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• eSTEP Newsletter November 2012

  - by mseika

  Dear Partners,We would like to inform you that the November '12 issue of our Newsletter is now available.The issue contains information to the following topics: News from CorpOracle Celebrates 25 Years of SPARC Innovation; IDC White Papers Finds Growing Customer Comfort with Oracle Solaris Operating System; Oracle Buys Instantis; Pillar Axiom OpenWorld Highlights; Announcement Oracle Solaris 11.1 Availability (data sheet, new features, FAQ's, corporate pages, internal blog, download links, Oracle shop); Announcing StorageTek VSM 6; Announcement Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.1 Availability (new features, FAQ's, cluster corp page, download site, shop for media); Announcement: Oracle Database Appliance 2.4 patch update becomes available Technical SectionOracle White papers on SPARC SuperCluster; Understanding Parallel Execution; With LTFS, Tape is Gaining Storage Ground with additional link to How to Create Oracle Solaris 11 Zones with Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center; Provisioning Capabilities of Oracle Enterprise Ops Center Manager 12c; Maximizing your SPARC T4 Oracle Solaris Application Performance with the following articles: SPARC T4 Servers Set World Record on Siebel CRM 8.1.1.4 Benchmark, SPARC T4-Based Highly Scalable Solutions Posts New World Record on SPECjEnterprise2010 Benchmark, SPARC T4 Server Delivers Outstanding Performance on Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g; Oracle SUN ZFS Storage Appliance Reference Architecture for VMware vSphere4; Why 4K? - George Wilson's ZFS Day Talk; Pillar Axiom 600 with connected subjects: Oracle Introduces Pillar Axiom Release 5 Storage System Software, Driving down the high cost of Storage, This Provisioning with Pilar Axiom 600, Pillar Axiom 600- System overview and architecture; Migrate to Oracle;s SPARC Systems; Top 5 Reasons to Migrate to Oracle's SPARC Systems Learning & EventsRecently delivered Techcasts: Learning Paths; Oracle Database 11g: Database Administration (New) - Learning Path; Webcast: Drill Down on Disaster Recovery; What are Oracle Users Doing to Improve Availability and Disaster Recovery; SAP NetWeaver and Oracle Exadata Database Machine ReferencesARTstor Selects Oracle’s Sun ZFS Storage 7420 Appliances To Support Rapidly Growing Digital Image Library, Scottish Widows Cuts Sales Administration 20%, Reduces Time to Prepare Reports by 75%, and Achieves Return on Investment in First Year, Oracle's CRM Cloud Service Powers Innovation: Applications on Demand; Technology on Demand, How toHow to Migrate Your Data to Oracle Solaris 11 Using Shadow Migration; Using svcbundle to Create SMF Manifests and Profiles in Oracle Solaris 11; How to prepare a Sun ZFS Storage Appliance to Serve as a Storage Devise with Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c; Command Summary: Basic Operations with the Image Packaging System In Oracle Solaris 11; How to Update to Oracle Solaris 11.1 Using the Image Packaging System, How to Migrate Oracle Database from Oracle Solaris 8 to Oracle Solaris 11; Setting Up, Configuring, and Using an Oracle WebLogic Server Cluster; Ease the Chaos with Automated Patching: Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c; Book excerpt: Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud HandbookYou find the Newsletter on our portal under eSTEP News ---> Latest Newsletter. You will need to provide your email address and the pin below to get access. Link to the portal is shown below.URL: http://launch.oracle.com/PIN: eSTEP_2011Previous published Newsletters can be found under the Archived Newsletters section and more useful information under the Events, Download and Links tab. Feel free to explore and any feedback is appreciated to help us improve the service and information we deliver.Thanks and best regards,Partner HW Enablement EMEA

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• Finalists for Community Manager of the Year Announced

  - by Mike Stiles

  For as long as brand social has been around, there’s still an amazing disparity from company to company on the role of Community Manager. At some brands, they are the lead social innovators. At others, the task has been relegated to interns who are at the company temporarily. Some have total autonomy and trust. Others must get chain-of-command permission each time they engage. So what does a premiere “worth their weight in gold” Community Manager look like? More than anyone else in the building, they have the most intimate knowledge of who the customer is. They live on the front lines and are the first to detect problems and opportunities. They are sincere, raving fans of the brand themselves and are trusted advocates for the others. They’re fun to be around. They aren’t salespeople. Give me one Community Manager who’s been at the job 6 months over 5 focus groups any day. Because not unlike in speed dating, they must immediately learn how to make a positive, lasting impression on fans so they’ll want to return and keep the relationship going. They’re informers and entertainers, with a true belief in the value of the brand’s proposition. Internally, they live at the mercy of the resources allocated toward social. Many, whose managers don’t understand the time involved in properly curating a community, are tasked with 2 or 3 too many of them. 63% of CM’s will spend over 30 hours a week on one community. They come to intuitively know the value of the relationships they’re building, even if they can’t always be shown in a bar graph to the C-suite. Many must communicate how the customer feels to executives that simply don’t seem to want to hear it. Some can get the answers fans want quickly, others are frustrated in their ability to respond within an impressive timeframe. In short, in a corporate world coping with sweeping technological changes, amidst business school doublespeak, pie charts, decks, strat sessions and data points, the role of the Community Manager is the most…human. They are the true emotional connection to the real life customer. Which is why we sought to find a way to recognize and honor who they are, what they do, and how well they have defined the position as social grows and integrates into the larger organization. Meet our 3 finalists for Community Manager of the Year. Jeff Esposito with VistaprintJeff manages and heads up content strategy for all social networks and blogs. He also crafts company-wide policies surrounding the social space. Vistaprint won the NEDMA Gold Award for Twitter Strategy in 2010 and 2011, and a Bronze in 2011 for Social Media Strategy. Prior to Vistaprint, Jeff was Media Relations Manager with the Long Island Ducks. He graduated from Seton Hall University with a BA in English and a minor in Classical Studies. Stacey Acevero with Vocus In addition to social management, Stacey blogs at Vocus on influential marketing and social media, and blogs at PRWeb on public relations and SEO. She’s been named one of the #Nifty50 Women in Tech on Twitter 2 years in a row, as well as included in the 15 up-and-coming PR pros to watch in 2012. Carly Severn with the San Francisco BalletCarly drives engagement, widens the fanbase and generates digital content for America’s oldest professional ballet company. Managed properties include Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube and G+. Prior to joining the SF Ballet, Carly was Marketing & Press Coordinator at The Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, where she graduated with a degree in English. We invite you to join us at the first annual Oracle Social Media Summit November 14 and 15 at the Wynn in Las Vegas where our finalists will be featured. Over 300 top brand marketers, agency executives, and social leaders & innovators will be exploring how social is transforming business. Space is limited and the information valuable, so get more info and get registered as soon as possible at the event site.

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• Faster Trip to Innovation with Simplified Data Integration: Sabre Holdings Case Study

  - by Tanu Sood

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Author: Irem Radzik, Director of Product Marketing, Data Integration, Oracle In today’s fast-paced, competitive environment, IT teams are under pressure to deliver technology solutions for many critical business initiatives as fast as possible. When the focus is on speed, it can be easy to continue to use old style, point-to-point custom scripts that grow organically to the point where they are unmanageable and too costly to maintain. As data volumes, data sources, and end users grow, uncoordinated data integration efforts create significant inefficiencies for both IT and business users. In addition to losing IT productivity due to maintaining spaghetti architecture, data integrity becomes a concern as well. Errors caused by inconsistent, data and manual data entry can prove very costly for companies and disrupt business activities. Many industry leaders recognize now that data should be moved in an automated and reliable manner across all platforms to have one version of the truth. By simplifying their data integration architecture and standardizing on a centralized approach, IT teams now accelerate time to market. Especially, using a centralized, shared-service approach brings agility, increases IT productivity, and frees up resources for innovation. One such industry leader that simplified its data integration architecture is Sabre Holdings. Sabre Holdings provides distribution and technology solutions for the travel industry, and is a winner of Oracle Excellence Awards for Fusion Middleware in 2011 in the data integration category. I had the pleasure to host Sabre Holdings on a public webcast and discuss their data integration best practices for data warehousing. In this webcast Sabre’s Amjad Saeed, presented how the company reduced complexity by consolidating systems and standardizing development on Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle GoldenGate for its global data warehouse development team. With Oracle’s complete real-time data integration solution, Sabre also streamlined support and maintenance operations, achieved real-time view in the execution of the integration processes, and can manage the data warehouse and business intelligence solution performance on demand. By reducing complexity and leveraging timely market insights, the company was able to decrease time to market by 40%. You can now listen to the webcast on demand: Sabre Holdings Case Study: Accelerating Innovation using Oracle Data Integration I invite you to hear directly from Sabre how to use advanced data integration capabilities to enable accelerated innovation. To learn more about Oracle’s data integration offering you can download our free resources.

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• The long road to bug-free software

  - by Tony Davis

  The past decade has seen a burgeoning interest in functional programming languages such as Haskell or, in the Microsoft world, F#. Though still on the periphery of mainstream programming, functional programming concepts are gradually seeping into the imperative C# language (for example, Lambda expressions have their root in functional programming). One of the more interesting concepts from functional programming languages is the use of formal methods, the lofty ideal behind which is bug-free software. The idea is that we write a specification that describes exactly how our function (say) should behave. We then prove that our function conforms to it, and in doing so have proved beyond any doubt that it is free from bugs. All programmers already use one form of specification, specifically their programming language's type system. If a value has a specific type then, in a type-safe language, the compiler guarantees that value cannot be an instance of a different type. Many extensions to existing type systems, such as generics in Java and .NET, extend the range of programs that can be type-checked. Unfortunately, type systems can only prevent some bugs. To take a classic problem of retrieving an index value from an array, since the type system doesn't specify the length of the array, the compiler has no way of knowing that a request for the "value of index 4" from an array of only two elements is "unsafe". We restore safety via exception handling, but the ideal type system will prevent us from doing anything that is unsafe in the first place and this is where we start to borrow ideas from a language such as Haskell, with its concept of "dependent types". If the type of an array includes its length, we can ensure that any index accesses into the array are valid. The problem is that we now need to carry around the length of arrays and the values of indices throughout our code so that it can be type-checked. In general, writing the specification to prove a positive property, even for a problem very amenable to specification, such as a simple sorting algorithm, turns out to be very hard and the specification will be different for every program. Extend this to writing a specification for, say, Microsoft Word and we can see that the specification would end up being no simpler, and therefore no less buggy, than the implementation. Fortunately, it is easier to write a specification that proves that a program doesn't have certain, specific and undesirable properties, such as infinite loops or accesses to the wrong bit of memory. If we can write the specifications to prove that a program is immune to such problems, we could reuse them in many places. The problem is the lack of specification "provers" that can do this without a lot of manual intervention (i.e. hints from the programmer). All this might feel a very long way off, but computing power and our understanding of the theory of "provers" advances quickly, and Microsoft is doing some of it already. Via their Terminator research project they have started to prove that their device drivers will always terminate, and in so doing have suddenly eliminated a vast range of possible bugs. This is a huge step forward from saying, "we've tested it lots and it seems fine". What do you think? What might be good targets for specification and verification? SQL could be one: the cost of a bug in SQL Server is quite high given how many important systems rely on it, so there's a good incentive to eliminate bugs, even at high initial cost. [Many thanks to Mike Williamson for guidance and useful conversations during the writing of this piece] Cheers, Tony.

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• 4 Key Ingredients for the Cloud

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  It's a short week here with the US Thanksgiving Holiday. So, before we put on our stretch pants and get ready to belly up to the dinner table for turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes, let's spend a little time this week talking about the Cloud (kind of like the feathery whipped goodness that tops the infamous Thanksgiving pumpkin pie!) But before we dive into the Cloud, let's do a side by side comparison of the key ingredients for each. Cloud Whipped Cream  Application Integration  1 cup heavy cream  Security  1/4 cup sugar  Virtual I/O  1 teaspoon vanilla  Storage  Chilled Bowl It’s no secret that millions of people are connected to the Internet. And it also probably doesn’t come as a surprise that a lot of those people are connected on social networking sites.  Social networks have become an excellent platform for sharing and communication that reflects real world relationships and they play a major part in the everyday lives of many people. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+ and hundreds of others have transformed the way we interact and communicate with one another.Social networks are becoming more than just an online gathering of friends. They are becoming a destination for ideation, e-commerce, and marketing. But it doesn’t just stop there. Some organizations are utilizing social networks internally, integrated with their business applications and processes and the possibility of social media and cloud integration is compelling. Forrester alone estimates enterprise cloud computing to grow to over $240 billion by 2020. It’s hard to find any current IT project today that is NOT considering cloud-based deployments. Security and quality of service concerns are no longer at the forefront; rather, it’s about focusing on the right mix of capabilities for the business. Cloud vs. On-Premise? Policies & governance models? Social in the cloud? Cloud’s increasing sophistication, security in applications, mobility, transaction processing and social capabilities make it an attractive way to manage information. And Oracle offers all of this through the Oracle Cloud and Oracle Social Network. Oracle Social Network is a secure private network that provides a broad range of social tools designed to capture and preserve information flowing between people, enterprise applications, and business processes. By connecting you with your most critical applications, Oracle Social Network provides contextual, real-time communication within and across enterprises. With Oracle Social Network, you and your teams have the tools you need to collaborate quickly and efficiently, while leveraging the organization’s collective expertise to make informed decisions and drive business forward. Oracle Social Network is available as part of a portfolio of application and platform services within the Oracle Cloud. Oracle Cloud offers self-service business applications delivered on an integrated development and deployment platform with tools to rapidly extend and create new services. Oracle Social Network is pre-integrated with the Fusion CRM Cloud Service and the Fusion HCM Cloud Service within the Oracle Cloud. If you are looking for something to watch as you veg on the couch in a post-turkey dinner hangover, you might consider watching these how-to videos! And yes, it is perfectly ok to have that 2nd piece of pie

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• There are 2 jobs available - which one sounds better all round [closed]

  - by Steve Gates

  I am currently employed at a company where we scrape by each year breaking even, sometimes having a little profit. The development environment is very relaxed and we have a laugh. My colleagues are not interested in improving their knowledge unless they have to, so trying to get them to adopt things like TDD is a non-starter. My development manager is stuck in .Net 2 land and refuses to use things like LINQ. He over complicates architecture and writes very unreadable code, heres an example SortedList<int,<SortedList<int,SortedList<int, MyClass>>>> The MD of the company has no drive and lets the one sales guy bring in the contracts. We are not busy all the time and this allows me time to look at new technology and learn. In terms of using things like TDD, my development manager has no problem with it and can kind of see the purpose of it, he just wont use it himself. This means I am alone in learning new things and am often resorting to StackOverflow to make sure I get things right. The company has a lot of flexibility, I can work from home if needs be and when my daughter was born they let me work from home 1 day a week however they expect this flexibility in return often asking me to travel occasionally on a Friday afternoon for the following week. Sometimes its abroad. We are also pretty much on call 24/5 as we have engineers in various countries. Also we have no testers so most of the testing is done by us developers and some testing by engineers. Either way no-one likes testing! I have been offered a role at a company I worked at 5 years ago. They were quite Victorian in their working practices but it appears to have relaxed now although I suspect still reasonably formal. There is a new team of developers I don't know and they are about to move to new offices. The team lead is a guy that was there when I was and I get the impression he takes his role seriously and likes his formal procedures and documentation. I think some of the Victorian practices may have rubbed off on him. However he did say if things crop up then as long as I can trust the person they can work at home although he prefers people in the office. The team uses SCRUM, TDD and SOLID design principles so they are quite up to date in technology. They are reasonably Microsoft focused. It appears the Technical Director might be the R&D man and research new technology on his own not allowing developers to play with new technology. He possibly might be a super developer and makes all the decisions that no can argue with. They are currently moving to Entity Framework away from NHibernate based on issues that their queries seem to fail sometimes and they feel NHibernate is stagnant. They have analysts and a QA team. The MD is focused and they are an expanding company making profit each year. I'm not sure what the team morale is and whether they have a laugh. When I had a tour around the office they were there in dead silence. I'm really unsure which role is the best for me and going with my gut instinct is useless as I'm not sure what my gut is telling me. Based on the information above which role would you choose and why?

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• D&rsquo;Arcy&rsquo;s Book Club - The New Strategic Selling

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  The New Strategic Selling Miller and Heiman Amazon.ca Amazon.com Chapters Everybody is a salesmen. Every day, without knowing it, we sell something to someone. Now, the typical vision people think of when they hear the word “sales” is the sleazy used car salesperson who does whatever they can to get you to buy the clunker on their lot. But selling is not an action tied to money and products. Selling is about convincing people to see your point of view and act on it. If you want your company to cover a trip to a conference, you may have to sell the idea to your boss. If you want to buy that new big screen TV, you have to sell the idea to your significant other. If you want to go on a weekend fishing trip with the boys you might be called in to help sell the idea to your buddies wife. We all sell, but we don’t all sell very well. So enter The New Strategic Selling, a book based on the sales course put on by the Miller-Heiman group. In fact, this isn’t really a “New” strategy to selling as its been around for a number of years. But the concepts they present, the ideas about selling, these are still very radical based on what most of us have experienced. Gone are the high pressure, win at all cost, GlenGarry-GlenRoss style of sales…instead the book presents a framework to switch to need-based selling. It’s the idea that instead of going in raving about a product or service, you build a relationship where the buyer expresses what their needs are and your response is to present a solution that best fits that need. Instead of focussing on the amount of money you can squeeze out of a client, you focus on whether everyone wins, that they receive win-results from the engagement, that repeat business is developed over time delivering value over and over again. The great thing about the book is that what it teaches…things like how to identify different buying influencers, how to prepare for meetings, techniques to solicit information about what the buyer is really thinking/feeling…these things are entirely applicable in *any* situation that you need to sell to someone…and remember: selling is convincing people to see your point of view and act on it. So that new big screen TV you want to buy but need to convince your wife on? This book can help you. That training opportunity you want your company to send you on? This book can help you. The upgrade to your community park that you want to lobby the local civic authorities for? This book can help you. The book is a bit wordy. I found that the length could have been reduced and the points still have gotten across. That’s really the only knock that I have though; the insight that it provides is so worthwhile that having to chew through extra words is well worth it. You definitely don’t have to be a professional salesperson to benefit from this book. Rating: 4/5

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• Asynchrony in C# 5 (Part II)

  - by javarg

  This article is a continuation of the series of asynchronous features included in the new Async CTP preview for next versions of C# and VB. Check out Part I for more information. So, let’s continue with TPL Dataflow: Asynchronous functions TPL Dataflow Task based asynchronous Pattern Part II: TPL Dataflow Definition (by quote of Async CTP doc): “TPL Dataflow (TDF) is a new .NET library for building concurrent applications. It promotes actor/agent-oriented designs through primitives for in-process message passing, dataflow, and pipelining. TDF builds upon the APIs and scheduling infrastructure provided by the Task Parallel Library (TPL) in .NET 4, and integrates with the language support for asynchrony provided by C#, Visual Basic, and F#.” This means: data manipulation processed asynchronously. “TPL Dataflow is focused on providing building blocks for message passing and parallelizing CPU- and I/O-intensive applications”. Data manipulation is another hot area when designing asynchronous and parallel applications: how do you sync data access in a parallel environment? how do you avoid concurrency issues? how do you notify when data is available? how do you control how much data is waiting to be consumed? etc.  Dataflow Blocks TDF provides data and action processing blocks. Imagine having preconfigured data processing pipelines to choose from, depending on the type of behavior you want. The most basic block is the BufferBlock<T>, which provides an storage for some kind of data (instances of <T>). So, let’s review data processing blocks available. Blocks a categorized into three groups: Buffering Blocks Executor Blocks Joining Blocks Think of them as electronic circuitry components :).. 1. BufferBlock<T>: it is a FIFO (First in First Out) queue. You can Post data to it and then Receive it synchronously or asynchronously. It synchronizes data consumption for only one receiver at a time (you can have many receivers but only one will actually process it). 2. BroadcastBlock<T>: same FIFO queue for messages (instances of <T>) but link the receiving event to all consumers (it makes the data available for consumption to N number of consumers). The developer can provide a function to make a copy of the data if necessary. 3. WriteOnceBlock<T>: it stores only one value and once it’s been set, it can never be replaced or overwritten again (immutable after being set). As with BroadcastBlock<T>, all consumers can obtain a copy of the value. 4. ActionBlock<TInput>: this executor block allows us to define an operation to be executed when posting data to the queue. Thus, we must pass in a delegate/lambda when creating the block. Posting data will result in an execution of the delegate for each data in the queue. You could also specify how many parallel executions to allow (degree of parallelism). 5. TransformBlock<TInput, TOutput>: this is an executor block designed to transform each input, that is way it defines an output parameter. It ensures messages are processed and delivered in order. 6. TransformManyBlock<TInput, TOutput>: similar to TransformBlock but produces one or more outputs from each input. 7. BatchBlock<T>: combines N single items into one batch item (it buffers and batches inputs). 8. JoinBlock<T1, T2, …>: it generates tuples from all inputs (it aggregates inputs). Inputs could be of any type you want (T1, T2, etc.). 9. BatchJoinBlock<T1, T2, …>: aggregates tuples of collections. It generates collections for each type of input and then creates a tuple to contain each collection (Tuple<IList<T1>, IList<T2>>). Next time I will show some examples of usage for each TDF block. * Images taken from Microsoft’s Async CTP documentation.

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• Formatting made easy - Silverlight 4

  - by PeterTweed

  One of the simplest tasks in business apps is displaying different types of data to be read in the format that the user expects them.  In Silverlight versions until Silverlight 4 this has meant using a Converter to format data during binding.  This involves writing code for the formatting of the data to bind, instead of simply defining the formatting to use for the data in question where you bind the data to the control.   In Silverlight 4 we find the addition of the StringFormat markup extension that allows us to do exactly this.  Of course the nice thing is the ability to use the common formatting conventions available in C# through the String.Format function.   This post will show you how to use three of the common formatting conventions - currency, a defined number of decimal places for a number and a date format.   Steps:   1. Create a new Silverlight 4 application   2. In the body of the MainPage.xaml.cs file replace the MainPage class with the following code:       public partial class MainPage : UserControl     {         public MainPage()         {             InitializeComponent();             this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(MainPage_Loaded);         }           void MainPage_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)         {             info i = new info() { PriceValue = new Decimal(9.2567), DoubleValue = 1.2345678, DateValue = DateTime.Now };             this.DataContext = i;         }     }         public class info     {         public decimal PriceValue { get; set; }         public double DoubleValue { get; set; }         public DateTime DateValue { get; set; }     }   This code defines a class called info with different data types for the three properties.  A new instance of the class is created and bound to the DataContext of the page.   3.  In the MainPage.xaml file copy the following XAML into the LayoutRoot grid:           <Grid.RowDefinitions>             <RowDefinition Height="60*" />             <RowDefinition Height="28*" />             <RowDefinition Height="28*" />             <RowDefinition Height="30*" />             <RowDefinition Height="154*" />         </Grid.RowDefinitions>         <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>             <ColumnDefinition Width="86*" />             <ColumnDefinition Width="314*" />         </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>         <TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="32,0,0,0" Name="textBlock1" Text="Price Value:" VerticalAlignment="Top" />         <TextBlock Grid.Row="2" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="32,0,0,0" Name="textBlock2" Text="Decimal Value:" VerticalAlignment="Top" />         <TextBlock Grid.Row="3" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="32,0,0,0" Name="textBlock3" Text="Date Value:" VerticalAlignment="Top" />         <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="1" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Name="textBlock4" Text="{Binding PriceValue, StringFormat='C'}" VerticalAlignment="Top" Margin="6,0,0,0" />         <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="2" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="6,0,0,0" Name="textBlock5" Text="{Binding DoubleValue, StringFormat='N3'}" VerticalAlignment="Top" />         <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="3" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="6,0,0,0" Name="textBlock6" Text="{Binding DateValue, StringFormat='yyyy MMM dd'}" VerticalAlignment="Top" />   This XAML defines three textblocks that use the StringFormat markup extension.  The three examples use the C for currency, N3 for a number with 3 decimal places and yyy MM dd for a date that displays year 3 letter month and 2 number date.   4. Run the application and see the data displayed with the correct formatting. It's that easy!

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• EMEA Analytics & Data Integration Oracle Partner Forum

  - by milomir.vojvodic

  MONDAY 12TH NOVEMBER, 2012 IN LONDON (UK) For Oracle Partners across Europe, Middle East and Africa: come to hear the latest news from Oracle OpenWorld about Oracle BI & Data Integration, and propel your business growth as an Oracle partner. This event should appeal to BI or Data Integration specialized partners, Executives, Sales, Pre-sales and Solution architects: with a choice of participation in the plenary day and then a set of special interest (technical) sessions. The follow on breakout sessions from the 13th November provide deeper dives and technical training for those of you who wish to stay for more detailed and hands-on workshops. Keynote: Andrew Sutherland, SVP Oracle Technology Hot agenda items will include: The Fusion Middleware Stack: Engineered to work together A complete Analytics and Data Integration Solution Architecture: Big Data and Little Data combined In-Memory Analytics for Extreme Insight Latest Product Development Roadmap for Data Integration and Analytics Venue: Oracles London CITY Moorgate Offices Places are limited, Register from this Link Note: Registration for the conference and the deeper dives and technical training is free of charge to OPN member Partners, but you will be responsible for your own travel and hotel expenses. Event Schedule During this event you can learn about partner success stories, participate in an array of break-out sessions, exchange information with other partners and enjoy a vibrant panel discussion. Nov. 12th  : Day 1 Main Plenary Session : Full day, starting 10.30 am.  Oracle Hosted Dinner in the Evening Nov. 13th  onwards Architecture Masterclass : IM Reference Architecture – Big Data and Little Data combined (1 day) BI-Apps Bootcamp  (4-days) Oracle GoldenGate workshop (1 day) Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle Enterprise Data Quality workshop (1 day) For further information and detail download the Agenda (pdf) or contact Michael Hallett at [email protected] and Milomir Vojvodic at [email protected] v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• CFOs: Do You Have a Playbook for Growth?

  - by Oracle Accelerate for Midsize Companies

  by Jim Lein, Oracle Midsize Programs In most global markets, CFOs are optimistic about their company's growth opportunities. Deloitte's CFO Signals Report, "Time to Accelerate" found that: In the U.K. business optimism is at its highest level in three-and-a-half years Optimism in North America rose from a strong +42% last quarter (Q2 to Q3 2013) to an even stronger +54%. The inaugural Southeast Asia survey, 44% of CFOs reported a positive outlook despite worries over the Chinese economy and political uncertainty. Sustainable and profitable business growth doesn't usually happen by accident. Company's need a playbook for growth that's owned by the CFO. And today, that playbook must leverage the six enabling technologies--Social, Big Data, Mobile, Cloud, Analytics, and The Internet of Things (or, as Oracle president Mark Hurd explains, "The Internet of the People"). On Monday June 9 at  2:00 pm Eastern, CFO.com is hosting a webcast, "The CFO Playbook on Growth: How CFOs Can Boost Efficiency and Performance with Automation". Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} “Investing in technology begins with a business metric driven business case with clear tangible business results expected," says John Lieblang, Affiliate Partner with Waterstone Management Group. "The progressive CFO has learned how to forge a partnership with the CIO to align everyone in the 'result value chain' to be accountable for the business results not just for functional technology.” Click HERE to register  Looking for more news and information about Oracle Solutions for Midsize Companies? Read the latest Oracle for Midsize Companies Newsletter Sign-up to receive the latest communications from Oracle’s industry leaders and experts Jim Lein I evangelize Oracle's enterprise solutions for growing midsize companies. I recently celebrated 15 years with Oracle, having joined JD Edwards in 1999. I'm based in Evergreen, Colorado and love relating stories about creativity and innovation whether they be about software, live music, or the mountains. The views expressed here are my own, and not necessarily those of Oracle.

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• Try the Oracle Database Appliance Manager Configurator - For Fun!

  - by pwstephe-Oracle

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 If you would like to get a first hand glimpse of how easy it is to configure an ODA, even if you don’t have access to one, it’s possible to download the Appliance Manager Configurator from the Oracle Technology Network, and run it standalone on your PC or Linux/Unix  workstation. The configurator is packaged in a zip file that contains the complete Java environment to run standalone. Once the package is downloaded and unzipped it’s simply a matter of launching it using the config command or shell depending on your runtime environment. Oracle Appliance Manager Configurator is a Java-based tool that enables you to input your deployment plan and validate your network settings before an actual deployment, or you can just preview and experiment with it. Simply download and run the configurator on a local client system which can be a Windows, Linux, or UNIX system. (For Windows launch the batch file config.bat for Linux/Unix environments, run  ./ config.sh). You will be presented with the very same dialogs and options used to configure a production ODA but on your workstation. At the end of a configurator session, you may save your deployment plan in a configuration file. If you were actually ready to deploy, you could copy this configuration file to a real ODA where the online Oracle Appliance Manager Configurator would use the contents to deploy your plan in production. You may also print the file’s content and use the printout as a checklist for setting up your production external network configuration. Be sure to use the actual production network addresses you intend to use it as this will only work correctly if your client system is connected to same network that will be used for the ODA. (This step is not necessary if you are just previewing the Configurator). This is a great way to get an introductory look at the simple and intuitive Database Appliance configuration interface and the steps to configure a system. /* 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;}

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• Cloud – the forecast is improving

  - by Rob Farley

  There is a lot of discussion about “the cloud”, and how that affects people’s data stories. Today the discussion enters the realm of T-SQL Tuesday, hosted this month by Jorge Segarra. Over the years, companies have invested a lot in making sure that their data is good, and I mean every aspect of it – the quality of it, the security of it, the performance of it, and more. Experts such as those of us at LobsterPot Solutions have helped these companies with this, and continue to work with clients to make sure that data is a strong part of their business, not an oversight. Whether business intelligence systems are being utilised or not, every business needs to be able to rely on its data, and have the confidence in it. Data should be a foundation upon which a business is built. In the past, data had been stored in paper-based systems. Filing cabinets stored vital information. Today, people have server rooms with storage of various kinds, recognising that filing cabinets don’t necessarily scale particularly well. It’s easy to ‘lose’ data in a filing cabinet, when you have people who need to make sure that the sheets of paper are in the right spot, and that you know how things are stored. Databases help solve that problem, but still the idea of a large filing cabinet continues, it just doesn’t involve paper. If something happens to the physical ‘filing cabinet’, then the problems are larger still. Then the data itself is under threat. Many clients have generators in case the power goes out, redundant cables in case the connectivity dies, and spare servers in other buildings just in case they’re required. But still they’re maintaining filing cabinets. You see, people like filing cabinets. There’s something to be said for having your data ‘close’. Even if the data is not in readable form, living as bits on a disk somewhere, the idea that its home is ‘in the building’ is comforting to many people. They simply don’t want to move their data anywhere else. The cloud offers an alternative to this, and the human element is an obstacle. By leveraging the cloud, companies can have someone else look after their filing cabinet. A lot of people really don’t like the idea of this, partly because the administrators of the data, those people who could potentially log in with escalated rights and see more than they should be allowed to, who need to be trusted to respond if there’s a problem, are now a faceless entity in the cloud. But this doesn’t mean that the cloud is bad – this is simply a concern that some people may have. In new functionality that’s on its way, we see other hybrid mechanisms that mean that people can leverage parts of the cloud with less fear. Companies can use cloud storage to hold their backup data, for example, backups that have been encrypted and are therefore not able to be read by anyone (including administrators) who don’t have the right password. Companies can have a database instance that runs locally, but which has its data files in the cloud, complete with Transparent Data Encryption if needed. There can be a higher level of control, making the change easier to accept. Hybrid options allow people who have had fears (potentially very justifiable) to take a new look at the cloud, and to start embracing some of the benefits of the cloud (such as letting someone else take care of storage, high availability, and more) without losing the feeling of the data being close. @rob_farley

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• ADO and Two Way Storage Tiering

  - by Andy-Oracle

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 We get asked the following question about Automatic Data Optimization (ADO) storage tiering quite a bit. Can you tier back to the original location if the data gets hot again? The answer is yes but not with standard Automatic Data Optimization policies, at least not reliably. That's not how ADO is meant to operate. ADO is meant to mirror a traditional view of Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) where data will be very volatile when first created, will become less active or cool, and then will eventually cease to be accessed at all (i.e. cold). I think the reason this question gets asked is because customers realize that many of their business processes are cyclical and the thinking goes that those segments that only get used during month end or year-end cycles could sit on lower cost storage when not being used. Unfortunately this doesn't fit very well with the ADO storage tiering model. ADO storage tiering is based on the amount of free and used space in the source tablespace. There are two parameters that control this behavior, TBS_PERCENT_USED and TBS_PERCENT_FREE. When the space in the tablespace exceeds the TBS_PERCENT_USED value then segments specified in storage tiering clause(s) can be moved until the percent of free space reaches the TBS_PERCENT_FREE value. It is worth mentioning that no checks are made for available space in the target tablespace. Now, it is certainly possible to create custom functions to control storage tiering, but this can get complicated. The biggest problem is insuring that there is enough space to move the segment back to tier 1 storage, assuming that that's the goal. This isn't as much of a problem when moving from tier 1 to tier 2 storage because there is typically more tier 2 storage available. At least that's the premise since it is supposed to be less costly, lower performing and higher capacity storage. In either case though, if there isn't enough space then the operation fails. In the case of a customized function, the question becomes do you attempt to free the space so the move can be made or do you just stop and return false so that the move cannot take place? This is really the crux of the issue. Once you cross into this territory you're really going to have to implement two-way hierarchical storage and the whole point of ADO was to provide automatic storage tiering. You're probably better off using heat map and/or business access requirements and building your own hierarchical storage management infrastructure if you really want two way storage tiering. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Where to place web.xml outside WAR file for secure redirect?

  - by Silverhalide

  I am running Tomcat 7 and am deploying a bunch of applications delivered to me by a third party as WAR files. I'd like to force some of those apps to always use SSL. (All the "SSL" apps are in one service; other apps outside this discussion are in another service.) I've figured out how to use conf\web.xml to redirect apps from HTTP to HTTPS, but that applies to all applications hosted by Tomcat. I've also figured out how to put web.xml in an unpacked app's web-inf directory; that does the trick for that specific app, but runs the risk of being overwritten if our vendor gives us a new war file to deploy. I've also tried placing the web.xml file in various places under conf\service\host, or under appbase, but none seem to work. Is it possible to redirect some apps to SSL without forcing all apps to redirect, or to put the web.xml file inside the extracted WAR file? Here's my server.xml: <Service name="secure"> <Connector port="80" connectionTimeout="20000" redirectPort="443" URIEncoding="UTF-8" enableLookups="false" compression="on" protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol" compressableMimeType="text/html,text/xml,text/plain,text/javascript,application/json,text/css"/> <Connector port="443" URIEncoding="UTF-8" enableLookups="false" compression="on" protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol" compressableMimeType="text/html,text/xml,text/plain,text/javascript,application/json,text/css" scheme="https" secure="true" SSLEnabled="true" sslProtocol="TLS" keystoreFile="..." keystorePass="..." keystoreType="PKCS12" truststoreFile="..." truststorePass="..." truststoreType="JKS" clientAuth="false" ciphers="SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5,SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA,TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA,TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA,TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA,SSL_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA"/> <Engine name="secure" defaultHost="localhost"> <Realm className="org.apache.catalina.realm.UserDatabaseRealm" resourceName="UserDatabase"/> <Host name="localhost" appBase="webapps" unpackWARs="false" autoDeploy="true" xmlValidation="false" xmlNamespaceAware="false"> </Host> </Engine> </Service> <Service name="mutual-secure"> ... </Service> The content of the web.xml files I'm playing with is: <web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd" version="3.0" metadata-complete="true"> <security-constraint> <web-resource-collection> <web-resource-name>All applications</web-resource-name> <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern> </web-resource-collection> <user-data-constraint> <description>Redirect all requests to HTTPS</description> <transport-guarantee>CONFIDENTIAL</transport-guarantee> </user-data-constraint> </security-constraint> </web-app> (For conf\web.xml the security-constraint is added just before the end of the existing file, rather than create a new file.) My webapps directory (currently) contains only the WAR files.

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• PBCS Hyperion Planning in the Cloud PartnerLab 2-Day Training

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Objective of the PartnerLab:  To help partners engage the interest and commitment of their clients for Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service projects. This is your unique opportunity to learn how to expand your business with the PBCS Application. This 2-day PartnerLab workshop will enable your team to understand the fundamental concepts of the PBCS Application, the implications of Oracle Public Cloud deployment, and to effectively present and demonstrate PBCS to prospective clients. Participants must already be competent with the on-premise Hyperion Planning application: this training will build on existing expertise to cover SaaS Cloud specific deployment implications and how best to demonstrate this to clients and win services led PBCS implementation engagements. Register here now and see full Agenda for 07-08 July 2014 in Oracle Paris – Colombes 15, bd Charles de Gaulle, 92715 Colombes Cedex France Register here now and see full Agenda for 15-16 July 2014 in Oracle Italy via Fulvio Testi 136, Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, Italy This training is free of charge to OPN Member Partners This PartnerLab is a 2 day in-class workshop event led by Oracle Pre-Sales subject matter experts. These 2 days consist of discussions, presentations, demonstration and hands-on exercises. Note: the hands-on exercises are in an already installed environment that you can have access to after the event (see more @ Hyperion Demonstration Systems for Partners). The PartnerLab will be delivered in English or local language. Mandatory prerequisites for a participant: Please view material available and complete the assessments before you attend the PartnerLab event. Material and assessments cover foundational information about Oracle Hyperion Planning and Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service. View material prior to live PartnerLab: Oracle Hyperion Planning 11 Sales Specialist guided learning path Oracle Hyperion Planning 11 PreSales Specialist guided learning path Oracle Hyperion Planning 11 Implementation Specialist guided learning path Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service Specialist guided learning path PBCS How-to Videos Learn More at Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service Take and pass these on-line assessments prior to the live PartnerLab training: Oracle Hyperion Planning 11 Sales Specialist on-line exam Oracle Hyperion Planning 11 PreSales Specialist on-line exam /* 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; 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; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}

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• Introducing the Metro User Interface on Windows 2012

  - by andywe

  Although I am a big fan of using PowerShell to do many of my server operations, that aspect is well covered by those far more knowledgeable than I, and there is vast information around the web already on that. The new Metro interface, and getting around both Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 though is relatively new, even for those whop ran the previews. What is this? A blank Desktop!   Where did the start button go? Well, it is still there...sort of. It is hidden, and acts like an auto hidden component that appear only when the mouse is hovered over the lower left corner of the screen. Those familiar with Gnome or OSX can relate this to the "Hot Corners" functions. To get to the start button, hover your mouse in the very left corner of the task bar. Let it sit there a moment, and a small blue square with colored tiles in it called start will appear. Click it. I clicked it and now I have all the tiles..What is this?   Welcome to the Metro interface. This is a much more modern look, and although at first seems weird and cumbersome, I have actually found that it is a bit more extensible, allowing greater organization and customization than the older explorer desktop. If you look closely, you'll see each box represents either a program, or program group. First, a few basics about using the start view. First and foremost, a right mouse click will bring up a bar on the bottom, with an icon towards the right. Notice it is titled “All Apps”. An even easier way in many places is to hover your mouse in the exact opposite corner, in the upper right. A sidebar will open and expose what used to be a widget bar (remember Vista?), and there are options for Search, Start, and Settings.   Ok Great, but where is everything? It’s all there…Click the All Apps icon.   Look better? Notice the scroll bar at the bottom. Move it right..your desktop is sized to your content..so you can have a smaller, or larger amount of programs exposed. Each icon can be secondary clicked (right mouse click for most of us, and an options bar at the bottom, rather than the old small context menu, is opened with some very familiar options.   Notice the top of the Windows Explorer window has some new features. You still have your right mouse click functions, but since the shortcuts for these items already exist..just copy them. There are many ways, but here is a long way to show you more of the interface. 1. Right mouse click a program icon, and select the Open File Location option. 2. Trusty file manager opens…but if you look closely up at top edge of the window, you’ll see a nifty enhancement. An orange colored box that is titled Shortcut Tools and another lavender box Title Application tools. Each of these adds options at the top of the file manager window to make selection easy. Of course, you can still secondary click an item in the listing window too. 3. Click shortcut tools, right click your app shortcut and copy it. Then simply paste it into the desktop outside the File Explorer window Also note some of the newer features. The large icons up top below the menu that has many common operations. The options change as you select each menu item. Well, that’s it for this installment. I hope this helps you out.

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• Cloud Adoption Challenges

  - by Herve Roggero

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/hroggero/archive/2013/11/07/cloud-adoption-challenges.aspxWhile cloud computing makes sense for most organizations and countless projects, I have seen customers significantly struggle with cloud adoption challenges. This blog post is not an attempt to provide a generic assessment of cloud adoption; rather it is an account of personal experiences in the field, some of which may or may not apply to your organization. Cloud First, Burst? In the rush to cloud adoption some companies have made the decision to redesign their core system with a cloud first approach. However a cloud first approach means that the system may not work anymore on-premises after it has been redesigned, specifically if the system depends on Platform as a Service (PaaS) components (such as Azure Tables). While PaaS makes sense when your company is in a position to adopt the cloud exclusively, it can be difficult to leverage with systems that need to work in different clouds or on-premises. As a result, some companies are starting to rethink their cloud strategy by designing for on-premises first, and modify only the necessary components to burst when needed in the cloud. This generally means that the components need to work equally well in any environment, which requires leveraging Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) or additional investments for PaaS applications, or both.  What’s the Problem? Although most companies can benefit from cloud computing, not all of them can clearly identify a business reason for doing so other than in very generic terms. I heard many companies claim “it’s cheaper”, or “it allows us to scale”, without any specific metric or clear strategy behind the adoption decision. Other companies have a very clear strategy behind cloud adoption and can precisely articulate business benefits, such as “we have a 500% increase in traffic twice a year, so we need to burst in the cloud to avoid doubling our network and server capacity”. Understanding the problem being solved through by adopting cloud computing can significantly help organizations determine the optimum path and timeline to adoption. Performance or Scalability? I stopped counting the number of times I heard “the cloud doesn’t scale; our database runs faster on a laptop”.  While performance and scalability are related concepts, they are nonetheless different in nature. Performance is a measure of response time under a given load (meaning with a specific number of users), while scalability is the performance curve over various loads. For example one system could see great performance with 100 users, but timeout with 1,000 users, in which case the system wouldn’t scale. However another system could have average performance with 100 users, but display the exact same performance with 1,000,000 users, in which case the system would scale. Understanding that cloud computing does not usually provide high performance, but instead provides the tools necessary to build a scalable system (usually using PaaS services such as queuing and data federation), is fundamental to proper cloud adoption. Uptime? Last but not least, you may want to read the Service Level Agreement of your cloud provider in detail if you haven’t done so. If you are expecting 99.99% uptime annually you may be in for a surprise. Depending on the component being used, there may be no associated SLA at all! Other components may be restarted at any time, or services may experience failover conditions weekly ( or more) based on current overall conditions of the cloud service provider, most of which are outside of your control. As a result, for PaaS cloud environments (and to a certain extent some IaaS systems), applications need to assume failure and gracefully retry to be successful in the cloud in order to provide service continuity to end users. About Herve Roggero Herve Roggero, Windows Azure MVP, is the founder of Blue Syntax Consulting (http://www.bluesyntax.net). Herve's experience includes software development, architecture, database administration and senior management with both global corporations and startup companies. Herve holds multiple certifications, including an MCDBA, MCSE, MCSD. He also holds a Master's degree in Business Administration from Indiana University. Herve is the co-author of "PRO SQL Azure" and “PRO SQL Server 2012 Practices” from Apress, a PluralSight author, and runs the Azure Florida Association.

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• Integrating Amazon S3 in Java via NetBeans IDE

  - by Geertjan

  To continue from yesterday, let's set up a scenario that enables us to make use of this drag/drop service in NetBeans IDE: The above service is applicable to Amazon S3, an Amazon storage provider that is typically used to store large binary files. In Amazon S3, every object stored is contained in a bucket. Buckets partition the namespace of objects stored in Amazon S3. More on buckets here. Let's use the tools in NetBeans IDE to create a Java application that accesses our Amazon S3 buckets. Create a Java application named "AmazonBuckets" with a main class named "AmazonBuckets". Open the main class and then drag the above service into the main method of the class. Now, NetBeans IDE will create all the other classes and the properties file that you see in the screenshot below. The first thing to do is to open the properties file above and enter the access key and secret: access_key=SOMETHINGsecret=SOMETHINGELSE Now you're all set up. Make sure to, of course, actually have some buckets available: Then rewrite the Java class to parse the XML that is returned via the generated code: package amazonbuckets;import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;import java.io.IOException;import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;import org.netbeans.saas.amazon.AmazonS3Service;import org.netbeans.saas.RestResponse;import org.w3c.dom.DOMException;import org.w3c.dom.Document;import org.w3c.dom.Node;import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;import org.xml.sax.InputSource;import org.xml.sax.SAXException;public class AmazonBuckets {    public static void main(String[] args) {        try {            RestResponse result = AmazonS3Service.getBuckets();            String dataAsString = result.getDataAsString();            DocumentBuilderFactory dbFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();            DocumentBuilder dBuilder = dbFactory.newDocumentBuilder();            Document doc = dBuilder.parse(                    new InputSource(new ByteArrayInputStream(dataAsString.getBytes("utf-8"))));            NodeList bucketList = doc.getElementsByTagName("Bucket");            for (int i = 0; i < bucketList.getLength(); i++) {                Node node = bucketList.item(i);                System.out.println("Bucket Name: " + node.getFirstChild().getTextContent());            }        } catch (IOException | ParserConfigurationException | SAXException | DOMException ex) {        }    }}That's all. This is simpler to setup than the scenario described yesterday. Also notice that there are other Amazon S3 services you can interact with from your Java code, again after generating a heap of code after drag/drop into a Java source file: I tried the above, e.g., I created a new Amazon S3 bucket after dragging "createBucket", adding my credentials in the properties file, and then running the code that had been created. I.e., without adding a single line of code I was able to programmatically create new buckets. The above outlines a handy set of tools and techniques to use if you want to let your users store and access data in Amazon S3 buckets directly from the application you've created for them.

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• On a BPM Mission with Process Accelerators. Part 1: BPM as an ATV

  - by Cesare Rotundo

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Part 1: BPM as an ATV It’s always exciting to talk to customers that are in the middle of a BPM transformational journey. Their thirst for new processes to improve with BPM makes them explorers in a landscape of opportunities. They have discovered that with BPM the can “go places” they couldn’t reach before. In a way, learning how to generate value with BPM is like adopting a new mean of transportation. Apps are like regular cars: very efficient, but to be used on paved roads: the road/process has been traced, and there are fixed paths to follow to get from “opportunity to quote” or from “quote to cash”. Getting off the road is risky, and laying down new asphalt is slow and expensive. Custom development is like running: you can go virtually anywhere, following any path you like, yet it’s slow, and a lot of sweat. BPM allows you to go “off the beaten path” laid out by packaged apps, yet make fast progress compared to custom development. BPM is therefore more like an All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV): less efficient than a car, but much faster than running, with a powerful enough engine that can get you places. The similarities between BPM and ATVs don’t stop here: you must learn to ride it even if you already know how to drive a car; you can reach places but figuring out the path to your destination is harder. Ultimately, with BPM as with an ATV, you reach places that you thought you could never reach, and you discover new destinations that provide great benefit to you … and that you didn’t even know existed! That’s where the sense of accomplishment that we heard from our BPM customers comes from, as well as the desire to share their experience, or even, as in the case of a County, the willingness to contribute their BPM solutions to help other agencies that face the same challenges. The question we wanted to answer is how can we teach organizations to drive ATV/BPM, thus leading them to deeper success with BPM, while increasing their awareness of the potential for reaching new targets, and finally equip them with the right tools. Like with ATVs, getting from point A to point B is more of a work of art than cruising on the highway by car. There is a lot we can do: after all many sought after destinations are common: someone else has been on the same path before. If only you could learn from their experience …

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• Can someone explain the true landscape of Rails vs PHP deployment, particularly within the context of Reseller-based web hosting (e.g., Hostgator)?

  - by rcd

  Currently, I have a reseller account with the company HostGator. I design websites, which up until now have occasionally been wrapped in Wordpress CMSs and the like (PHP applications). I then sell hosting (of the site I've designed) to the client, which is pretty simple, in that I can simply click a button and add a new shared hosting account/site with whatever settings I want. Furthermore, I then utilize WHMCS to automate billing and account management. It's a nice package and pretty simple. I pay something like $25 a month, and can sell a hundred accounts under this (because my clients bandwidth requirements are low). Now I am finding the need to develop more customized applications, including a minimalist CMS and several proprietary things. I soon anticipate developing these apps for clients as well. Thus, I've spent the past few months learning Rails, and it's coming along well now. The thing that has nagged at me all along, though, is the deployment issue. I can't wrap my brain around it. It seems like all of the popular options (Heroku, etc) have nice automation with git and are set up in the "Rails Way". I get that (sort of). But it's terribly expensive... a single dyno, a helper, and the cheapest database (which they say is mainly suitable for testing) that isn't limited to 5MB runs $51. This is for ONE app!!! Throw in a "production" DB and you're over $200. This is like... the same prices as getting a server somewhere, right? Meanwhile, going back to what I guess is a "traditional" hosting environment with Hostgator, their server only has Ruby 1.8.7 and Rails 2.3.5... No Rails 3. AND, no Passenger (not that I really understand the difference in CGI or mod_rails or whatever, but they say Passenger is the simplest). So I'm to understand that if I build an app in Rails 3, it won't run at all on this host? But damn, I already have these accounts under my reseller account there, all running static html and/or PHP stuff, right? So what now? How do I get all of this under one simple (and affordable) roof? Forgive my ignorance, but I just don't get it. Managing a VPS is cool and all, but entails learning server admin stuff and security... And it's expensive. I get that a shared and/or reseller "server-based" (forgive the terminology) may be inadequate for large-scale apps that use a lot of bandwidth... But what about for those of us who are building real (but small and low bandwidth) apps (with Rails) and who want to deploy them simply, cheaply, using the same conceptual approach as PHP? Even after learning all of this Ruby and Rails stuff for months, I'm questioning whether it's worth it when it comes to deployment. I want to build a small app, upload it to my home directory on a shared server account, and just make it run. Why should that be so hard? Am I just choosing the wrong language/framework? Forgive my ignorance in the subject; these questions are not rhetorical; just trying to learn here. So: 1) I'd appreciate if someone could give me a good rundown of how to understand deployment in Rails vs. PHP. 2) I'd appreciate if someone could address my issue with running a hosting/web business around reseller hosting (Hostgator) while also being able to host Rails apps. Can it be done? And how can a company like Hostgator completely ignore what's current in Rails/Ruby? Thanks.

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• Cloud Fact for Business Managers #3: Where You Data Is, and Who Has Access to It Might Surprise You

  - by yaldahhakim

  Written by: David Krauss While data security and operational risk conversations usually happen around the desk of a CCO/CSO (chief compliance and/or security officer), or perhaps the CFO, since business managers are now selecting cloud providers, they need to be able to at least ask some high-level questions on the topic of risk and compliance.  While the report found that 76% of adopters were motivated to adopt cloud apps because of quick access to software, most of these managers found that after they made a purchase decision their access to exciting new capabilities in the cloud could be hindered due to performance and scalability constraints put forth  by their cloud provider.  If you are going to let your business consume their mission critical business applications as a service, then it’s important to understand who is providing those cloud services and what kind of performance you are going to get.  Different types of departments, companies and industries will all have unique requirements so it’s key to take this also into consideration.   Nothing puts a CEO in a bad mood like a public data breach or finding out the company lost money when customers couldn’t buy a product or service because your cloud service provider had a problem.  With 42% of business managers having seen a data security breach in their department associated directly with the use of cloud applications, this is happening more than you think.   We’ve talked about the importance of being able to avoid information silos through a unified cloud approach and platform.  This is also important when keeping your data safe and secure, and a key conversation to have with your cloud provider.  Your customers want to know that their information is protected when they do business with you, just like you want your own company information protected.   This is really hard to do when each line of business is running different cloud application services managed by different cloud providers, all with different processes and controls.   It only adds to the complexity, and the more complex, the more risky and the chance that something will go wrong. What about compliance? Depending on the cloud provider, it can be difficult at best to understand who has access to your data, and were your data is actually stored.  Add to this multiple cloud providers spanning multiple departments and it becomes very problematic when trying to comply with certain industry and country data security regulations.  With 73% of business managers complaining that having cloud data handled externally by one or more cloud vendors makes it hard for their department to be compliant, this is a big time suck for executives and it puts the organization at risk. Is There A Complete, Integrated, Modern Cloud Out there for Business Executives?If you are a business manager looking to drive faster innovation for your business and want a cloud application that your CIO would approve of, I would encourage you take a look at Oracle Cloud.  It’s everything you want from a SaaS based application, but without compromising on functionality and other modern capabilities like embedded business intelligence, social relationship management (for your entire business), and advanced mobile.  And because Oracle Cloud is built and managed by Oracle, you can be confident that your cloud application services are enterprise-grade.  Over 25 Million users and 10 thousands companies around the globe rely on Oracle Cloud application services everyday – maybe your business should too.  For more information, visit cloud.oracle.com. Additional Resources •    Try it: cloud.oracle.com•    Learn more: http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/features/complete-cloud/index.html•    Research Report: Cloud for Business Managers: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

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• Too complex/too many objects?

  - by Mike Fairhurst

  I know that this will be a difficult question to answer without context, but hopefully there are at least some good guidelines to share on this. The questions are at the bottom if you want to skip the details. Most are about OOP in general. Begin context. I am a jr dev on a PHP application, and in general the devs I work with consider themselves to use many more OO concepts than most PHP devs. Still, in my research on clean code I have read about so many ways of using OO features to make code flexible, powerful, expressive, testable, etc. that is just plain not in use here. The current strongly OO API that I've proposed is being called too complex, even though it is trivial to implement. The problem I'm solving is that our permission checks are done via a message object (my API, they wanted to use arrays of constants) and the message object does not hold the validation object accountable for checking all provided data. Metaphorically, if your perm containing 'allowable' and 'rare but disallowed' is sent into a validator, the validator may not know to look for 'rare but disallowed', but approve 'allowable', which will actually approve the whole perm check. We have like 11 validators, too many to easily track at such minute detail. So I proposed an AtomicPermission class. To fix the previous example, the perm would instead contain two atomic permissions, one wrapping 'allowable' and the other wrapping 'rare but disallowed'. Where previously the validator would say 'the check is OK because it contains allowable,' now it would instead say '"allowable" is ok', at which point the check ends...and the check fails, because 'rare but disallowed' was not specifically okay-ed. The implementation is just 4 trivial objects, and rewriting a 10 line function into a 15 line function. abstract class PermissionAtom { public function allow(); // maybe deny() as well public function wasAllowed(); } class PermissionField extends PermissionAtom { public function getName(); public function getValue(); } class PermissionIdentifier extends PermissionAtom { public function getIdentifier(); } class PermissionAction extends PermissionAtom { public function getType(); } They say that this is 'not going to get us anything important' and it is 'too complex' and 'will be difficult for new developers to pick up.' I respectfully disagree, and there I end my context to begin the broader questions. So the question is about my OOP, are there any guidelines I should know: is this too complicated/too much OOP? Not that I expect to get more than 'it depends, I'd have to see if...' when is OO abstraction too much? when is OO abstraction too little? how can I determine when I am overthinking a problem vs fixing one? how can I determine when I am adding bad code to a bad project? how can I pitch these APIs? I feel the other devs would just rather say 'its too complicated' than ask 'can you explain it?' whenever I suggest a new class.

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• The long road to bug-free software

  - by Tony Davis

  The past decade has seen a burgeoning interest in functional programming languages such as Haskell or, in the Microsoft world, F#. Though still on the periphery of mainstream programming, functional programming concepts are gradually seeping into the imperative C# language (for example, Lambda expressions have their root in functional programming). One of the more interesting concepts from functional programming languages is the use of formal methods, the lofty ideal behind which is bug-free software. The idea is that we write a specification that describes exactly how our function (say) should behave. We then prove that our function conforms to it, and in doing so have proved beyond any doubt that it is free from bugs. All programmers already use one form of specification, specifically their programming language's type system. If a value has a specific type then, in a type-safe language, the compiler guarantees that value cannot be an instance of a different type. Many extensions to existing type systems, such as generics in Java and .NET, extend the range of programs that can be type-checked. Unfortunately, type systems can only prevent some bugs. To take a classic problem of retrieving an index value from an array, since the type system doesn't specify the length of the array, the compiler has no way of knowing that a request for the "value of index 4" from an array of only two elements is "unsafe". We restore safety via exception handling, but the ideal type system will prevent us from doing anything that is unsafe in the first place and this is where we start to borrow ideas from a language such as Haskell, with its concept of "dependent types". If the type of an array includes its length, we can ensure that any index accesses into the array are valid. The problem is that we now need to carry around the length of arrays and the values of indices throughout our code so that it can be type-checked. In general, writing the specification to prove a positive property, even for a problem very amenable to specification, such as a simple sorting algorithm, turns out to be very hard and the specification will be different for every program. Extend this to writing a specification for, say, Microsoft Word and we can see that the specification would end up being no simpler, and therefore no less buggy, than the implementation. Fortunately, it is easier to write a specification that proves that a program doesn't have certain, specific and undesirable properties, such as infinite loops or accesses to the wrong bit of memory. If we can write the specifications to prove that a program is immune to such problems, we could reuse them in many places. The problem is the lack of specification "provers" that can do this without a lot of manual intervention (i.e. hints from the programmer). All this might feel a very long way off, but computing power and our understanding of the theory of "provers" advances quickly, and Microsoft is doing some of it already. Via their Terminator research project they have started to prove that their device drivers will always terminate, and in so doing have suddenly eliminated a vast range of possible bugs. This is a huge step forward from saying, "we've tested it lots and it seems fine". What do you think? What might be good targets for specification and verification? SQL could be one: the cost of a bug in SQL Server is quite high given how many important systems rely on it, so there's a good incentive to eliminate bugs, even at high initial cost. [Many thanks to Mike Williamson for guidance and useful conversations during the writing of this piece] Cheers, Tony.

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• Upgrading to 9.2 - Info You Can Use (part 1)

  - by John Webb

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Rebekah Jackson joins our blog with a series of helpful hints on planning your upgrade to PeopleSoft 9.2.   Find Features & Capabilities There are many ways that you might learn about new features and capabilities within our releases, but if you aren’t sure where to start or how best to go about it, we recommend: Go to www.peoplesoftinfo.com Select the product line you are interested in, and go to the ‘Release Content’ tab Use the Video Feature Overviews (VFOs) on YouTube and the Cumulative Feature Overview (CFO) tool to find features and functions. The VFOs are brief recordings that summarize some of our most popular capabilities. These recordings are great tools for learning about new features, or helping others to visualize the value they can bring to your organization. The VFOs focus on some of our highest value and most compelling new capabilities. We also provide summarized ‘Why Upgrade to 9.2’ VFOs for HCM, Financials, and Supply Chain. The CFO is a spreadsheet based tool that allows you to select the release you are currently on, and compare it to the new release. It will return the list of all new features and capabilities, by product. You can browse the full list and / or highlight areas that look particularly interesting. Once you have a list of features by product, use the Release Value Proposition, Pre-Release Notes, and the Release Notes documents to get more details on and supporting value statements about why those features will be helpful. Gather additional data and supporting information, including: Go to the Product Data Sheets tab, and review the respective data sheets. These summarize the capabilities in the product, and provide succinct value statements for the product and capabilities. The PeopleSoft 9.2 Upgrade page, which has many helpful resources. Important Notes:   -  We recommend that you go through the above steps for the application areas of interest, as well as for PeopleTools. There are many areas in PeopleTools 8.53 and the 9.2 application releases that combine technical and functional capabilities to deliver transformative value.    - We also recommend that you review the Portal Solutions content. With your license to PeopleSoft applications, you have access to many of the most powerful capabilities within the Interaction Hub.    -  If you have recently upgraded to PeopleSoft 9.1, and an immediate upgrade to 9.2 is simply not realistic, you can apply the same approaches described here to find untapped capabilities in your current products. Many of the features in 9.2 were delivered first in our 9.1 Feature Packs. To find the Release Value Proposition, Pre-Release Notes, and Release Notes for these releases, search on ‘PeopleSoft 9.1 Documentation Home Page’ on My Oracle Support, and select your desired product area. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";}

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