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• How do I get sound output on HDMI without the need to start X?

  - by Magnus Hoff

  I have a headless machine connected to my sound system, and I am using it to run a music playing daemon that I control over the network. (Among other things) However, I can't seem to be able to have sound come out of my speakers without running X. I am running pulse audio in a system wide instance and my daemon is not running within X. Nevertheless, when my daemon is playing music without me hearing it, I can fix it by running startx in an unrelated session. After X starts, I can hear the sound. The sound disappears again if I kill the X server. Interestingly/annoyingly, the sound also stops after X has been running for a few minutes. This could possibly be because of a screen saver of some sort, but I haven't been able to verify or falsify this theory. So my current workaround is to ssh into the box whenever I want music and startx, and restart it every fifteen minutes or so. I'd like to do better. I have been able to verify the following: Adjustments in alsamixer have no effect on this problem. The relevant output channel is never muted In alsamixer, I can see no difference between when the sound is working and when it isn't Nothing is muted in pactl list There is no difference in the output from pactl list between before starting X and after it's started. (Except the identifier of the pactl instance connected to pulse, which is different each time you run pactl) The user running the music daemon is a member of the groups audio, pulse and pulse-access The music daemon program does not report any error messages and acts as if it is playing the music like it should Some form of dbus daemon is running. ps aux|grep dbus reports dbus-daemon --system --fork --activation=upstart before and after I have started X Some details about my hardware: Motherboard: http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AT5IONTI_DELUXE/ Sound chip: Nvidia GPU 0b HDMI/DP (from alsamixer) Using HDMI for output (Machine also has an Intel Realtek ALC887 that I am not using) Output of lsmod: Module Size Used by deflate 12617 0 zlib_deflate 27139 1 deflate ctr 13201 0 twofish_generic 16635 0 twofish_x86_64_3way 25287 0 twofish_x86_64 12907 1 twofish_x86_64_3way twofish_common 20919 3 twofish_generic,twofish_x86_64_3way,twofish_x86_64 camellia 29348 0 serpent 29125 0 blowfish_generic 12530 0 blowfish_x86_64 21466 0 blowfish_common 16739 2 blowfish_generic,blowfish_x86_64 cast5 25112 0 des_generic 21415 0 xcbc 12815 0 rmd160 16744 0 bnep 18281 2 rfcomm 47604 12 sha512_generic 12796 0 crypto_null 12918 0 parport_pc 32866 0 af_key 36389 0 ppdev 17113 0 binfmt_misc 17540 1 nfsd 281980 2 ext2 73795 1 nfs 436929 1 lockd 90326 2 nfsd,nfs fscache 61529 1 nfs auth_rpcgss 53380 2 nfsd,nfs nfs_acl 12883 2 nfsd,nfs sunrpc 255224 16 nfsd,nfs,lockd,auth_rpcgss,nfs_acl btusb 18332 2 vesafb 13844 2 pl2303 17957 1 ath3k 12961 0 bluetooth 180153 24 bnep,rfcomm,btusb,ath3k snd_hda_codec_hdmi 32474 4 nvidia 11308613 0 ftdi_sio 40679 1 usbserial 47113 6 pl2303,ftdi_sio psmouse 97485 0 snd_hda_codec_realtek 224173 1 snd_hda_intel 33719 5 snd_hda_codec 127706 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel serio_raw 13211 0 snd_seq_midi 13324 0 snd_hwdep 17764 1 snd_hda_codec snd_pcm 97275 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec snd_rawmidi 30748 1 snd_seq_midi snd_seq_midi_event 14899 1 snd_seq_midi snd_seq 61929 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event snd_timer 29990 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq snd_seq_device 14540 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq snd 79041 20 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device asus_atk0110 18078 0 mac_hid 13253 0 jc42 13948 0 soundcore 15091 1 snd snd_page_alloc 18529 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm coretemp 13554 0 i2c_i801 17570 0 lp 17799 0 parport 46562 3 parport_pc,ppdev,lp r8169 62154 0 Any ideas? What does X do that's so important?

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• How to Add Your Gmail Account to Outlook 2013 Using IMAP

  - by Lori Kaufman

  If you use Outlook to check and manage your email, you can easily use it to check your Gmail account as well. You can setup your Gmail account to allow you to synchronize email across multiple machines using email clients instead of a browser. We will show you how to use IMAP in your Gmail account so you can synchronize your Gmail account across multiple machines, and then how to add your Gmail account to Outlook 2013. To setup your Gmail account to use IMAP, sign in to your Gmail account and go to Mail. Click the Settings button in the upper, right corner of the window and select Settings from the drop-down menu. On the Settings screen, click Forwarding and POP/IMAP. Scroll down to the IMAP Access section and select Enable IMAP. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the screen. Close your browser and open Outlook. To begin adding your Gmail account, click the File tab. On the Account Information screen, click Add Account. On the Add Account dialog box, you can choose the E-mail Account option which automatically sets up your Gmail account in Outlook. To do this enter your name, email address, and the password for your Gmail account twice. Click Next. The progress of the setup displays. The automatic process may or may not work. If the automatic process fails, select Manual setup or additional server types, instead of E-mail Account, and click Next. On the Choose Service screen, select POP or IMAP and click Next. On the POP and IMAP Account Settings enter the User, Server, and Logon Information. For the Server Information, select IMAP from the Account Type drop-down list and enter the following for the incoming and outgoing server information: Incoming mail server: imap.googlemail.com Outgoing mail server (SMTP): smtp.googlemail.com Make sure you enter your full email address for the User Name and select Remember password if you want Outlook to automatically log you in when checking email. Click More Settings. On the Internet E-mail Settings dialog box, click the Outgoing Server tab. Select the My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication and make sure the Use same settings as my incoming mail server option is selected. While still in the Internet E-mail Settings dialog box, click the Advanced tab. Enter the following information: Incoming server: 993 Incoming server encrypted connection: SSL Outgoing server encrypted connection TLS Outgoing server: 587 NOTE: You need to select the type of encrypted connection for the outgoing server before entering 587 for the Outgoing server (SMTP) port number. If you enter the port number first, the port number will revert back to port 25 when you change the type of encrypted connection. Click OK to accept your changes and close the Internet E-mail Settings dialog box. Click Next. Outlook tests the accounts settings by logging into the incoming mail server and sending a test email message. When the test is finished, click Close. You should see a screen saying “You’re all set!”. Click Finish. Your Gmail address displays in the account list on the left with any other email addresses you have added to Outlook. Click the Inbox to see what’s in your Inbox in your Gmail account. Because you’re using IMAP in your Gmail account and you used IMAP to add the account to Outlook, the messages and folders in Outlook reflect what’s in your Gmail account. Any changes you make to folders and any time you move email messages among folders in Outlook, the same changes are made in your Gmail account, as you will see when you log into your Gmail account in a browser. This works the other way as well. Any changes you make to the structure of your account (folders, etc.) in a browser will be reflected the next time you log into your Gmail account in Outlook.     

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• Normalisation and 'Anima notitia copia' (Soul of the Database)

  - by Phil Factor

  (A Guest Editorial for Simple-Talk) The other day, I was staring  at the sys.syslanguages  table in SQL Server with slightly-raised eyebrows . I’d just been reading Chris Date’s  interesting book ‘SQL and Relational Theory’. He’d made the point that you’re not necessarily doing relational database operations by using a SQL Database product.  The same general point was recently made by Dino Esposito about ASP.NET MVC.  The use of ASP.NET MVC doesn’t guarantee you a good application design: It merely makes it possible to test it. The way I’d describe the sentiment in both cases is ‘you can hit someone over the head with a frying-pan but you can’t call it cooking’. SQL enables you to create relational databases. However,  even if it smells bad, it is no crime to do hideously un-relational things with a SQL Database just so long as it’s necessary and you can tell the difference; not only that but also only if you’re aware of the risks and implications. Naturally, I’ve never knowingly created a database that Codd would have frowned at, but around the edges are interfaces and data feeds I’ve written  that have caused hissy fits amongst the Normalisation fundamentalists. Part of the problem for those who agonise about such things  is the misinterpretation of Atomicity.  An atomic value is one for which, in the strange virtual universe you are creating in your database, you don’t have any interest in any of its component parts.  If you aren’t interested in the electrons, neutrinos,  muons,  or  taus, then  an atom is ..er.. atomic. In the same way, if you are passed a JSON string or XML, and required to store it in a database, then all you need to do is to ask yourself, in your role as Anima notitia copia (Soul of the database) ‘have I any interest in the contents of this item of information?’.  If the answer is ‘No!’, or ‘nequequam! Then it is an atomic value, however complex it may be.  After all, you would never have the urge to store the pixels of images individually, under the misguided idea that these are the atomic values would you?  I would, of course,  ask the ‘Anima notitia copia’ rather than the application developers, since there may be more than one application, and the applications developers may be designing the application in the absence of full domain knowledge, (‘or by the seat of the pants’ as the technical term used to be). If, on the other hand, the answer is ‘sure, and we want to index the XML column’, then we may be in for some heavy XML-shredding sessions to get to store the ‘atomic’ values and ensure future harmony as the application develops. I went back to looking at the sys.syslanguages table. It has a months column with the months in a delimited list January,February,March,April,May,June,July,August,September,October,November,December This is an ordered list. Wicked? I seem to remember that this value, like shortmonths and days, is treated as a ‘thing’. It is merely passed off to an external  C++ routine in order to format a date in a particular language, and never accessed directly within the database. As far as the database is concerned, it is an atomic value.  There is more to normalisation than meets the eye.

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• SQL SERVER – Why Do We Need Master Data Management – Importance and Significance of Master Data Management (MDM)

  - by pinaldave

  Let me paint a picture of everyday life for you.  Let’s say you and your wife both have address books for your groups of friends.  There is definitely overlap between them, so that you both have the addresses for your mutual friends, and there are addresses that only you know, and some only she knows.  They also might be organized differently.  You might list your friend under “J” for “Joe” or even under “W” for “Work,” while she might list him under “S” for “Joe Smith” or under your name because he is your friend.  If you happened to trade, neither of you would be able to find anything! This is where data management would be very important.  If you were to consolidate into one address book, you would have to set rules about how to organize the book, and both of you would have to follow them.  You would also make sure that poor Joe doesn’t get entered twice under “J” and under “S.” This might be a familiar situation to you, whether you are thinking about address books, record collections, books, or even shopping lists.  Wherever there is a lot of data to consolidate, you are going to run into problems unless everyone is following the same rules. I’m sure that my readers can figure out where I am going with this.  What is SQL Server but a computerized way to organize data?  And Microsoft is making it easier and easier to get all your “addresses” into one place.  In the  2008 version of SQL they introduced a new tool called Master Data Services (MDS) for Master Data Management, and they have improved it for the new 2012 version. MDM was hailed as a major improvement for business intelligence.  You might not think that an organizational system is terribly exciting, but think about the kind of “address books” a company might have.  Many companies have lots of important information, like addresses, credit card numbers, purchase history, and so much more.  To organize all this efficiently so that customers are well cared for and properly billed (only once, not never or multiple times!) is a major part of business intelligence. MDM comes into play because it will comb through these mountains of data and make sure that all the information is consistent, accurate, and all placed in one database so that employees don’t have to search high and low and waste their time. MDM also has operational MDM functions.  This is not a redundancy.  Operational MDM means that when one employee updates one bit of information in the database, for example – updating a new address for a customer, operational MDM ensures that this address is updated throughout the system so that all departments will have the correct information. Another cool thing about MDM is that it features Master Data Services Configuration Manager, which is exactly what it sounds like.  It has a built-in “helper” that lets you set up your database quickly, easily, and with the correct configurations.  While talking about cool features, I can’t skip over the add-in for Excel.  This allows you to link certain data to Excel files for easier sharing and uploading. In summary, I want to emphasize that the scariest part of the database is slowly disappearing.  Everyone knows that a database – one consolidated area for all your data – is a good idea, but the idea of setting one up is daunting.  But SQL Server is making data management easier and easier with features like Master Data Services (MDS). Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Master Data Services, MDM

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• Code Contracts: validating arrays and collections

  - by DigiMortal

  Validating collections before using them is very common task when we use built-in generic types for our collections. In this posting I will show you how to validate collections using code contracts. It is cool how much awful looking code you can avoid using code contracts. Failing code Let’s suppose we have method that calculates sum of all invoices in collection. We have class Invoice and one of properties it has is Sum. I don’t introduce here any complex calculations on invoices because we have another problem to solve in this topic. Here is our code. public static decimal CalculateTotal(IList<Invoice> invoices) {     var sum = invoices.Sum(p => p.Sum);     return sum; } This method is very simple but it fails when invoices list contains at least one null. Of course, we can test if invoice is null but having nulls in lists like this is not good idea – it opens green way for different coding bugs in system. Our goal is to react to bugs ASAP at the nearest place they occur. There is one more way how to make our method fail. It happens when invoices is null. I thing it is also one common bugs during development and it even happens in production environments under some conditions that are usually hardly met. Now let’s protect our little calculation method with code contracts. We need two contracts: invoices cannot be null invoices cannot contain any nulls Our first contract is easy but how to write the second one? Solution: Contract.ForAll Preconditions in code are checked using Contract.Ensures method. This method takes boolean value as argument that sais if contract holds or not. There is also method Contract.ForAll that takes collection and predicate that must hold for that collection. Nice thing is ForAll returns boolean. So, we have very simple solution. public static decimal CalculateTotal(IList<Invoice> invoices) {     Contract.Requires(invoices != null);     Contract.Requires(Contract.ForAll<Invoice>(invoices, p => p != null));       var sum = invoices.Sum(p => p.Sum);     return sum; } And here are some lines of code you can use to test the contracts quickly. var invoices = new List<Invoice>(); invoices.Add(new Invoice()); invoices.Add(null); invoices.Add(new Invoice()); //CalculateTotal(null); CalculateTotal(invoices); If your code is covered with unit tests then I suggest you to write tests to check that these contracts hold for every code run. Conclusion Although it seemed at first place that checking all elements in collection may end up with for-loops that does not look so nice we were able to solve our problem nicely. ForAll method of contract class offered us simple mechanism to check collections and it does it smoothly the code-contracts-way. P.S. I suggest you also read devlicio.us blog posting Validating Collections with Code Contracts by Derik Whittaker.

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• Upgrades in 5 Easy Pieces

  - by Anne R.

  Even though there are a few select tasks that I have to do once or twice a year, I can’t remember how to do them! Or where to find the bits and pieces to complete the task. So I love it when someone consolidates everything under one spot. That’s what the CRM On Demand team has done with the upgrade information. Specifically, they have: Provided a “one-stop” area for managing upgrades at your company. Broken down the upgrade process into 5 (yes, 5) steps. Explained when and how to perform each step with dates specific to your pod. Included details about each step, visible by expanding the step. Translated the steps into 11 languages. Added a list of release-specific resources with links from the page. Now, just head for the Training and Support portal, click the Release Info tab, and walk through the “5 Essential Steps to a Successful Upgrade.” Before you continue, though, select your language from the drop-down list on the Release Info page. CRM On Demand now has the upgrade steps translated into 11 languages. On the Step page, you can expand each section in sequence and follow the more detailed instructions that appear. This will ensure that you’ve covered all your bases for each upgrade. Here’s a shortened version of the information that you’ll find: 1. Verify your Primary Contact Information. Have you checked your primary contact information to make sure you’re being notified of all upgrade information? Or do you want more users to receive upgrade announcements? This section provides you with the navigation path to do that in CRM On Demand. 2. Review your Key Upgrade Dates. If you expand this step, a nice table appears with your critical dates for the various milestones. IMPORTANT: When your CRM On Demand pod has been officially added to the upgrade schedule, closer to the release date itself, this table will display your specific timetable. 3. Migrate your Customizations from the Staging Environment before the Snapshot Date. Oracle refreshes the Staging data with a copy of your Production data made on the Production Snapshot Date. So this section lists considerations relevant to this step. It also reminds you of the 2-week period when you should not be making any changes in your Staging environment.   4. Conduct your Upgrade Validation on the Staging Environment. When the Customer Validation Testing period begins, you need to log in to your Staging Environment to validate that your key business processes and customizations continue to behave as expected. If your company utilizes Web Services, Web Links, Web Applets or Workflow, focus on testing these first. You generally have about two weeks for testing. If you run into problems during this time, follow the instructions shown in this section for logging a service request. It describes exactly how to fill out the fields in the SR for the fastest resolution. 5. Conduct "White Glove" Testing in your Upgraded Production Environment. Before users start using the upgrade, you should access a few tabs and reports. Doing this actually warms up the cache so that frequently used pages and reports will come up at normal speed on Monday morning, when users log in to the upgraded system. Resources listed under this step help you in further preparing for the upgrade. Now there’s also a new Documentation section on the right with links to these release-specific resources.   Very nice, I commented, when discussing these improvements with the “responsible party.” She confirmed that, yes, they tried to consolidate the upgrade information, translate it for better communication, simplify it into 5 easy pieces, and drive admins responsible for handling upgrades to this one site instead of sending out elaborate emails. Yes, I just love it when someone practically reaches out and holds my hand through a process. Next best thing to a wizard!

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• SQL SERVER – Puzzle #1 – Querying Pattern Ranges and Wild Cards

  - by Pinal Dave

  Note: Read at the end of the blog post how you can get five Joes 2 Pros Book #1 and a surprise gift. I have been blogging for almost 7 years and every other day I receive questions about Querying Pattern Ranges. The most common way to solve the problem is to use Wild Cards. However, not everyone knows how to use wild card properly. SQL Queries 2012 Joes 2 Pros Volume 1 – The SQL Queries 2012 Hands-On Tutorial for Beginners Book On Amazon | Book On Flipkart Learn SQL Server get all the five parts combo kit Kit on Amazon | Kit on Flipkart Many people know wildcards are great for finding patterns in character data. There are also some special sequences with wildcards that can give you even more power. This series from SQL Queries 2012 Joes 2 Pros® Volume 1 will show you some of these cool tricks. All supporting files are available with a free download from the www.Joes2Pros.com web site. This example is from the SQL 2012 series Volume 1 in the file SQLQueries2012Vol1Chapter2.2Setup.sql. If you need help setting up then look in the “Free Videos” section on Joes2Pros under “Getting Started” called “How to install your labs” Querying Pattern Ranges The % wildcard character represents any number of characters of any length. Let’s find all first names that end in the letter ‘A’. By using the percentage ‘%’ sign with the letter ‘A’, we achieve this goal using the code sample below: SELECT * FROM Employee WHERE FirstName LIKE '%A' To find all FirstName values beginning with the letters ‘A’ or ‘B’ we can use two predicates in our WHERE clause, by separating them with the OR statement. Finding names beginning with an ‘A’ or ‘B’ is easy and this works fine until we want a larger range of letters as in the example below for ‘A’ thru ‘K’: SELECT * FROM Employee WHERE FirstName LIKE 'A%' OR FirstName LIKE 'B%' OR FirstName LIKE 'C%' OR FirstName LIKE 'D%' OR FirstName LIKE 'E%' OR FirstName LIKE 'F%' OR FirstName LIKE 'G%' OR FirstName LIKE 'H%' OR FirstName LIKE 'I%' OR FirstName LIKE 'J%' OR FirstName LIKE 'K%' The previous query does find FirstName values beginning with the letters ‘A’ thru ‘K’. However, when a query requires a large range of letters, the LIKE operator has an even better option. Since the first letter of the FirstName field can be ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’, ‘F’, ‘G’, ‘H’, ‘I’, ‘J’ or ‘K’, simply list all these choices inside a set of square brackets followed by the ‘%’ wildcard, as in the example below: SELECT * FROM Employee WHERE FirstName LIKE '[ABCDEFGHIJK]%' A more elegant example of this technique recognizes that all these letters are in a continuous range, so we really only need to list the first and last letter of the range inside the square brackets, followed by the ‘%’ wildcard allowing for any number of characters after the first letter in the range. Note: A predicate that uses a range will not work with the ‘=’ operator (equals sign). It will neither raise an error, nor produce a result set. --Bad query (will not error or return any records) SELECT * FROM Employee WHERE FirstName = '[A-K]%' Question: You want to find all first names that start with the letters A-M in your Customer table and end with the letter Z. Which SQL code would you use? a. SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE FirstName LIKE 'm%z' b. SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE FirstName LIKE 'a-m%z' c. SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE FirstName LIKE 'a-m%z' d. SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE FirstName LIKE '[a-m]%z' e. SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE FirstName LIKE '[a-m]z%' f. SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE FirstName LIKE '[a-m]%z' g. SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE FirstName LIKE '[a-m]z%' Contest Leave a valid answer before June 18, 2013 in the comment section. 5 winners will be selected from all the valid answers and will receive Joes 2 Pros Book #1. 1 Lucky person will get a surprise gift from Joes 2 Pros. The contest is open for all the countries where Amazon ships the book (USA, UK, Canada, India and many others). Special Note: Read all the options before you provide valid answer as there is a small trick hidden in answers. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Developer Training – 6 Online Courses to Learn SQL Server, MySQL and Technology

  - by Pinal Dave

  Video courses are the next big thing and I am so happy that I have so far authored 6 different video courses with Pluralsight. Here is the list of the courses. I have listed all of my video courses over here. Note: If you click on the courses and it does not open, you need to login to Pluralsight with a valid username and password or sign up for a FREE trial. Please leave a comment with your favorite course in the comment section. Random 10 winners will get surprise gift via email. Bonus: If you list your favorite module from the course site. SQL Server Performance: Introduction to Query Tuning SQL Server performance tuning is an in-depth topic, and an art to master. A key component of overall application performance tuning is query tuning. Writing queries in an efficient manner, and making sure they execute in the most optimal way possible, is always a challenge. The basics revolve around the details of how SQL Server carries out query execution, so the optimizations explored in this course follow along the same lines. Click to View Course SQL Server Performance: Indexing Basics Indexes are the most crucial objects of the database. They are the first stop for any DBA and Developer when it is about performance tuning. There is a good side as well evil side of the indexes. To master the art of performance tuning one has to understand the fundamentals of the indexes and the best practices associated with the same. This course is for every DBA and Developer who deals with performance tuning and wants to use indexes to improve the performance of the server. Click to View Course SQL Server Questions and Answers This course is designed to help you better understand how to use SQL Server effectively. The course presents many of the common misconceptions about SQL Server, and then carefully debunks those misconceptions with clear explanations and short but compelling demos, showing you how SQL Server really works. This course is for anyone working with SQL Server databases who wants to improve her knowledge and understanding of this complex platform. Click to View Course MySQL Fundamentals MySQL is a popular choice of database for use in web applications, and is a central component of the widely used LAMP open source web application software stack. This course covers the fundamentals of MySQL, including how to install MySQL as well as written basic data retrieval and data modification queries. Click to View Course Building a Successful Blog Expressing yourself is the most common behavior of humans. Blogging has made easy to express yourself. Just like a letter or book has a structure and formula, blogging also has structure and formula. In this introductory course on blogging we will go over a few of the basics of blogging and show the way to get started with blogging immediately. If you already have a blog, this course will be even more relevant as this will discuss many of the common questions and issue you face in your blogging routine. Click to View Course Introduction to ColdFusion ColdFusion is rapid web application development platform. In this course you will learn the basics of how to use ColdFusion platform and rapidly develop web sites. The course begins with learning basics of ColdFusion Markup Language and moves to common development language practices. From there we move to frequent database operations and advanced concepts of Forms, Sessions and Cookies. The last module sums up all the concepts covered in the course with sample application. Click to View Course Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, T SQL, Technology

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• Weird SSIS Configuration Error

  - by Christopher House

  I ran into an interesting SSIS issue that I thought I'd share in hopes that it may save someone from bruising their head after repeatedly banging it on the desk like I did.  I was trying to setup what I believe is referred to as "indirect configuration" in SSIS.  This is where you store your configuration in some repository like a database or a file, then store the location of that repository in an environment variable and use that to configure the connection to your configuration repository.  In my specific situation, I was using a SQL database.  I had this all working, but for reasons I'll not bore you with, I had to move my SSIS development to a new VM last week.  When I got my new VM, I set about creating a new package.  I finished up development on the package and started setting up configuration.  I created an OLE DB connection that pointed to my configuration table then went through the configuration wizard to have the connection string for this connection set through my environment variable.  I then went through the wizard to set another property through a value stored in the configuration table.  When I got to the point where you select the connection, my connection wasn't in the list: As you can see in the screen capture above, the ConfigurationDb connection isn't in the list of available SQL connections in the configuration wizard.  Strange.  I canceled out of the wizard, went to the properties for ConfigurationDb, tested the connection and it was successful.  I went back to the wizard again and this time ConfigurationDb was there.  I completed the wizard then went to test my package.  Unfortunately the package wouldn't run, I got the following error: Unfortunately, googling for this error code didn't help much as none of the results appears related to package configuration.  I did notice that when I went back through the package configuration and tried to edit a previously saved config entry,  I was getting the following error: I checked the connection string I had stored in my environment variable and noticed that indeed, it did not have a provider name.  I didn't recall having included one on my previous VM, but I figured I'd include it just to see what happened.  That made no difference at all.  After a day and a half of trying to figure out what the problem was, I'm pleased to report that through extensive trial and error, I have resolved the error. As it turns out, the person who setup this new VM for me named the server SQLSERVER2008.  This meant my configuration connection string was: Initial Catalog=SSISConfigDb;Data Source=SQLSERVER2008;Integrated Security=SSPI; Just for the heck of it, I tried changing it to: Initial Catalog=SSISConfigDb;Data Source=(local);Integrated Security=SSPI; That did the trick!  As soon as I restarted BIDS, I was able to run the package with no errors at all.  Crazy.  So, the moral of the story is, don't name your server SQLSERVER2008 if you want SSIS configuration to work when using SQL as your config store.

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• Part 7: EBS Modifications and Flagged Files in R12

  - by volker.eckardt(at)oracle.com

  Let me, based on my previous blog, explain the procedure of flagged files a bit better and facilitate the same with screenshots. Flagged files is a concept within the Oracle eBusiness Suite (EBS) release 12, where you flag a standard deployment file, let’s say a Forms file, a Package or a Java class file. When you run the patch analyse, the list of flagged files will be checked and in case one of these files gets patched, the analyse report will tell you. Note: This functionality is also available in release 11, here it is implemented and known as “applcust.txt”. You can flag as many files as you want, in whatever relationship they are with your customizations. In addition to the flag itself you can add a comment. You should use this comment to point to your customization reference (here XXAR_RPT_066 or XXAP_CUST_030). Consider the following two cases: You have created your own report, based on a standard report. In this case you will flag the report file itself, and the key views used. When a patch updates one of these files, you will be informed and can initiate a proper review and testing. (ex.: first line for ARXCTA.rdf) You have created an extensive personalization and because it is business critical you like to be informed if the page definition gets updated. In this case you register the PG.xml file as flagged file. (ex.: second line below for CreateExtBankAcctPG.xml) The menu path to register flagged files is the following: (R) System Administrator > (M) Oracle Applications Manager > Site Map > Maintenance > Register Flagged Files     Your DBA should now run the Patch Analyse every time he is going to apply a new patch. (R) System Administrator > (M) Oracle Applications Manager > Patch Wizard > Task “Recommend/Analyze Patches” The screenshot above shows the impact summary. For this blog entry the number “2” titled “Flagged Files Changed“ is in our focus. When you click the “2” you will get a similar screen like the first in this blog, showing you exactly the files which will get patched if you continue and apply this patch in this environment right now. Note: It is also shown that just 20% of all patch files will get applied. This situation might be different in case your environments are on a different patch level. For sure also the customization impact might then be different. The flagging step can be done directly in the Oracle Applications Manager.  Our developers are responsible for. To transport such a flag+comment we use a FNDLOAD script. It is suggested to put the flagged files data file directly into your CEMLI patch. Herewith the flagged files registration will be executed right at the same time when the patch gets applied. Process Steps: Developer: Builds CEMLI Reviews code and identifies key standard objects referenced Determines standard object files and flags them Creates FNDLOAD file and adds the same to the CEMLI patch DBA: Executes for every new Oracle standard patch the patch analyse in a representative environment Checks and retrieves the flagged files and comments Sends flagged file list back to development team for analyse / retest Developer: Analyses / Updates / Retests effected CEMLIs Prerequisite: The patch analyse has to be executed in an environment where flagged files have been registered. (If you run the patch analyse in a vanilla or outdated environment (compared to your PROD), the analyse will not be so helpful!) When to start with Flagged files? Start right now utilizing this feature. It is an invest to improve the production stability and fulfil your SLA!   Summary Flagged Files is a very helpful EBS R12 technique when analysing patches. Implement a procedure within your development process to maintain such flags. Let the DBA run the patch analyse in an environment with a similar patch and customization level as your current production.   Related Links: EBS Patching Procedures - Chapter 2-13 - Registered Flagged Files

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• DataContractSerializer: type is not serializable because it is not public?

  - by Michael B. McLaughlin

  I recently ran into an odd and annoying error when working with the DataContractSerializer class for a WP7 project. I thought I’d share it to save others who might encounter it the same annoyance I had. So I had an instance of  ObservableCollection<T> that I was trying to serialize (with T being a class I wrote for the project) and whenever it would hit the code to save it, it would give me: The data contract type 'ProjectName.MyMagicItemsClass' is not serializable because it is not public. Making the type public will fix this error. Alternatively, you can make it internal, and use the InternalsVisibleToAttribute attribute on your assembly in order to enable serialization of internal members - see documentation for more details. Be aware that doing so has certain security implications. This, of course, was malarkey. I was trying to write an instance of MyAwesomeClass that looked like this: [DataContract] public class MyAwesomeClass { [DataMember] public ObservableCollection<MyMagicItemsClass> GreatItems { get; set; }   [DataMember] public ObservableCollection<MyMagicItemsClass> SuperbItems { get; set; }     public MyAwesomeClass { GreatItems = new ObservableCollection<MyMagicItemsClass>(); SuperbItems = new ObservableCollection<MyMagicItemsClass>(); } }   That’s all well and fine. And MyMagicItemsClass was also public with a parameterless public constructor. It too had DataContractAttribute applied to it and it had DataMemberAttribute applied to all the properties and fields I wanted to serialize. Everything should be cool, but it’s not because I keep getting that “not public” exception. I could tell you about all the things I tried (generating a List<T> on the fly to make sure it wasn’t ObservableCollection<T>, trying to serialize the the Collections directly, moving it all to a separate library project, etc.), but I want to keep this short. In the end, I remembered my the “Debug->Exceptions…” VS menu option that brings up the list of exception-related circumstances under which the Visual Studio debugger will break. I checked the “Thrown” checkbox for “Common Language Runtime Exceptions”, started the project under the debugger, and voilà: the true problem revealed itself. Some of my properties had fairly elaborate setters whose logic I wanted to ignore. So for some of them, I applied an IgnoreDataMember attribute to them and applied the DataMember attribute to the underlying fields instead. All of which, in line with good programming practices, were private. Well, it just so happens that WP7 apps run in a “partial trust” environment and outside of “full trust”-land, DataContractSerializer refuses to serialize or deserialize non-public members. Of course that exception was swallowed up internally by .NET so all I ever saw was that bizarre message about things that I knew for certain were public being “not public”. I changed all the private fields I was serializing to public and everything worked just fine. In hindsight it all makes perfect sense. The serializer uses reflection to build up its graph of the object in order to write it out. In partial trust, you don’t want people using reflection to get at non-public members of an object since there are potential security problems with allowing that (you could break out of the sandbox pretty quickly by reflecting and calling the appropriate methods and cause some havoc by reflecting and setting the appropriate fields in certain circumstances. The fact that you cannot reflect your own assembly seems a bit heavy-handed, but then again I’m not a compiler writer or a framework designer and I have no idea what sorts of difficulties would go into allowing that from a compilation standpoint or what sorts of security problems allowing that could present (if any). So, lesson learned. If you get an incomprehensible exception message, turn on break on all thrown exceptions and try running it again (it might take a couple of tries, depending) and see what pops out. Chances are you’ll find the buried exception that actually explains what was going on. And if you’re getting a weird exception when trying to use DataContractSerializer complaining about public types not being public, chances are you’re trying to serialize a private or protected field/property.

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• Ajax Autocomplete Extender

  - by Jason Ulloa

  El objetivo de este post es preparar un ejemplo sobre un tema que es planteado muy frecuentemente en los Foros de MSDN, como realizar un Autocomplete contra una base de datos. Qué requerimos? Antes de poder realizar un Autocomplete debemos tener en cuenta los elementos principales que requerimos para poder hacerlo funcionar, descritos de la siguiente manera: 1. Textbox: Nuestro grandioso amigo Textbox, que será donde el usuario ingresará los datos a buscar. 2. Un Webservice: que contendrá el método que se conectara a la base de datos y devolverá una lista con la información encontrada. 3. Ajax Autocomplete Extender: este es por decirlo así, el elemento más importante. Nos servirá como medio de enlace entre el webservice que expone el método y el textbox recuperando y mostrando los datos en forma de lista desplegable. La implementación Si bien parecierá complicado, crear un autocomplete extender es bastante sencillo. Empezaremos creando un nuevo sitio asp.net, en este sitio agregaremos un textbox y dos controles muy importantes de Ajax el ToolkitScriptManager para controlar el rende rizado de los script de ajax y el AutocompleteExtender que, como mencione anteriormente, será el medio de enlace. Antes de mostrar como quedará el código de lo anterior, explicaré algunas propiedades del AutocompleteExtender para que se entienda de mejor manera: 1. El ServicePath: contiene la ruta relativa al webservice que utilizaremos. 2. MinimumPrefixLength: se refiere al número de caracteres que deben ser digitados antes de iniciar la búsqueda. 3. ServiceMethod: el nombre del metodo de nuestro webservice que se encargará de devolver los datos. 4. EnableCaching: para mantener en cache los datos consultados, obteniendo mayor velocidad. 5. TargetControlID: una de las propiedades más importantes, acá se coloca el nombre del textbox al cual se unirá el Autocomplete 6. CompletionInterval: tiempo que debe transcurrir antes de iniciar con el trabajo de los datos. Una vez, explicadas las propiedades básicas, veamos como queda implementada la primer parte de nuestro autocomplete: <form id="form1" runat="server"> <div> <asp:ToolkitScriptManager ID="manager" runat="server" /> <asp:TextBox ID="TextBox1" runat="server"></asp:TextBox> <asp:AutoCompleteExtender ID="AutoCompleteExtender1" runat="server" ServicePath="WebService.asmx" MinimumPrefixLength="1" ServiceMethod="PersonasInfo " EnableCaching="true" TargetControlID="TextBox1" UseContextKey="True" CompletionSetCount="10" CompletionInterval="0"> </asp:AutoCompleteExtender> </div> </form>   Ahora que nuestro código html está completo, es hora de trabajar directamente con nuestro webservice, este deberá contener un método que devuelva una lista o arreglo de datos, los cuales por supuesto, serán traídos desde la base de datos. Antes de implementar este método, debemos asegurarnos de que nuestra clase del webservice tiene habilitados los espacios para ser utilizada [System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptService()] [WebService(Namespace = "http://tempuri.org/")] [WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo = WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)] public class WebService : System.Web.Services.WebService {}   Ahora si, nuestro metodo principal [WebMethod()] [System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptMethod()] public string[] PersonasInfo(string prefixText, int count) { string connstring = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["LocalSqlServer"].ConnectionString;   using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(connstring)) { SqlCommand comando = new SqlCommand("select nombre from personas where nombre LIKE '%' + @param + '%' ", conn); comando.Parameters.AddWithValue("@param", prefixText); SqlDataReader dr = default(SqlDataReader); comando.Connection.Open(); dr = comando.ExecuteReader(); List<string> items = new List<string>();   while (dr.Read()) { items.Add(dr["nombre"].ToString()); } comando.Connection.Close(); return items.ToArray(); } }   Del método anterior no explicaré en profundidad, pues es bastante sencillo. Una consulta a la base de datos utilizando un datareader y devolviendo los datos en una lista como arreglo. Lo más importante serían las 2 primeras líneas [WebMethod()] y el [ScriptMethod()] las cuales habilitan nuestro método para poder ser accedido y utilizado. Por último, el código de ejemplo en C# (VB Autcomplete):

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• What DX level does my graphics card support? Does it go to 11?

  - by Daniel Moth

  Recently I run into a situation that I have run into quite a few times. Someone encounters a machine and the question arises: "Is there a DirectX 11 card in this machine?". Typically the reason you are interested in that is because cards with DirectX 11 drivers fully support DirectCompute (and by extension C++ AMP) for GPGPU programming. The driver specifically is WDDM (1.1 on Windows 7 and Windows 8 introduces WDDM 1.2 with cool new capabilities). There are many ways for figuring out if you have a DirectX11 card, so here are the approaches that you can use, with a bonus right at the end of the post. Run DxDiag WindowsKey + R, type DxDiag and hit Enter. That is the DirectX diagnostic tool, which unfortunately, only tells you on the "System" tab what is the highest version of DirectX installed on your machine. So if it reports DirectX 11, that doesn't mean you have a DX11 driver! The "Display" tab has a promising "DDI version" label, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be accurate on the machines I've tested it with (or I may be misinterpreting its use). Either way, this tool is not the one you want for this purpose, although it is good for telling you the WDDM version among other things. Use the Microsoft hardware page There is a Microsoft Windows 7 compatibility center, that lists all hardware (tip: use the advanced search) and you could try and locate your device there… good luck. Use Wikipedia or the hardware vendor's website Use the Wikipedia page for the vendor cards, for both nvidia and amd. Often this information will also be in the specifications for the cards on the IHV site, but is is nice that wikipedia has a single page per vendor that you can search etc. There is a column in the tables for API support where you can see the DirectX version. Check if it is one of these recommended DX11 cards You may not have a DirectX 11 card and are interested in purchasing one. While I am in no position to make recommendations, I will list here some cards from two big IHVs that we know are DirectX 11 capable. Some AMD (aka ATI) cards Low end, inexpensive DX11 hardware: Radeon 5450, 5550, 6450, 6570 Mid range (decent perf, single precision): Radeon 5750, 5770, 6770, 6790 High end (capable of double precision): Radeon 5850, 5870, 6950, 6970 Single precision APUs: AMD E-Series APUs AMD A-Series APUs Some NVIDIA cards Low end, inexpensive DX11 hardware: GeForce GT430, GT 440, GT520, GTS 450 Quadro 400, 600 Mid-range (decent perf, single precision): GeForce GTX 460, GTX 550 Ti, GTX 560, GTX 560 Ti Quadro 2000 High end (capable of double precision): GeForce GTX 480, GTX 570, GTX 580, GTX 590, GTX 595 Quadro 4000, 5000, 6000 Tesla C2050, C2070, C2075 Get the DirectX SDK and run DirectX Caps Viewer Download and install the June 2010 DirectX SDK. As part of that you now have the DirectX Capabilities Viewer utility (find it in your start menu by searching for "DirectX Caps Viewer", the filename is DXCapsViewer.exe). It will list all your devices (emulated, and real hardware ones) under the first node. Expand the hardware entries and then expand again the Direct3D 11 folder. If you see D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_ under that, then your card supports feature level 11 which means it supports DirectCompute and C++ AMP. In the following screenshot of one of my old laptops, the card only goes to feature level 10. Run a utility from the web that just tells you! Of course, writing some C++ AMP code that enumerates accelerators and lists the ones that are capable is trivial. However that requires that you have redistributed the runtime, so a more broadly applicable approach is to use the DX APIs directly to enumerate the DX11 capable cards. That is exactly what the development lead for C++ AMP has done and he describes and shares that utility at this post. Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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• Guest blog: A Closer Look at Oracle Price Analytics by Will Hutchinson

  - by Takin Babaei

  Overview:  Price Analytics helps companies understand how much of each sale goes into discounts, special terms, and allowances. This visibility lets sales management see the panoply of discounts and start seeing whether each discount drives desired behavior. In Price Analytics monitors parts of the quote-to-order process, tracking quotes, including the whole price waterfall and seeing which result in orders. The “price waterfall” shows all discounts between list price and “pocket price”. Pocket price is the final price the vendor puts in its pocket after all discounts are taken. The value proposition: Based on benchmarks from leading consultancies and companies I have talked to, where they have studied the effects of discounting and started enforcing what many of them call “discount discipline”, they find they can increase the pocket price by 0.8-3%. Yes, in today’s zero or negative inflation environment, one can, through better monitoring of discounts, collect what amounts to a price rise of a few percent. We are not talking about selling more product, merely about collecting a higher pocket price without decreasing quantities sold. Higher prices fall straight to the bottom line. The best reference I have ever found for understanding this phenomenon comes from an article from the September-October 1992 issue of Harvard Business Review called “Managing Price, Gaining Profit” by Michael Marn and Robert Rosiello of McKinsey & Co. They describe the outsized impact price management has on bottom line performance compared to selling more product or cutting variable or fixed costs. Price Analytics manages what Marn and Rosiello call “transaction pricing”, namely the prices of a given transaction, as opposed to what is on the price list or pricing according to the value received. They make the point that if the vendor does not manage the price waterfall, customers will, to the vendor’s detriment. It also discusses its findings that in companies it studied, there was no correlation between discount levels and any indication of customer value. I urge you to read this article. What Price Analytics does: Price analytics looks at quotes the company issues and tracks them until either the quote is accepted or rejected or it expires. There are prebuilt adapters for EBS and Siebel as well as a universal adapter. The target audience includes pricing analysts, product managers, sales managers, and VP’s of sales, marketing, finance, and sales operations. It tracks how effective discounts have been, the win rate on quotes, how well pricing policies have been followed, customer and product profitability, and customer performance against commitments. It has the concept of price waterfall, the deal lifecycle, and price segmentation built into the product. These help product and sales managers understand their pricing and its effectiveness on driving revenue and profit. They also help understand how terms are adhered to during negotiations. They also help people understand what segments exist and how well they are adhered to. To help your company increase its profits and revenues, I urge you to look at this product. If you have questions, please contact me. Will HutchinsonMaster Principal Sales Consultant – Analytics, Oracle Corp. Will Hutchinson has worked in the business intelligence and data warehousing for over 25 years. He started building data warehouses in 1986 at Metaphor, advancing to running Metaphor UK’s sales consulting area. He also worked in A.T. Kearney’s business intelligence practice for over four years, running projects and providing training to new consultants in the IT practice. He also worked at Informatica and then Siebel, before coming to Oracle with the Siebel acquisition. He became Master Principal Sales Consultant in 2009. He has worked on developing ROI and TCO models for business intelligence for over ten years. Mr. Hutchinson has a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University and an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago.

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• Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5 now Live!

  - by Tarun Arora

  Today was the formal launch event for Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5, a state-of-the-art development solution for building modern applications that span connected devices and continuous services, from the client to the cloud. The event was streamed live from http://visualstudiolaunch.com, S.Somasegar corporate vice president of the Developer Division opened the key note, Jason Zander dived deeper into how to leverage Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5 to build modern application. Brian Harry all the awesome features in Visual Studio 2012 to improve the application lifecycle management.   I. Summary of the announcements made today 1. Visual Studio Updates coming this fall –  VS Update will better support agile teams, enable continuous quality, elevate SharePoint development with application lifecycle management (ALM) tools, and expand Visual Studio 2012 Windows development capabilities. It will be available as a community technology preview (CTP) later this month and in final release later this calendar year. A comprehensive list of what will be on offer can be found here. 2. Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop – Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop brings the newest desktop development capabilities in Visual Studio 2012 to Express users, too. You would be excited to know that the express SKU will support Integration with TFS among some of the other cool features I would like to mention Unit Testing, Unit Testing, Code Analysis, dependency management with NuGet a full list and download links can be found here. 3. F# tools for Visual Studio Express 2012 for web –  This F# Tools release adds in F# 3.0 components, such as the F# 3.0 compiler, F# Interactive, IDE support, and new F# features such as type providers and query expressions to your Visual Studio 2012 express for web. More details and download links can be found here. 4. Visual Studio TFS 2012 Power Tools – The TFS 2012 Power tools brings the goodness of Best Practice Analyzer, Process Template Editor, Storyboard Shapes, Team Explorer enhancements, TFPT command line, TFS Server Backups, etc via to your TFS 2012 installation. It can be downloaded right away from here. II. Road shows There will be many more community road shows this month packaged with hours of demos and discussions. The Visual Studio UK Team has just announced that there will be four UK launch events, face to face session including a product group speaker and partner sessions: Edinburgh, 1st October Manchester, 3rd October London, 4th October Reading, 5th October III. Get Started Download Visual Studio 2012 and the additional supporting software's from here. The Visual Studio development team has put together over 60 videos to help you learn about the new Visual Studio 2012 capabilities in more detail, and all of these will be available for watching here. IV. What’s Next A lot more exciting stuff lined up… Windows 8 Anticipated release: Oct. 26 (UPDATED 9/12) Windows Server 2012 Released (UPDATED 9/4) System Center 2012 Released (UPDATED 9/11) SQL Server 2012 Released (UPDATED 4/2) Internet Explorer 10 Anticipated release: Between Q3 2012 and early 2013 (UPDATED 5/3   Office 2013 Anticipated release: Q4 2012 or Q1 2013(UPDATED 9/12) Exchange 2013 Anticipated release: Q4 2012 (UPDATED 7/26) Visual Studio 2012 Released (UPDATED 9/12) Kinect for Windows Released (UPDATED 9/4) Windows Phone "Tango" and 8 "Tango": Released; Anticipated "Windows Phone 8" release: Q4 2012 (UPDATED 9/5) Dynamics ERP Online Anticipated release: September or October 2012 (UPDATED 7/20) Office 365 Anticipated update schedule: "Almost weekly"(UPDATED 9/12) Windows Azure Rumored CTP release: Spring 2012 (UPDATED 9/7) SharePoint 2013 Anticipated release: Q4 2012 (UPDATED 8/21) Enjoy

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• Opening a new Windows from ASP.NET code behind

  - by TATWORTH

  At http://weblogs.asp.net/infinitiesloop/archive/2007/09/25/response-redirect-into-a-new-window-with-extension-methods.aspx there is an excellent post on how to open a new windows from code behind. The purists may not like it but it helped solve a problem for a client's client. Here is an update for VS2010 users: using System; using System.Web; using System.Web.UI; /// <summary> /// Response Helper for opening popup windo from code behind. /// </summary> public static class ResponseHelper {   /// <summary>   /// Redirect to popup window   /// </summary>   /// <param name="response">The response.</param>   /// <param name="url">URL to open to</param>   /// <param name="target">Target of window _self or _blank</param>   /// <param name="windowFeatures">Features such as window bar</param>   /// <remarks>   ///     <list type="bullet">   ///         <item>   /// From http://weblogs.asp.net/infinitiesloop/archive/2007/09/25/response-redirect-into-a-new-window-with-extension-methods.aspx   /// </item>   /// <item>   /// Note: If you use it outside the context of a Page request, you can't redirect to a new window. The reason is the need to call the ResolveClientUrl method on Page, which I can't do if there is no Page. I could have just built my own version of that method, but it's more involved than you might think to do it right. So if you need to use this from an HttpHandler other than a Page, you are on your own.   /// </item>   ///         <item>   /// Beware of popup blockers.   /// </item>   /// <item>   /// Note: Obviously when you are redirecting to a new window, the current window will still be hanging around. Normally redirects abort the current request -- no further processing occurs. But for these redirects, processing continues, since we still have to serve the response for the current window (which also happens to contain the script to open the new window, so it is important that it completes).   /// </item>   /// <item>   /// Sample call Response.Redirect("popup.aspx", "_blank", "menubar=0,width=100,height=100");   /// </item>   ///     </list>   /// </remarks>   public static void Redirect(this HttpResponse response, string url, string target, string windowFeatures)   {     if ((String.IsNullOrEmpty(target) || target.Equals("_self", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) && String.IsNullOrEmpty(windowFeatures))     {       response.Redirect(url);     }     else     {       Page page = (Page)HttpContext.Current.Handler;       if (page == null)       {         throw new InvalidOperationException("Cannot redirect to new window outside Page context.");       }       url = page.ResolveClientUrl(url);       string script;       if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(windowFeatures))       {         script = @"window.open(""{0}"", ""{1}"", ""{2}"");";       }       else       {         script = @"window.open(""{0}"", ""{1}"");";       }       script = String.Format(script, url, target, windowFeatures);       ScriptManager.RegisterStartupScript(page, typeof(Page), "Redirect", script, true);     }   } }

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• Node.js Lockstep Multiplayer Architecture

  - by Wakaka

  Background I'm using the lockstep model for a multiplayer Node.js/Socket.IO game in a client-server architecture. User input (mouse or keypress) is parsed into commands like 'attack' and 'move' on the client, which are sent to the server and scheduled to be executed on a certain tick. This is in contrast to sending state data to clients, which I don't wish to use due to bandwidth issues. Each tick, the server will send the list of commands on that tick (possibly empty) to each client. The server and all clients will then process the commands and simulate that tick in exactly the same way. With Node.js this is actually quite simple due to possibility of code sharing between server and client. I'll just put the deterministic simulator in the /shared folder which can be run by both server and client. The server simulation is required so that there is an authoritative version of the simulation which clients cannot alter. Problem Now, the game has many entity classes, like Unit, Item, Tree etc. Entities are created in the simulator. However, for each class, it has some methods that are shared and some that are client-specific. For instance, the Unit class has addHp method which is shared. It also has methods like getSprite (gets the image of the entity), isVisible (checks if unit can be seen by the client), onDeathInClient (does a bunch of stuff when it dies only on the client like adding announcements) and isMyUnit (quick function to check if the client owns the unit). Up till now, I have been piling all the client functions into the shared Unit class, and adding a this.game.isServer() check when necessary. For instance, when the unit dies, it will call if (!this.game.isServer()) { this.onDeathInClient(); }. This approach has worked pretty fine so far, in terms of functionality. But as the codebase grew bigger, this style of coding seems a little strange. Firstly, the client code is clearly not shared, and yet is placed under the /shared folder. Secondly, client-specific variables for each entity are also instantiated on the server entity (like unit.sprite) and can run into problems when the server cannot instantiate the variable (it doesn't have Image class like on browsers). So my question is, is there a better way to organize the client code, or is this a common way of doing things for lockstep multiplayer games? I can think of a possible workaround, but it does have its own problems. Possible workaround (with problems) I could use Javascript mixins that are only added when in a browser. Thus, in the /shared/unit.js file in the /shared folder, I would have this code at the end: if (typeof exports !== 'undefined') module.exports = Unit; else mixin(Unit, LocalUnit); Then I would have /client/localunit.js store an object LocalUnit of client-side methods for Unit. Now, I already have a publish-subscribe system in place for events in the simulator. To remove the this.game.isServer() checks, I could publish entity-specific events whenever I want the client to do something. For instance, I would do this.publish('Death') in /shared/unit.js and do this.subscribe('Death', this.onDeathInClient) in /client/localunit.js. But this would make the simulator's event listeners list on the server and the client different. Now if I want to clear all subscribed events only from the shared simulator, I can't. Of course, it is possible to create two event subscription systems - one client-specific and one shared - but now the publish() method would have to do if (!this.game.isServer()) { this.publishOnClient(event); }. All in all, the workaround off the top of my head seems pretty complicated for something as simple as separating the client and shared code. Thus, I wonder if there is an established and simpler method for better code organization, hopefully specific to Node.js games.

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• Switching my collision detection to array lists caused it to stop working

  - by Charlton Santana

  I have made a collision detection system which worked when I did not use array list and block generation. It is weird why it's not working but here's the code, and if anyone could help I would be very grateful :) The first code if the block generation. private static final List<Block> BLOCKS = new ArrayList<Block>(); Random rnd = new Random(System.currentTimeMillis()); int randomx = 400; int randomy = 400; int blocknum = 100; String Title = "blocktitle" + blocknum; private Block block; public void generateBlocks(){ if(blocknum > 0){ int offset = rnd.nextInt(250) + 100; //500 is the maximum offset, this is a constant randomx += offset;//ofset will be between 100 and 400 int randomyoff = rnd.nextInt(80); //500 is the maximum offset, this is a constant randomy = platformheighttwo - 6 - randomyoff;//ofset will be between 100 and 400 block = new Block(BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.drawable.block2), randomx, randomy); BLOCKS.add(block); blocknum -= 1; } The second is where the collision detection takes place note: the block.draw(canvas); works perfectly. It's the blocks that don't work. for(Block block : BLOCKS) { block.draw(canvas); if (sprite.bottomrx < block.bottomrx && sprite.bottomrx > block.bottomlx && sprite.bottomry < block.bottommy && sprite.bottomry > block.topry ){ Log.d(TAG, "Collided!!!!!!!!!!!!1"); } // bottom left touching block? if (sprite.bottomlx < block.bottomrx && sprite.bottomlx > block.bottomlx && sprite.bottomly < block.bottommy && sprite.bottomly > block.topry ){ Log.d(TAG, "Collided!!!!!!!!!!!!1"); } // top right touching block? if (sprite.toprx < block.bottomrx && sprite.toprx > block.bottomlx && sprite.topry < block.bottommy && sprite.topry > block.topry ){ Log.d(TAG, "Collided!!!!!!!!!!!!1"); } //top left touching block? if (sprite.toprx < block.bottomrx && sprite.toprx > block.bottomlx && sprite.topry < block.bottommy && sprite.topry > block.topry ){ Log.d(TAG, "Collided!!!!!!!!!!!!1"); } } The values eg bottomrx are in the block.java file..

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• How would you gather client's data on Google App Engine without using Datastore/Backend Instances too much?

  - by ruslan

  I'm relatively new to StackExchange and not sure if it's appropriate place to ask design question. Site gives me a hint "The question you're asking appears subjective and is likely to be closed". Please let me know. Anyway.. One of the projects I'm working on is online survey engine. It's my first big commercial project on Google App Engine. I need your advice on how to collect stats and efficiently record them in DataStore without bankrupting me. Initial requirements are: After user finishes survey client sends list of pairs [ID (int) + PercentHit (double)]. This list shows how close answers of this user match predefined answers of reference answerers (which identified by IDs). I call them "target IDs". Creator of the survey wants to see aggregated % for given IDs for last hour, particular timeframe or from the beginning of the survey. Some surveys may have thousands of target/reference answerers. So I created entity public class HitsStatsDO implements Serializable { @Id transient private Long id; transient private Long version = (long) 0; transient private Long startDate; @Parent transient private Key parent; // fake parent which contains target id @Transient int targetId; private double avgPercent; private long hitCount; } But writing HitsStatsDO for each target from each user would give a lot of data. For instance I had a survey with 3000 targets which was answered by ~4 million people within one week with 300K people taking survey in first day. Even if we assume they were answering it evenly for 24 hours it would give us ~1040 writes/second. Obviously it hits concurrent writes limit of Datastore. I decided I'll collect data for one hour and save that, that's why there are avgPercent and hitCount in HitsStatsDO. GAE instances are stateless so I had to use dynamic backend instance. There I have something like this: // Contains stats for one hour private class Shard { ReadWriteLock lock = new ReentrantReadWriteLock(); Map<Integer, HitsStatsDO> map = new HashMap<Integer, HitsStatsDO>(); // Key is target ID public void saveToDatastore(); public void updateStats(Long startDate, Map<Integer, Double> hits); } and map with shard for current hour and previous hour (which doesn't stay here for long) private HashMap<Long, Shard> shards = new HashMap<Long, Shard>(); // Key is HitsStatsDO.startDate So once per hour I dump Shard for previous hour to Datastore. Plus I have class LifetimeStats which keeps Map<Integer, HitsStatsDO> in memcached where map-key is target ID. Also in my backend shutdown hook method I dump stats for unfinished hour to Datastore. There is only one major issue here - I have only ONE backend instance :) It raises following questions on which I'd like to hear your opinion: Can I do this without using backend instance ? What if one instance is not enough ? How can I split data between multiple dynamic backend instances? It hard because I don't know how many I have because Google creates new one as load increases. I know I can launch exact number of resident backend instances. But how many ? 2, 5, 10 ? What if I have no load at all for a week. Constantly running 10 backend instances is too expensive. What do I do with data from clients while backend instance is dead/restarting? Thank you very much in advance for your thoughts.

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• What DX level does my graphics card support? Does it go to 11?

  - by Daniel Moth

  Recently I run into a situation that I have run into quite a few times. Someone encounters a machine and the question arises: "Is there a DirectX 11 card in this machine?". Typically the reason you are interested in that is because cards with DirectX 11 drivers fully support DirectCompute (and by extension C++ AMP) for GPGPU programming. The driver specifically is WDDM (1.1 on Windows 7 and Windows 8 introduces WDDM 1.2 with cool new capabilities). There are many ways for figuring out if you have a DirectX11 card, so here are the approaches that you can use, with a bonus right at the end of the post. Run DxDiag WindowsKey + R, type DxDiag and hit Enter. That is the DirectX diagnostic tool, which unfortunately, only tells you on the "System" tab what is the highest version of DirectX installed on your machine. So if it reports DirectX 11, that doesn't mean you have a DX11 driver! The "Display" tab has a promising "DDI version" label, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be accurate on the machines I've tested it with (or I may be misinterpreting its use). Either way, this tool is not the one you want for this purpose, although it is good for telling you the WDDM version among other things. Use the Microsoft hardware page There is a Microsoft Windows 7 compatibility center, that lists all hardware (tip: use the advanced search) and you could try and locate your device there… good luck. Use Wikipedia or the hardware vendor's website Use the Wikipedia page for the vendor cards, for both nvidia and amd. Often this information will also be in the specifications for the cards on the IHV site, but is is nice that wikipedia has a single page per vendor that you can search etc. There is a column in the tables for API support where you can see the DirectX version. Check if it is one of these recommended DX11 cards You may not have a DirectX 11 card and are interested in purchasing one. While I am in no position to make recommendations, I will list here some cards from two big IHVs that we know are DirectX 11 capable. Some AMD (aka ATI) cards Low end, inexpensive DX11 hardware: Radeon 5450, 5550, 6450, 6570 Mid range (decent perf, single precision): Radeon 5750, 5770, 6770, 6790 High end (capable of double precision): Radeon 5850, 5870, 6950, 6970 Single precision APUs: AMD E-Series APUs AMD A-Series APUs Some NVIDIA cards Low end, inexpensive DX11 hardware: GeForce GT430, GT 440, GT520, GTS 450 Quadro 400, 600 Mid-range (decent perf, single precision): GeForce GTX 460, GTX 550 Ti, GTX 560, GTX 560 Ti Quadro 2000 High end (capable of double precision): GeForce GTX 480, GTX 570, GTX 580, GTX 590, GTX 595 Quadro 4000, 5000, 6000 Tesla C2050, C2070, C2075 Get the DirectX SDK and run DirectX Caps Viewer Download and install the June 2010 DirectX SDK. As part of that you now have the DirectX Capabilities Viewer utility (find it in your start menu by searching for "DirectX Caps Viewer", the filename is DXCapsViewer.exe). It will list all your devices (emulated, and real hardware ones) under the first node. Expand the hardware entries and then expand again the Direct3D 11 folder. If you see D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_ under that, then your card supports feature level 11 which means it supports DirectCompute and C++ AMP. In the following screenshot of one of my old laptops, the card only goes to feature level 10. Run a utility from the web that just tells you! Of course, writing some C++ AMP code that enumerates accelerators and lists the ones that are capable is trivial. However that requires that you have redistributed the runtime, so a more broadly applicable approach is to use the DX APIs directly to enumerate the DX11 capable cards. That is exactly what the development lead for C++ AMP has done and he describes and shares that utility at this post. Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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• Programmatically disclosing a node in af:tree and af:treeTable

  - by Frank Nimphius

  A common developer requirement when working with af:tree or af:treeTable components is to programmatically disclose (expand) a specific node in the tree. If the node to disclose is not a top level node, like a location in a LocationsView -> DepartmentsView -> EmployeesView hierarchy, you need to also disclose the node's parent node hierarchy for application users to see the fully expanded tree node structure. Working on ADF Code Corner sample #101, I wrote the following code lines that show a generic option for disclosing a tree node starting from a handle to the node to disclose. The use case in ADF Coder Corner sample #101 is a drag and drop operation from a table component to a tree to relocate employees to a new department. The tree node that receives the drop is a department node contained in a location. In theory the location could be part of a country and so on to indicate the depth the tree may have. Based on this structure, the code below provides a generic solution to parse the current node parent nodes and its child nodes. The drop event provided a rowKey for the tree node that received the drop. Like in af:table, the tree row key is not of type oracle.jbo.domain.Key but an implementation of java.util.List that contains the row keys. The JUCtrlHierBinding class in the ADF Binding layer that represents the ADF tree binding at runtime provides a method named findNodeByKeyPath that allows you to get a handle to the JUCtrlHierNodeBinding instance that represents a tree node in the binding layer. CollectionModel model = (CollectionModel) your_af_tree_reference.getValue(); JUCtrlHierBinding treeBinding = (JUCtrlHierBinding ) model.getWrappedData(); JUCtrlHierNodeBinding treeDropNode = treeBinding.findNodeByKeyPath(dropRowKey); To disclose the tree node, you need to create a RowKeySet, which you do using the RowKeySetImpl class. Because the RowKeySet replaces any existing row key set in the tree, all other nodes are automatically closed. RowKeySetImpl rksImpl = new RowKeySetImpl(); //the first key to add is the node that received the drop //operation (departments).            rksImpl.add(dropRowKey);    Similar, from the tree binding, the root node can be obtained. The root node is the end of all parent node iteration and therefore important. JUCtrlHierNodeBinding rootNode = treeBinding.getRootNodeBinding(); The following code obtains a reference to the hierarchy of parent nodes until the root node is found. JUCtrlHierNodeBinding dropNodeParent = treeDropNode.getParent(); //walk up the tree to expand all parent nodes while(dropNodeParent != null && dropNodeParent != rootNode){    //add the node's keyPath (remember its a List) to the row key set    rksImpl.add(dropNodeParent.getKeyPath());      dropNodeParent = dropNodeParent.getParent(); } Next, you disclose the drop node immediate child nodes as otherwise all you see is the department node. Its not quite exactly "dinner for one", but the procedure is very similar to the one handling the parent node keys ArrayList<JUCtrlHierNodeBinding> childList = (ArrayList<JUCtrlHierNodeBinding>) treeDropNode.getChildren();                     for(JUCtrlHierNodeBinding nb : childList){   rksImpl.add(nb.getKeyPath()); } Next, the row key set is defined as the disclosed row keys on the tree so when you refresh (PPR) the tree, the new disclosed state shows tree.setDisclosedRowKeys(rksImpl); AdfFacesContext.getCurrentInstance().addPartialTarget(tree.getParent()); The refresh in my use case is on the tree parent component (a layout container), which usually shows the best effect for refreshing the tree component. 

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• How can I make sound work without starting X?

  - by Magnus Hoff

  I have a headless machine connected to my sound system, and I am using it to run a music playing daemon that I control over the network. (Among other things) However, I can't seem to be able to have sound come out of my speakers without running X. I am running pulse audio in a system wide instance and my daemon is not running within X. Nevertheless, when my daemon is playing music without me hearing it, I can fix it by running startx in an unrelated session. After X starts, I can hear the sound. The sound disappears again if I kill the X server. Interestingly/annoyingly, the sound also stops after X has been running for a few minutes. This could possibly be because of a screen saver of some sort, but I haven't been able to verify or falsify this theory. So my current workaround is to ssh into the box whenever I want music and startx, and restart it every fifteen minutes or so. I'd like to do better. I have been able to verify the following: Adjustments in alsamixer have no effect on this problem. The relevant output channel is never muted In alsamixer, I can see no difference between when the sound is working and when it isn't Nothing is muted in pactl list There is no difference in the output from pactl list between before starting X and after it's started. (Except the identifier of the pactl instance connected to pulse, which is different each time you run pactl) The user running the music daemon is a member of the groups audio, pulse and pulse-access The music daemon program does not report any error messages and acts as if it is playing the music like it should Some form of dbus daemon is running. ps aux|grep dbus reports dbus-daemon --system --fork --activation=upstart before and after I have started X Some details about my hardware: Motherboard: http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AT5IONTI_DELUXE/ Sound chip: Nvidia GPU 0b HDMI/DP (from alsamixer) Using HDMI for output (Machine also has an Intel Realtek ALC887 that I am not using) Output of lsmod: Module Size Used by deflate 12617 0 zlib_deflate 27139 1 deflate ctr 13201 0 twofish_generic 16635 0 twofish_x86_64_3way 25287 0 twofish_x86_64 12907 1 twofish_x86_64_3way twofish_common 20919 3 twofish_generic,twofish_x86_64_3way,twofish_x86_64 camellia 29348 0 serpent 29125 0 blowfish_generic 12530 0 blowfish_x86_64 21466 0 blowfish_common 16739 2 blowfish_generic,blowfish_x86_64 cast5 25112 0 des_generic 21415 0 xcbc 12815 0 rmd160 16744 0 bnep 18281 2 rfcomm 47604 12 sha512_generic 12796 0 crypto_null 12918 0 parport_pc 32866 0 af_key 36389 0 ppdev 17113 0 binfmt_misc 17540 1 nfsd 281980 2 ext2 73795 1 nfs 436929 1 lockd 90326 2 nfsd,nfs fscache 61529 1 nfs auth_rpcgss 53380 2 nfsd,nfs nfs_acl 12883 2 nfsd,nfs sunrpc 255224 16 nfsd,nfs,lockd,auth_rpcgss,nfs_acl btusb 18332 2 vesafb 13844 2 pl2303 17957 1 ath3k 12961 0 bluetooth 180153 24 bnep,rfcomm,btusb,ath3k snd_hda_codec_hdmi 32474 4 nvidia 11308613 0 ftdi_sio 40679 1 usbserial 47113 6 pl2303,ftdi_sio psmouse 97485 0 snd_hda_codec_realtek 224173 1 snd_hda_intel 33719 5 snd_hda_codec 127706 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel serio_raw 13211 0 snd_seq_midi 13324 0 snd_hwdep 17764 1 snd_hda_codec snd_pcm 97275 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec snd_rawmidi 30748 1 snd_seq_midi snd_seq_midi_event 14899 1 snd_seq_midi snd_seq 61929 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event snd_timer 29990 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq snd_seq_device 14540 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq snd 79041 20 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device asus_atk0110 18078 0 mac_hid 13253 0 jc42 13948 0 soundcore 15091 1 snd snd_page_alloc 18529 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm coretemp 13554 0 i2c_i801 17570 0 lp 17799 0 parport 46562 3 parport_pc,ppdev,lp r8169 62154 0 Any ideas? What does X do that's so important?

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• Expanding on requestaudit - Tracing who is doing what...and for how long

  - by Kyle Hatlestad

  One of the most helpful tracing sections in WebCenter Content (and one that is on by default) is the requestaudit tracing.  This tracing section summarizes the top service requests happening in the server along with how they are performing.  By default, it has 2 different rotations.  One happens every 2 minutes (listing up to 5 services) and another happens every 60 minutes (listing up to 20 services).  These traces provide the total time for all the requests against that service along with the number of requests and its average request time.  This information can provide a good start in possibly troubleshooting performance issues or tracking a particular issue.   >requestaudit/6 12.10 16:48:00.493 Audit Request Monitor !csMonitorTotalRequests,47,1,0.39009329676628113,0.21034042537212372,1>requestaudit/6 12.10 16:48:00.509 Audit Request Monitor Request Audit Report over the last 120 Seconds for server wcc-base_4444****requestaudit/6 12.10 16:48:00.509 Audit Request Monitor -Num Requests 47 Errors 1 Reqs/sec. 0.39009329676628113 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.21034042537212372 Max Thread Count 1requestaudit/6 12.10 16:48:00.509 Audit Request Monitor 1 Service FLD_BROWSE Total Elapsed Time (secs) 3.5320000648498535 Num requests 10 Num errors 0 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.3531999886035919 requestaudit/6 12.10 16:48:00.509 Audit Request Monitor 2 Service GET_SEARCH_RESULTS Total Elapsed Time (secs) 2.694999933242798 Num requests 6 Num errors 0 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.4491666555404663requestaudit/6 12.10 16:48:00.509 Audit Request Monitor 3 Service GET_DOC_PAGE Total Elapsed Time (secs) 1.8839999437332153 Num requests 5 Num errors 1 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.376800000667572requestaudit/6 12.10 16:48:00.509 Audit Request Monitor 4 Service DOC_INFO Total Elapsed Time (secs) 0.4620000123977661 Num requests 3 Num errors 0 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.15399999916553497requestaudit/6 12.10 16:48:00.509 Audit Request Monitor 5 Service GET_PERSONALIZED_JAVASCRIPT Total Elapsed Time (secs) 0.4099999964237213 Num requests 8 Num errors 0 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.051249999552965164requestaudit/6 12.10 16:48:00.509 Audit Request Monitor ****End Audit Report***** To change the default rotation or size of output, these can be set as configuration variables for the server: RequestAuditIntervalSeconds1 – Used for the shorter of the two summary intervals (default is 120 seconds)RequestAuditIntervalSeconds2 – Used for the longer of the two summary intervals (default is 3600 seconds)RequestAuditListDepth1 – Number of services listed for the first request audit summary interval (default is 5)RequestAuditListDepth2 – Number of services listed for the second request audit summary interval (default is 20) If you want to get more granular, you can enable 'Full Verbose Tracing' from the System Audit Information page and now you will get an audit entry for each and every service request.  >requestaudit/6 12.10 16:58:35.431 IdcServer-68 GET_USER_INFO [dUser=bob][StatusMessage=You are logged in as 'bob'.] 0.08765099942684174(secs) What's nice is it reports who executed the service and how long that particular request took.  In some cases, depending on the service, additional information will be added to the tracing relevant to that  service. >requestaudit/6 12.10 17:00:44.727 IdcServer-81 GET_SEARCH_RESULTS [dUser=bob][QueryText=%28+dDocType+%3cmatches%3e+%60Document%60+%29][StatusCode=0][StatusMessage=Success] 0.4696030020713806(secs) You can even go into more detail and insert any additional data into the tracing.  You simply need to add this configuration variable with a comma separated list of variables from local data to insert. RequestAuditAdditionalVerboseFieldsList=TotalRows,path In this case, for any search results, the number of items the user found is traced: >requestaudit/6 12.10 17:15:28.665 IdcServer-36 GET_SEARCH_RESULTS [TotalRows=224][dUser=bob][QueryText=%28+dDocType+%3cmatches%3e+%60Application%60+%29][Sta... I also recently ran into the case where services were being called from a client through RIDC.  All of the services were being executed as the same user, but they wanted to correlate the requests coming from the client to the ones being executed on the server.  So what we did was add a new field to the request audit list: RequestAuditAdditionalVerboseFieldsList=ClientToken And then in the RIDC client, ClientToken was added to the binder along with a unique value that could be traced for that request.  Now they had a way of tracing on both ends and identifying exactly which client request resulted in which request on the server.

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• PASS: International Travels

  - by Bill Graziano

  Nihao!  One of the largest changes PASS is going through is the the expansion outside the US and Canada.  We’ve had international chapters and events in Europe since the early 2000’s.  But nothing on the scale we’re seeing now.  Since January 1st there have been 18 SQL Saturday events outside North America and 19 events in North America.  We hope to have three international SQLRally events outside the US in FY13 (budget willing).  I don’t know the exact percentage of chapters outside the US but it’s got be 50% or higher. We recently started an effort to remake the Board to better reflect the growing global face of PASS.  This involves assigning some Board seats to geographic regions.  You can ask questions about this in our feedback forum, participate in a Twitter chat or ask questions directly of Board members.  You can email me at if you’d like to ask a question directly.  We’re doing this very slowly and deliberately in hopes that a long communication cycle gives us a chance to address all the issues that our members will raise. After the Summit we passed a budget exception allocating an extra $20,000 for Board members to travel to local events.  I think it’s important for Board members to visit new areas and talk to more of our members.  I sent out an email asking where people had attended events outside their home city.  Here’s the list I got back: Albuquerque, Amsterdam, Boston, Brisbane, Chicago, Colorado Springs, Columbus, Dallas, Houston, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, London, Louisville, Minneapolis, New York City, Orange County, Orlando, Pensacola, Perth, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Redmond, Seattle, Silicon Valley, Sydney, Tampa Bay, Vancouver, Washington DC and Wellington.  (Disclaimer: Some of this travel was paid for by employers or Board members themselves.  Some of this travel may have been completed before the Summit.  That’s still one heck of a list!) The last SQL Saturday event this fiscal year is SQL Saturday Shanghai.  And that’s one I’m attending.  This is our first event in China and is being put on in cooperation with the local Microsoft office.  Hopefully this event will be the start of a growing community in China that includes chapters, SQL Saturdays and maybe a SQLRally or two in the future.  I’m excited to speak with people that are just starting down this path and watching this community grow. I encourage you to visit the PASS Global Growth site and read through the material there.  This is the biggest change we’ve made to our governance since I’ve been on the Board.  You need to understand how it affects you and how it affects the organization. And wish me luck on the 15 hour flight to Shanghai on Friday afternoon.  Rob Farley flies from Australia to the US for PASS events multiple times per year and I don’t know how he does it so often.  I think one of these is going to wipe me out.  (And Nihao (knee-how) is Chinese for Hello.)

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• How to Speed Up Any Android Phone By Disabling Animations

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Android phones — and tablets, too — display animations when moving between apps and screens. These animations look very slick, but they waste time — especially on fast phones, which could switch between apps instantly if not for the animations. Disabling these animations will speed up navigating between different apps and interface screens on your phone, saving you time. You can also speed up the animations if you’d rather see them. Access the Developer Options Menu First, we’ll need to access the Developer Options menu. It’s hidden by default so Android users won’t stumble across it unless they’re actually looking for it. To access the Developer Options menu, open the Settings screen, scroll down to the bottom of the list, and tap the About phone or About tablet option. Scroll down to the Build number field and tap it repeatedly. Eventually, you’ll see a message appear saying “You are now a developer!”. The Developer options submenu now appears on the Settings screen. You’ll find it near the bottom of the list, just above the About phone or About tablet option. Disable Interface Animations Open the Developer Options screen and slide the switch at the top of the screen to On. This allows you to change the hidden options on this screen. If you ever want to re-enable the animations and revert your changes, all you have to do is slide the Developer Options switch back to Off. Scroll down to the Drawing section. You’ll find the three options we want here — Window animation scale, Transition animation scale, and Animator duration scale. Tap each option and set it to Animation off to disable the associated animations. If you’d like to speed up the animations without disabling them entirely, select the Animation .5x option instead. If you’re feeling really crazy, you can even select longer animation durations. You can make the animations take as much as ten times longer with the Animation 10x setting. The Animator duration scale option applies to the transition animation that appears when you tap the app drawer button on your home screen.  Your change here won’t take effect immediately — you’ll have to restart Android’s launcher after changing the Animator duration scale setting. To restart Android’s launcher, open the Settings screen, tap Apps, swipe over to the All category, scroll down, and tap the Launcher app. Tap the Force stop button to forcibly close the launcher, then tap your device’s home button to re-launch the launcher. Your app drawer will now open immediately, too. Now whenever you open an app or transition to a new screen, it will pop up as quickly as possible — no waiting for animations and wasting processing power rendering them. How much of a speed improvement you’ll see here depends on your Android device and how fast it is. On our Nexus 4, this change makes many apps appear and become usable instantly if they’re running in the background. If you have a slower device, you may have to wait a moment for apps to be usable. That’s one of the big reasons why Android and other operating systems use animations. Animations help paper over delays that can occur while the operating system loads the app.     

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