliance, Oracle Advanced Analytics, and Oracle Endeca Information Discovery change the way in which we organize data. These technologies allow us to extract actionable information from raw data at incredible speeds, often ad-hoc. So the foundation to support the real-time enterprise exists, but how does a retailer begin to take advantage? The most visible way is through real-time marketing, but I’ll save that for part 3 and instead begin with improved integrations for the assets you already have in part 2.

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• Nokia Windows Phone 8 App Collection

  - by Tim Murphy

  I recently upgraded to a Nokia Lumia 920.  Along with it came the availability of a number of Nokia developed apps or apps that Nokia has made available from other developers.  Below is a summary of some of the ones that I have used to this point.  There are quite a few of them so I won’t be covering everything that is available. Nokia Maps I am quite pleased with the accuracy of Nokia Maps and not having to tap the screen for each turn any more.  The information on the screen is quite good as well.  The couple of improvements I would like to see are for the voice directions to include which street or exit you need to use and improve the search accuracy.  Bing maps had much better search results in my opinion. Nokia Drive This one really had me confused when I first setup the phone.  I was driving down the road and suddenly I am getting notification tones, but there were no visual notifications on the phone.  It seems that in their infinite wisdom Nokia thinks I don’t know when I am going over the speed limit and need to be told. ESPN I really liked my ESPN app on Windows Phone 7.5, but I am not getting the type of experience I was looking for out of this app.  While it allows me to pick my favorite teams, but there isn’t a pivot page or panorama page that shows a summary of my favorite teams.  I have also found that the live tile don’t update very often.  Over all I am rather disappointed compared app produced by ESPN. Smart Shoot I really need to get the kids to let me use this on.  I like the concept, but I need to spend more time with it.  The idea how running the camera through a continuous shooting mode and then picking the best is something that I have done with my DSLR and am glad to see it available here. Cinemagraph Here is a fun filter.  It doesn’t have the most accurate editing features, but it is fun to stop certain parts of a scene and let other parts move.  As a test I stopped the traffic on the highway and let the traffic on the frontage road flow.  It makes for a fun effect.  If nothing else it could be great for sending prank animations to your friends. YouSendIt I have only briefly touched this application.  What I don’t understand is why it is needed.  Most of the functionality seems to be similar to SkyDrive and it gives you less storage.  They only feature that seems to differentiate the app is the signature capability. Creative Studio This app has some nice quick edits, but it is not very comprehensive.  I am also not to thrilled with the user experience.  It puts you though an initial color cast series that I’m not sure why it is there.  Discovery of the remaining adjustments isn’t that great.  In the end I found myself wanting Thumbia back. Panorama This is one of the apps that I like.  I found it easy to use as it guides you with a target circle that you center for it to take the next pictures.  It also stitches the images with amazing speed.  The one thing I wish it had was the capability to turn the phone into portrait orientation and do a taller panorama.  Perhaps we will see this in the future. Nokia Music After getting over the missing album art I found that there were a number of missing features with this app as well.  I have a Zune HD and I am used to being able to go through my collection and adding songs, albums or artists to my now playing.  There also doesn’t seem to be a way to manage playlists that I have seen yet.  Other than that the UI is familiar and it give Nokia City Lens Augmented reality is a cool concept, but I still haven’t seen it implemented in a compelling fashion beyond a demo at TED a couple of years ago.  The app still leaves me wanting as well.  It does give an interesting toy.  It gives you the ability to look for general categories and see general direction and clusters of locations.  I think as this concept is better thought out it will become more compelling. Nokia Trailers I don’t know how often I will use this app, but I do like being able to see what movies are being promoted.  I can’t wait for The Hobbit to come out and the trailer was just what the doctor ordered.  I can see coming back to this app from time to time. PhotoBeamer PhotoBeamer is a strange beast that needs a better instruction manual.  It seems a lot like magic but very confusing.  I need some more testing, but I don’t think this is something that most people are going to understand quickly and may give up before getting it to work.  I may put an update here after playing with it further. Ringtone Maker The app was just published and it didn’t work very well for me. It couldn’t find 95% of the songs that Nokia Music was playing for me and crashed several times.  It also had songs named wrong that when I checked them in Nokia Music they were fine.  This app looks like it has a long way to go. Summary In all I think that Nokia is offering a well rounded set of initial applications that can get any new owner started.  There is definitely room for improvement in all of these apps.  The main need is usability upgrades.  I would guess that with feedback from users they will come up to acceptable levels.  Try them out and see if you agree. del.icio.us Tags: Windows Phone,Nokia,Lumia,Nokia Apps,ESPN,PhotoBeamer,City Lens,YouSendIt,Drive,Maps

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• Adobe Coldfusion Railo OpenBD Apache Tomcat Multiple Sites

  - by chris hough

  Here's what I am trying to do, unless I am crazy: I am trying to use Tomcat with the multiple workers, so far I got OpenBD working, but having trouble with Railo, and will be tackling Adobe after. each engine deployed as a war separated by different workers I wanted to keep both the sites and engines inside my sites directory I have to remap the symlink for the WEB-INF when I switch engines = have not found a way around this my thought is to have everything separated into modules and I want to be able to execute both cfm and php code in a single site.  Ideally, it would be amazing if there would be a way to not have to remap the symlink as well. thoughts? can this be done? I am trying to mimic how this would be setup on a live server, not using eclipse for example. here is what I am working with so far: my apache workers.properties worker.list=openbd, openbdadmin, railo, railoadmin  worker.openbd.type=ajp13  worker.openbd.host=local.mydev.openbd  worker.openbd.port=8009 worker.openbdadmin.type=ajp13  worker.openbdadmin.host=local.admin.openbd worker.openbdadmin.port=8009   worker.railo.type=ajp13  worker.railo.host=local.mydev.railo  worker.railo.port=8009 worker.railoadmin.type=ajp13  worker.railoadmin.host=local.admin.railo worker.railoadmin.port=8009   my tomcat servers.xml < Host name="local.admin.openbd" appBase="/Users/[myusername]/Websites/coldfusion.engines"  unpackWARs="false" autoDeploy="true" xmlValidation="true" xmlNamespaceAware="false"        < Context path="" docBase="openbd/" reloadable="true" privileged="true" antiResourceLocking="false" anitJARLocking="false" allowLinking="true" < /Host        < Host name="local.admin.railo"   appBase="/Users/[my username]/Websites/coldfusion.engines" unpackWARs="false" autoDeploy="true" xmlValidation="true" xmlNamespaceAware="false"        < Context path="" docBase="railo/"  reloadable="true" privileged="true" antiResourceLocking="false" anitJARLocking="false" allowLinking="true" < /Host < Host name="local.mydev.openbd"   appBase="/Users/[my username]/Websites/coldfusion.engines" unpackWARs="false" autoDeploy="true" xmlValidation="true" xmlNamespaceAware="false" < Context path="" docBase="/Users/[my username]/Websites/example.mydev/wwwroot/"  reloadable="true" privileged="true" antiResourceLocking="false" anitJARLocking="false" allowLinking="true"< /Context < /Host < Host name="local.mydev.railo"   appBase="/Users/[my username]/Websites/coldfusion.engines"  unpackWARs="false" autoDeploy="true" xmlValidation="true" xmlNamespaceAware="false" < Context path="" docBase="/Users/[my username]/Websites/example.mydev/wwwroot/"  reloadable="true" privileged="true" antiResourceLocking="false" anitJARLocking="false" allowLinking="true" < /Host my apache vhosts ServerName local.admin.openbd DocumentRoot /Users/[my username]/Websites/coldfusion.engines/openBD/ #Mount OpenBD and tell it to only server cfml files JkMount /*.cfm openbdadmin ErrorLog "/Users/[my username]/Websites/apache.logs/local_openbdadmin_error.log" ServerName local.admin.railo DocumentRoot /Users/[my username]/Websites/coldfusion.engines/railo/ #Mount Railo and tell it to only server cfml files JkMount /*.cfm railoadmin ErrorLog "/Users/[my username]/Websites/apache.logs/local_railoadmin_error.log" ServerName local.mydev DocumentRoot /Users/[my username]/Websites/example.mydev/wwwroot ErrorLog "/Users/[my username]/Websites/apache.logs/local_example_mydev_error.log" ServerName local.mydev.openbd DocumentRoot /Users/[my username]/Websites/example.mydev/wwwroot #Mount OpenBD and tell it to only server cfml files JkMount /*.cfm openbd ErrorLog "/Users/[my username]/Websites/apache.logs/local_example_mydev_openbd_error.log" ServerName local.mydev.railo DocumentRoot /Users/[my username]/Websites/example.mydev/wwwroot JkMount /*.cfm railo ErrorLog "/Users/[my username]/Websites/apache.logs/local_example_mydev_railo_error.log" my folder structure I am using websites/apache.logs/ websites/coldfusion.engines/ websites/coldfusion.engines/cfusion/ websites/coldfusion.engines/openBD/ websites/coldfusion.engines/railo/ websites/example.mydev/ websites/example.mydev/wwwroot/ websites/example.mydev/wwwroot/index.cfm   websites/example.mydev/wwwroot/index.htm   websites/example.mydev/wwwroot/index.php   error log output [Thu Aug 27 00:54:50.443 2009] [11279:2686719776] [info] init_jk::mod_jk.c (3183): mod_jk/1.2.28 initialized [Thu Aug 27 00:54:51.346 2009] [11280:2686719776] [info] init_jk::mod_jk.c (3183): mod_jk/1.2.28 initialized [Thu Aug 27 00:55:18.963 2009] [11284:2686719776] [info] jk_open_socket::jk_connect.c (594): connect to 127.0.0.1:8009 failed (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:18.963 2009] [11284:2686719776] [info] ajp_connect_to_endpoint::jk_ajp_common.c (922): Failed opening socket to (127.0.0.1:8009) (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:18.963 2009] [11284:2686719776] [error] ajp_send_request::jk_ajp_common.c (1507): (openbdadmin) connecting to backend failed. Tomcat is probably not started or is listening on the wrong port (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:18.963 2009] [11284:2686719776] [info] ajp_service::jk_ajp_common.c (2447): (openbdadmin) sending request to tomcat failed (recoverable), because of error during request sending (attempt=1) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:19.063 2009] [11284:2686719776] [info] jk_open_socket::jk_connect.c (594): connect to 127.0.0.1:8009 failed (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:19.063 2009] [11284:2686719776] [info] ajp_connect_to_endpoint::jk_ajp_common.c (922): Failed opening socket to (127.0.0.1:8009) (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:19.063 2009] [11284:2686719776] [error] ajp_send_request::jk_ajp_common.c (1507): (openbdadmin) connecting to backend failed. Tomcat is probably not started or is listening on the wrong port (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:19.063 2009] [11284:2686719776] [info] ajp_service::jk_ajp_common.c (2447): (openbdadmin) sending request to tomcat failed (recoverable), because of error during request sending (attempt=2) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:19.063 2009] [11284:2686719776] [error] ajp_service::jk_ajp_common.c (2466): (openbdadmin) connecting to tomcat failed. [Thu Aug 27 00:55:19.063 2009] [11284:2686719776] [info] jk_handler::mod_jk.c (2615): Service error=-3 for worker=openbdadmin [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.377 2009] [11283:2686719776] [info] jk_open_socket::jk_connect.c (594): connect to 127.0.0.1:8009 failed (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.377 2009] [11283:2686719776] [info] ajp_connect_to_endpoint::jk_ajp_common.c (922): Failed opening socket to (127.0.0.1:8009) (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.377 2009] [11283:2686719776] [error] ajp_send_request::jk_ajp_common.c (1507): (railoadmin) connecting to backend failed. Tomcat is probably not started or is listening on the wrong port (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.377 2009] [11283:2686719776] [info] ajp_service::jk_ajp_common.c (2447): (railoadmin) sending request to tomcat failed (recoverable), because of error during request sending (attempt=1) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.477 2009] [11283:2686719776] [info] jk_open_socket::jk_connect.c (594): connect to 127.0.0.1:8009 failed (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.477 2009] [11283:2686719776] [info] ajp_connect_to_endpoint::jk_ajp_common.c (922): Failed opening socket to (127.0.0.1:8009) (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.477 2009] [11283:2686719776] [error] ajp_send_request::jk_ajp_common.c (1507): (railoadmin) connecting to backend failed. Tomcat is probably not started or is listening on the wrong port (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.477 2009] [11283:2686719776] [info] ajp_service::jk_ajp_common.c (2447): (railoadmin) sending request to tomcat failed (recoverable), because of error during request sending (attempt=2) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.477 2009] [11283:2686719776] [error] ajp_service::jk_ajp_common.c (2466): (railoadmin) connecting to tomcat failed. [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.477 2009] [11283:2686719776] [info] jk_handler::mod_jk.c (2615): Service error=-3 for worker=railoadmin

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• Adobe Coldfusion Railo OpenBD Apache Tomcat Multiple Sites

  - by chris hough

  Here's what I am trying to do, unless I am crazy: I am trying to use Tomcat with the multiple workers, so far I got OpenBD working, but having trouble with Railo, and will be tackling Adobe after. each engine deployed as a war separated by different workers I wanted to keep both the sites and engines inside my sites directory I have to remap the symlink for the WEB-INF when I switch engines = have not found a way around this my thought is to have everything separated into modules and I want to be able to execute both cfm and php code in a single site.  Ideally, it would be amazing if there would be a way to not have to remap the symlink as well. thoughts? can this be done? I am trying to mimic how this would be setup on a live server, not using eclipse for example. here is what I am working with so far: my apache workers.properties worker.list=openbd, openbdadmin, railo, railoadmin  worker.openbd.type=ajp13  worker.openbd.host=local.mydev.openbd  worker.openbd.port=8009 worker.openbdadmin.type=ajp13  worker.openbdadmin.host=local.admin.openbd worker.openbdadmin.port=8009   worker.railo.type=ajp13  worker.railo.host=local.mydev.railo  worker.railo.port=8009 worker.railoadmin.type=ajp13  worker.railoadmin.host=local.admin.railo worker.railoadmin.port=8009   my tomcat servers.xml < Host name="local.admin.openbd" appBase="/Users/[myusername]/Websites/coldfusion.engines"  unpackWARs="false" autoDeploy="true" xmlValidation="true" xmlNamespaceAware="false"        < Context path="" docBase="openbd/" reloadable="true" privileged="true" antiResourceLocking="false" anitJARLocking="false" allowLinking="true" < /Host        < Host name="local.admin.railo"   appBase="/Users/[my username]/Websites/coldfusion.engines" unpackWARs="false" autoDeploy="true" xmlValidation="true" xmlNamespaceAware="false"        < Context path="" docBase="railo/"  reloadable="true" privileged="true" antiResourceLocking="false" anitJARLocking="false" allowLinking="true" < /Host < Host name="local.mydev.openbd"   appBase="/Users/[my username]/Websites/coldfusion.engines" unpackWARs="false" autoDeploy="true" xmlValidation="true" xmlNamespaceAware="false" < Context path="" docBase="/Users/[my username]/Websites/example.mydev/wwwroot/"  reloadable="true" privileged="true" antiResourceLocking="false" anitJARLocking="false" allowLinking="true"< /Context < /Host < Host name="local.mydev.railo"   appBase="/Users/[my username]/Websites/coldfusion.engines"  unpackWARs="false" autoDeploy="true" xmlValidation="true" xmlNamespaceAware="false" < Context path="" docBase="/Users/[my username]/Websites/example.mydev/wwwroot/"  reloadable="true" privileged="true" antiResourceLocking="false" anitJARLocking="false" allowLinking="true" < /Host my apache vhosts ServerName local.admin.openbd DocumentRoot /Users/[my username]/Websites/coldfusion.engines/openBD/ #Mount OpenBD and tell it to only server cfml files JkMount /*.cfm openbdadmin ErrorLog "/Users/[my username]/Websites/apache.logs/local_openbdadmin_error.log" ServerName local.admin.railo DocumentRoot /Users/[my username]/Websites/coldfusion.engines/railo/ #Mount Railo and tell it to only server cfml files JkMount /*.cfm railoadmin ErrorLog "/Users/[my username]/Websites/apache.logs/local_railoadmin_error.log" ServerName local.mydev DocumentRoot /Users/[my username]/Websites/example.mydev/wwwroot ErrorLog "/Users/[my username]/Websites/apache.logs/local_example_mydev_error.log" ServerName local.mydev.openbd DocumentRoot /Users/[my username]/Websites/example.mydev/wwwroot #Mount OpenBD and tell it to only server cfml files JkMount /*.cfm openbd ErrorLog "/Users/[my username]/Websites/apache.logs/local_example_mydev_openbd_error.log" ServerName local.mydev.railo DocumentRoot /Users/[my username]/Websites/example.mydev/wwwroot JkMount /*.cfm railo ErrorLog "/Users/[my username]/Websites/apache.logs/local_example_mydev_railo_error.log" my folder structure I am using websites/apache.logs/ websites/coldfusion.engines/ websites/coldfusion.engines/cfusion/ websites/coldfusion.engines/openBD/ websites/coldfusion.engines/railo/ websites/example.mydev/ websites/example.mydev/wwwroot/ websites/example.mydev/wwwroot/index.cfm   websites/example.mydev/wwwroot/index.htm   websites/example.mydev/wwwroot/index.php   error log output [Thu Aug 27 00:54:50.443 2009] [11279:2686719776] [info] init_jk::mod_jk.c (3183): mod_jk/1.2.28 initialized [Thu Aug 27 00:54:51.346 2009] [11280:2686719776] [info] init_jk::mod_jk.c (3183): mod_jk/1.2.28 initialized [Thu Aug 27 00:55:18.963 2009] [11284:2686719776] [info] jk_open_socket::jk_connect.c (594): connect to 127.0.0.1:8009 failed (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:18.963 2009] [11284:2686719776] [info] ajp_connect_to_endpoint::jk_ajp_common.c (922): Failed opening socket to (127.0.0.1:8009) (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:18.963 2009] [11284:2686719776] [error] ajp_send_request::jk_ajp_common.c (1507): (openbdadmin) connecting to backend failed. Tomcat is probably not started or is listening on the wrong port (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:18.963 2009] [11284:2686719776] [info] ajp_service::jk_ajp_common.c (2447): (openbdadmin) sending request to tomcat failed (recoverable), because of error during request sending (attempt=1) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:19.063 2009] [11284:2686719776] [info] jk_open_socket::jk_connect.c (594): connect to 127.0.0.1:8009 failed (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:19.063 2009] [11284:2686719776] [info] ajp_connect_to_endpoint::jk_ajp_common.c (922): Failed opening socket to (127.0.0.1:8009) (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:19.063 2009] [11284:2686719776] [error] ajp_send_request::jk_ajp_common.c (1507): (openbdadmin) connecting to backend failed. Tomcat is probably not started or is listening on the wrong port (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:19.063 2009] [11284:2686719776] [info] ajp_service::jk_ajp_common.c (2447): (openbdadmin) sending request to tomcat failed (recoverable), because of error during request sending (attempt=2) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:19.063 2009] [11284:2686719776] [error] ajp_service::jk_ajp_common.c (2466): (openbdadmin) connecting to tomcat failed. [Thu Aug 27 00:55:19.063 2009] [11284:2686719776] [info] jk_handler::mod_jk.c (2615): Service error=-3 for worker=openbdadmin [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.377 2009] [11283:2686719776] [info] jk_open_socket::jk_connect.c (594): connect to 127.0.0.1:8009 failed (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.377 2009] [11283:2686719776] [info] ajp_connect_to_endpoint::jk_ajp_common.c (922): Failed opening socket to (127.0.0.1:8009) (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.377 2009] [11283:2686719776] [error] ajp_send_request::jk_ajp_common.c (1507): (railoadmin) connecting to backend failed. Tomcat is probably not started or is listening on the wrong port (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.377 2009] [11283:2686719776] [info] ajp_service::jk_ajp_common.c (2447): (railoadmin) sending request to tomcat failed (recoverable), because of error during request sending (attempt=1) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.477 2009] [11283:2686719776] [info] jk_open_socket::jk_connect.c (594): connect to 127.0.0.1:8009 failed (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.477 2009] [11283:2686719776] [info] ajp_connect_to_endpoint::jk_ajp_common.c (922): Failed opening socket to (127.0.0.1:8009) (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.477 2009] [11283:2686719776] [error] ajp_send_request::jk_ajp_common.c (1507): (railoadmin) connecting to backend failed. Tomcat is probably not started or is listening on the wrong port (errno=61) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.477 2009] [11283:2686719776] [info] ajp_service::jk_ajp_common.c (2447): (railoadmin) sending request to tomcat failed (recoverable), because of error during request sending (attempt=2) [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.477 2009] [11283:2686719776] [error] ajp_service::jk_ajp_common.c (2466): (railoadmin) connecting to tomcat failed. [Thu Aug 27 00:55:20.477 2009] [11283:2686719776] [info] jk_handler::mod_jk.c (2615): Service error=-3 for worker=railoadmin

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• How do i route TCP connections via TOR? [on hold]

  - by acidzombie24

  I was reading about torchat which is essentially an anonymous chat program. It sounded cool so i wanted to experiment with making my own. First i wrote a test to grab a webpage using Http. Sicne .NET doesnt support SOCKS4A/SOCKS5 i used privoxy and my app worked. Then i switch to a TCP echo test and privoxy doesnt support TCP so i searched and installed 6+ proxy apps (freecap, socat, freeproxy, delegate are the ones i can remember from the top of my head, i also played with putty bc i know it supports tunnels and SOCK5) but i couldnt successfully get any of them to work let alone get it running with my http test that privoxy easily and painlessly did. What may i use to get TCP connections going through TOR? I spent more then 2 hours without success. I don't know if i am looking for a relay, tunnel, forwarder, proxy or a proxychain which all came up in my search. I use the config below for .NET. I need TCP working but i am first testing with http since i know i had it working using privoxy. What apps and configs do i use to get TCP going through tor? <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration> <system.net> <defaultProxy enabled="true"> <proxy bypassonlocal="True" proxyaddress="http://127.0.0.1:8118"/> </defaultProxy> <settings> <httpWebRequest useUnsafeHeaderParsing="true"/> </settings> </system.net> </configuration> -edit- Thanks to Bernd i have a solution. Here is the code i ended up writing. It isn't amazing but its fair. static NetworkStream ConnectSocksProxy(string proxyDomain, short proxyPort, string host, short hostPort, TcpClient tc) { tc.Connect(proxyDomain, proxyPort); if (System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.IsMatch(host, @"[\:/\\]")) throw new Exception("Invalid Host name. Use FQDN such as www.google.com. Do not have http, a port or / in it"); NetworkStream ns = tc.GetStream(); var HostNameBuf = new ASCIIEncoding().GetBytes(host); var HostPortBuf = BitConverter.GetBytes(IPAddress.HostToNetworkOrder(hostPort)); if (true) //5 { var bufout = new byte[128]; var buflen = 0; ns.Write(new byte[] { 5, 1, 0 }, 0, 3); buflen = ns.Read(bufout, 0, bufout.Length); if (buflen != 2 || bufout[0] != 5 || bufout[1] != 0) throw new Exception(); var buf = new byte[] { 5, 1, 0, 3, (byte)HostNameBuf.Length }; var mem = new MemoryStream(); mem.Write(buf, 0, buf.Length); mem.Write(HostNameBuf, 0, HostNameBuf.Length); mem.Write(new byte[] { HostPortBuf[0], HostPortBuf[1] }, 0, 2); var memarr = mem.ToArray(); ns.Write(memarr, 0, memarr.Length); buflen = ns.Read(bufout, 0, bufout.Length); if (bufout[0] != 5 || bufout[1] != 0) throw new Exception(); } else //4a { var bufout = new byte[128]; var buflen = 0; var mem = new MemoryStream(); mem.WriteByte(4); mem.WriteByte(1); mem.Write(HostPortBuf, 0, 2); mem.Write(BitConverter.GetBytes(IPAddress.HostToNetworkOrder(1)), 0, 4); mem.WriteByte(0); mem.Write(HostNameBuf, 0, HostNameBuf.Length); mem.WriteByte(0); var memarr = mem.ToArray(); ns.Write(memarr, 0, memarr.Length); buflen = ns.Read(bufout, 0, bufout.Length); if (buflen != 8 || bufout[0] != 0 || bufout[1] != 90) throw new Exception(); } return ns; } Usage using (TcpClient client = new TcpClient()) using (var ns = ConnectSocksProxy("127.0.0.1", 9050, "website.com", 80, client)) {...}

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• jQuery Templates and Data Linking (and Microsoft contributing to jQuery)

  - by ScottGu

  The jQuery library has a passionate community of developers, and it is now the most widely used JavaScript library on the web today. Two years ago I announced that Microsoft would begin offering product support for jQuery, and that we’d be including it in new versions of Visual Studio going forward. By default, when you create new ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC projects with VS 2010 you’ll find jQuery automatically added to your project. A few weeks ago during my second keynote at the MIX 2010 conference I announced that Microsoft would also begin contributing to the jQuery project.  During the talk, John Resig -- the creator of the jQuery library and leader of the jQuery developer team – talked a little about our participation and discussed an early prototype of a new client templating API for jQuery. In this blog post, I’m going to talk a little about how my team is starting to contribute to the jQuery project, and discuss some of the specific features that we are working on such as client-side templating and data linking (data-binding). Contributing to jQuery jQuery has a fantastic developer community, and a very open way to propose suggestions and make contributions.  Microsoft is following the same process to contribute to jQuery as any other member of the community. As an example, when working with the jQuery community to improve support for templating to jQuery my team followed the following steps: We created a proposal for templating and posted the proposal to the jQuery developer forum (http://forum.jquery.com/topic/jquery-templates-proposal and http://forum.jquery.com/topic/templating-syntax ). After receiving feedback on the forums, the jQuery team created a prototype for templating and posted the prototype at the Github code repository (http://github.com/jquery/jquery-tmpl ). We iterated on the prototype, creating a new fork on Github of the templating prototype, to suggest design improvements. Several other members of the community also provided design feedback by forking the templating code. There has been an amazing amount of participation by the jQuery community in response to the original templating proposal (over 100 posts in the jQuery forum), and the design of the templating proposal has evolved significantly based on community feedback. The jQuery team is the ultimate determiner on what happens with the templating proposal – they might include it in jQuery core, or make it an official plugin, or reject it entirely.  My team is excited to be able to participate in the open source process, and make suggestions and contributions the same way as any other member of the community. jQuery Template Support Client-side templates enable jQuery developers to easily generate and render HTML UI on the client.  Templates support a simple syntax that enables either developers or designers to declaratively specify the HTML they want to generate.  Developers can then programmatically invoke the templates on the client, and pass JavaScript objects to them to make the content rendered completely data driven.  These JavaScript objects can optionally be based on data retrieved from a server. Because the jQuery templating proposal is still evolving in response to community feedback, the final version might look very different than the version below. This blog post gives you a sense of how you can try out and use templating as it exists today (you can download the prototype by the jQuery core team at http://github.com/jquery/jquery-tmpl or the latest submission from my team at http://github.com/nje/jquery-tmpl).  jQuery Client Templates You create client-side jQuery templates by embedding content within a <script type="text/html"> tag.  For example, the HTML below contains a <div> template container, as well as a client-side jQuery “contactTemplate” template (within the <script type="text/html"> element) that can be used to dynamically display a list of contacts: The {{= name }} and {{= phone }} expressions are used within the contact template above to display the names and phone numbers of “contact” objects passed to the template. We can use the template to display either an array of JavaScript objects or a single object. The JavaScript code below demonstrates how you can render a JavaScript array of “contact” object using the above template. The render() method renders the data into a string and appends the string to the “contactContainer” DIV element: When the page is loaded, the list of contacts is rendered by the template.  All of this template rendering is happening on the client-side within the browser:   Templating Commands and Conditional Display Logic The current templating proposal supports a small set of template commands - including if, else, and each statements. The number of template commands was deliberately kept small to encourage people to place more complicated logic outside of their templates. Even this small set of template commands is very useful though. Imagine, for example, that each contact can have zero or more phone numbers. The contacts could be represented by the JavaScript array below: The template below demonstrates how you can use the if and each template commands to conditionally display and loop the phone numbers for each contact: If a contact has one or more phone numbers then each of the phone numbers is displayed by iterating through the phone numbers with the each template command: The jQuery team designed the template commands so that they are extensible. If you have a need for a new template command then you can easily add new template commands to the default set of commands. Support for Client Data-Linking The ASP.NET team recently submitted another proposal and prototype to the jQuery forums (http://forum.jquery.com/topic/proposal-for-adding-data-linking-to-jquery). This proposal describes a new feature named data linking. Data Linking enables you to link a property of one object to a property of another object - so that when one property changes the other property changes.  Data linking enables you to easily keep your UI and data objects synchronized within a page. If you are familiar with the concept of data-binding then you will be familiar with data linking (in the proposal, we call the feature data linking because jQuery already includes a bind() method that has nothing to do with data-binding). Imagine, for example, that you have a page with the following HTML <input> elements: The following JavaScript code links the two INPUT elements above to the properties of a JavaScript “contact” object that has a “name” and “phone” property: When you execute this code, the value of the first INPUT element (#name) is set to the value of the contact name property, and the value of the second INPUT element (#phone) is set to the value of the contact phone property. The properties of the contact object and the properties of the INPUT elements are also linked – so that changes to one are also reflected in the other. Because the contact object is linked to the INPUT element, when you request the page, the values of the contact properties are displayed: More interesting, the values of the linked INPUT elements will change automatically whenever you update the properties of the contact object they are linked to. For example, we could programmatically modify the properties of the “contact” object using the jQuery attr() method like below: Because our two INPUT elements are linked to the “contact” object, the INPUT element values will be updated automatically (without us having to write any code to modify the UI elements): Note that we updated the contact object above using the jQuery attr() method. In order for data linking to work, you must use jQuery methods to modify the property values. Two Way Linking The linkBoth() method enables two-way data linking. The contact object and INPUT elements are linked in both directions. When you modify the value of the INPUT element, the contact object is also updated automatically. For example, the following code adds a client-side JavaScript click handler to an HTML button element. When you click the button, the property values of the contact object are displayed using an alert() dialog: The following demonstrates what happens when you change the value of the Name INPUT element and click the Save button. Notice that the name property of the “contact” object that the INPUT element was linked to was updated automatically: The above example is obviously trivially simple.  Instead of displaying the new values of the contact object with a JavaScript alert, you can imagine instead calling a web-service to save the object to a database. The benefit of data linking is that it enables you to focus on your data and frees you from the mechanics of keeping your UI and data in sync. Converters The current data linking proposal also supports a feature called converters. A converter enables you to easily convert the value of a property during data linking. For example, imagine that you want to represent phone numbers in a standard way with the “contact” object phone property. In particular, you don’t want to include special characters such as ()- in the phone number - instead you only want digits and nothing else. In that case, you can wire-up a converter to convert the value of an INPUT element into this format using the code below: Notice above how a converter function is being passed to the linkFrom() method used to link the phone property of the “contact” object with the value of the phone INPUT element. This convertor function strips any non-numeric characters from the INPUT element before updating the phone property.  Now, if you enter the phone number (206) 555-9999 into the phone input field then the value 2065559999 is assigned to the phone property of the contact object: You can also use a converter in the opposite direction also. For example, you can apply a standard phone format string when displaying a phone number from a phone property. Combining Templating and Data Linking Our goal in submitting these two proposals for templating and data linking is to make it easier to work with data when building websites and applications with jQuery. Templating makes it easier to display a list of database records retrieved from a database through an Ajax call. Data linking makes it easier to keep the data and user interface in sync for update scenarios. Currently, we are working on an extension of the data linking proposal to support declarative data linking. We want to make it easy to take advantage of data linking when using a template to display data. For example, imagine that you are using the following template to display an array of product objects: Notice the {{link name}} and {{link price}} expressions. These expressions enable declarative data linking between the SPAN elements and properties of the product objects. The current jQuery templating prototype supports extending its syntax with custom template commands. In this case, we are extending the default templating syntax with a custom template command named “link”. The benefit of using data linking with the above template is that the SPAN elements will be automatically updated whenever the underlying “product” data is updated.  Declarative data linking also makes it easier to create edit and insert forms. For example, you could create a form for editing a product by using declarative data linking like this: Whenever you change the value of the INPUT elements in a template that uses declarative data linking, the underlying JavaScript data object is automatically updated. Instead of needing to write code to scrape the HTML form to get updated values, you can instead work with the underlying data directly – making your client-side code much cleaner and simpler. Downloading Working Code Examples of the Above Scenarios You can download this .zip file to get with working code examples of the above scenarios.  The .zip file includes 4 static HTML page: Listing1_Templating.htm – Illustrates basic templating. Listing2_TemplatingConditionals.htm – Illustrates templating with the use of the if and each template commands. Listing3_DataLinking.htm – Illustrates data linking. Listing4_Converters.htm – Illustrates using a converter with data linking. You can un-zip the file to the file-system and then run each page to see the concepts in action. Summary We are excited to be able to begin participating within the open-source jQuery project.  We’ve received lots of encouraging feedback in response to our first two proposals, and we will continue to actively contribute going forward.  These features will hopefully make it easier for all developers (including ASP.NET developers) to build great Ajax applications. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu]

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• December release of Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework is available now.

  - by Jialiang

  The code samples in Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework are updated on 2010-12-13. Download address: http://1code.codeplex.com/releases/view/57459#DownloadId=185534 Updated code sample index categorized by technologies: http://1code.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=All-In-One%20Code%20Framework%20Sample%20Catalog (it also allows you to download individual code samples instead of the entire All-In-One Code Framework sample package.) If it’s the first time that you hear about Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework, please watch the introduction video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO5Li3APU58, or read the introduction on our homepage http://1code.codeplex.com/,  and this Port25 article http://port25.technet.com/archive/2010/01/18/the-all-in-one-code-framework.aspx.  -------------- New ASP.NET Code Samples VBASPNETAJAXWebChat and CSASPNETAJAXWebChat Most of you have some experience in chatting with friends on the web. So you may want to know how to make a web chat application, it seems to be quite complicated. But ASP.NET gives you the power to buiild a chat room easily. In this code sample, we will construct our own web chat room with the amazing AJAX feature. The principle is simple relatively. As we all know, a base chat application need 4 base controls: one List control to show the chat room members, one List control to show the message list, one TextBox control to input messages and one button to send message. User inputs his message in the textbox first and then presses Send button, it will send the message to the server. The message list will update every 2 seconds to get the newest message list in the chat room from the server. We need to know, it is hard for us to make an AJAX web chat application like a windows form application because we cannot keep the connection after one web request ended. So a lot of events which communicates between client side and server side cannot be realized. The common workaround is to make web requests in every some seconds to check whether the server side has been updated. But another technique called COMET makes it possible. But it is different with AJAX and will not be talked in details in this KB. For more details about COMET, we can get some clues from the Reference.   CSASPNETCurrentOnlineUserList and VBASPNETCurrentOnlineUserList This sample demos a system that needs to display a list of current online users' information. As a matter of fact, Membership.GetNumberOfUsersOnline Method  can get the number of online users and there is a convenient approach to check whether the user is online by using Membership.GetUser(string userName).IsOnline property,however many asp.net projects are not using membership.So in this case,the sample shows how to display a list of current online users' information without using membership provider. It is not difficult to check whether the user is online by using session.Many projects tend to be used “Session_End” event to mark a user as “Offline”,however ,it may not be a good idea,because it can’t detect the user status accurately. In addition, "Session_End" event is only available in the "InProc" session mode. If you are storing session states in the State Server or SQL Server, "Session_End" event will never fire. To handle this issue, we need to save the user online status to a  global DataTable or  DataBase. In the sample application, define a global DataTable to store the information of online users.Use XmlHttpRequest in the pages to update and check user's last active time at intervals and also retrieve information on how many users are still online. The sample project can auto delete offline users' information from a global DataTable by checking users’ last active time. A step-by-step guide illustrating how to display a list of current online users' information without using membership provider: 1. Login page. Let user sign in and add current user’s information to a global datatable while Initialize the global datatable which used to store information of current online users. 2. Current online user list page. Use XmlHttpRequest in this page to update and check user's last active time at intervals and also retrieve information on how many users are still online. 3. If user closes the page without clicking  the sign out link button ,the sample project can auto mark the user as offline and delete offline users' information from a global DataTable which used to store information of current online users  by checking users’ last active time. Then the current online user list will be like this:   CSASPNETIPtoLocation This sample demonstrates how to find the geographical location from an IP address. As we know, it is not hard for us to get the IP address of visitors via Request.ServerVariable property, but it is really difficult for us to know where they come from. To achieve this feature, the sample uses a free third party web service from http://freegeoip.appspot.com/, which returns the information about an IP address we send to the server in the format of XML, JSON or CSV. It makes all things easier.   CSASPNETBackgroundWorker Sometimes we do an operation which needs long time to complete. It will stop the response and the page is blank until the operation finished. In this case, we want the operation to run in the background, and in the page, we want to display the progress of the running operation. Therefore, the user can know the operation is running and can know the progress. CSASPNETInheritingFromTreeNode In windows forms TreeView, each tree node has a property called "Tag" which can be used to store a custom object. Many customers want to implement the same tag feature in ASP.NET TreeView. This project creates a custom TreeView control named "CustomTreeView" to achieve this goal. CSASPNETRemoteUploadAndDownload and VBASPNETRemoteUploadAndDownload This code sample was created in response to a code sample request in our new code sample request frunction for customers. The code samples demonstrate uploading files to and downloading files from a remote HTTP or FTP server. In .NET Framework 2.0 and higher versions, there are some lightweight class libraries which support HTTP and FTP protocol transmission. By using these classes, we can achieve this programming requirement.   CSASPNETImageEditUpload and VBASPNETImageEditUpload This demo will shows how to insert, edit and update a common image with the type of "jpg", "png", "gif" or "bmp" . We mainly use two different SqlDataSources with the same database to bind to GridView and FormView in order to establish the “cascading” effort. Besides we apply our self-made ImageHanlder to encoding or decoding images of different types, and use context to output the stream of images. We will explicitly assign the binary streams of images through the event of “FormView_ItemInserting” or “Form_ItemUpdating” to synchronize the stream both in what we can see on an aspx page as well as in what’s really stored in the database.   WebBrowser Control, Network and other Windows General New Code Samples   CSWebBrowserSuppressError and VBWebBrowserSuppressError The sample demonstrates how to make WebBrowser suppress errors, such as script error, navigation error and so on.   CSWebBrowserWithProxy and VBWebBrowserWithProxy The sample demonstrates how to make WebBrowser use a proxy server.   CSWebDownloadProgress and VBWebDownloadProgress The sample demonstrates how to show progress during the download. It also supplies the features to Start, Pause, Resume and Cancel a download.   CppSetDesktopWallpaper, CSSetDesktopWallpaper and VBSetDesktopWallpaper This code sample application allows you select an image, view a preview (resized smaller to fit if necessary), select a display style among Tile, Center, Stretch, Fit (Windows 7 and later) and Fill (Windows 7 and later), and set the image as the Desktop wallpaper. CSWindowsServiceRecoveryProperty and VBWindowsServiceRecoveryProperty CSWindowsServiceRecoveryProperty example demonstrates how to use ChangeServiceConfig2 to configure the service "Recovery" properties in C#. This example operates all the options you can see on the service "Recovery" tab, including setting the "Enable actions for stops with errors" option in Windows Vista and later operating systems. This example also include how to grant the shut down privilege to the process, so that we can configure a special option in the "Recovery" tab - "Restart Computer Options...".   New Office Development Code Samples   CSOneNoteRibbonAddIn and VBOneNoteRibbonAddIn The code sample demonstrates a OneNote 2010 COM add-in that implements IDTExtensibility2. The add-in also supports customizing the Ribbon by implementing the IRibbonExtensibility interface. It is a skeleton OneNote add-in that developers can extend it to implement more functions. The code sample was requested by a customer in our code sample request service. We expect that this could help developers in the community.   New Windows Shell Code Samples   CppShellExtPreviewHandler, CSShellExtPreviewHandler and VBShellExtPreviewHandler In the past two months, we released the code samples of Windows Context Menu Handler, Infotip Handler, and Thumbnail Handler. This is the fourth part of the shell extension series: Preview Handler. The code samples demo the C++, C# and VB.NET implementation of a preview handler for a new file type registered with the .recipe extension. Preview handlers are called when an item is selected to show a lightweight, rich, read-only preview of the file's contents in the view's reading pane. This is done without launching the file's associated application. Windows Vista and later operating systems support preview handlers. To be a valid preview handler, several interfaces must be implemented. This includes IPreviewHandler (shobjidl.h); IInitializeWithFile, IInitializeWithStream, or IInitializeWithItem (propsys.h); IObjectWithSite (ocidl.h); and IOleWindow (oleidl.h). There are also optional interfaces, such as IPreviewHandlerVisuals (shobjidl.h), that a preview handler can implement to provide extended support. Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft .NET Framework makes the implementation of these interfaces very easy in .NET. The example preview handler provides previews for .recipe files. The .recipe file type is simply an XML file registered as a unique file name extension. It includes the title of the recipe, its author, difficulty, preparation time, cook time, nutrition information, comments, an embedded preview image, and so on. The preview handler extracts the title, comments, and the embedded image, and display them in a preview window.   In response to many customers' request, we added setup projects in every shell extension samples in this release. Those setup projects allow you to deploy the shell extensions to your end users' machines. ---------- Download address: http://1code.codeplex.com/releases/view/57459#DownloadId=185534 Updated code sample index categorized by technologies: http://1code.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=All-In-One%20Code%20Framework%20Sample%20Catalog (it also allows you to download individual code samples instead of the entire All-In-One Code Framework sample package.) If you have any feedback for us, please email: [email protected]. We look forward to your comments.

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• How to Use USER_DEFINED Activity in OWB Process Flow

  - by Jinggen He

  Process Flow is a very important component of Oracle Warehouse Builder. With Process Flow, we can create and control the ETL process by setting all kinds of activities in a well-constructed flow. In Oracle Warehouse Builder 11gR2, there are 28 kinds of activities, which fall into three categories: Control activities, OWB specific activities and Utility activities. For more information about Process Flow activities, please refer to OWB online doc. Most of those activities are pre-defined for some specific use. For example, the Mapping activity allows execution an OWB mapping in Process Flow and the FTP activity allows an interaction between the local host and a remote FTP server. Besides those activities for specific purposes, the User Defined activity enables you to incorporate into a Process Flow an activity that is not defined within Warehouse Builder. So the User Defined activity brings flexibility and extensibility to Process Flow. In this article, we will take an amazing tour of using the User Defined activity. Let's start. Enable execution of User Defined activity Let's start this section from creating a very simple Process Flow, which contains a Start activity, a User Defined activity and an End Success activity. Leave all parameters of activity USER_DEFINED unchanged except that we enter /tmp/test.sh into the Value column of the COMMAND parameter. Then let's create the shell script test.sh in /tmp directory. Here is the content of /tmp/test.sh (this article is demonstrating a scenario in Linux system, and /tmp/test.sh is a Bash shell script): echo Hello World! > /tmp/test.txt Note: don't forget to grant the execution privilege on /tmp/test.sh to OS Oracle user. For simplicity, we just use the following command. chmod +x /tmp/test.sh OK, it's so simple that we’ve almost done it. Now deploy the Process Flow and run it. For a newly installed OWB, we will come across an error saying "RPE-02248: For security reasons, activity operator Shell has been disabled by the DBA". See below. That's because, by default, the User Defined activity is DISABLED. Configuration about this can be found in <ORACLE_HOME>/owb/bin/admin/Runtime.properties: property.RuntimePlatform.0.NativeExecution.Shell.security_constraint=DISABLED The property can be set to three different values: NATIVE_JAVA, SCHEDULER and DISBALED. Where NATIVE_JAVA uses the Java 'Runtime.exec' interface, SCHEDULER uses a DBMS Scheduler external job submitted by the Control Center repository owner which is executed by the default operating system user configured by the DBA. DISABLED prevents execution via these operators. We enable the execution of User Defined activity by setting: property.RuntimePlatform.0.NativeExecution.Shell.security_constraint= NATIVE_JAVA Restart the Control Center service for the change of setting to take effect. cd <ORACLE_HOME>/owb/rtp/sql sqlplus OWBSYS/<password of OWBSYS> @stop_service.sql sqlplus OWBSYS/<password of OWBSYS> @start_service.sql And then run the Process Flow again. We will see that the Process Flow completes successfully. The execution of /tmp/test.sh successfully generated a file /tmp/test.txt, containing the line Hello World!. Pass parameters to User Defined Activity The Process Flow created in the above section has a drawback: the User Defined activity doesn't accept any information from OWB nor does it give any meaningful results back to OWB. That's to say, it lacks interaction. Maybe, sometimes such a Process Flow can fulfill the business requirement. But for most of the time, we need to get the User Defined activity executed according to some information prior to that step. In this section, we will see how to pass parameters to the User Defined activity and pass them into the to-be-executed shell script. First, let's see how to pass parameters to the script. The User Defined activity has an input parameter named PARAMETER_LIST. This is a list of parameters that will be passed to the command. Parameters are separated from one another by a token. The token is taken as the first character on the PARAMETER_LIST string, and the string must also end in that token. Warehouse Builder recommends the '?' character, but any character can be used. For example, to pass 'abc,' 'def,' and 'ghi' you can use the following equivalent: ?abc?def?ghi? or !abc!def!ghi! or |abc|def|ghi| If the token character or '\' needs to be included as part of the parameter, then it must be preceded with '\'. For example '\\'. If '\' is the token character, then '/' becomes the escape character. Let's configure the PARAMETER_LIST parameter as below: And modify the shell script /tmp/test.sh as below: echo $1 is saying hello to $2! > /tmp/test.txt Re-deploy the Process Flow and run it. We will see that the generated /tmp/test.txt contains the following line: Bob is saying hello to Alice! In the example above, the parameters passed into the shell script are static. This case is not so useful because: instead of passing parameters, we can directly write the value of the parameters in the shell script. To make the case more meaningful, we can pass two dynamic parameters, that are obtained from the previous activity, to the shell script. Prepare the Process Flow as below: The Mapping activity MAPPING_1 has two output parameters: FROM_USER, TO_USER. The User Defined activity has two input parameters: FROM_USER, TO_USER. All the four parameters are of String type. Additionally, the Process Flow has two string variables: VARIABLE_FOR_FROM_USER, VARIABLE_FOR_TO_USER. Through VARIABLE_FOR_FROM_USER, the input parameter FROM_USER of USER_DEFINED gets value from output parameter FROM_USER of MAPPING_1. We achieve this by binding both parameters to VARIABLE_FOR_FROM_USER. See the two figures below. In the same way, through VARIABLE_FOR_TO_USER, the input parameter TO_USER of USER_DEFINED gets value from output parameter TO_USER of MAPPING_1. Also, we need to change the PARAMETER_LIST of the User Defined activity like below: Now, the shell script is getting input from the Mapping activity dynamically. Deploy the Process Flow and all of its necessary dependees then run the Process Flow. We see that the generated /tmp/test.txt contains the following line: USER B is saying hello to USER A! 'USER B' and 'USER A' are two outputs of the Mapping execution. Write the shell script within Oracle Warehouse Builder In the previous section, the shell script is located in the /tmp directory. But sometimes, when the shell script is small, or for the sake of maintaining consistency, you may want to keep the shell script inside Oracle Warehouse Builder. We can achieve this by configuring these three parameters of a User Defined activity properly: COMMAND: Set the path of interpreter, by which the shell script will be interpreted. PARAMETER_LIST: Set it blank. SCRIPT: Enter the shell script content. Note that in Linux the shell script content is passed into the interpreter as standard input at runtime. About how to actually pass parameters to the shell script, we can utilize variable substitutions. As in the following figure, ${FROM_USER} will be replaced by the value of the FROM_USER input parameter of the User Defined activity. So will the ${TO_USER} symbol. Besides the custom substitution variables, OWB also provide some system pre-defined substitution variables. You can refer to the online document for that. Deploy the Process Flow and run it. We see that the generated /tmp/test.txt contains the following line: USER B is saying hello to USER A! Leverage the return value of User Defined activity All of the previous sections are connecting the User Defined activity to END_SUCCESS with an unconditional transition. But what should we do if we want different subsequent activities for different shell script execution results? 1.  The simplest way is to add three simple-conditioned out-going transitions for the User Defined activity just like the figure below. In the figure, to simplify the scenario, we connect the User Defined activity to three End activities. Basically, if the shell script ends successfully, the whole Process Flow will end at END_SUCCESS, otherwise, the whole Process Flow will end at END_ERROR (in our case, ending at END_WARNING seldom happens). In the real world, we can add more complex and meaningful subsequent business logic. 2.  Or we can utilize complex conditions to work with different results of the User Defined activity. Previously, in our script, we only have this line: echo ${FROM_USER} is saying hello to ${TO_USER}! > /tmp/test.txt We can add more logic in it and return different values accordingly. echo ${FROM_USER} is saying hello to ${TO_USER}! > /tmp/test.txt if CONDITION_1 ; then ...... exit 0 fi if CONDITION_2 ; then ...... exit 2 fi if CONDITION_3 ; then ...... exit 3 fi After that we can leverage the result by checking RESULT_CODE in condition expression of those out-going transitions. Let's suppose that we have the Process Flow as the following graph (SUB_PROCESS_n stands for more different further processes): We can set complex condition for the transition from USER_DEFINED to SUB_PROCESS_1 like this: Other transitions can be set in the same way. Note that, in our shell script, we return 0, 2 and 3, but not 1. As in Linux system, if the shell script comes across a system error like IO error, the return value will be 1. We can explicitly handle such a return value. Summary Let's summarize what has been discussed in this article: How to create a Process Flow with a User Defined activity in it How to pass parameters from the prior activity to the User Defined activity and finally into the shell script How to write the shell script within Oracle Warehouse Builder How to do variable substitutions How to let the User Defined activity return different values and in what way can we leverage

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• Ada and 'The Book'

  - by Phil Factor

  The long friendship between Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace created one of the most exciting and mysterious of collaborations ever to have resulted in a technological breakthrough. The fireworks that created by the collision of two prodigious mathematical and creative talents resulted in an invention, the Analytical Engine, which went on to change society fundamentally. However, beyond that, we just don't know what the bulk of their collaborative work was about:;  it was done in strictest secrecy. Even the known outcome of their friendship, the first programmable computer, was shrouded in mystery. At the time, nobody, except close friends and family, had any idea of Ada Byron's contribution to the invention of the ‘Engine’, and how to program it. Her great insight was published in August 1843, under the initials AAL, standing for Ada Augusta Lovelace, her title then being the Countess of Lovelace. It was contained in a lengthy ‘note’ to her translation of a publication that remains the best description of Babbage's amazing Analytical Engine. The secret identity of the person behind those enigmatic initials was finally revealed by Prince de Polignac who, seventy years later, wrote to Ada's daughter to seek confirmation that her mother had, indeed, been the author of the brilliant sentences that described so accurately how Babbage's mechanical computer could be programmed with punch-cards. L.F. Menabrea's paper on the Analytical Engine first appeared in the 'Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve' in October 1842, and Ada translated it anonymously for Taylor's 'Scientific Memoirs'. Charles Babbage was surprised that she had not written an original paper as she already knew a surprising amount about the way the machine worked. He persuaded her to at least write some explanatory notes. These notes ended up extending to four times the length of the original article and represented the first published account of how a machine could be programmed to perform any calculation. Her example of programming the Bernoulli sequence would have worked on the Analytical engine had the device’s construction been completed, and gave Ada an unassailable claim to have invented the art of programming. What was the reason for Ada's secrecy? She was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron, who was probably the best known celebrity of the age, so she was already famous. She was a senior aristocrat, with titles, a fortune in money and vast estates in the Midlands. She had political influence, and was the cousin of Lord Melbourne, who was the Prime Minister at that time. She was friendly with the young Queen Victoria. Her mathematical activities were a pastime, and not one that would be considered by others to be in keeping with her roles and responsibilities. You wouldn't dare to dream up a fictional heroine like Ada. She was dazzlingly beautiful and talented. She could speak several languages fluently, and play some musical instruments with professional skill. Contemporary accounts refer to her being 'accomplished in science, art and literature'. On top of that, she was a brilliant mathematician, a talent inherited from her mother, Annabella Milbanke. In her mother's circle of literary and scientific friends was Charles Babbage, and Ada's friendship with him dates from her teenage zest for Mathematics. She was one of the first people he'd ever met who understood what he had attempted to achieve with the 'Difference Engine', and with whom he could converse as intellectual equals. He arranged for her to have an education from the most talented academics in the country. Ada melted the heart of the cantankerous genius to the point that he became a faithful and loyal father-figure to her. She was one of the very few who could grasp the principles of the later, and very different, ‘Analytical Engine’ which was designed from the start to tackle a variety of tasks. Sadly, Ada Byron's life ended less than a decade after completing the work that assured her long-term fame, in November 1852. She was dying of cancer, her gambling habits had caused her to run up huge debts, she'd had more than one affairs, and she was being blackmailed. Her brilliant but unempathic mother was nursing her in her final illness, destroying her personal letters and records, and repaying her debts. Her husband was distraught but helpless. Charles Babbage, however, maintained his steadfast paternalistic friendship to the end. She appointed her loyal friend to be her executor. For years, she and Babbage had been working together on a secret project, known only as 'The Book'. We have a clue to what it was in a letter written by her nine years earlier, on 11th August 1843. It was a joint project by herself and Lord Lovelace, her husband, and was intended to involve Babbage's 'undivided energies'. It involved 'consulting your Engine' (it required Babbage’s computer). The letter gives no hint about the project except for the high-minded nature of its purpose, and its highly mathematical nature.  From then on, the surviving correspondence between the two gives only veiled references to 'The Book'. There isn't much, since Babbage later destroyed any letters that could have damaged her reputation within the Establishment. 'I cannot spare the book today, which I am very sorry for. At the moment I want it for constant reference, but I think you can have it tomorrow' (Oct 1844)  And 'I will send you the book directly, and you can say, when you receive it, how long you will want to keep it'. (Nov 1844)  The two of them were obviously intent on the work: She writes, four years later, 'I have an engagement for Wednesday which will prevent me from attending to your wishes about the book' (Dec 1848). This was something that they both needed to work on, but could not do in parallel: 'I will send the book on Tuesday, and it can be left with you till Friday' (11 Feb 1849). After six years work, it had been so well-handled that it was beginning to fall apart: 'Don't forget the new cover you promised for the book. The poor book is very shabby and wants one' (20 Sept 1849). So what was going on? The word 'book' was not a code-word: it was a real book, probably a 'printer's blank', plain paper, but properly bound so printers and publishers could show off how the published work might look. The hints from the correspondence are of advanced mathematics. It is obvious that the book was travelling between them, back and forth, each one working on it for less than a week before passing it back. Ada and her husband were certainly involved in gambling large sums of money on the horses, and so most biographers have concluded that the three of them were trying to calculate the mathematical odds on the horses. This theory has three large problems. Firstly, Ada's original letter proposing the project refers to its high-minded nature. Babbage was temperamentally opposed to gambling and would scarcely have given so much time to the project, even though he was devoted to Ada. Secondly, Babbage would have very soon have realized the hopelessness of trying to beat the bookies. This sort of betting never attracts his type of intellectual background. The third problem is that any work on calculating the odds on horses would not need a well-thumbed book to pass back and forth between them; they would have not had to work in series. The original project was instigated by Ada, along with her husband, William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace. Charles Babbage was invited to join the project after the couple had come up with the idea. What could William have contributed? One might assume that William was a Bertie Wooster character, addicted only to the joys of the turf, but this was far from the truth. He was a scientist, a Cambridge graduate who was later elected to be a Fellow of the Royal Society. After Eton, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge. On graduation, he entered the diplomatic service and acted as secretary under Lord Nugent, who was Lord Commissioner of the Ionian Islands. William was very friendly with Babbage too, able to discuss scientific matters on equal terms. He was a capable engineer who invented a process for bending large timbers by the application of steam heat. He delivered a paper to the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1849, and received praise from the great engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. As well as being Lord Lieutenant of the County of Surrey for most of Victoria's reign, he had time for a string of scientific and engineering achievements. Whatever the project was, it is unlikely that William was a junior partner. After Ada's death, the project disappeared. Then, two years later, Babbage, through one of his occasional outbursts of temper, demonstrated that he was able to decrypt one of the most powerful of secret codes, Vigenère's autokey cipher.  All contemporary diplomatic and military messages used a variant of this cipher. Babbage had made three important discoveries, namely, the mathematical law of this cipher, the principle of the key periodicity, and the technique of the symmetry of position. The technique is now known as the Kasiski examination, also called the Kasiski test, but Babbage got there first. At one time, he listed amongst his future projects, the writing of a book 'The Philosophy of Decyphering', but it never came to anything. This discovery was going to change the course of history, since it was used to decipher the Russians’ military dispatches in the Crimean war. Babbage himself played a role during the Crimean War as a cryptographical adviser to his friend, Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort of the Admiralty. This is as much as we can be certain about in trying to make sense of the bulk of the time that Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace worked together. Nine years of intensive work, involving the 'Engine' and a great deal of mathematics and research seems to have been lost: or has it? I've argued in the past http://www.simple-talk.com/community/blogs/philfactor/archive/2008/06/13/59614.aspx that the cracking of the Vigenère autokey cipher, was a fundamental motive behind the British Government's support and funding of the 'Difference Engine'. The Duke of Wellington, whose understanding of the military significance of being able to read enemy dispatches, was the most steadfast advocate of the project. If the three friends were actually doing the work of cracking codes by mathematical techniques that used the techniques of key periodicity, and symmetry of position (the use of a book being passed quickly to and fro is very suggestive), intending to then use the 'Engine' to do the routine cracking of each dispatch, then this is a rather different story. The project was Ada and William's idea. (William had served in the diplomatic service and would be familiar with the use of codes). This makes Ada Lovelace the initiator of a project which, by giving both Britain, and probably the USA, a diplomatic and military advantage in the second part of the Nineteenth century, changed world history. Ada would never have wanted any credit for cracking the cipher, and developing the method that rendered all contemporary military and diplomatic ciphering techniques nugatory; quite the reverse. And it is clear from the gaps in the record of the letters between the collaborators that the evidence was destroyed, probably on her request by her irascible but intensely honorable executor, Charles Babbage. Charles Babbage toyed with the idea of going public, but the Crimean war put an end to that. The British Government had a valuable secret, and intended to keep it that way. Ada and Charles had quite often discussed possible moneymaking projects that would fund the development of the Analytic Engine, the first programmable computer, but their secret work was never in the running as a potential cash cow. I suspect that the British Government was, even then, working on the concealment of a discovery whose value to the nation depended on it remaining so. The success of code-breaking in the Crimean war, and the American Civil war, led to the British and Americans  subsequently giving much more weight and funding to the science of decryption. Paradoxically, this makes Ada's contribution even closer to the creation of Colossus, the first digital computer, at Bletchley Park, specifically to crack the Nazi’s secret codes.

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• Oracle Coherence & Oracle Service Bus: REST API Integration

  - by Nino Guarnacci

  This post aims to highlight one of the features found in Oracle Coherence which allows it to be easily added and integrated inside a wider variety of projects.  The features in question are the REST API exposed by the Coherence nodes, with which you can interact in the wider mode in memory data grid.Oracle Coherence and Oracle Service Bus are natively integrated through a feature found in the Oracle Service Bus, which allows you to use the coherence grid cache during the configuration phase of a business service. This feature allows you to use an intermediate layer of cache to retrieve the answers from previous invocations of the same service, without necessarily having to invoke the real business service again. Directly from the web console of Oracle Service Bus, you can decide the policies of eviction of the objects / answers and define the discriminating parameters that identify their uniqueness.The coherence REST APIs, however, allow you to integrate both products for other necessities enabling realization of new architectures design.  Consider coherence’s node as a simple service which interoperates through the stardard services and in particular REST (with JSON and XML). Thinking of coherence as a company’s shared service, able to have an implementation of a centralized “map and reduce” which you can access  by a huge variety of protocols (transport and envelopes).An amazing step forward for those who still imagine connectors and code. This type of integration does not require writing custom code or complex implementation to be self-supported. The added value is made unique by the incredible value of both products independently, and still more out of their simple and robust integration.As already mentioned this scenario discovers a hidden new door behind the columns of these two products. The door leads to new ideas and perspectives for enterprise architectures that increasingly wink to next-generation applications: simple and dynamic, perhaps towards the mobile and web 2.0.Below, a small and simple demo useful to demonstrate how easily is to integrate these two products using the Coherence REST API. This demo is also intended to imagine new enterprise architectures using this approach.The idea is to create a centralized system of alerting, fed easily from any company’s application, regardless of the technology with which they were built . Then use a representation standard protocol: RSS, using a service exposed by the service bus; So you can browse and search only the alerts that you are interested on, by category, author, title, date, etc etc.. The steps needed to implement this system are very simple and very few. Here they are listed below and described to be easily replicated within your environment. I would remind you that the demo is only meant to demonstrate how easily is to integrate Oracle Coherence and the Oracle Service Bus, and stimulate your imagination to new technological approaches.1) Install the two products: In this demo used (if necessary, consult the installation guides of 2 products)  - Oracle Service Bus ver. 11.1.1.5.0 http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/service-bus/downloads/index.html - Oracle Coherence ver. 3.7.1 http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/coherence/downloads/index.html 2) Because you choose to create a centralized alerting system, we need to define a structure type containing some alerting attributes useful to preserve and organize the information of the various alerts sent by the different applications. Here, then it was built a java class named Alert containing the canonical properties of an alarm information:- Title- Description- System- Time- Severity 3) Therefore, we need to create two configuration files for the coherence node, in order to save the Alert objects within the grid, through the rest/http protocol (more than the native API for Java, C + +, C,. Net). Here are the two minimal configuration files for Coherence:coherence-rest-config.xml resty-server-config.xml This minimum configuration allows me to use a distributed cache named "alerts" that can  also be accessed via http - rest on the host "localhost" over port "8080", objects are of type “oracle.cohsb.Alert”. 4) Below  a simple Java class that represents the type of alert messages: 5) At this point we just need to startup our coherence node, able to listen on http protocol to manage the “alerts” cache, which will receive incoming XML or JSON objects of type Alert. Remember to include in the classpath of the coherence node, the Alert java class and the following coherence libraries and configuration files:  At this point, just run the coherence class node “com.tangosol.net.DefaultCacheServer”advising you to set the following parameters:-Dtangosol.coherence.log.level=9 -Dtangosol.coherence.log=stdout -Dtangosol.coherence.cacheconfig=[PATH_TO_THE_FILE]\resty-server-config.xml 6) Let's create a procedure to test our configuration of Coherence and in order to insert some custom alerts in our cache. The technology with which you want to achieve this functionality is fully not considerable: Javascript, Python, Ruby, Scala, C + +, Java.... Because the protocol to communicate with Coherence is simply HTTP / JSON or XML. For this little demo i choose Java: A method to send/put the alert to the cache: A method to query and view the content of the cache: Finally the main method that execute our methods:  No special library added in the classpath for our class (json struct static defined), when it will be executed, it asks some information such as title, description,... in order to compose and send an alert to the cache and then it will perform an inquiry, to the same cache. At this point, a good exercise at this point, may be to create the same procedure using other technologies, such as a simple html page containing some JavaScript code, and then using Python, Ruby, and so on.7) Now we are ready to start configuring the Oracle Service Bus in order to integrate the two products. First integrate the internal alerting system of Oracle Service Bus with our centralized alerting system based on coherence node. This ensures that by monitoring, or directly from within our Proxy Message Flow, we can throw alerts and save them directly into the Coherence node. To do this I choose to use the jms technology, natively present inside the Oracle Weblogic / Service Bus. Access to the Oracle WebLogic Administration console and create and configure a new JMS connection factory and a new jms destination (queue). Now we should create a new resource of type “alert destination” within our Oracle Service Bus project. The new “alert destination” resource should be configured using the newly created connection factory jms and jms destination. Finally, in order to withdraw the message alert enqueued in our JMS destination and send it to our coherence node, we just need to create a new business service and proxy service within our Oracle Service Bus project.Our business service is responsible for sending a message to our REST service Coherence using as a method action: PUT Finally our proxy service have to collect all messages enqueued on the destination, execute an xquery transformation on those messages  in order to translate them into valid XML / alert objects useful to be sent to our coherence service, through the newly created business service. The message flow pipeline containing the xquery transformation: Incredibly,  we just did a basic first integration between the native alerting system of Oracle Service Bus and our centralized alerting system by simply configuring our coherence node without developing anything.It's time to test it out. To do this I create a proxy service able to generate an alert using our "alert destination", whenever the proxy is invoked. After some invocation to our proxy that generates fake alerts, we could open an Internet browser and type the URL  http://localhost: 8080/alerts/  so we could see what has been inserted within the coherence node. 8) We are ready for the final step.  We would create a new message flow, that can be used to search and display the results in standard mode. To do this I choosen the standard representation of RSS, to display a formatted result on a huge variety of devices such as readers for the iPhone and Android. The inquiry may be defined already at the time of the request able to return only feed / items related to our needs. To do this we need to create a new business service, a new proxy service, and finally a new XQuery Transformation to take care of translating the collection of alerts that will be return from our coherence node in a nicely formatted RSS standard document.So we start right from this resource (xquery), which has the task of transforming a collection of alerts / xml returned from the node coherence in a type well-formatted feed RSS 2.0 our new business service that will search the alerts on our coherence node using the Rest API. And finally, our last resource, the proxy service that will be exposed as an RSS / feeds to various mobile devices and traditional web readers, in which we will intercept any search query, and transform the result returned by the business service in an RSS feed 2.0. The message flow with the transformation phase (Alert TO Feed Items): Finally some little tricks to follow during the routing to the business service, - check for any queries present in the url to require a subset of alerts  - the http header "Accept" to help get an answer XML instead of JSON: In our little demo we also static added some coherence parameters to the request:sort=time:desc;start=0;count=100I would like to get from Coherence that the results will be sorted by date, and starting from 1 up to a maximum of 100.Done!!Just incredible, our centralized alerting system is ready. Inheriting all the qualities and capabilities of the two products involved Oracle Coherence & Oracle Service Bus: - RASP (Reliability, Availability, Scalability, Performance)Now try to use your mobile device, or a normal Internet browser by accessing the RSS just published: Some urls you may test: Search for the last 100 alerts : http://localhost:7001/alarmsSearch for alerts that do not have time set to null (time is not null):http://localhost:7001/alarms?q=time+is+not+nullSearch for alerts that the system property is “Web Browser” (system = ‘Web Browser’):http://localhost:7001/alarms?q=system+%3D+%27Web+Browser%27Search for alerts that the system property is “Web Browser” and the severity property is “Fatal” and the title property contain the word “Javascript”  (system = ‘Web Broser’ and severity = ‘Fatal’ and title like ‘%Javascript%’)http://localhost:8080/alerts?q=system+%3D+%27Web+Browser%27+AND+severity+%3D+%27Fatal%27+AND+title+LIKE+%27%25Javascript%25%27 To compose more complex queries about your need I would suggest you to read the chapter in the coherence documentation inherent the Cohl language (Coherence Query Language) http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E24290_01/coh.371/e22837/api_cq.htm . Some useful links: - Oracle Coherence REST API Documentation http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E24290_01/coh.371/e22839/rest_intro.htm - Oracle Service Bus Documentation http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E21764_01/soa.htm#osb - REST explanation from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer At this URL could be downloaded the whole materials of this demo http://blogs.oracle.com/slc/resource/cosb/coh-sb-demo.zip Author: Nino Guarnacci.

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• Strange WCF Error - IIS hosted - context being aborted

  - by RandomNoob

  I have a WCF service that does some document conversions and returns the document to the caller. When developing locally on my local dev server, the service is hosted on ASP.NET Development server, a console application invokes the operation and executes within seconds. When I host the service in IIS via a .svc file, two of the documents work correctly, the third one bombs out, it begins to construct the word document using the OpenXml Sdk, but then just dies. I think this has something to do with IIS, but I cannot put my finger on it. There are a total of three types of documents I generate. In a nutshell this is how it works SQL 2005 DB/IBM DB2 - WCF Service written by other developer to expose data. This service only has one endpoint using basicHttpBinding My Service invokes his service, gets the relevant data, uses the Open Xml Sdk to generate a Microsoft Word Document, saves it on a server and returns the path to the user. The word documents are no bigger than 100KB. I am also using basicHttpBinding although I have tried wsHttpBinding with the same results. What is amazing is how fast it is locally, and even more that two of the documents generate just fine, its the third document type that refuses to work. To the error message: An error occured while receiving the HTTP Response to http://myservername.mydomain.inc/MyService/Service.Svc. This could be due to the service endpoint binding not using the HTTP Protocol. This could also be due to an HTTP request context being aborted by the server (possibly due to the server shutting down). See server logs for more details. I have spent the last 2 days trying to figure out what is going on, I have tried everything, including changing the maxReceivedMessageSize, maxBufferSize, maxBufferPoolSize, etc etc to large values, I even included: <httpRuntime maxRequestLength="2097151" executionTimeout="120"/> To see maybe if IIS was choking because of that. Programatically the service does nothing special, it just constructs the word documents from the data using the Open Xml Sdk and like I said, locally all 3 documents work when invoked via a console app running locally on the asp.net dev server, i.e. http://localhost:3332/myService.svc When I host it on IIS and I try to get a Windows Forms application to invoke it, I get the error. I know you will ask for logs, so yes I have logging enabled on my Host. And there is no error in the logs, I am logging everything. Basically I invoke two service operations written by another developer. MyOperation calls - HisOperation1 and then HisOperation2, both of those calls give me complex types. I am going to look at his code tomorrow, because he is using LINQ2SQL and there may be some funny business going on there. He is using a variety of collections etc, but the fact that I can run the exact same document, lets call it "Document 3" within seconds when the service is being hosted locally on ASP WebDev Server is what is most odd, why would it run on scaled down Cassini and blow up on IIS? From the log it seems, after calling HisOperation1 and HisOperation2 the service just goes into la-la land dies, there is a application pool (w3wp.exe) error in the Windows Event Log. Faulting application w3wp.exe, version 6.0.3790.1830, stamp 42435be1, faulting module kernel32.dll, version 5.2.3790.3311, stamp 49c5225e, debug? 0, fault address 0x00015dfa. It's classified as .NET 2.0 Runtime error. Any help is appreciated, the lack of sleep is getting to me. Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.

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• The Internet of Things & Commerce: Part 2 -- Interview with Brian Celenza, Commerce Innovation Strategist

  - by Katrina Gosek, Director | Commerce Product Strategy-Oracle

  Internet of Things & Commerce Series: Part 2 (of 3) Welcome back to the second installation of my three part series on the Internet of Things & Commerce. A few weeks ago, I wrote “The Next 7,000 Days” about how we’ve become embedded in a digital architecture in the last 7,000 days since the birth of the internet – an architecture that everyday ties the massive expanse of the internet evermore closely with our physical lives. This blog series explores how this new blend of virtual and material will change how we shop and how businesses sell. Now enjoy reading my interview with Brian Celenza, one of the chief strategists in our Oracle Commerce innovation group. He comments on the past, present, and future of the how the growing Internet of Things relates and will relate to the buying and selling of goods on and offline. -------------------------------------------- QUESTION: You probably have one of the coolest jobs on our team, Brian – and frankly, one of the coolest jobs in our industry. As part of the innovation team for Oracle Commerce, you’re regularly working on bold features and groundbreaking commerce-focused experiences for our vision demos. As you look back over the past couple of years, what is the biggest trend (or trends) you’ve seen in digital commerce that started to bring us closer to this idea of what people are calling an “Internet of Things”? Brian: Well as you look back over the last couple of years, the speed at which change in our industry has moved looks like one of those blurred movement photos – you know the ones where the landscape blurs because the observer is moving so quickly your eye focus can’t keep up. But one thing that is absolutely clear is that the biggest catalyst for that speed of change – especially over the last three years – has been mobile. Mobile technology changed everything. Over the last three years the entire thought process of how to sell on (and offline) has shifted because of mobile technology advances. Particularly for eCommerce professionals who have started to move past the notion of “channels” for selling goods to this notion of “Mobile First”… then the Web site. Or more accurately, that everything – smartphones, web, store, tablet – is just one channel or has to act like one singular access point to the same product catalog, information and content. The most innovative eCommerce professionals realized some time ago that it’s not ideal to build an eCommerce Web site and then build everything on top of or off of it. Rather, they want to build an eCommerce API and then integrate it will all other systems. To accomplish this, they are leveraging all the latest mobile technologies or possibilities mobile technology has opened up: 4G and LTE, GPS, bluetooth, touch screens, apps, html5… How has this all started to come together for shopping experiences on and offline? Well to give you a personal example, I remember visiting an Apple store a few years ago and being amazed that I didn’t have to wait in line because a store associate knew everything about me from my ID – right there on the sales floor – and could check me out anywhere. Then just a few months later (when like any good addict) I went back to get the latest and greatest new gadget, I felt like I was stealing it because I could check myself out with my smartphone. I didn’t even need to see a sales associate OR go to a cash register. Amazing. And since then, all sort sorts of companies across all different types of industries – from food service to apparel –  are starting to see mobile payments in the billions of dollars now thanks not only to the convenience factor but to smart loyalty rewards programs as well. These are just some really simple current examples that come to mind. So many different things have happened in the last couple of years, it’s hard to really absorb all of the quickly – because as soon as you do, everything changes again! Just like that blurry speed photo image. For eCommerce, however, this type of new environment underscores the importance of building an eCommerce API – a platform that has services you can tap in to and build on as the landscape changes at a fever pitch. It’s a mobile first perspective. A web service perspective – particularly if you are thinking of how to engage customers across digital and physical spaces. —— QUESTION: Thanks for bringing us into the present – some really great examples you gave there to put things into perspective. So what do you see as the biggest trend right now around the “Internet of Things” – and what’s coming next few years? Brian: Honestly, even sitting where I am in the innovation group – it’s hard to look out even 12 months because, well, I don’t even think we’ve fully caught up with what is possible now. But I can definitely say that in the last 12 months and in the coming 12 months, in the technology and eCommerce world it’s all about iBeacons. iBeacons are awesome tools we have right now to tie together physical and digital shopping experiences. They know exactly where you are as a shopper and can communicate that to businesses. Currently there seem to be two camps of thought around iBeacons. First, many people are thinking of them like an “indoor GPS”, which to be fair they literally are. The use case this first camp envisions for iBeacons is primarily for advertising and marketing. So they use iBeacons to push location-based promotions to customers if they are close to a store or in a store. You may have seen these types of mobile promotions start to pop up occasionally on your smart phone as you pass by a store you’ve bought from in the past. That’s the work of iBeacons. But in my humble opinion, these promotions probably come too early in the customer journey and although they may be well timed and work to “convert” in some cases, I imagine in most they are just eroding customer trust because they are kind of a “one-size-fits-all” solution rather than one that is taking into account what exactly the customer might be looking for in that particular moment. Maybe they just want more information and a promotion is way too soon for that type of customer. The second camp is more in line with where my thinking falls. In this case, businesses take a more sensitive approach with iBeacons to customers’ needs. Instead of throwing out a “one-size-fits-all” to any passer by with iBeacons, the use case is more around looking at the physical proximity of a customer as an opportunity to provide a service: show expert reviews on a product they may be looking at in a particular aisle of a store, offer the opportunity to compare prices (and then offer a promotion), signal an in-store associate if a customer has been in the store for more than 10 minutes in one place. These are all less intrusive more value-driven uses of iBeacons. And they are more about building customer trust through service. To take this example a bit further into the future realm of “Big Data” and “Internet of Things” businesses could actually use the Oracle Commerce Platform and iBeacons to “silently” track customer movement w/in the store to provide higher quality service. And this doesn’t have to be creepy or intrusive. Simply if a customer has been in a particular department or aisle for more than a 5 or 10 minutes, an in-store associate could come over an offer some assistance already knowing customer preferences from their online profile and maybe even seeing the items in a shopping cart they started at home. None of this has to be revealed to the customer, but it certainly could boost the level of service an in-store sales associate could provide. Or, in another futuristic example, stores could use the digital footprint of the physical store transmitted by iBeacons to generate heat maps of the store that could be tracked over time. Imagine how much you could find out about which parts of the store are more busy during certain parts of the day or seasons. This could completely revolutionize how physical merchandising is deployed or where certain high value / new items are placed. And / or this use of iBeacons could also help businesses figure out if customers are getting held up in certain parts of the store during busy days like Black Friday. If long lines are causing customers to bounce from a physical store and leave those holiday gifts behind, maybe having employees with mobile check as an option could remove the cash register bottleneck. But going to back to my original statement, it’s all still very early in the story for iBeacons. The hardware manufacturers are still very new and there is still not one clear standard.  Honestly, it all goes back to building and maintaining an extensible and flexible platform for anywhere engagement. What you’re building today should allow you to rapidly take advantage of whatever unimaginable use cases wait around the corner. ------------------------------------------------------ I hope you enjoyed the brief interview with Brian. It’s really awesome to have such smart and innovation-minded individuals on our Oracle Commerce innovation team. Please join me again in a few weeks for Part 3 of this series where I interview one of the product managers on our team about how the blending of digital and in-store selling in influencing our product development and vision.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, October 03, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, October 03, 2012Popular ReleasesSharePoint Column & View Permission: SharePoint Column and View Permission v1.5: Version 1.5 of this project. If you will find any bugs please let me know at enti@zoznam.sk or post your findings in Issue TrackerZ3: Z3 4.1.1 source code: Snapshot corresponding to version 4.1.1.DirectX Tool Kit: October 2012: October 2, 2012 Added ScreenGrab module Added CreateGeoSphere for drawing a geodesic sphere Put DDSTextureLoader and WICTextureLoader into the DirectX C++ namespace Renamed project files for better naming consistency Updated WICTextureLoader for Windows 8 96bpp floating-point formats Win32 desktop projects updated to use Windows Vista (0x0600) rather than Windows 7 (0x0601) APIs Tweaked SpriteBatch.cpp to workaround ARM NEON compiler codegen bugHome Access Plus+: v8.1: HAP+ Web v8.1.1003.000079318 Fixed: Issue with the Help Desk and updating a ticket as an admin 79319 Fixed: formatting issue with the booking system admin header 79321 Moved to using the arrow with a circle symbol on the homepage instead of the > and < 79541 Added: 480px wide mobile theme to login page 79541 Added: 480px wide mobile theme to home page 79541 Added: slide events for homepage 79553 Fixed: Booking System Multiple Lesson Bug 79553 Fixed: IE Error Message 79684 Fixed: jQuery issue ...System.Net.FtpClient: System.Net.FtpClient 2012.10.02: This is the first release of the new code base. It is not compatible with the old API, I repeat it is not a drop in update for projects currently using System.Net.FtpClient. New users should download this release. The old code base (Branch: System.Net.FtpClient_1) will continue to be supported while the new code matures. This release is a complete re-write of System.Net.FtpClient. The API and code are simpler than ever before. There are some new features included as well as an attempt at be...CRM 2011 Visual Ribbon Editor: Visual Ribbon Editor (1.3.1002.3): Visual Ribbon Editor 1.3.1002.3 What's New: Multi-language support for Labels/Tooltips for custom buttons and groups Support for base language other than English (1033) Connect dialog will not require organization name for ADFS / IFD connections Automatic creation of missing labels for all provisioned languages Minor connection issues fixed Notes: Before saving the ribbon to CRM server, editor will check Ribbon XML for any missing <Title> elements inside existing <LocLabel> elements...YAXLib: Yet Another XML Serialization Library for the .NET Framework: YAXLib 2.10: See change-log for the list of new features added and bugs fixedRenameApp: RenameApp 1.0: First release of RenameAppJsonToStaticTypeGenerator: JsonToStaticTypeGenerator 0.1: This is the first alpha release of JsonToStaticTypeGenerator.XiaoKyun: XiaoKyun V1.00: https://xiaokyun.codeplex.com/CatchThatException: Release 1.12: Wow a very fast change and a much better and faster writing to the text fileNaked Objects: Naked Objects Release 5.0.0: Corresponds to the packaged version 5.0.0 available via NuGet. Please note that the easiest way to install and run the Naked Objects Framework is via the NuGet package manager: just search the Official NuGet Package Source for 'nakedobjects'. It is only necessary to download the source code (from here) if you wish to modify or re-build the framework yourself. If you do wish to re-build the framework, consul the file HowToBuild.txt in the release. Major enhancementsNaked Objects 5.0 is desi...WinRT XAML Toolkit: WinRT XAML Toolkit - 1.3.0: WinRT XAML Toolkit based on the Windows 8 RTM SDK. Download the latest source from the SOURCE CODE page. For compiled version use NuGet. You can add it to your project in Visual Studio by going to View/Other Windows/Package Manager Console and entering: PM> Install-Package winrtxamltoolkit Features AsyncUI extensions Controls and control extensions Converters Debugging helpers Imaging IO helpers VisualTree helpers Samples Recent changes NOTE: Namespace changes DebugConsol...D3 Loot Tracker: 1.4.1: This version will automatically save a recording session on application exit if the user didn't stop the current session.SubExtractor: Release 1029: Feature: Added option to make i and ¡ characters movie-specific for improved OCR on Spanish subs (Special Characters tab in Options) Feature: Allow switch to Word Spacing dialog directly from Spell Check dialog Fix: Added more default word spacings for accented characters Fix: Changed Word Spacing dialog to show all OCR'd characters in current sub Fix: Removed application focus grab during OCR Fix: Tightened HD subs fuzzy logic to reduce false matches in small characters Fix: Improved Arrow k...MCEBuddy 2.x: MCEBuddy 2.2.18: Reccomended download Changelog for 2.2.18 (32bit and 64bit) 1. Added support for checking if Showanalyzer has hung and cancelling it 2. New version of comskip, 0.81.48 3. Speeding up comskip 4. Fixed a build bug in 64bit 2.2.17 5. Added a new comkip.ini, better commercial detection for international channels and less aggressive. Old one has been retained as comskip_old.ini 6. Added support for Audio Offset on Conversion Task page in GUI (this overrides the profiles AudioDelay when specified)Readable Passphrase Generator: KeePass Plugin 0.7.1: See the KeePass Plugin Step By Step Guide for instructions on how to install the plugin. Changes Built against KeePass 2.20Windows 8 Toolkit - Charts and More: Beta 1.0: The First Compiled Version of my LibraryPDF.NET: PDF.NET.Ver4.5-OpenSourceCode: PDF.NET Ver4.5 ????，????Web??????。 PDF.NET Ver4.5 Open Source Code,include a sample Web application project.Visual Studio Icon Patcher: Version 1.5.2: This version contains no new images from v1.5.1 Contains the following improvements: Better support for detecting the installed languages The extract & inject commands won’t run if Visual Studio is running You may now run in extract or inject mode The p/invoke code was cleaned up based on Code Analysis recommendations When a p/invoke method fails the Win32 error message is now displayed Error messages use red text Status messages use green textNew Projects.Net Exception Reporter: A reusable and extensible exception reporter for Microsoft .NET projects.Aesha Broker: A rich client Auction House Broker application. Built upon Blizzard's new REST API. Provides a client experience which caches historical auction data to provideASP.NET Friendly URLs: A library that enables automatic resolving of extensionless URLs to ASP.NET file-based handlers, e.g. ASPX pages.Astro Power CMS: Astro Power CMS build on GraffitiCMS, a product of Telligent. GraffitiCMS stop develop, I create this project with name is Astro Power CMSaTester: Here is a good place. And now, I can upload my soruce to it. It's very good.Automacao Residencial: O Netduino é uma plataforma onde voce utiliza a linguagem C# para controlar hardware. O objetivo é criar uma estrutura de comunicaçao com o netduino.Derbster: Explore and learn about modern C# architecture and programming by implementing software to support the modern game of roller derby. Dot FPE - A free Format-preserving encryption implementation for .net: There aren't any widely available implementations of a format-preserving encryption in .NET. Thus we aim to be the first!DotNetEx: .NET Framework extended functionality for data access, working with Tasks and asynchronous programming, encryption algorithms such as SkipJack and other stuff.Elemental Development Toolchain (.NET version): A complete toolchain built around the Æthere langauge.elFinder ASP.NET Connector: The one and only .NET connector for the amazing elFinder 2.X web-based file manager. Finally you can manage your files easily right from your browser!Geosynkronisering: Prosjekt for utarbeidelse av spesifikasjoner for grensesnitt som muliggjør synkronisering av datalager med geografisk datainnhold på tvers av ulike plattformerGIII_P1: Jesli wszyscy w Ciebie zwatpili pokaz ze sie mylili !IntroduceCompany: Website gi?i thi?u doanh nghi?p - công ty.JsonToStaticTypeGenerator: This is the JsonToStaticTypeGenerator project that gives the possibility to generate c# classes out of Json data.kwerty: Coming soonMachine Learning: My machine learning project. Just to figure out things...MicroManager: MaNGOS Web-based ManagerMvcContrib3: This is the version of mvccontrib which works with ASP.Net MVC 3Oracle Destination via ODP.Net (Custom Destination Component): SSIS 2008 R2 solution (custom destination component) to write to oracle via ODP.NetOrchard Commerce History with PayPal: Project expands on Nwazet.Commerce module (and is required for this module to work). Adds a purchase history, product role associations, and PayPal.Phoenix Trans: Web Phoenix Trans v?n t?i hàng hóa trong và ngoài nu?cPowerState: PowerState is .NET application for sending Wake-On-LAN (WOL) requests to computers. It can also shutdown, log off and reboot computers using the WMI.RenameApp: RenameApp is a free and very simple to use renaming software for Windows. RenameApp allows you to easily rename files based on the specified criteria and order.Rose-Hulman User Experience Design: This project will contain labs intended for use in Rose-Hulman's Computer Science and Software Engineering department.Server d? phòng: Ðây là server d? phòng, SharePoint BCS External Connector Caching Pattern Library: Library for enabling caching on SharePoint BCS external connectors. Enables BCS .Net Assemblies to be written that are scalable and performant for search.SharpDX.WPF: This projects provides a DirectX 9, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 support for WPF. The assembly contains DXElement - an easy to use WPF-FrameworkElement.Simple Password Generator Library: The password generator library, written in C#, is a simple assembly which allow generation of passwords with length anywhere from 1-99.SisEagle.NET: Esse sistema foi desenvolvido pra fins de apresentação do TCC referente ao ano de 2012 na UDF-BrasiliaSWebshop: SWebshop is a PHP based webshop system which allows you to insert, edit and delete data easily and is easy to use for customers.Tabular Database Powershell Cmdlets: This project provides a sample of PowerShell Cmdlets to manage Tabular models, from Analysis Services.University timetable using java: the project is using java language to create timetable (full timetable with exam tables and labs tables) and it will be free for all users with sql databaseURLShoter: This project for shorting URL for ASP.NETWeb Input Form Control: This control allow developer to create the input form by configuring the control in html modeWeibo: rtWorkoutMemo: Project descritpion(first draft): Memorise your workout. Keep archive records of your daily trening such: - series of excercise, - quantity of each serie, - weWPF - Automate Acrobat Security Policy: This WPF Tool was created to quickly password protect batches of PDF documents, using a random generator to generate the passwords.XiaoKyun: Hello Page for Web.Z3: Z3 is a high-performance theorem prover being developed at Microsoft Research.

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• Routing to a Controller with no View in Angular

  - by Rick Strahl

  I've finally had some time to put Angular to use this week in a small project I'm working on for fun. Angular's routing is great and makes it real easy to map URL routes to controllers and model data into views. But what if you don't actually need a view, if you effectively need a headless controller that just runs code, but doesn't render a view?Preserve the ViewWhen Angular navigates a route and and presents a new view, it loads the controller and then renders the view from scratch. Views are not cached or stored, but displayed and then removed. So if you have routes configured like this:'use strict'; // Declare app level module which depends on filters, and services window.myApp = angular.module('myApp', ['myApp.filters', 'myApp.services', 'myApp.directives', 'myApp.controllers']). config(['$routeProvider', function($routeProvider) { $routeProvider.when('/map', { template: "partials/map.html ", controller: 'mapController', reloadOnSearch: false, animation: 'slide' }); … $routeProvider.otherwise({redirectTo: '/map'}); }]); Angular routes to the mapController and then re-renders the map.html template with the new data from the $scope filled in.But, but… I don't want a new View!Now in most cases this works just fine. If I'm rendering plain DOM content, or textboxes in a form interface that is all fine and dandy - it's perfectly fine to completely re-render the UI.But in some cases, the UI that's being managed has state and shouldn't be redrawn. In this case the main page in question has a Google Map on it. The map is  going to be manipulated throughout the lifetime of the application and the rest of the pages. In my application I have a toolbar on the bottom and the rest of the content is replaced/switched out by the Angular Views:The problem is that the map shouldn't be redrawn each time the Location view is activated. It should maintain its state, such as the current position selected (which can move), and shouldn't redraw due to the overhead of re-rendering the initial map.Originally I set up the map, exactly like all my other views - as a partial, that is rendered with a separate file, but that didn't work.The Workaround - Controller Only RoutesThe workaround for this goes decidedly against Angular's way of doing things:Setting up a Template-less RouteIn-lining the map view directly into the main pageHiding and showing the map view manuallyLet's see how this works.Controller Only RouteThe template-less route is basically a route that doesn't have any template to render. This is not directly supported by Angular, but thankfully easy to fake. The end goal here is that I want to simply have the Controller fire and then have the controller manage the display of the already active view by hiding and showing the map and any other view content, in effect bypassing Angular's view display management.In short - I want a controller action, but no view rendering.The controller-only or template-less route looks like this: $routeProvider.when('/map', { template: " ", // just fire controller controller: 'mapController', animation: 'slide' });Notice I'm using the template property rather than templateUrl (used in the first example above), which allows specifying a string template, and leaving it blank. The template property basically allows you to provide a templated string using Angular's HandleBar like binding syntax which can be useful at times. You can use plain strings or strings with template code in the template, or as I'm doing here a blank string to essentially fake 'just clear the view'. In-lined ViewSo if there's no view where does the HTML go? Because I don't want Angular to manage the view the map markup is in-lined directly into the page. So instead of rendering the map into the Angular view container, the content is simply set up as inline HTML to display as a sibling to the view container.<div id="MapContent" data-icon="LocationIcon" ng-controller="mapController" style="display:none"> <div class="headerbar"> <div class="right-header" style="float:right"> <a id="btnShowSaveLocationDialog" class="iconbutton btn btn-sm" href="#/saveLocation" style="margin-right: 2px;"> <i class="icon-ok icon-2x" style="color: lightgreen; "></i> Save Location </a> </div> <div class="left-header">GeoCrumbs</div> </div> <div class="clearfix"></div> <div id="Message"> <i id="MessageIcon"></i> <span id="MessageText"></span> </div> <div id="Map" class="content-area"> </div> </div> <div id="ViewPlaceholder" ng-view></div>Note that there's the #MapContent element and the #ViewPlaceHolder. The #MapContent is my static map view that is always 'live' and is initially hidden. It is initially hidden and doesn't get made visible until the MapController controller activates it which does the initial rendering of the map. After that the element is persisted with the map data already loaded and any future access only updates the map with new locations/pins etc.Note that default route is assigned to the mapController, which means that the mapController is fired right as the page loads, which is actually a good thing in this case, as the map is the cornerstone of this app that is manipulated by some of the other controllers/views.The Controller handles some UISince there's effectively no view activation with the template-less route, the controller unfortunately has to take over some UI interaction directly. Specifically it has to swap the hidden state between the map and any of the other views.Here's what the controller looks like:myApp.controller('mapController', ["$scope", "$routeParams", "locationData", function($scope, $routeParams, locationData) { $scope.locationData = locationData.location; $scope.locationHistory = locationData.locationHistory; if ($routeParams.mode == "currentLocation") { bc.getCurrentLocation(false); } bc.showMap(false,"#LocationIcon"); }]);bc.showMap is responsible for a couple of display tasks that hide/show the views/map and for activating/deactivating icons. The code looks like this:this.showMap = function (hide,selActiveIcon) { if (!hide) $("#MapContent").show(); else { $("#MapContent").hide(); } self.fitContent(); if (selActiveIcon) { $(".iconbutton").removeClass("active"); $(selActiveIcon).addClass("active"); } };Each of the other controllers in the app also call this function when they are activated to basically hide the map and make the View Content area visible. The map controller makes the map.This is UI code and calling this sort of thing from controllers is generally not recommended, but I couldn't figure out a way using directives to make this work any more easily than this. It'd be easy to hide and show the map and view container using a flag an ng-show, but it gets tricky because of scoping of the $scope. I would have to resort to storing this setting on the $rootscope which I try to avoid. The same issues exists with the icons.It sure would be nice if Angular had a way to explicitly specify that a View shouldn't be destroyed when another view is activated, so currently this workaround is required. Searching around, I saw a number of whacky hacks to get around this, but this solution I'm using here seems much easier than any of that I could dig up even if it doesn't quite fit the 'Angular way'.Angular nice, until it's notOverall I really like Angular and the way it works although it took me a bit of time to get my head around how all the pieces fit together. Once I got the idea how the app/routes, the controllers and views snap together, putting together Angular pages becomes fairly straightforward. You can get quite a bit done never going beyond those basics. For most common things Angular's default routing and view presentation works very well.But, when you do something a bit more complex, where there are multiple dependencies or as in this case where Angular doesn't appear to support a feature that's absolutely necessary, you're on your own. Finding information on more advanced topics is not trivial especially since versions are changing so rapidly and the low level behaviors are changing frequently so finding something that works is often an exercise in trial and error. Not that this is surprising. Angular is a complex piece of kit as are all the frameworks that try to hack JavaScript into submission to do something that it was really never designed to. After all everything about a framework like Angular is an elaborate hack. A lot of shit has to happen to make this all work together and at that Angular (and Ember, Durandel etc.) are pretty amazing pieces of JavaScript code. So no harm, no foul, but I just can't help feeling like working in toy sandbox at times :-)© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2013Posted in Angular  JavaScript   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #003

  - by pinaldave

  Here is the list of curetted articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2006 This was the first year of my blogging and lots of new things I was learning as I go. I was indeed an infant in blogging a few years ago. However, as time passed by I have learned a lot. This year was year of experiments and new learning. 2007 Working as a full time DBA I often encoutered various errors and I started to learn how to avoid those error and document the same. ERROR Msg 5174 Each file size must be greater than or equal to 512 KB Whenever I see this error I wonder why someone is trying to attempt a database which is extremely small. Anyway, it does not matter what I think I keep on seeing this error often in industries. Anyway the solution of the error is equally interesting – just created larger database. Dilbert Humor This was very first encounter with database humor and I started to love it. It does not matter how many time we read this cartoon it does not get old. Generate Script with Data from Database – Database Publishing Wizard Generating schema script with data is one of the most frequently performed tasks among SQL Server Data Professionals. There are many ways to do the same. In the above article I demonstrated that how we can use the Database Publishing Wizard to accomplish the same. It was new to me at that time but I have not seen much of the adoption of the same still in the industry. Here is one of my videos where I demonstrate how we can generate data with schema. 2008 Delete Backup History – Cleanup Backup History Deleting backup history is important too but should be done carefully. If this is not carried out at regular interval there is good chance that MSDB will be filled up with all the old history. Every organization is different. Some would like to keep the history for 30 days and some for a year but there should be some limit. One should regularly archive the database backup history. South Asia MVP Open Days 2008 This was my very first year Microsoft MVP. I had Indeed big blast at the event and the fun was incredible. After this event I have attended many different MVP events but the fun and learning this particular event presented was amazing and just like me many others are not able to forget the same. Here are other links related to the event: South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 1 South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 2 South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 3 2009 Enable or Disable Constraint  This is very simple script but I personally keep on forgetting it so I had blogged it. Till today, I keep on referencing this again and again as sometime a very little thing is hard to remember. Policy Based Management – Create, Evaluate and Fix Policies This article will cover the most spectacular feature of SQL 2008 – Policy-based management and how the configuration of SQL Server with policy-based management architecture can make a powerful difference. Policy based management is loaded with several advantages. It can help you implement various policies for reliable configuration of the system. It also provides additional administrative assistance to DBAs and helps them effortlessly manage various tasks of SQL Server across the enterprise. SQLPASS 2009 – My Very First SQPASS Experience Just Brilliant! I never had an experience such a thing in my life. SQL SQL and SQL – all around SQL! I am listing my own reasons here in order of importance to me. Networking with SQL fellows and experts Putting face to the name or avatar Learning and improving my SQL skills Understanding the structure of the largest SQL Server Professional Association Attending my favorite training sessions Since last time I have never missed a single time this event. This event is my favorite event and something keeps me going. Here are additional post related SQLPASS 2009. SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 1 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 2 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 3 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 4 2010 Get All the Information of Database using sys.databases Even though we believe that we know everything about our database, we do not know a lot of things about our database. This little script enables us to know so many details about databases which we may not be familiar with. Run this on your server today and see how much you know your database. Reducing CXPACKET Wait Stats for High Transactional Database While engaging in a performance tuning consultation for a client, a situation occurred where they were facing a lot of CXPACKET Waits Stats. The client asked me if I could help them reduce this huge number of wait stats. I usually receive this kind of request from other client as well, but the important thing to understand is whether this question has any merits or benefits, or not. I discusses the same in this article – a bit long but insightful for sure. Error related to Database in Use There are so many database management operations in SQL Server which requires exclusive access to the database and it is not always possible to get it. When any database is online in SQL Server it either applications or system thread often accesses them. This means database can’t have exclusive access and the operations which required this access throws an error. There is very easy method to overcome this minor issue – a single line script can give you exclusive access to the database. Difference between DATETIME and DATETIME2 Developers have found the root reason of the problem when dealing with Date Functions – when data time values are converted (implicit or explicit) between different data types, which would lose some precision, so the result cannot match each other as expected. In this blog post I go over very interesting details and difference between DATETIME and DATETIME2 History of SQL Server Database Encryption I recently met Michael Coles and Rodeney Landrum the author of one of the kind book Expert SQL Server 2008 Encryption at SQLPASS in Seattle. During the conversation we ended up how Microsoft is evolving encryption technology. The same discussion lead to talking about history of encryption tools in SQL Server. Michale pointed me to page 18 of his book of encryption. He explicitly gave me permission to re-produce relevant part of history from his book. 2011 Functions FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause and ORDER BY Some time an interesting feature and smart audience make a total difference in places. From last two days, I have been writing on SQL Server 2012 feature FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE. I created a puzzle which was very interesting and got many people attempt to resolve it. It was based on following two articles: Introduction to FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE Introduction to FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause I even provided the hint about how one can solve this problem. The best part was many people solved the problem without using hints! Try your luck!  A Real Story of Book Getting ‘Out of Stock’ to A 25% Discount Story Available This is a great problem and everybody would love to have it. We had it and we loved it. Our book got out of stock in 48 hours of releasing and stocks were empty. We faced many issues and learned many valuable lessons. Some we were able to avoid in the future and some we are still facing it as those problems have no solutions. However, since that day – our books never gone out of stock. This inspiring learning story for us and I am confident that you will love to read it as well. Introduction to LEAD and LAG – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical function LEAD() and LAG(). This function accesses data from a subsequent row (for lead) and previous row (for lag) in the same result set without the use of a self-join . It will be very difficult to explain this in words so I will attempt small example to explain you this function. I had a fantastic time writing this blog post and I am very confident when you read it, you will like the same. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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