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• Enable DreamScene in Any Version of Vista or Windows 7

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Windows DreamScene was a utility available for Vista Ultimate that allowed users to set video as desktop wallpaper. It was dropped in Windows 7, but we’ll take a look at how to play DreamScenes in all versions of Windows 7 or Vista. Downloading DreamScenes First, you’ll need to find some DreamScenes to download. We’ve found some nice ones at both DreamScene.org and DeviantArt. You can find those download links at the end of the article. They’ll come as compressed files, so you’ll need to extract them after downloading. Windows 7 DreamScene Activator If you are running Windows 7 you can use Windows 7 DreamScene Activator. This free portable utility enables DreamScene in both 32 & 64 bit versions of Windows 7. Users can then set either MPG or WMV files as desktop wallpaper. Download and extract the Windows 7 DreamScene Activator (link below). Once extracted, you’ll need to run the application as administrator. Right-click on the .exe and select Run as administrator. Click on Enable DreamScene. This will also restart Windows Explorer if it is open. To play your DreamScene, browse for the file in Windows Explorer, right-click the file and select Set as Desktop Background. Enjoy your new Windows 7 DreamScene.   Although it says it is for Windows 7 only, we were able to get it to work with no problems on Vista Home Premium x32 as well.   You can Pause the DreamScene at anytime by right-clicking on the desktop and selecting Pause DreamScene.   When you are ready for a change, click Disable DreamScene and switch back to your previous wallpaper. Using VLC Media Player Users of all versions of Windows 7 & Vista can enable a DreamScene using VLC. Recently, we showed you how to set a video as your desktop wallpaper in VLC.  Since DreamScenes are in MPEG or WMV format, we will use the same tactic to display them as desktop wallpaper. We’ll just need to make a few additional tweaks to the VLC settings. You’ll need to download and install VLC media player if you don’t already have it. You can find the download link below. Next, select Tools > Preferences from the Menu. Select the Video button on the left and then choose DirectX video output from the Output dropdown list. Next, select All under Show Settings at the lower left, then select the Video button on the left pane. Uncheck Show media title on video. This will prevent VLC from constantly showing the title of the video on the screen each time the video loops. Click Save and the restart VLC.   Now we will add the video to our playlist and set it to continuously loop. Select View > Playlist from the Menu. Select the Add file button from the bottom of the Playlist window and select Add file.   Browse for your file and click Open.   Click the Loop button at the bottom so the video plays in a continuous loop.   Now, we’re ready to play the video. After the video starts playing, select Video > DirectX Wallpaper from the Menu, then minimize VLC.   If you’re using Aero Themes, you may get a pop-up warning and Windows will switch automatically to a basic theme.   If looping one video gets to be a little repetitive, you can add multiple videos to your playlist in VLC and loop the entire playlist. Just make sure you toggle the Loop button on the playlist window to Loop All. Now you’ve got a nice DreamScene playing on your desktop. Another cool trick you can do with VLC is take snapshots of favorite movie scenes and set them as backgrounds. When you’re ready to go back to your old wallpaper, maximize VLC, select Video and click DirectX Wallpaper again to turn it off the video background. Occasionally we were left with a black screen and had to manually change our wallpaper back to normal even after turning off the DirectX Wallpaper. Note: Keep in mind that using the VLC method takes up a lot of resources so if you try to run it on older hardware, or say a netbook, you’re not going to get good results. We also tried to use the VLC method in XP, but couldn’t get it to work. If you have leave a comment and let us know. While the DreamScene feature never really caught on in Vista, we find them to be a cool way to pump a little life into your desktop on any version of Vista or Windows 7. Downloads DreamScenes from Dreamscene.org DreamScenes from DeviantArt Download VLC media player Windows 7 DreamScene Activator Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Wait, How do I Turn on DreamScene Again?Enable Run Command on Windows 7 or Vista Start MenuEnable or Disable UAC From the Windows 7 / Vista Command LineUnderstanding Windows Vista Aero Glass RequirementsEnable Mapping to \HostnameC$ Share on Windows 7 or Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Microsoft Office Web Apps Guide Know if Someone Accessed Your Facebook Account Shop for Music with Windows Media Player 12 Access Free Documentaries at BBC Documentaries Rent Cameras In Bulk At CameraRenter Download Songs From MySpace

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• RDA Health Checks for SOA

  - by ShawnBailey

  What is a health check in RDA? A health check evaluates something in your environment to determine whether a change needs to be considered in order to avoid a problem or optimize fuctionality. Examples of what this 'something' might be are: Configuration Parameters JVM Options Runtime Statistics What have we done for SOA? In the latest release of RDA, 4.30, we have added a Rule Set for SOA called 'Oracle SOA 11g (11.1.1) Post Installation (Generic)'. This Rule Set contains 14 SOA related health checks. These checks were all derived from common issues / solutions we see in support of the SOA product. Many of the recommendations come from the product documentation while others are covered in the SOA Knowledge Base. Our goal is that you will be able to easily identify the areas of concern and understand the guidance available from the output of the Rule Set. Running the health checks for SOA The rules that the checks use are installed with RDA and bundled by product or functional area into what are called 'Rule Sets'. To view the available Rule Sets simply run the command from the RDA home location: rda.cmd (or .sh) -dT hcve This will bring up a list of the available HCVE (Health Check / Verification Engine) Rule Sets. Each Rule Set contains a group of related rules that are used for evalutation and display of results. A rule can be considered synonymous with a single health check and they are assigned an ID, Name and Description that can be seen when they are executed. The Rule Set for SOA is option number 11 and you just enter this selection at the prompt. The Rule Set will then execute to completion. After running an HCVE Rule Set the tool will write the output to the RDA_HOME/output folder. The simplest way to view the output is to drag the .htm file to a browser but of course it can also be uploaded to a Service Request for evaluation by Oracle Support. Many of the Rule Sets will prompt you for information before they can execute their rules but the SOA Rule Set will identify the SOA domains configured in your RDA setup.cfg file. This means that you don't need to answer all of the questions again about where stuff is but it also means that you must have configured RDA for SOA. To run the Rule Set: Download the latest version of RDA from MOS Doc ID 314422.1 Configure RDA for your SOA domains. Detailed steps can be found here In it's simplest form the command is 'rda.cmd (.sh) -S SOA' Go to the RDA home location and enter the command 'rda.cmd (or .sh) -dT hcve' Select option '11' It should be noted that this our first release of a SOA Rule Set so there will probably be some things we need to clean up or fix. None of these rules will actually modify anything on your system as they are read only and do the evaluations internally. Please let us know if you have any issues with the rules or ideas for new ones so we can make them as useful as possible. The Checks Here is a list of the SOA health checks by ID, Name and Description. ID Name Description A00100 SOA Domain Homes Lists the SOA domains that were indentified from the RDA setup.cfg file A00200 Coherence Protocol Conflict Checks to see if you have both Unicast and Multicast configured in the same domain. Checks both the setDomainEnv and config.xml entries (if it exists). We recommend Unicast with fully qualified host names or IP addresses. A00210 Coherence Fully Qualified Host Checks that the host names are fully qualified or that IP addresses are used. Will fail if unqualified host names are detected. A00220 Unicast Local Host Checks that the Coherence localhost is specified for use with Unicast A00300 JTA Timeout Checks that the JTA timeout is configured for the domain and lists the value. The bundled rule will only list the current values of the JTA timeout for each SOA Domain. In the future the rule with fail with a warning if the value is 300 seconds or lower. It is recommended that timeouts follow the pattern 'syncMaxWaitTime' < EJB Timeouts < JTA Timeout. The 300 second value is important because the EJB Timeouts default to 300 seconds. Additional information can be found in MOS Doc ID 880313.1. A00310 XA Max Time Checks that the JTA Maximum XA call time is set for the domain. Fails if it is not explicitly set or if the value is less than or equal to the default of 12000 ms. A00320 XA Timeout Checks that the XA timeout is enabled and that the value is '0' for the SOA Data Source (SOADataSource-jdbc.xml) A00330 JDBC Statement Timeout Checks that the Statement Timeout is set for all SOA Data Sources. Fails if the value is not set or if it is set to the default of -1. A00400 XA Driver Checks that the SOA Data Source is configured to use an XA driver. Fails if it is not. A00410 JDBC Capacity Settings Checks that the minimum and maximum capacity are equal for all SOA Data Sources. Fails if they are not and lists specifically which data sources failed. A00500 SOA Roles Checks that the default SOA roles 'SOAAdmin' and 'SOAOperator' are configured for the soa-infra application in the file sytem-jazn-data.xml. Fails if they are not. A00700 SOA-INFRA Deployment Checks that the soa-infra application is deployed to either a cluster, all members of a cluster or a stand alone server. A00710 SOA Deployments Checks that the SOA related applications are deployed to the same domain members as soa-infra. A00720 SOA Library Deployments Checks that the SOA related libraries are deployed to the same domain members as soa-infra. A00730 Data Source Deployments Checks that the SOA Data Sources are all targeted to the same domain members as soa-infra

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• OpenSSL Versions in Solaris

  - by darrenm

  Those of you have have installed Solaris 11 or have read some of the blogs by my colleagues will have noticed Solaris 11 includes OpenSSL 1.0.0, this is a different version to what we have in Solaris 10.  I hope the following explains why that is and how it fits with the expectations on binary compatibility between Solaris releases. Solaris 10 was the first release where we included OpenSSL libraries and headers (part of it was actually statically linked into the SSH client/server in Solaris 9).  At time we were building and releasing Solaris 10 the current train of OpenSSL was 0.9.7.  The OpenSSL libraries at that time were known to not always be completely API and ABI (binary) compatible between releases (some times even in the lettered patch releases) though mostly if you stuck with the documented high level APIs you would be fine.   For this reason OpenSSL was classified as a 'Volatile' interface and in Solaris 10 Volatile interfaces were not part of the default library search path which is why the OpenSSL libraries live in /usr/sfw/lib on Solaris 10.  Okay, but what does Volatile mean ? Quoting from the attributes(5) man page description of Volatile (which was called External in older taxonomy): Volatile interfaces can change at any time and for any reason. The Volatile interface stability level allows Sun pro- ducts to quickly track a fluid, rapidly evolving specif- ication. In many cases, this is preferred to providing additional stability to the interface, as it may better meet the expectations of the consumer. The most common application of this taxonomy level is to interfaces that are controlled by a body other than Sun, but unlike specifications controlled by standards bodies or Free or Open Source Software (FOSS) communities which value interface compatibility, it can not be asserted that an incompatible change to the interface specifica- tion would be exceedingly rare. It may also be applied to FOSS controlled software where it is deemed more important to track the community with minimal latency than to provide stability to our customers. It also common to apply the Volatile classification level to interfaces in the process of being defined by trusted or widely accepted organization. These are generically referred to as draft standards. An "IETF Internet draft" is a well understood example of a specification under development. Volatile can also be applied to experimental interfaces. No assertion is made regarding either source or binary compatibility of Volatile interfaces between any two releases, including patches. Applications containing these interfaces might fail to function properly in any future release. Note that last paragraph!  OpenSSL is only one example of the many interfaces in Solaris that are classified as Volatile.  At the other end of the scale we have Committed (Stable in Solaris 10 terminology) interfaces, these include things like the POSIX APIs or Solaris specific APIs that we have no intention of changing in an incompatible way.  There are also Private interfaces and things we declare as Not-an-Interface (eg command output not intended for scripting against only to be read by humans). Even if we had declared OpenSSL as a Committed/Stable interface in Solaris 10 there are allowed exceptions, again quoting from attributes(5): 4. An interface specification which isn't controlled by Sun has been changed incompatibly and the vast majority of interface consumers expect the newer interface. 5. Not making the incompatible change would be incomprehensible to our customers. In our opinion and that of our large and small customers keeping up with the OpenSSL community is important, and certainly both of the above cases apply. Our policy for dealing with OpenSSL on Solaris 10 was to stay at 0.9.7 and add fixes for security vulnerabilities (the version string includes the CVE numbers of fixed vulnerabilities relevant to that release train).  The last release of OpenSSL 0.9.7 delivered by the upstream community was more than 4 years ago in Feb 2007. Now lets roll forward to just before the release of Solaris 11 Express in 2010. By that point in time the current OpenSSL release was 0.9.8 with the 1.0.0 release known to be coming soon.  Two significant changes to OpenSSL were made between Solaris 10 and Solaris 11 Express.  First in Solaris 11 Express (and Solaris 11) we removed the requirement that Volatile libraries be placed in /usr/sfw/lib, that means OpenSSL is now in /usr/lib, secondly we upgraded it to the then current version stream of OpenSSL (0.9.8) as was expected by our customers. In between Solaris 11 Express in 2010 and the release of Solaris 11 in 2011 the OpenSSL community released version 1.0.0.  This was a huge milestone for a long standing and highly respected open source project.  It would have been highly negligent of Solaris not to include OpenSSL 1.0.0e in the Solaris 11 release. It is the latest best supported and best performing version.     In fact Solaris 11 isn't 'just' OpenSSL 1.0.0 but we have added our SPARC T4 engine and the AES-NI engine to support the on chip crypto acceleration. This gives us 4.3x better AES performance than OpenSSL 0.9.8 running on AIX on an IBM POWER7. We are now working with the OpenSSL community to determine how best to integrate the SPARC T4 changes into the mainline OpenSSL.  The OpenSSL 'pkcs11' engine we delivered in Solaris 10 to support the CA-6000 card and the SPARC T1/T2/T3 hardware is still included in Solaris 11. When OpenSSL 1.0.1 and 1.1.0 come out we will asses what is best for Solaris customers. It might be upgrade or it might be parallel delivery of more than one version stream.  At this time Solaris 11 still classifies OpenSSL as a Volatile interface, it is our hope that we will be able at some point in a future release to give it a higher interface stability level. Happy crypting! and thank-you OpenSSL community for all the work you have done that helps Solaris.

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• A tale of two dev accounts

  - by TechTwaddle

  Note: I am currently in the process of relocating my blog from http://www.geekswithblogs.net/techtwaddle to my new address at http://www.techtwaddle.net I suggest you point your feed readers to the new address as I slowly transition to my new shared-hosted, ad-free wordpress blog :)   You probably remember my rant from a while back about my windows mobile developer account having problems with the new AppHub, well, there have been few developments and I thought I should share it with you. First up, the issue isn’t fixed yet. I still cannot login to AppHub using my windows mobile 6.x developer account and can’t view details of my Minesweeper app. Who knows how many copies its sold. I had numerous exchanges with Microsoft’s support team on the AppHub forums and via email as well (support ticket), but somehow we never managed to get to the root of it. In fact, the support team itself grew so tired of the problem that they suggested I create a new dev account. I grew impatient, and it was really frustrating to have an app ready for submission but not being able to do anything with it. Eventually, the frustration had to show somewhere, and it was on this forum thread Prabhu Kumar in reply to Nick Nick, I feel for you and totally understand the frustration. Since day one I have been getting the XBOX profile linking error, We encountered an issue connecting your App Hub account with your Xbox Live Profile. Please visit Xbox.com and update your contact information. After you have updated your contact information, please return to the App Hub (https://users.create.msdn.com/Register) to continue. I have an app published on the Windows Mobile 6.x marketplace since Aug, now I can't view the details of this app. I completed work on my WP7 application 1.5 months ago and the first version is ready for submission to marketplace, only if I can login. You can imagine how frustrating all this can be, the issue has taken far too long to be fixed, this has drained all my motivation. I have exchanged numerous mails with Microsoft support team on this issue, and from the looks of it they really are trying their best, unfortunately, their best is not good enough for some of us. During the first week of December I was told that there would be an update happening to AppHub around mid of December. I was hoping that the issue would be fixed but it wasn't. After the update the only change I notice is that the xbox.com link on the error page now takes me to the correct link. Previously, this link used to take me to the 404 page you mentioned above. Out of desperation, I am now considering creating another developer account on AppHub with a new live id, even this I am not 100% sure will work. I asked the support team when the next update to AppHub was planned and got this reply, "We do not have  release date to announce for the next App Hub update at this time. In regards to the login issue you are experiencing at this point the only solution would be to create a new account with a different live ID but make sure to go to xbox.com before hand to get all the information in order on that side." I know it's an extra $99, and not that I can't afford it but it doesn't feel right and I shouldn't have to be doing it in the first place. I have lost all hope of this issue being resolved. I went ahead and created a new dev account, the id verification was in progress when Shaun Taulbee of Microsoft, who has been really helpful in the forums, replied saying, If you find it necessary to pay again to create a new account due to a Microsoft problem, send in a support request asking for a refund and we'll review it (and likely approve it given the circumstances). The thought of refund made me happy, but I had my doubts. So once my second account was verified by Geotrust I applied for a refund through the developer dashboard, by creating a support ticket. Couple of days later I got an email from Microsoft saying that the refund had been approved! yay! Few days and the refund showed up on my bill, Well, thank you Microsoft, it means a lot. I am glad it’s over now. The new account works flawlessly. I would still like to get my first account working again and look at my app numbers for Win Mo 6.x, and probably transfer the credits to the new account somehow, but I’ll save it for another day. If you’ve had similar problems with the AppHub, and had to create a new account to submit your app, I suggest you contact the support team and get your dollars refunded!

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• JavaOne 2011: Content review process and Tips for submissions

  - by arungupta

  The Technical Sessions, Birds of Feather, Panels, and Hands-on labs (basically all the content delivered at JavaOne) forms the backbone of the conference. At this year's JavaOne conference you'll have access to the rock star speakers, the ability to engage with luminaries in the hallways, and have beer (or 2) with community peers in designated areas. Even though the conference is Oct 2-6, 2011, and will be bigger and better than last year's conference, the Call for Paper submission and review/selection evaluation started much earlier.In previous years, I've participated in the review process and this year I was honored to serve as co-lead for the "Enterprise Service Architecture and Cloud" track with Ludovic Champenois. We had a stellar review team with an equal mix of Oracle and external community reviewers. The review process is very overwhelming with the reviewers going through multiple voting iterations on each submission in order to ensure that the selected content is the BEST of the submitted lot. Our ultimate goal was to ensure that the content best represented the track, and most importantly would draw interest and excitement from attendees. As always, the number and quality of submissions were just superb, making for a truly challenging (and rewarding) experience for the reviewers. As co-lead I tried to ensure that I applied a fair and balanced process in the evaluation of content in my track. . Here are some key steps followed by all track leads: Vote on sessions - Each reviewer is required to vote on the sessions on a scale of 1-5 - and also provide a justifying comment. Create buckets - Divide the submissions into different buckets to ensure a fair representation of different topics within a track. This ensures that if a particular bucket got higher votes then the track is not exclusively skewed towards it. Top 7 - The review committee provides a list of the top 7 talks that can be used in the promotional material by the JavaOne team. Generally these talks are easy to identify and a consensus is reached upon them fairly quickly. First cut - Each track is allocated a total number of sessions (including panels), BoFs, and Hands-on labs that can be approved. The track leads then start creating the first cut of the approvals using the casted votes coupled with their prior experience in the subject matter. In our case, Ludo and I have been attending/speaking at JavaOne (and other popular Java-focused conferences) for double digit years. The Grind - The first cut is then refined and refined and refined using multiple selection criteria such as sorting on the bucket, speaker quality, topic popularity, cumulative vote total, and individual vote scale. The sessions that don't make the cut are reviewed again as well to ensure if they need to replace one of the selected one as a potential alternate. I would like to thank the entire Java community for all the submissions and many thanks to the reviewers who spent countless hours reading each abstract, voting on them, and helping us refine the list. I think approximately 3-4 hours cumulative were spent on each submission to reach an evaluation, specifically the border line cases. We gave our recommendations to the JavaOne Program Committee Chairperson (Sharat Chander) and accept/decline notifications should show up in submitter inboxes in the next few weeks. Here are some points to keep in mind when submitting a session to JavaOne next time: JavaOne is a technology-focused conference so any product, marketing or seemingly marketish talk are put at the bottom of the list.Oracle Open World and Oracle Develop are better options for submitting product specific talks. Make your title catchy. Remember the attendees are more likely to read the abstract if they like the title. We try our best to recategorize the talk to a different track if it needs to but please ensure that you are filing in the right track to have all the right eyeballs looking at it. Also, it does not hurt marking an alternate track if your talk meets the criteria. Make sure to coordinate within your team before the submission - multiple sessions from the same team or company does not ensure that the best speaker is picked. In such case we rely upon your "google presence" and/or review committee's prior knowledge of the speaker. The reviewers may not know you or your product at all and you get 750 characters to pitch your idea. Make sure to use all of them, to the last 750th character. Make sure to read your abstract multiple times to ensure that you are giving all the relevant information ? Think through your presentation and see if you are leaving out any important aspects.Also look if the abstract has any redundant information that will not required by the reviewers. There are additional sections that allow you to share information about the speaker and the presentation summary. Use them to blow the horn about yourself and any other relevant details. Please don't say "call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx to find out the details" :-) The review committee enjoyed reviewing the submissions and we certainly hope you'll have a great time attending them. Happy JavaOne!

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• JavaOne 2011: Content review process and Tips for submissions

  - by arungupta

  The Technical Sessions, Birds of Feather, Panels, and Hands-on labs (basically all the content delivered at JavaOne) forms the backbone of the conference. At this year's JavaOne conference you'll have access to the rock star speakers, the ability to engage with luminaries in the hallways, and have beer (or 2) with community peers in designated areas. Even though the conference is Oct 2-6, 2011, and will be bigger and better than last year's conference, the Call for Paper submission and review/selection evaluation started much earlier.In previous years, I've participated in the review process and this year I was honored to serve as co-lead for the "Enterprise Service Architecture and Cloud" track with Ludovic Champenois. We had a stellar review team with an equal mix of Oracle and external community reviewers. The review process is very overwhelming with the reviewers going through multiple voting iterations on each submission in order to ensure that the selected content is the BEST of the submitted lot. Our ultimate goal was to ensure that the content best represented the track, and most importantly would draw interest and excitement from attendees. As always, the number and quality of submissions were just superb, making for a truly challenging (and rewarding) experience for the reviewers. As co-lead I tried to ensure that I applied a fair and balanced process in the evaluation of content in my track. . Here are some key steps followed by all track leads: Vote on sessions - Each reviewer is required to vote on the sessions on a scale of 1-5 - and also provide a justifying comment. Create buckets - Divide the submissions into different buckets to ensure a fair representation of different topics within a track. This ensures that if a particular bucket got higher votes then the track is not exclusively skewed towards it. Top 7 - The review committee provides a list of the top 7 talks that can be used in the promotional material by the JavaOne team. Generally these talks are easy to identify and a consensus is reached upon them fairly quickly. First cut - Each track is allocated a total number of sessions (including panels), BoFs, and Hands-on labs that can be approved. The track leads then start creating the first cut of the approvals using the casted votes coupled with their prior experience in the subject matter. In our case, Ludo and I have been attending/speaking at JavaOne (and other popular Java-focused conferences) for double digit years. The Grind - The first cut is then refined and refined and refined using multiple selection criteria such as sorting on the bucket, speaker quality, topic popularity, cumulative vote total, and individual vote scale. The sessions that don't make the cut are reviewed again as well to ensure if they need to replace one of the selected one as a potential alternate. I would like to thank the entire Java community for all the submissions and many thanks to the reviewers who spent countless hours reading each abstract, voting on them, and helping us refine the list. I think approximately 3-4 hours cumulative were spent on each submission to reach an evaluation, specifically the border line cases. We gave our recommendations to the JavaOne Program Committee Chairperson (Sharat Chander) and accept/decline notifications should show up in submitter inboxes in the next few weeks. Here are some points to keep in mind when submitting a session to JavaOne next time: JavaOne is a technology-focused conference so any product, marketing or seemingly marketish talk are put at the bottom of the list.Oracle Open World and Oracle Develop are better options for submitting product specific talks. Make your title catchy. Remember the attendees are more likely to read the abstract if they like the title. We try our best to recategorize the talk to a different track if it needs to but please ensure that you are filing in the right track to have all the right eyeballs looking at it. Also, it does not hurt marking an alternate track if your talk meets the criteria. Make sure to coordinate within your team before the submission - multiple sessions from the same team or company does not ensure that the best speaker is picked. In such case we rely upon your "google presence" and/or review committee's prior knowledge of the speaker. The reviewers may not know you or your product at all and you get 750 characters to pitch your idea. Make sure to use all of them, to the last 750th character. Make sure to read your abstract multiple times to ensure that you are giving all the relevant information ? Think through your presentation and see if you are leaving out any important aspects.Also look if the abstract has any redundant information that will not required by the reviewers. There are additional sections that allow you to share information about the speaker and the presentation summary. Use them to blow the horn about yourself and any other relevant details. Please don't say "call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx to find out the details" :-) The review committee enjoyed reviewing the submissions and we certainly hope you'll have a great time attending them. Happy JavaOne!

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• Breaking up the Workday– Overcoming the Workaholic Syndrome

  - by dwahlin

  Hi, my name’s Dan Wahlin and I’m a workaholic – I admit it. It’s good from the standpoint that I get a lot done but it also has a lot of cons associated with it as well that I’m not proud of. I literally can’t watch TV without feeling like I should be doing something more productive (although I have no problem going to see movies at a theater or watching sporting events – that’s my escape I guess). On vacation it’s sometimes difficult the first few days to just “let go” of work and enjoy the time with my family. I always feel like I should be checking email and following up with different business projects. Fortunately, my wife knows me really well after 17 years of marriage and “gently” restricts my usage of laptops and other gadgets while we’re out. She also reminds me that constantly burying my face in gadgets just isn’t cool and shows a distinct lack of self control. On a given day I typically put in between 12 (at a minimum) up to 16-18 hours working on projects. My company does .NET consulting (ASP.NET/jQuery, SharePoint and Silverlight) but we also do a lot in the training space so there’s always a client project, some new courseware or some other deliverable that has to be worked on. My normal process for handling that is to just work my butt off and see how much I can get done. That process has worked well for a long time but when you start realizing that your happiness comes from how much work you accomplished that day then you have a problem. That’s especially true if you have kids (which I do….two awesome boys). It’s almost as if working more hours feels like I’m more successful or something which is of course ridiculous. It may actually mean that I’m too distracted or disorganized. Lately I’ve realized that while I’m still productive and always meet my deadlines, I’m really burnt out by the afternoon and have lost some of the excitement I used to have. Part of that’s normal I think given that I’ve been doing this for close to 15 years now, but in thinking through it more I realized that I just need to get away from the desk and take a break. By far, the happiest time of my life was my childhood. Part of that was due to having awesome parents, having far less responsibility (a big factor I suspect), being able to hang-out with friends at school, playing sports, games, etc. but I think a big part of the overall happiness came from being outside a lot. I lived on my bike as a little kid and as I grew up I shared time between riding an ATV all over the place, shooting hoops on the basketball court, playing golf and working on a golf course (all outside work of course).  Being a software developer and trainer I generally spend 95% or more of my day indoors and only see the sun when driving from place to place or by looking out the window (that’s sad because I live in a suburb of Phoenix, AZ where it’s nearly always sunny). I haven’t looked into any scientific studies on the matter, but I’d be willing to bet there’s a direct correlation between overall productivity/happiness and being outside some throughout the day (sunny or not). But, I wasn’t sure what to do about it since I do have a lot of deadlines I need to meet after all. While talking with my wife last night I mentioned how I feel like I’m in a rut and want to get the “fun” back that I used to have. She immediately said that I need to start making time for breaks (a real quick fact – she’s a lot smarter than me and nearly always right). Of course my first thought was that I’d be less productive taking breaks. If I spend 2 hours just relaxing then I’m losing 2 hours of work. But, I thought about it more and realized that I’m probably less productive when I work 10+ hours and only take less than 30 minutes for a lunch break to relax a little. I bet my brain is screaming, “Please let me relax a little so I can figure out these problems you’re trying to resolve!”. So, starting today I’m going to try to break the workaholic habit and spend time outside of the office. That could mean sitting around outside, working out, golfing, or whatever. I’ve decided that no gadgets are allowed during that time and that I shouldn’t work for more than 4 hours straight without taking a break. I have no idea how my little “break the workaholic syndrome” experiment will go or how long it will last, but I’d be very interested in hearing from others on how they keep fresh and focused without working yourself to death. If you have any specific ideas, techniques or practices you follow please share them. There’s a lot more to life than work and some of us (and I’m thinking of myself specifically) need to take a long, hard look at what kind of balance we currently have. I’d hate to look back at my life when I’m 80 years old and say, “The only thing I did was work – I missed out on life!”.

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• MSCC: Career & IT Fair 2014

  Already a couple of weeks ago, I've been addressed by Ibraahim and Yunus to see whether it would be interesting to participate in the 1st Career & IT Fair organised by the UoM Computer Club. Well, luckily we met at the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp and I wasn't too sure whether it would be possible for me to attend after all. The main reason is given because of work demand and furthermore due to the fact that the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community currently has no advertising material at all. Here's the brief statement of the event: "The UOM Students' Computer Club in collaboration with the UOM Students' Union and UOM CSE Department is organising a 'Career & IT Fair' on the 23rd and 24th April 2014. This event has for objective to provide a platform to tertiary students, secondary students as well as vocational students, the opportunity to meet job recruiters." Luckily, I was reminded that the 23rd is a Wednesday, and therefore I decided that it might be interesting to move our weekly Code & Coffee session to the university and hence be able to attend the career fair. As it turned out it was a great choice and thankfully Pritvi, Nadim as well as Ishwon volunteered to be around at the "community booth". Thankfully, the computer club gave us - the MSCC and the LUGM - one of their spaces in the lobby area of the Paul Octave Wiéhé Auditorium. My impression about the event Very well and professionally organised. Seriously, the lads over at the UoM Computer Club did a great job in organising their 2 days event, and felt very comfortable at any time. Actually, it was kind of amusing to some of the members constantly running around and checking everything. Even though that the whole process went smooth and easy off the hand. There were a couple of interesting pieces of information and announcements during the opening ceremony. For example, the Computer Science faculty is a very young one and has been initiated back in 1988 only - just by 4 staff members at that time. Now, after 25 years they have achieved quite a lot and there are currently 1.000+ active students attending the numerous lectures and courses. But there is no room to rest on previous achievements, and I was kind of surprised to hear that there are plans to extend the campus, and offer new lectures in the fields of nanotechnology, big data handling, and - crossing fingers - the introduction and establishment of a space control centre. Mauritius is already part of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and hopefully there will be more activities into that direction in the near future. Community - Awareness and collaboration As stated earlier, I could only spent one morning but luckily other members of the MSCC and the LUGM stayed during the whole two days and provided answers to any interested person. As for me, I took the opportunity to get in touch with the other companies in the lobby. Mainly, to create some awareness about our IT communities but also to see whether there might be options for future engagement in common activities, too. So far, I was able to speak to representatives of the following companies: ACCA Mauritius Business at Work Infomil LinkByNet Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands & French Pacific Spherinity Training Institute Spoon Consulting Ltd. State Informatics Ltd. Unfortunately, I only had a quick chat with an HR representative of LinkByNet but I fully count on our MSCC members like Nitin or LUGM member Ronny to spread our intentions over there.  So far, all of the representatives were really interested in our concepts and activities and I'm currently catching up with an introduction flyer for the MSCC that I'm going to send out to all those contacts via mail. It would be great to have more craftsmen as well as professional support on board. Some pictures from the event MSCC: Fantastic outlook for the near future. Announcements were made on Big data, nanotechnology, and space control centre in Mauritius. Interesting! MSCC: The lobby area was cramped with students. Great way to exchange and network. Good luck to all candidates! Passing the relay staff to... I recommend you to continue to read about the first Career & IT Fair on Ish's blog. He has a great summary and more details on those two days of IT activities than I have. Thanks and feel free to leave a comment (or two)... 

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• Integrating Windows Form Click Once Application into SharePoint 2007 &ndash; Part 2 of 4

  - by Kelly Jones

  In my last post, I explained why we decided to use a Click Once application to solve our business problem. To quickly review, we needed a way for our business users to upload documents to a SharePoint 2007 document library in mass, set the meta data, set the permissions per document, and to do so easily. Let’s look at the pieces that make up our solution.  First, we have the Windows Form application.  This app is deployed using Click Once and calls SharePoint web services in order to upload files and then calls web services to set the meta data (SharePoint columns and permissions).  Second, we have a custom action.  The custom action is responsible for providing our users a link that will launch the Windows app, as well as passing values to it via the query string.  And lastly, we have the web services that the Windows Form application calls.  For our solution, we used both out of the box web services and a custom web service in order to set the column values in the document library as well as the permissions on the documents. Now, let’s look at the technical details of each of these pieces.  (All of the code is downloadable from here: )   Windows Form application deployed via Click Once The Windows Form application, called “Custom Upload”, has just a few classes in it: Custom Upload -- the form FileList.xsd -- the dataset used to track the names of the files and their meta data values SharePointUpload -- this class handles uploading the file SharePointUpload uses an HttpWebRequest to transfer the file to the web server. We had to change this code from a WebClient object to the HttpWebRequest object, because we needed to be able to set the time out value.  public bool UploadDocument(string localFilename, string remoteFilename) { bool result = true; //Need to use an HttpWebRequest object instead of a WebClient object // so we can set the timeout (WebClient doesn't allow you to set the timeout!) HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(remoteFilename); try { req.Method = "PUT"; req.Timeout = 60 * 1000; //convert seconds to milliseconds req.AllowWriteStreamBuffering = true; req.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials; req.SendChunked = false; req.KeepAlive = true; Stream reqStream = req.GetRequestStream(); FileStream rdr = new FileStream(localFilename, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read); byte[] inData = new byte[4096]; int bytesRead = rdr.Read(inData, 0, inData.Length); while (bytesRead > 0) { reqStream.Write(inData, 0, bytesRead); bytesRead = rdr.Read(inData, 0, inData.Length); } reqStream.Close(); rdr.Close(); System.Net.HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)req.GetResponse(); if (response.StatusCode != HttpStatusCode.OK && response.StatusCode != HttpStatusCode.Created) { String msg = String.Format("An error occurred while uploading this file: {0}\n\nError response code: {1}", System.IO.Path.GetFileName(localFilename), response.StatusCode.ToString()); LogWarning(msg, "2ACFFCCA-59BA-40c8-A9AB-05FA3331D223"); result = false; } } catch (Exception ex) { LogException(ex, "{E9D62A93-D298-470d-A6BA-19AAB237978A}"); result = false; } return result; } The class also contains the LogException() and LogWarning() methods. When the application is launched, it parses the query string for some initial values.  The query string looks like this: string queryString = "Srv=clickonce&Sec=N&Doc=DMI&SiteName=&Speed=128000&Max=50"; This Srv is the path to the server (my Virtual Machine is name “clickonce”), the Sec is short for security – meaning HTTPS or HTTP, the Doc is the shortcut for which document library to use, and SiteName is the name of the SharePoint site.  Speed is used to calculate an estimate for download speed for each file.  We added this so our users uploading documents would realize how long it might take for clients in remote locations (using slow WAN connections) to download the documents. The last value, Max, is the maximum size that the SharePoint site will allow documents to be.  This allowed us to give users a warning that a file is too large before we even attempt to upload it. Another critical piece is the meta data collection.  We organized our site using SharePoint content types, so when the app loads, it gets a list of the document library’s content types.  The user then select one of the content types from the drop down list, and then we query SharePoint to get a list of the fields that make up that content type.  We used both an out of the box web service, and one that we custom built, in order to get these values. Once we have the content type fields, we then add controls to the form.  Which type of control we add depends on the data type of the field.  (DateTime pickers for date/time fields, etc)  We didn’t write code to cover every data type, since we were working with a limited set of content types and field data types. Here’s a screen shot of the Form, before and after someone has selected the content types and our code has added the custom controls:     The other piece of meta data we collect is the in the upper right corner of the app, “Users with access”.  This box lists the different SharePoint Groups that we have set up and by checking the boxes, the user can set the permissions on the uploaded documents. All of this meta data is collected and submitted to our custom web service, which then sets the values on the documents on the list.  We’ll look at these web services in a future post. In the next post, we’ll walk through the Custom Action we built.

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• Adding a DLL to the GAC in Windows 7

  - by Jim Giercyk

  I recently created a DLL and I wanted to reference it from a project I was developing in Visual Studio.  In previous versions of Windows, doing so was simply a matter of dropping the DLL file in the C:\Windows\assembly folder.  That would add the DLL to the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) and make it accessible in Visual Studio.  However, as is often the case, Window 7 is different.  Even if you have Administrator privileges on your machine, you still do not have permission to drop a file in the assembly folder.  Undaunted, I thought about using the old DOS command line utility gacutil.exe.  Microsoft developed the tool as part of the .Net framework, and it is available in the Windows SDK Framework Tools.  If you have never used gacutil.exe before, you can find out everything you ever wanted to know but were afraid to ask here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ex0ss12c(v=vs.80).aspx .  Unfortunately, if you do not have the Windows SDK loaded on your development machine, you will need to install it to use gacutil, but it is relatively quick and painless, and the framework tools are very useful.  Look here for your latest SDK: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/search.aspx?q=Windows%20SDK .   After installing the SDK, I tried installing my DLL to the GAC by running gacutil from a DOS command line: That’s odd.  Microsoft is shipping a tool that cannot be executed even with Administrator rights?  Let me stop here and say that I am by no means a Windows security expert, so I actually did contact my system administrators, and they were not sure how to fix the problem….there must be a super administrator access level, but it isn’t available to your average developer in my company.  The solution outlined here is working within the boundaries of a normal windows Administrator. So, now the hacker in me bubbles to the surface.  What if I were to create a simple BAT file containing the gacutil command?  It’s so crazy it just might work!  Ugh!  I was starting to think this would never work, but then I realized that simply executing a batch program did not change my level of access.  Typically in Windows 7, you would select the “Run As Administrator” option to temporarily act as an administrator for the purpose of executing a process.  However, that option is not available for BAT files run from the command line.  SOLUTION: Create a desktop shortcut to execute the BAT file, which in turn will execute the line command…..are you still with me?  I created a shortcut and pointed it to my batch file.  Theoretically, all I need to do now is right-click on the shortcut and select “Run As Administrator” and we’re good, right?  Well, kinda.  If you notice the syntax of my BAT file, the name of the DLL is passed in as a parameter.  Therefore, I either have to hard-code the file name in the BAT program (YUCK!!), or I can leave the parameter and drag the DLL file to the shortcut and drop it.  Sweet, drag-and-drop works for me…..but if I use the drag-and-drop method, there is no way for me to right-click and select “Run As Administrator”.  That is not a problem…..I simply have to adjust the properties of the shortcut I created and I am in business.  I Right-clicked on the shortcut and select “Properties”.  Under the “Shortcut” tab there is an “Advanced” button…..I clicked it. All I needed to do was check the “Run As Administrator” box: In summary, what I have done is create a BAT file to execute a command line utility, gacutil.exe.  Then, rather than executing the BAT file from the command line, I created a desktop shortcut to run it and set the shortcut properties to “Run As Administrator”.  This will effectively mean I am executing the command line utility with Administrator privileges.  Pretty sneaky. Now, when I drag the DLL file  over to the shortcut, it starts the BAT file and adds the DLL to the assembly cache.  I created another BAT file to remove a DLL from the GAC in case the need should arise.  The code for that is: Give it a try.  I can’t imagine why updating the GAC has been made into such a chore in Windows 7.  Hopefully there is a service pack in the works that will give developers the functionality they had in Windows XP, but in the meantime, this workaround is extremely useful.

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• Windows Phone 7 Review &ndash; Part 1: LG Quantum

  - by Nikita Polyakov

  As many of my fellow geeks, I ran out and got a retail windows Phone 7 on the first day. Just had to have it :) I’ve had the developer prototypes in my hands for previous 3 months on and off, so I finally wanted to have one I call my own. I’ve rushed the Launch   I’ve checked out both AT&T and T-Mobile offerings on day 1 and decided on a Samsung Focus. Great screen, super light and thin. If you don’t believe me that this phone can compete with the best of the non-Phone 7 offerings - get it in your hand to compare for yourself. I have to say that even though the on-screen keyboard on Windows Phone 7 is one of the best, the amount of text I write on my phone and my expectation of how long that takes for a short reply are very high. Also the phone being so slick and sexy did not feel solid or confident in my hand or pocket. As the dust settled   Arrives the LG Quantum – now on AT&T and worldwide. First impression of the softer plastic, the back battery cover is solid metal - the entire phone feels solid and indestructible! Phone fits just right in my hand, it’s almost too good. It does not feel like it will crack in your jeans. I feel safe holding it and don’t feel like if I or someone were to bump into me walking it’d fly out of my hand. I’ve dropped and had thrown the Focus a few times on accident as it’s weight is negligible. I won’t even dream of lying the first day adjusting to a 3.5’ LCD screen from the Samsung’s blistering bright and poppy AMOLED 4’ was hard. But the colors and sharpness are still very good. I find it almost easier on the eyes actually for day to day use.  I had a chance to lay the phone down in the line with the prototypes and final versions of other phones that had LCD screens – LG makes HTC looks like a budget LCD compared to a high end LCD in the home theatre department. I am consistently complemented by friends that have the HD7 or Surround on how much better my screen looks. The screen just looks like the most color correct phone out of the line up. Even next to Samsung it makes it look oversaturated, but can’t match the true blacks compensating with true white.   Day to Day Usability   What I also noticed that is a huge difference is how much I am not accidently hitting the soft keys at the bottom. I real pain on Focus since holding it in am average size hand already would accidently touch the controls at the bottom. QWERTY keyboard on this phone is great. It’s like the mission for LG is “make it solid!”. Keyboard has a very durable feel.   LG’s has a secret wild card though is the DLNA support. If you seen an ad for it, you should. Imagine this – playing a song from your phone straight to your network connected A/V receiver. Done. Pictures to TV. Done. Video. Done. DLNA works with components that advertise to as well as Windows 7, XBOX 360 and other consoles.  I will write an extensive review of that experience in near future. LG Exclusive apps – from panorama photo taker to voice to text translator and even look-n-type app that works like a backup inverse camera, there is quite a bit there that won’t be found on the other phones. I’ll review those in more detail in another segment. Conclusion So for a quick comparison: If you want a phone that is super thin, light and is core reference of a Windows Phone 7 – Samsung Focus it is. If you want a great phone with solid secure feel, real keyboard, media features - the hands down winner is LG Quantum.   You can pick up the LG Quantum at AT&T in US and worldwide as LG Optimus 7Q.   Final thought: I have not had SmartPhone that I felt was a reliable trusty primary communication device since Samsung BlackJack II, this time the LG got the crown.   [ Disclosure: Phone was provided to me free of charge. That has been the case for all of my phones for years, nothing new - I get them all. ]

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• Certify August Updates

  - by Sadia2

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 We have added some release and platform certifications to MOS Certify. Applications : Oracle Demantra Demand Management 7.3.1.5, Oracle Demantra Predictive Trade Planning 7.3.1.5, Oracle Demantra Sales and Operations Planning 7.3.1.5 Database: Oracle Database Client 12.1.0.1.0 11.2.0.4.0, Oracle Clusterware 11.2.0.4.0, Oracle Database 11.2.0.4.0, Oracle Real Application Clusters 11.2.0.4.0 E-Business Suite: Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.3, Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.2, Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.1, Oracle E-Business Suite 12.0.6, Oracle E-Business Suite 11.5.10.2 Edge Applications: Oracle Transportation Management 6.3.2 Enterprise Manager: Oracle Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.0.1.0 Fusion Middleware: Discoverer Administrator 11.1.1.6.0, Discoverer Desktop 11.1.1.6.0, Forms Builder 11.1.1.6.0, Oracle Application Development Framework 11.1.1.6.0, Oracle Application Development Runtime 11.1.1.6.0, Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher 11.1.1.6.0, Oracle Directory Services Manager 11.1.1.6.0, Oracle Forms 11.1.1.6.0, Oracle GoldenGate 11.1.1.1.0, 11.1.1.1.2, 11.1.1.1.1, Oracle GoldenGate Application Adapters 11.1.1.1.1, Oracle Identity and Access Management 11.1.2.0.0, 11.1.2.1.0, Oracle Identity Federation 11.1.1.6.0, Oracle Real-Time Decision Load Generator 11.1.1.7.0, Oracle Real-Time Decision Studio 11.1.1.7.0, Oracle Real-Time Decisions 11.1.1.6.0, Oracle Reports 11.1.1.6.0, Oracle Segmentation Server 11.1.1.6.0, Oracle Virtual Directory 11.1.1.6.0, Oracle Web Cache 11.1.1.6.0, Oracle WebCenter Content Imaging 11.1.1.8.0, Oracle WebCenter Content Inbound Refinery Server 11.1.1.8.0, Oracle WebCenter Content Records 11.1.1.8.0, Oracle WebCenter Content Rights 11.1.1.8.0, Oracle WebCenter Content UI 11.1.1.8.0, Oracle WebCenter Enterprise Capture 11.1.1.8.0, Oracle WebCenter Portal 11.1.1.8.0, Oracle WebCenter Sites 11.1.1.8.0, Oracle WebCenter Sites: CIP for EMC Documentum 11.1.1.8.0, Oracle WebCenter Sites: CIP for File Systems and MS SharePoint 11.1.1.8.0, Oracle WebCenter Sites: Community-Gadgets 11.1.1.8.0, Oracle WebCenter Sites: Explorer 11.1.1.8.0, Oracle WebCenter Universal Content Management 11.1.1.8.0, Reports Builder 11.1.1.6.0, Oracle WebCenter Content Records 11.1.1.8.0, Oracle WebCenter Content Rights 11.1.1.8.0, Oracle WebCenter Content UI 11.1.1.8.0, Oracle WebCenter Sites: Developer Tools 11.1.1.8.0 FSGBU Insurance Group : Oracle Health Insurance Claims 2.13.3.0.0, 2.13.2.0.0, 2.13.1.0.0 JD Edwards EnterpriseOne: JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools 9.1.3.0, 9.1.2.0, 9.1.0.0 JD Edwards World: JD Edwards World Service Enablement A93SE, A931SE PeopleSoft: PeopleSoft PeopleTools 8.52 Siebel Enterprise: Siebel Application Server 8.2.2.4.0, 8.2.2.3.0, 8.2.2.2.0, 8.1.1.11.0, 8.1.1.10.0, 8.1.1.9.0, Siebel CRM Desktop Client 8.2.2.4.0, 8.2.2.3.0, 8.2.2.2.0, 8.1.1.11.0, 8.1.1.10.0, 8.1.1.9.0, Siebel Database Server 8.2.2.4.0, 8.2.2.3.0, 8.2.2.2.0, 8.1.1.11.0, 8.1.1.10.0, 8.1.1.9.0, Siebel HI Web Client 8.2.2.2.0, 8.1.1.9.0, Siebel Gateway Server 8.2.2.4.0, 8.2.2.3.0, 8.2.2.2.0, 8.1.1.11.0, 8.1.1.10.0, 8.1.1.9.0, Siebel Outlook Add-in Client 8.2.2.2.0, Siebel Remote Client 8.2.2.4.0, 8.2.2.3.0, 8.2.2.2.0, 8.1.1.11.0, 8.1.1.10.0, 8.1.1.9.0, Siebel Tools Client 8.2.2.4.0, 8.2.2.3.0, 8.2.2.2.0, 8.1.1.11.0, 8.1.1.10.0, 8.1.1.9.0, Siebel Web Server Extension 8.2.2.4.0, 8.2.2.3.0, 8.2.2.2.0, 8.1.1.11.0, 8.1.1.10.0, 8.1.1.9.0 /* 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;}

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• Beginner Guide to User Styles for Firefox

  - by Asian Angel

  While the default styles for most websites are nice there may be times when you would love to tweak how things look. See how easy it can be to change how websites look with the Stylish Extension for Firefox. Note: Scripts from Userstyles.org can also be added to Greasemonkey if you have it installed. Getting Started After installing the extension you will be presented with a first run page. You may want to keep it open so that you can browse directly to the Userstyles.org website using the link in the upper left corner. In the lower right corner you will have a new Status Bar Icon. If you have used Greasemonkey before this icon works a little differently. It will be faded out due to no user style scripts being active at the moment. You can use either a left or right click to access the Context Menu. The user style script management section is also added into your Add-ons Management Window instead of being separate. When you reach the user style scripts homepage you can choose to either learn more about the extension & scripts or… Start hunting for lots of user style script goodness. There will be three convenient categories to get you jump-started if you wish. You could also conduct a search if you have something specific in mind. Here is some information directly from the website provided for your benefit. Notice the reference to using these scripts with Greasemonkey… This section shows you how the scripts have been categorized and can give you a better idea of how to search for something more specific. Finding & Installing Scripts For our example we decided to look at the Updated Styles Section”first. Based on the page number listing at the bottom there are a lot of scripts available to look through. Time to refine our search a little bit… Using the drop-down menu we selected site styles and entered Yahoo in the search blank. Needless to say 5 pages was a lot easier to look through than 828. We decided to install the Yahoo! Result Number Script. When you do find a script (or scripts) that you like simply click on the Install with Stylish Button. A small window will pop up giving you the opportunity to preview, proceed with the installation, edit the code, or cancel the process. Note: In our example the Preview Function did not work but it may be something particular to the script or our browser’s settings. If you decide to do some quick editing the window shown above will switch over to this one. To return to the previous window and install the user style script click on the Switch to Install Button. After installing the user style the green section in the script’s webpage will actually change to this message… Opening up the Add-ons Manager Window shows our new script ready to go. The script worked perfectly when we conducted a search at Yahoo…the Status Bar Icon also changed from faded out to full color (another indicator that everything is running nicely). Conclusion If you prefer a custom look for your favorite websites then you can have a lot of fun experimenting with different user style scripts. Note: See our article here for specialized How-To Geek User Style Scripts that can be added to your browser. Links Download the Stylish Extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Visit the Userstyles.org Website Install the Yahoo! Result Number User Style Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Spice Up that Boring about:blank Page in FirefoxExpand the Add Bookmark Dialog in Firefox by DefaultEnjoy How-To Geek User Style Script GoodnessAuto-Hide Your Cluttered Firefox Status Bar ItemsBeginner Geek: Delete User Accounts in Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Bypass Waiting Time On Customer Service Calls With Lucyphone MELTUP – "The Beginning Of US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation" Enable or Disable the Task Manager Using TaskMgrED Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes Twelve must-have Google Chrome plugins

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• Ok it has been pointed out to me

  - by Ratman21

  That it seems my blog is more of poor me or pity me or I deserve a job blog.   Hmmm I wont say, I have not wined here as I have used this blog to vent my frustration on the whole out of work thing (lack of money, self worth, family issues and the never end bills coming my way) but, it was also me trying to reach to others in the same boat as well as advertising, hay I am out here, employers.   It was also said, that I don’t have any thing listed here on me, like a cover letter or resume. Well there is but, it was so many months and post ago. Also what I had posted is not current. So here is my most current cover and resume.   Scott L Newman 45219 Dutton Way Callahan, Fl. 32011 To Whom It May Concern: I am really interested in the IT vacancie that you have listed for your company. Maybe I don’t have all the qualifications you want (hold on don’t hit delete yet) yet! But maybe I do, as I have over 20 + years experience in "IT” RIGHT NOW.   Read the rest of my cover and my resume. You will see what my “IT” skills are and it will Show that I can to this work! I can bring to your company along with my, can do attitude, a broad range of skills, including: Certified CompTIA A+, Security+  and Network+ Technician §         2.5 years (NOC) Network experience on large Cisco based Wan – UK to Austria §         20 years experience MIS/DP – Yes I can do IBM mainframes and Tandem  non-stops too §         18 years experience as technical Help Desk support – panicking users, no problem §         18 years experience with PC/Server based system, intranet and internet systems §         10+ years experienced on: Microsoft Office, Windows XP and Data Network Fundamentals (YES I do windows) §         Strong trouble shooting skills for software, hard ware and circuit issues (and I can tell you what kind of horrors I had to face on all of them). §         Very experienced on working with customers on problems – again panicking users, no problem §         Working experience with Remote Access (VPN/SecurID) – I didn’t just study them I worked on/with them §         Skilled in getting info for and creating documentation for Operation procedures (I don’t just wait for them to give it to me I go out and get it. Waiting for info on working applications is, well dumb) Multiple software languages (Hey I have done some programming) And much more experiences in “IT” (Mortgage, stocks and financial information systems experience and have worked “IT” in a hospital) Can multitask, also have ability to adapt to change and learn quickly. (once was put in charge of a system that I had not worked with for over two years. Talk about having to relearn and adapt to changes but, I did it.) I would welcome the opportunity to further discuss this position with you. If you have questions or would like to schedule an interview, please contact me by phone at 904-879-4880 or on my cell 352-356-0945 or by e-mail at [email protected] or leave a message on my web site (http://beingscottnewman.webs.com/). I have enclosed/attached my resume for your review and I look forward to hearing from you.   Thank you for taking a moment to consider my cover letter and resume. I appreciate how busy you are. Sincerely, Scott L. Newman    Scott L. Newman 45219 Dutton Way, Callahan, FL 32011? H (904)879-4880 C (352)356-0945 ? [email protected] Web - http://beingscottnewman.webs.com/                                                       ______                                                                                       OBJECTIVE To obtain a Network Operation or Helpdesk position.     PROFILE Information Technology Professional with 20+ years of experience. Volunteer website creator and back-up sound technician at True Faith Christian Fellowship. CompTIA A+, Network+ and Security+ Certified.   TECHNICAL AND PROFESSIONAL SKILLS   §         Technical Support §         Frame Relay §         Microsoft Office Suite §         Inventory Management §         ISDN §         Windows NT/98/XP §         Client/Vendor Relations §         CICS §         Cisco Routers/Switches §         Networking/Administration §         RPG §         Helpdesk §         Website Design/Dev./Management §         Assembler §         Visio §         Programming §         COBOL IV §               EDUCATION ? New HorizonsComputerLearningCenter, Jacksonville, Florida – CompTIA A+, Security+ and Network+ Certified.             Currently working on CCNA Certification ?MottCommunity College, Flint, Michigan – Associates Degree - Data Processing and General Education ? Currently studying Japanese     PROFESSIONAL             TrueFaithChristianFellowshipChurch – Callahan, FL, October 2009 – Present Web site Tech ·        Web site Creator/tech, back up song leader and back up sound technician. Note church web site is (http://ambassadorsforjesuschrist.webs.com/) U.S. Census (temp employee) Feb. 23 to March 8, 2010 ·        Enumerator for NassauCounty   ThomasCreekBaptistChurch – Callahan, FL,     June 2008 – September 2009 Churchsound and video technician      ·        sound and video technician           Fidelity National Information Services ? Jacksonville, FL ? February 01, 2005 to October 28, 2008 Client Server Dev/Analyst I ·        Monitored Multiple Debit Card sites, Check Authorization customers and the Card Auth system (AuthNet) for problems with the sites, connections, servers (on our LAN) and/or applications ·        Night (NOC) Network operator for a large Wide Area Network (WAN) ·        Monitored Multiple Check Authorization customers for problems with circuits, routers and applications ·        Resolved circuit and/or router issues or assist circuit carrier in resolving issue ·        Resolved application problems or assist application support in resolution ·        Liaison between customer and application support ·        Maintained and updated the NetOps Operation procedures Guide ·        Kept the listing of equipment on the raised floor updated ·        Involved in the training of all Night Check and Card server operation operators ·        FNIS acquired Certegy in 2005. Was one of 3 kept on.   Certegy ? St.Pete, FL ? August 31, 2003 to February 1, 2005 Senior NetOps Operator(FNIS acquired Certegy in 2005 all of above jobs/skills were same as listed in FNIS) ·        Converting Documentation to Adobe format ·        Sole trainer of day/night shift System Management Center operators (SMC) ·        Equifax spun off Card/Check Dept. as Certegy. Certegy terminated contract with EDS. One of six in the whole IT dept that was kept on.   EDS  (Certegy Account) ? St.Pete, FL ? July 1, 1999 to August 31, 2003 Senior NetOps Operator ·        Equifax outsourced the NetOps dept. to EDS in 1999. ·        Same job skills as listed above for FNIS.   Equifax ? St.Pete&Tampa, FL ? January 1, 1991 to July 1, 1999 NetOps/Tandem Operator ·        All of the above for FNIS, except for circuit and router issues ·        Operated, monitored and trouble shot Tandem mainframe and servers on LAN ·        Supported in the operation of the Print, Tape and Microfiche rooms ·        Equifax acquired TelaCredit in 1991.   TelaCredit ? Tampa, FL ? June 28, 1989 to January 1, 1991 Tandem Operator ·        Operated and monitored Tandem Non-stop systems for Card and Check Auths ·        Operated multiple high-speed Laser printers and Microfiche printers ·        Mounted, filed and maintained 18 reel-to-reel mainframe tape drives, cartridges tape drives and tape library.

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• The Virtues and Challenges of Implementing Basel III: What Every CFO and CRO Needs To Know

  - by Jenna Danko

  The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) is a group tasked with providing thought-leadership to the global banking industry.  Over the years, the BCBS has released volumes of guidance in an effort to promote stability within the financial sector.  By effectively communicating best-practices, the Basel Committee has influenced financial regulations worldwide.  Basel regulations are intended to help banks: More easily absorb shocks due to various forms of financial-economic stress Improve risk management and governance Enhance regulatory reporting and transparency In June 2011, the BCBS released Basel III: A global regulatory framework for more resilient banks and banking systems.  This new set of regulations included many enhancements to previous rules and will have both short and long term impacts on the banking industry.  Some of the key features of Basel III include: A stronger capital base More stringent capital standards and higher capital requirements Introduction of capital buffers  Additional risk coverage Enhanced quantification of counterparty credit risk Credit valuation adjustments  Wrong  way risk  Asset Value Correlation Multiplier for large financial institutions Liquidity management and monitoring Introduction of leverage ratio Even more rigorous data requirements To implement these features banks need to embark on a journey replete with challenges. These can be categorized into three key areas: Data, Models and Compliance. Data Challenges Data quality - All standard dimensions of Data Quality (DQ) have to be demonstrated.  Manual approaches are now considered too cumbersome and automation has become the norm. Data lineage - Data lineage has to be documented and demonstrated.  The PPT / Excel approach to documentation is being replaced by metadata tools.  Data lineage has become dynamic due to a variety of factors, making static documentation out-dated quickly.  Data dictionaries - A strong and clean business glossary is needed with proper identification of business owners for the data.  Data integrity - A strong, scalable architecture with work flow tools helps demonstrate data integrity.  Manual touch points have to be minimized.   Data relevance/coverage - Data must be relevant to all portfolios and storage devices must allow for sufficient data retention.  Coverage of both on and off balance sheet exposures is critical.   Model Challenges Model development - Requires highly trained resources with both quantitative and subject matter expertise. Model validation - All Basel models need to be validated. This requires additional resources with skills that may not be readily available in the marketplace.  Model documentation - All models need to be adequately documented.  Creation of document templates and model development processes/procedures is key. Risk and finance integration - This integration is necessary for Basel as the Allowance for Loan and Lease Losses (ALLL) is calculated by Finance, yet Expected Loss (EL) is calculated by Risk Management – and they need to somehow be equal.  This is tricky at best from an implementation perspective.  Compliance Challenges Rules interpretation - Some Basel III requirements leave room for interpretation.  A misinterpretation of regulations can lead to delays in Basel compliance and undesired reprimands from supervisory authorities. Gap identification and remediation - Internal identification and remediation of gaps ensures smoother Basel compliance and audit processes.  However business lines are challenged by the competing priorities which arise from regulatory compliance and business as usual work.  Qualification readiness - Providing internal and external auditors with robust evidence of a thorough examination of the readiness to proceed to parallel run and Basel qualification  In light of new regulations like Basel III and local variations such as the Dodd Frank Act (DFA) and Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) in the US, banks are now forced to ask themselves many difficult questions.  For example, executives must consider: How will Basel III play into their Risk Appetite? How will they create project plans for Basel III when they haven’t yet finished implementing Basel II? How will new regulations impact capital structure including profitability and capital distributions to shareholders? After all, new regulations often lead to diminished profitability as well as an assortment of implementation problems as we discussed earlier in this note.  However, by requiring banks to focus on premium growth, regulators increase the potential for long-term profitability and sustainability.  And a more stable banking system: Increases consumer confidence which in turn supports banking activity  Ensures that adequate funding is available for individuals and companies Puts regulators at ease, allowing bankers to focus on banking Stability is intended to bring long-term profitability to banks.  Therefore, it is important that every banking institution takes the steps necessary to properly manage, monitor and disclose its risks.  This can be done with the assistance and oversight of an independent regulatory authority.  A spectrum of banks exist today wherein some continue to debate and negotiate with regulators over the implementation of new requirements, while others are simply choosing to embrace them for the benefits I highlighted above. Do share with me how your institution is coping with and embracing these new regulations within your bank. Dr. Varun Agarwal is a Principal in the Banking Practice for Capgemini Financial Services.  He has over 19 years experience in areas that span from enterprise risk management, credit, market, and to country risk management; financial modeling and valuation; and international financial markets research and analyses.

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• Functional Adaptation

  - by Charles Courchaine

  In real life and OO programming we’re often faced with using adapters, DVI to VGA, 1/4” to 1/8” audio connections, 110V to 220V, wrapping an incompatible interface with a new one, and so on.  Where the adapter pattern is generally considered for interfaces and classes a similar technique can be applied to method signatures.  To be fair, this adaptation is generally used to reduce the number of parameters but I’m sure there are other clever possibilities to be had.  As Jan questioned in the last post, how can we use a common method to execute an action if the action has a differing number of parameters, going back to the greeting example it was suggested having an AddName method that takes a first and last name as parameters.  This is exactly what we’ll address in this post. Let’s set the stage with some review and some code changes.  First, our method that handles the setup/tear-down infrastructure for our WCF service: 1: private static TResult ExecuteGreetingFunc<TResult>(Func<IGreeting, TResult> theGreetingFunc) 2: { 3: IGreeting aGreetingService = null; 4: try 5: { 6: aGreetingService = GetGreetingChannel(); 7: return theGreetingFunc(aGreetingService); 8: } 9: finally 10: { 11: CloseWCFChannel((IChannel)aGreetingService); 12: } 13: } Our original AddName method: 1: private static string AddName(string theName) 2: { 3: return ExecuteGreetingFunc<string>(theGreetingService => theGreetingService.AddName(theName)); 4: } Our new AddName method: 1: private static int AddName(string firstName, string lastName) 2: { 3: return ExecuteGreetingFunc<int>(theGreetingService => theGreetingService.AddName(firstName, lastName)); 4: } Let’s change the AddName method, just a little bit more for this example and have it take the greeting service as a parameter. 1: private static int AddName(IGreeting greetingService, string firstName, string lastName) 2: { 3: return greetingService.AddName(firstName, lastName); 4: } The new signature of AddName using the Func delegate is now Func<IGreeting, string, string, int>, which can’t be used with ExecuteGreetingFunc as is because it expects Func<IGreeting, TResult>.  Somehow we have to eliminate the two string parameters before we can use this with our existing method.  This is where we need to adapt AddName to match what ExecuteGreetingFunc expects, and we’ll do so in the following progression. 1: Func<IGreeting, string, string, int> -> Func<IGreeting, string, int> 2: Func<IGreeting, string, int> -> Func<IGreeting, int>   For the first step, we’ll create a method using the lambda syntax that will “eliminate” the last name parameter: 1: string lastNameToAdd = "Smith"; 2: //Func<IGreeting, string, string, int> -> Func<IGreeting, string, int> 3: Func<IGreeting, string, int> addName = (greetingService, firstName) => AddName(greetingService, firstName, lastNameToAdd); The new addName method gets us one step close to the signature we need.  Let’s say we’re going to call this in a loop to add several names, we’ll take the final step from Func<IGreeting, string, int> -> Func<IGreeting, int> in line as a lambda passed to ExecuteGreetingFunc like so: 1: List<string> firstNames = new List<string>() { "Bob", "John" }; 2: int aID; 3: foreach (string firstName in firstNames) 4: { 5: //Func<IGreeting, string, int> -> Func<IGreeting, int> 6: aID = ExecuteGreetingFunc<int>(greetingService => addName(greetingService, firstName)); 7: Console.WriteLine(GetGreeting(aID)); 8: } If for some reason you needed to break out the lambda on line 6 you could replace it with 1: aID = ExecuteGreetingFunc<int>(ApplyAddName(addName, firstName)); and use this method: 1: private static Func<IGreeting, int> ApplyAddName(Func<IGreeting, string, int> addName, string lastName) 2: { 3: return greetingService => addName(greetingService, lastName); 4: } Splitting out a lambda into its own method is useful both in this style of coding as well as LINQ queries to improve the debugging experience.  It is not strictly necessary to break apart the steps & functions as was shown above; the lambda in line 6 (of the foreach example) could include both the last name and first name instead of being composed of two functions.  The process demonstrated above is one of partially applying functions, this could have also been done with Currying (also see Dustin Campbell’s excellent post on Currying for the canonical curried add example).  Matthew Podwysocki also has some good posts explaining both Currying and partial application and a follow up post that further clarifies the difference between Currying and partial application.  In either technique the ultimate goal is to reduce the number of parameters passed to a function.  Currying makes it a single parameter passed at each step, where partial application allows one to use multiple parameters at a time as we’ve done here.  This technique isn’t for everyone or every problem, but can be extremely handy when you need to adapt a call to something you don’t control.

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• Auto-Configuring SSIS Packages

  - by Davide Mauri

  SSIS Package Configurations are very useful to make packages flexible so that you can change objects properties at run-time and thus make the package configurable without having to open and edit it. In a complex scenario where you have dozen of packages (even in in the smallest BI project I worked on I had 50 packages), each package may have its own configuration needs. This means that each time you have to run the package you have to pass the correct Package Configuration. I usually use XML configuration files and I also force everyone that works with me to make sure that an object that is used in several packages has the same name in all package where it is used, in order to simplify configurations usage. Connection Managers are a good example of one of those objects. For example, all the packages that needs to access to the Data Warehouse database must have a Connection Manager named DWH. Basically we define a set of “global” objects so that we can have a configuration file for them, so that it can be used by all packages. If a package as some specific configuration needs, we create a specific – or “local” – XML configuration file or we set the value that needs to be configured at runtime using DTLoggedExec’s Package Parameters: http://dtloggedexec.davidemauri.it/Package%20Parameters.ashx Now, how we can improve this even more? I’d like to have a package that, when it’s run, automatically goes “somewhere” and search for global or local configuration, loads it and applies it to itself. That’s the basic idea of Auto-Configuring Packages. The “somewhere” is a SQL Server table, defined in this way In this table you’ll put the values that you want to be used at runtime by your package: The ConfigurationFilter column specify to which package that configuration line has to be applied. A package will use that line only if the value specified in the ConfigurationFilter column is equal to its name. In the above sample. only the package named “simple-package” will use the line number two. There is an exception here: the $$Global value indicate a configuration row that has to be applied to any package. With this simple behavior it’s possible to replicate the “global” and the “local” configuration approach I’ve described before. The ConfigurationValue contains the value you want to be applied at runtime and the PackagePath contains the object to which that value will be applied. The ConfiguredValueType column defined the data type of the value and the Checksum column is contains a calculated value that is simply the hash value of ConfigurationFilter plus PackagePath so that it can be used as a Primary Key to guarantee uniqueness of configuration rows. As you may have noticed the table is very similar to the table originally used by SSIS in order to put DTS Configuration into SQL Server tables: SQL Server SSIS Configuration Type: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms141682.aspx Now, how it works? It’s very easy: you just have to call DTLoggedExec with the /AC option: DTLoggedExec.exe /FILE:”mypackage.dtsx” /AC:"localhost;ssis_auto_configuration;ssiscfg.configuration" the AC option expects a string with the following format: <database_server>;<database_name>;<table_name>; only Windows Authentication is supported. When DTLoggedExec finds an Auto-Configuration request, it injects a new connection manager in the loaded package. The injected connection manager is named $$DTLoggedExec_AutoConfigure and is used by the two SQL Server DTS Configuration ($$DTLoggedExec_Global and $$DTLoggedExec_Local) also injected by DTLoggedExec, used to load “local” and “global” configuration. Now, you may start to wonder why this approach cannot be used without having all this stuff going around, but just passing to a package always two XML DTS Configuration files, (to have to “local” and the “global” configurations) doing something like this: DTLoggedExec.exe /FILE:”mypackage.dtsx” /CONF:”global.dtsConfig” /CONF:”mypackage.dtsConfig” The problem is that this approach doesn’t work if you have, in one of the two configuration file, a value that has to be applied to an object that doesn’t exists in the loaded package. This situation will raise an error that will halt package execution. To solve this problem, you may want to create a configuration file for each package. Unfortunately this will make deployment and management harder, since you’ll have to deal with a great number of configuration files. The Auto-Configuration approach solve all these problems at once! We’re using it in a project where we have hundreds of packages and I can tell you that deployment of packages and their configuration for the pre-production and production environment has never been so easy! To use the Auto-Configuration option you have to download the latest DTLoggedExec release: http://dtloggedexec.codeplex.com/releases/view/62218 Feedback, as usual, are very welcome!

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• Create a Smoother Period Close

  - by Get Proactive Customer Adoption Team

  Untitled Document Do You Use Oracle E-Business Suite Products Involved in Accounting Period Closes? We understand that closing the periods in your system at the end of an accounting period enables your company to make the right business decisions. We also know this requires prior preparation, good procedures, and quality data. To help you meet that need, Oracle E-Business Suite’s proactive support team developed the Period Close Advisor to help your organization conduct a smooth period close for its Oracle E-Business Suite 12 products. The Period Close Advisor is composed of logical steps you can follow, aligned by the business requirement flow. It will help with an orderly close of the product sub-ledgers before posting to the General Ledger. It combines recommendations and industry best practices with tips from subject matter experts for troubleshooting. You will find patches needed and references to assist you during each phase. Get to know the E-Business Suite Period Close Advisor The Period Close Advisor does more than help the users of Oracle E-Business Suite products close their period. You can use it before and throughout the period to stay on track. Proactively it assists you as you set up your company’s period close process. During the period, it helps evaluate your system’s readiness for initiating the period close procedures and prepare the system for a smooth period close experience. The Period Close Advisor gets you to answers when you have questions and gives you the latest news from us on Oracle E-Business Suite’s period close. The Period Close Advisor is the right place to start. How to Use the E-Business Suite Period Close The Period Close Advisor graphically guides you through your period close. The tabs show you the products (also called applications or sub-ledgers) covered, and the product order required for the processing to handle any dependencies between the products. Users of all the products it covers can benefit from the information it contains. Structure of the Period Close Advisor Clicking on a tab gives you the details for that particular step in the process. This includes an overview, showing how the products fit into the overall period close process, and step-by-step information on each phase needed to complete the period close for the tab. You will also find multimedia training and related resources you can access if you need more information. Once you click on any of the phases, you see guidance for that phase. This can include: Tips from the subject-matter experts—here are examples from a Cash Management specialist: “For organizations with high transaction volumes bank statements should be loaded and reconciled on a daily basis.” “The automatic reconciliation process can be set up to create miscellaneous transactions automatically.” References to useful Knowledge Base documents: Information Centers for the products and features FAQs on functionality Known Issues and patches with both the errors and their solutions How-to documents that explain in detail how to use a feature or complete a process White papers that give overview of a feature, list setup required to use the feature, etc. Links to diagnosticsthat help debug issues you may find in a process Additional information and alerts about a process or reports that can help you prevent issues from surfacing This excerpt from the “Process Transaction” phase for the Receivables product lists documents you’ll find helpful. How to Get Started with the Period Close Advisor The Period Close Advisor is a great resource that can be used both as a proactive tool (while setting up your period end procedures) and as the first document to refer to when you encounter an issue during the period close procedures! As mentioned earlier, the order of the product tabs in the Period Close Advisor gives you the recommended order of closing. The first thing to do is to ensure that you are following the prescribed order for closing the period, if you are using more than one sub-ledger. Next, review the information shared in the Evaluate and Prepare and Process Transactions phases. Make sure that you are following the recommended best practices; you have applied the recommended patches, etc. The Reconcile phase gives you the recommended steps to follow for reconciling a sub-ledger with the General Ledger. Ensure that your reconciliation procedure aligns with those steps. At any stage during the period close processing, if you encounter an issue, you can revisit the Period Close Advisor. Choose the product you have an issue with and then select the phase you are in. You will be able to review information that can help you find a solution to the issue you are facing. Stay Informed Oracle updates the Period Close Advisor as we learn of new issues and information. Bookmark the Oracle E-Business Suite Period Close Advisor [ID 335.1] and keep coming back to it for the latest information on period close

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• I, Android

  - by andrewbrust

  I’m just back from the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES).  I go to CES to get a sense of what Microsoft is doing in the consumer space, and how people are reacting to it.  When I first went to CES 2 years ago, Steve Ballmer announced the beta of Windows 7 at his keynote address, and the crowd went wild.  When I went again last year, everyone was hoping for a Windows tablet announcement at the Ballmer keynote.  Although they didn’t get one (unless you count the unreleased HP Slate running Windows 7), people continued to show anticipation around Project Natal (which became Xbox 360 Kinect) and around Windows Phone 7.  On the show floor last year, there were machines everywhere running Windows 7, including lots of netbooks.  Microsoft had a serious influence at the show both years. But this year, one brand, one product, one operating system evidenced itself over and over again: Android.  Whether in the multitude of tablet devices that were shown across the show, or the burgeoning number of smartphones shown (including all four forthcoming 4G-LTE handsets at Verizon Wireless’ booth) or the Google TV set top box from Logitech and the embedded implementation in new Sony TV models, Android was was there. There was excitement in the ubiquity of Android 2.2 (Froyo) and the emergence of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).  There was anticipation around the tablet-optimized Android 3.0 (Honeycomb).  There were highly customized skins.  There was even an official CES Android app for navigating the exhibit halls and planning events.  Android was so ubiquitous, in fact, that it became surprising to find a device that was running anything else.  It was as if Android had become the de facto Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) operating system. Motorola’s booth was nothing less than an Android showcase.  And it was large, and it was packed.  Clearly Moto’s fortunes have improved dramatically in the last year and change.  The fact that the company morphed from being a core Windows Mobile OEM to an Android poster child seems non-coincidental to their improved fortunes. Even erstwhile WinMo OEMs who now do produce Windows Phone 7 devices were not pushing them.  Perhaps I missed them, but I couldn’t find WP7 handsets at Samsung’s booth, nor at LG’s.  And since the only carrier exhibiting at the show was Verizon Wireless, which doesn’t yet have WP7 devices, this left Microsoft’s booth as the only place to see the phones. Why is Android so popular with consumer electronics manufacturers in Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan?  Yes, it’s free, but there’s more to it than that.  Android seems to have succeeded as an OEM OS because it’s directed at OEMs who are permitted to personalize it and extend it, and it provides enough base usability and touch-friendliness that OEMs want it.  In the process, it has become a de facto standard (which makes OEMs want it even more), and has done so in a remarkably short time: the OS was launched on a single phone in the US just 2 1/4 years ago. Despite its success and popularity, Apple’s iOS would never be used by OEMs, because it’s not meant to be embedded and customized, but rather to provide a fully finished experience.  Ironically, Windows Phone 7 is likewise disqualified from such embedded use.  Windows Mobile (6.x and earlier) may have been a candidate had it not atrophied so much in its final 5 years of life. What can Microsoft do?  It could start by developing a true touch-centric OS for tablets, whether that be within Windows 8, or derived from Windows Phone 7.  It would then need to deconstruct that finished product into components, via a new or altered version of Windows Embedded or Windows Embedded Compact.  And if Microsoft went that far, it would only make sense to work with its OEMs and mobile carriers to make certain they showcase their products using the OS at CES, and other consumer electronics venues, prominently. Mostly though, Microsoft would need to decide if it were really committed to putting sustained time, effort and money into a commodity product, especially given the far greater financial return that it now derives from its core Windows and Office franchises. Microsoft would need to see an OEM OS for what it is: a loss leader that helps build brand and platform momentum for up-level products.  Is that enough to make the investment worthwhile?  One thing is certain: if that question is not acknowledged and answered honestly, then any investment will be squandered.

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• More Quick Interview Tips

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  In the last couple of years I have conducted a lot of interviews for application and database developers for my company, and I can tell you that the little things can mean a lot.  Here are a few quick tips to help you make a good first impression. A year ago I gave you my #1 interview tip: Do some basic research!  And a year later, I am still stunned by how few technical people do the most basic of research.  I can only guess that it is because it is so engrained in our psyche that technical competence is everything (see How to Manage Technical Employees for more on this idea) that we forget or ignore the importance of soft skills and the art of the interview.  Or maybe it is because we have heard the stories of the uber-geek who has zero personal skills but still makes a fortune working for Microsoft.  Well, here’s another quick tip:  You’re probably not as good as he is; and a large number of companies actually run small to medium sized teams and can’t really afford to have the social outcast in the group.  In a small team, everyone has to get along well, and that’s an important part of what I’m evaluating during the interview process. My #2 tip is to act alive!  I typically conduct screening interviews by phone before I bring someone in for an in-person.  I don’t care how laid-back you are or if you have a “quiet personality”, when we are talking, ACT like you are happy I called and you are interested in getting the job.  If you sound like you are bored-to-death and that you would be perfectly happy to never work again, I am perfectly happy to help you attain that goal, and I’ll move on to the next candidate. And closely related to #2, perhaps we’ll call it #2.1 is this tip:  When I call you on the phone for the interview, don’t answer your phone by just saying, “Hello”.  You know that the odds are about 999-to-1 that it is me calling for the interview because we have specifically arranged this time slot for the call.  And you can see on the caller ID that it is not one of your buddies calling, so identify yourself.  Don’t make me question whether I dialed the right number.  Answer your phone with a, “Hello, this is ___<your full name preferred, but at least your first name>___.”.  And when I say, “Hi, <your name>, this is Mark from <my company>” it would be really nice to hear you say, “Hi, Mark, I have been expecting your call.”  This sets the perfect tone for our conversation.  I know I have the right person; you are professional enough and interested enough in the job or contract to remember your appointments; and now we can move on to a little intro segment and get on with the reason for our call. As crazy as it sounds, I’ve actually had phone interviews that went like this: <Ring…> You:  “Hello?” Me:  “Hi, this is Mark from _______” You:  “Yeah?” Me:  “Is this <your name>?” You:  “Yeah.” Me:  “I had this time in my calendar for us to talk…were you expecting my call?” You:  “Oh, yeah, sure…” I used to be nice and would try to go ahead with the interview even after this bad start, thinking I was giving the candidate the benefit of the doubt…a second chance…but more often than not it was a struggle and 10 minutes into what was supposed to be a 45-minute call, I’m looking for a way to hang up without being rude myself.  It never worked out.  I never brought that person in for an in-person interview, much less offered them the job or contract.  Who knows, maybe they were some sort of wunderkind that we missed out on.  What I know is that they would never fit in with the rest of the team, and around here that is absolutely critical. So, in conclusion… Act alive!  Identify yourself!  And do at least the very basic of research.

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• Professional Development – Difference Between Bio, CV and Resume

  - by Pinal Dave

  Applying for work can be very stressful – you want to put your best foot forward, and it can be very hard to sell yourself to a potential employer while highlighting your best characteristics and answering questions.  On top of that, some jobs require different application materials – a biography (or bio), a curriculum vitae (or CV), or a resume.  These things seem so interchangeable, so what is the difference? Let’s start with the one most of us have heard of – the resume.  A resume is a summary of your job and education history.  If you have ever applied for a job, you will have used a resume.  The ability to write a good resume that highlights your best characteristics and emphasizes your qualifications for a specific job is a skill that will take you a long way in the world.  For such an essential skill, unfortunately it is one that many people struggle with. RESUME So let’s discuss what makes a great resume.  First, make sure that your name and contact information are at the top, in large print (slightly larger font than the rest of the text, size 14 or 16 if the rest is size 12, for example).  You need to make sure that if you catch the recruiter’s attention and they know how to get a hold of you. As for qualifications, be quick and to the point.  Make your job title and the company the headline, and include your skills, accomplishments, and qualifications as bullet points.  Use good action verbs, like “finished,” “arranged,” “solved,” and “completed.”  Include hard numbers – don’t just say you “changed the filing system,” say that you “revolutionized the storage of over 250 files in less than five days.”  Doesn’t that sentence sound much more powerful? Curriculum Vitae (CV) Now let’s talk about curriculum vitae, or “CVs”.  A CV is more like an expanded resume.  The same rules are still true: put your name front and center, keep your contact info up to date, and summarize your skills with bullet points.  However, CVs are often required in more technical fields – like science, engineering, and computer science.  This means that you need to really highlight your education and technical skills. Difference between Resume and CV Resumes are expected to be one or two pages long – CVs can be as many pages as necessary.  If you are one of those people lucky enough to feel limited by the size constraint of resumes, a CV is for you!  On a CV you can expand on your projects, highlight really exciting accomplishments, and include more educational experience – including GPA and test scores from the GRE or MCAT (as applicable).  You can also include awards, associations, teaching and research experience, and certifications.  A CV is a place to really expand on all your experience and how great you will be in this particular position. Biography (Bio) Chances are, you already know what a bio is, and you have even read a few of them.  Think about the one or two paragraphs that every author includes in the back flap of a book.  Think about the sentences under a blogger’s photo on every “About Me” page.  That is a bio.  It is a way to quickly highlight your life experiences.  It is essentially the way you would introduce yourself at a party. Where a bio is required for a job, chances are they won’t want to know about where you were born and how many pets you have, though.  This is a way to summarize your entire job history in quick-to-read format – and sometimes during a job hunt, being able to get to the point and grab the recruiter’s interest is the best way to get your foot in the door.  Think of a bio as your entire resume put into words. Most bios have a standard format.  In paragraph one, talk about your most recent position and accomplishments there, specifically how they relate to the job you are applying for.  If you have teaching or research experience, training experience, certifications, or management experience, talk about them in paragraph two.  Paragraph three and four are for highlighting publications, education, certifications, associations, etc.  To wrap up your bio, provide your contact info and availability (dates and times). Where to use What? For most positions, you will know exactly what kind of application to use, because the job announcement will state what materials are needed – resume, CV, bio, cover letter, skill set, etc.  If there is any confusion, choose whatever the industry standard is (CV for technical fields, resume for everything else) or choose which of your documents is the strongest. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: About Me, PostADay, Professional Development, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• Defining Your Online Segmentation and Targeting Strategy

  - by Christie Flanagan

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-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-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} A lot of times, companies will put online segmentation and targeting on the back burner because they don’t know where to start. Often, I’ve heard web managers say that their segments aren’t well understood yet, so they can’t really deliver personalized online experiences that are meaningful. This lack of complete understanding means that they don't really bother to try. But, I don’t think you necessarily need to have an elaborate segmentation and targeting strategy already in place to start delivering a more relevant online customer experience. Sometimes it helps to think of how segmentation and targeting might solve some of the challenges your sites visitors are currently experiencing on your web presence, rather than doing nothing and waiting until a fully baked segmentation strategy lands in your inbox.  For example, perhaps you have a broad and varied service offering that makes it difficult for site visitors to easily find the solutions that are most relevant for them.  How can segmentation and targeting help solve this problem?  Or maybe it’s like the airline I described in Monday’s post where the special deals featured on the home page are only relevant to site visitors from a couple of cities.  Couldn’t segmentation and targeting help them to highlight offers on their home page that are relevant to a larger share of their site visitors? Your early segmentation and targeting efforts do not need to be complicated.  There are simple ways to start delivering a more relevant online customer experience, even if you’re dealing with anonymous site visitors.  These include targeting content to site visitors based on: Referral: Deliver targeted content to your site visitors that is based on where they came from or the search term they used to find your site Behavior:  Deliver content to your site visitors that is related or similar to content they’ve clicked on already Location:  Deliver content your site visitors that is most relevant for their geographic location (this would solve that pesky airline home page problem described above) So as you can see, there really are some very simple ways in which you can start improving your online customer experience using very basic segmentation and targeting methods.  One thing to keep in mind as you start to define you segmentation and targeting strategy is that there are many different types of attributes or combinations of attributes upon which you can base your segmentation and targeting strategy.  In addition to referral, behavior and location, other attributes that you should consider are: Profile Information:  What profile information do you know about this customer already?  Perhaps they provided some information on their interests and preferences when they first registered with your site. Time:  What time is it and how does that impact what my site visitors are looking for or trying to do? Demographics: What are my site visitors’ ages, incomes or ethnicities? Which attributes you select to include in your segmentation strategy will depend on your unique business needs and objectives.  Attributes such as behavior or referral may not be the most important targeting criteria depending on your situation. For example, if you’re a newspaper you might know that certain visitors are sports fans based on their profile information.  You can create a segment for sports fans and target sports related content to that segment of your readership online.  Or perhaps, a reader is browsing stories that are related to politics; you can use that visitor’s behavior to assign him or her to a segment for those interested in politics. From there you can recommend more stories to that visitor based on their interest in politics. For an airline, the visitor’s location may be a more important attribute. By detecting the visitor’s location, you can assign them to an appropriate segment and then target special flights and offers to them based on their likely departure airport. As you can see, there are many practical ways that you can start improving the experience your customers receive on your web presence using fairly basic segmentation and targeting techniques. If you want to learn more about segmentation and targeting using Oracle’s web experience management solution, check out this helpful video that demonstrates these powerful capabilities in Oracle WebCenter Sites. ***** On Demand Webcast Featuring Brian Solis of Altimeter Group Trends such as the mobile web, social media, gamification and real-time are changing customer behavior and expectations. In this new environment, many businesses will struggle. Some will fall by the wayside, while others learn to adapt and thrive. Watch this on demand webcast with Altimeter Group digital analyst and author, Brian Solis, and discover what your organization needs to know about how to compete in the new era of Digital Darwinism. View now.

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• InnoDB Compression Improvements in MySQL 5.6

  - by Inaam Rana

  MySQL 5.6 comes with significant improvements for the compression support inside InnoDB. The enhancements that we'll talk about in this piece are also a good example of community contributions. The work on these was conceived, implemented and contributed by the engineers at Facebook. Before we plunge into the details let us familiarize ourselves with some of the key concepts surrounding InnoDB compression. In InnoDB compressed pages are fixed size. Supported sizes are 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16K. The compressed page size is specified at table creation time. InnoDB uses zlib for compression. InnoDB buffer pool will attempt to cache compressed pages like normal pages. However, whenever a page is actively used by a transaction, we'll always have the uncompressed version of the page as well i.e.: we can have a page in the buffer pool in compressed only form or in a state where we have both the compressed page and uncompressed version but we'll never have a page in uncompressed only form. On-disk we'll always only have the compressed page. When both compressed and uncompressed images are present in the buffer pool they are always kept in sync i.e.: changes are applied to both atomically. Recompression happens when changes are made to the compressed data. In order to minimize recompressions InnoDB maintains a modification log within a compressed page. This is the extra space available in the page after compression and it is used to log modifications to the compressed data thus avoiding recompressions. DELETE (and ROLLBACK of DELETE) and purge can be performed without recompressing the page. This is because the delete-mark bit and the system fields DB_TRX_ID and DB_ROLL_PTR are stored in uncompressed format on the compressed page. A record can be purged by shuffling entries in the compressed page directory. This can also be useful for updates of indexed columns, because UPDATE of a key is mapped to INSERT+DELETE+purge. A compression failure happens when we attempt to recompress a page and it does not fit in the fixed size. In such case, we first try to reorganize the page and attempt to recompress and if that fails as well then we split the page into two and recompress both pages. Now lets talk about the three major improvements that we made in MySQL 5.6.Logging of Compressed Page Images:InnoDB used to log entire compressed data on the page to the redo logs when recompression happens. This was an extra safety measure to guard against the rare case where an attempt is made to do recovery using a different zlib version from the one that was used before the crash. Because recovery is a page level operation in InnoDB we have to be sure that all recompress attempts must succeed without causing a btree page split. However, writing entire compressed data images to the redo log files not only makes the operation heavy duty but can also adversely affect flushing activity. This happens because redo space is used in a circular fashion and when we generate much more than normal redo we fill up the space much more quickly and in order to reuse the redo space we have to flush the corresponding dirty pages from the buffer pool.Starting with MySQL 5.6 a new global configuration parameter innodb_log_compressed_pages. The default value is true which is same as the current behavior. If you are sure that you are not going to attempt to recover from a crash using a different version of zlib then you should set this parameter to false. This is a dynamic parameter.Compression Level:You can now set the compression level that zlib should choose to compress the data. The global parameter is innodb_compression_level - the default value is 6 (the zlib default) and allowed values are 1 to 9. Again the parameter is dynamic i.e.: you can change it on the fly.Dynamic Padding to Reduce Compression Failures:Compression failures are expensive in terms of CPU. We go through the hoops of recompress, failure, reorganize, recompress, failure and finally page split. At the same time, how often we encounter compression failure depends largely on the compressibility of the data. In MySQL 5.6, courtesy of Facebook engineers, we have an adaptive algorithm based on per-index statistics that we gather about compression operations. The idea is that if a certain index/table is experiencing too many compression failures then we should try to pack the 16K uncompressed version of the page less densely i.e.: we let some space in the 16K page go unused in an attempt that the recompression won't end up in a failure. In other words, we dynamically keep adding 'pad' to the 16K page till we get compression failures within an agreeable range. It works the other way as well, that is we'll keep removing the pad if failure rate is fairly low. To tune the padding effort two configuration variables are exposed. innodb_compression_failure_threshold_pct: default 5, range 0 - 100,dynamic, implies the percentage of compress ops to fail before we start using to padding. Value 0 has a special meaning of disabling the padding. innodb_compression_pad_pct_max: default 50, range 0 - 75, dynamic, the  maximum percentage of uncompressed data page that can be reserved as pad.

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• 2011 The Year of Awesomesauce

  - by MOSSLover

  So I was talking to one of my friends, Cathy Dew, and I’m wondering how to start out this post.  What kind of title should I put?  Somehow we’re just randomly throwing things out and this title pops into my head the one you see above. I woke up today to the buzz of a text message.  I spent New Years laying around until 3 am watching Warehouse 13 Episodes and drinking champagne.  It was one of the best New Year’s I spent with my boyfriend and my cat.  I figured I would sleep in until Noon, but ended up waking up around 11:15 to that text message buzz.  I guess my DE, Rachel Appel, had texted me “Happy New Years”, because Rachel is that kind of person.  I immediately proceeded to check my email.  I noticed my live account had a hit.  The account I rarely ever use had an email.  I sort of had that sinking suspicion I was going to get Silverlight MVP right?  So I open the email and something out of the blue happens it says “blah blah blah SharePoint Server MVP blah blah…”.  I’m sitting here a little confused what?  Really?  Just about when you give up on something the unexplained happens.  I am grateful for what I have every day. So let me tell you a story.  I was a senior in high school and it was December 31st, 1999.  A couple days prior my grandmother was complaining she had a cold and her assisted living facility was not going to let her see a doctor.  She claimed to be very sick.  New Year’s Eve Day 1999 my grandmother was rushed to the hospital sometime very early in the morning.  My uncle, my little brother, and myself were sitting in the waiting room eagerly awaiting news.  The Sydney Opera House was playing in the background as New Years 2000 for Australia was ringing in.  They come out and they tell us my grandmother has pneumonia.  She is in the ICU in critical condition.  Eventually time passes in the day and my parents take my brother and I home.  So in the car we had a huge fight that ended in the worst new years of my life.  The next 30 days were the worst 30 days of my life.  I went to the hospital every single day to do my homework and watch my grandmother.  Each day was a challenge mentally and physically as my grandmother berated me in her demented state.  On the 30th day my grandmother ended up in critical condition in the ICU maxed out on painkillers.  At approximately 3 am I hear my parents telling me they don’t want to wake me up and that my grandmother had passed away.  I must have cried more collectively that day than any other day in my life.  Every New Years Even since I have cried thinking about who she was and what she represented.  She was human looking back she wasn’t anything great, but she was one of the positive lights in my life.  Her and my dad and my other grandmother constantly tried to make me feel great when my mother was telling me the opposite.  I’d like to think since 2000 the past 11 years have been the best 11 years of my life.  I got out of a bad situation by using the tools that I had in front of me.  Good grades and getting into a college so I could aspire to be the person that I wanted to be.  I had some great people along the way to help me out. So getting to the point I like to help people further there lives somehow in the best way I can possibly help out.  This New Years was one of the great years that helped me forget the past and focus on the present.  It makes me realize how far I’ve come since high school and even since college.  The one thing I’ve been grappling with over the years is how do you feel good about making money while helping others out.  I’d to think I try really hard to give back to my community.  I could not have done what I did without other people’s help.  I sent out an email prior to even announcing I got the award today.  I can’t say I did everything on my own.  It’s not possible.  I had the help of others every step of the way.  I’m not sure if this makes sense but the award can’t just be mine.  This award is really owned by each and everyone who helped me get here.  From my dad to my grandmother to Rachel Appel to Bob Hunt to Jason Gallicchio to Cathy Dew to Mark Rackley to Johnny Ennion to Lee Brandt to Jeff Julian to John Alexander to Lori Gowin and to many others.  Thank you guys for all the help and support. Technorati Tags: SharePoint Community,MVP Award,Microsoft Community

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• SQLAuthority News – A Conversation with an Old Friend – Sri Sridharan

  - by pinaldave

  Sri Sridharan is my old friend and we often talk on GTalk. The subject varies from Life in India/USA, movies, musics, and of course SQL. We have our differences when we talk about food or movie but we always agree when we talk about SQL. Yesterday while chatting with him we talked about SQLPASS and the conversation lasted for a long time. Here is the conversation between us on GTalk. I have removed a few of the personal talks and formatted into paragraphs as GTalk often shows stuff out of formatting. Pinal: Sri, Congrats on running for the PASS BoD again. You were so close last year. What made you decide to run again this year? Sri: Thank you Pinal for your leadership in the PASS India Community and all the things you do out there. After coming so close last year, there was no doubt in my mind that I will run again. I was truly humbled by the support I got from the community. Growing up in India for over 25 years, you are brought up in a very competitive part of the world. Right from the pressure of staying in the top of the class from kindergarten to your graduation, the relentless push from your parents about studying and getting good grades (and nothing else matters), you land up essentially living in a pressure cooker. To survive that relentless pressure, you need to have a thick skin, ability to stand up for who you really are , what you want to accomplish and in the process stay true those values. I am striving for a greater cause, to make PASS an organization that can help people with their SQL Server careers, to make PASS relevant to its chapter members, to make PASS an organization that every SQL professional in the world wants to be connected with. Just because I did not get elected or appointed last year does not mean that these causes are not worth fighting. Giving up upon failing the first time is simply not in me. If I did that, what message would I send to those who voted for me? What message would I send to my kids? Pinal: As someone who has such strong roots in India, what can the Indian PASS Community expect from you? Sri: First of all, I think fostering a regional leadership is something PASS must encourage as part of its global growth plan. For PASS global being able to understand all the issues in a region of the world and make sound decisions will be a tough thing to do on a continuous basis. I expect people like you, chapter leaders, regional mentors, MVPs of the region start playing a bigger role in shaping the next generation of PASS. That is something I said in my campaign and I still stand by it. I would like to see growth in the number of chapters in India. The current count does not truly represent the full potential of that region. I was pretty thrilled to see the Bangalore SQLSaturday happen early this year. I would like to see more of SQLSaturday events, at least in the major metro cities. I know the issues in India are very different from the rest of the world. So the formula needs to be tweaked a little for it to work better in India. Once the SQLSaturday model is vetted out, maybe there could be enough justification to have SQLRally India. PASS needs to have a premier SQL event in that region. Going to USA or Europe for that matter is incredibly hard due to VISA issues etc. So this could be a case of where PASS comes closer to where the community is. Pinal: What portfolio would take on if you are elected to the PASS Board? Sri: There are some very strong folks on the PASS Board today. The President discusses the portfolios with the group and makes the final call on the portfolios. I am also a fan of having a team associated with the portfolios. In that case, one person is the primary for a portfolio but secondary on a couple of other portfolios. This way people on the board have a direct vested interest in a few portfolios. Personally, I know I would these portfolios good justice – Chapters, Global Growth and Events (SQLSat, SQLRally). I would try to see if we can get a director to focus on Volunteers.  To me that is very critical for growth in the international regions. Pinal: This is an interesting conversation with you Sri. I know you so long time but this is indeed inspiring to many. India is a big country and we appreciate your thoughts. Sri: Thank you very much for taking time to chat with me today. Cheers. There are pretty strong candidates for SQLPASS Board of Elections this year. I know all of them in person and honestly it is going to be extremely difficult to not to vote for anybody. I am indeed in a crunch right now how to pick one over another. Though the choice is difficult, I encourage you to vote for them. I am extremely confident that the new board of directors will all have the same goal – Better SQL Server Community. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, DBA, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL PASS, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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