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• Entity Attribute Value Database vs. strict Relational Model Ecommerce question

  - by Dr. Zim

  It is safe to say that the EAV/CR database model is bad. That said, Question: What database model, technique, or pattern should be used to deal with "classes" of attributes describing e-commerce products which can be changed at run time? In a good E-commerce database, you will store classes of options (like TV resolution then have a resolution for each TV, but the next product may not be a TV and not have "TV resolution"). How do you store them, search efficiently, and allow your users to setup product types with variable fields describing their products? If the search engine finds that customers typically search for TVs based on console depth, you could add console depth to your fields, then add a single depth for each tv product type at run time. There is a nice common feature among good e-commerce apps where they show a set of products, then have "drill down" side menus where you can see "TV Resolution" as a header, and the top five most common TV Resolutions for the found set. You click one and it only shows TVs of that resolution, allowing you to further drill down by selecting other categories on the side menu. These options would be the dynamic product attributes added at run time. Further discussion: So long story short, are there any links out on the Internet or model descriptions that could "academically" fix the following setup? I thank Noel Kennedy for suggesting a category table, but the need may be greater than that. I describe it a different way below, trying to highlight the significance. I may need a viewpoint correction to solve the problem, or I may need to go deeper in to the EAV/CR. Love the positive response to the EAV/CR model. My fellow developers all say what Jeffrey Kemp touched on below: "new entities must be modeled and designed by a professional" (taken out of context, read his response below). The problem is: entities add and remove attributes weekly (search keywords dictate future attributes) new entities arrive weekly (products are assembled from parts) old entities go away weekly (archived, less popular, seasonal) The customer wants to add attributes to the products for two reasons: department / keyword search / comparison chart between like products consumer product configuration before checkout The attributes must have significance, not just a keyword search. If they want to compare all cakes that have a "whipped cream frosting", they can click cakes, click birthday theme, click whipped cream frosting, then check all cakes that are interesting knowing they all have whipped cream frosting. This is not specific to cakes, just an example.

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• Union struct produces garbage and general question about struct nomenclature

  - by SoulBeaver

  I read about unions the other day( today ) and tried the sample functions that came with them. Easy enough, but the result was clear and utter garbage. The first example is: union Test { int Int; struct { char byte1; char byte2; char byte3; char byte4; } Bytes; }; where an int is assumed to have 32 bits. After I set a value Test t; t.Int = 7; and then cout cout << t.Bytes.byte1 << etc... the individual bytes, there is nothing displayed, but my computer beeps. Which is fairly odd I guess. The second example gave me even worse results. union SwitchEndian { unsigned short word; struct { unsigned char hi; unsigned char lo; } data; } Switcher; Looks a little wonky in my opinion. Anyway, from the description it says, this should automatically store the result in a high/little endian format when I set the value like Switcher.word = 7656; and calling with cout << Switcher.data.hi << endl The result of this were symbols not even defined in the ASCII chart. Not sure why those are showing up. Finally, I had an error when I tried correcting the example by, instead of placing Bytes at the end of the struct, positioning it right next to it. So instead of struct {} Bytes; I wanted to write struct Bytes {}; This tossed me a big ol' error. What's the difference between these? Since C++ cannot have unnamed structs it seemed, at the time, pretty obvious that the Bytes positioned at the beginning and at the end are the things that name it. Except no, that's not the entire answer I guess. What is it then?

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• Rails + AMcharts (with export image php script) - PHP script converted to controller?

  - by Elliot

  Hey Guys, This one might be a little confusing. I'm using AMCharts with rails. Amcharts comes with a PHP script to export images called "export.php" I'm trying to figure out how to take the code in export.php and put it into a controller. Here is the code: <?php // amcharts.com export to image utility // set image type (gif/png/jpeg) $imgtype = 'jpeg'; // set image quality (from 0 to 100, not applicable to gif) $imgquality = 100; // get data from $_POST or $_GET ? $data = &$_POST; // get image dimensions $width = (int) $data['width']; $height = (int) $data['height']; // create image object $img = imagecreatetruecolor($width, $height); // populate image with pixels for ($y = 0; $y < $height; $y++) { // innitialize $x = 0; // get row data $row = explode(',', $data['r'.$y]); // place row pixels $cnt = sizeof($row); for ($r = 0; $r < $cnt; $r++) { // get pixel(s) data $pixel = explode(':', $row[$r]); // get color $pixel[0] = str_pad($pixel[0], 6, '0', STR_PAD_LEFT); $cr = hexdec(substr($pixel[0], 0, 2)); $cg = hexdec(substr($pixel[0], 2, 2)); $cb = hexdec(substr($pixel[0], 4, 2)); // allocate color $color = imagecolorallocate($img, $cr, $cg, $cb); // place repeating pixels $repeat = isset($pixel[1]) ? (int) $pixel[1] : 1; for ($c = 0; $c < $repeat; $c++) { // place pixel imagesetpixel($img, $x, $y, $color); // iterate column $x++; } } } // set proper content type header('Content-type: image/'.$imgtype); header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="chart.'.$imgtype.'"'); // stream image $function = 'image'.$imgtype; if ($imgtype == 'gif') { $function($img); } else { $function($img, null, $imgquality); } // destroy imagedestroy($img); ?>

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• Animated Ellipse

  - by user287798

  Hi, i need someone to help me. I need a xaml with animated ellipses like the ones shown here:http://www.telerik.com/products/silverlight/chart.aspx They are to act as hotspot indicators on my map. What i have below is a xaml that i was trying to do but the circles don't center and have no fed-in/fade-out effect. May somebody help me please. Thanks Sam 1 <UserControl 2 xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" 3 xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" 4 x:Class="SilverlightApplication3.MainPage" 5 Width="640" Height="480"> 6 7 8 <Canvas> 9 10 <Canvas.Triggers> 11 <EventTrigger RoutedEvent="Canvas.Loaded"> 12 <EventTrigger.Actions> 13 <BeginStoryboard> 14 <Storyboard > 15 <DoubleAnimation RepeatBehavior="Forever" 16 Storyboard.TargetName="Pt1" 17 Storyboard.TargetProperty="ScaleX" 18 From="1" 19 To="0.3" 20 Duration="0:0:5" /> 21 </Storyboard> 22 </BeginStoryboard> 23 24 <BeginStoryboard> 25 <Storyboard> 26 <DoubleAnimation RepeatBehavior="Forever" 27 Storyboard.TargetName="Pt1" 28 Storyboard.TargetProperty="ScaleY" 29 From="1" 30 To="0.3" 31 Duration="0:0:5" /> 32 </Storyboard> 33 </BeginStoryboard> 34 <!--<BeginStoryboard> 35 <Storyboard > 36 <DoubleAnimation RepeatBehavior="Forever" 37 Storyboard.TargetName="rect_Copy" 38 Storyboard.TargetProperty="Width" 39 From="30" 40 To="100" 41 Duration="0:0:5" /> 42 </Storyboard> 43 </BeginStoryboard> 44 45 <BeginStoryboard> 46 <Storyboard> 47 <DoubleAnimation RepeatBehavior="Forever" 48 Storyboard.TargetName="rect_Copy" 49 Storyboard.TargetProperty="Height" 50 From="30" 51 To="100" 52 Duration="0:0:5" /> 53 </Storyboard> 54 </BeginStoryboard>--> 55 </EventTrigger.Actions> 56 </EventTrigger> 57 </Canvas.Triggers> 58 59 60 <Ellipse x:Name="rect" Stroke="Green" Width="100" Height="100" Canvas.Left="30" 61 Canvas.Top="29"> 62 <Ellipse.RenderTransform> 63 <ScaleTransform x:Name="Pt1" ScaleX="1" ScaleY="1"/> 64 </Ellipse.RenderTransform> 65 66 </Ellipse> 67 <Ellipse x:Name="rect_Copy" 68 Stroke="Green" 69 Width="30" 70 Height="30" 71 Canvas.Left="65" 72 Canvas.Top="64"/> 73 74 </Canvas> 75 </UserControl>

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• Binary socket and policy file in Flex

  - by Daniil

  Hi, I'm trying to evaluate whether Flex can access binary sockets. Seems that there's a class calles Socket (flex.net package). The requirement is that Flex will connect to a server serving binary data. It will then subscribe to data and receive the feed which it will interpret and display as a chart. I've never worked with Flex, my experience lies with Java, so everything is new to me. So I'm trying to quickly set something simple up. The Java server expects the following: DataInputStream in = ..... byte cmd = in.readByte(); int size = in.readByte(); byte[] buf = new byte[size]; in.readFully(buf); ... do some stuff and send binary data in something like out.writeByte(1); out.writeInt(10000); ... etc... Flex, needs to connect to a localhost:6666 do the handshake and read data. I got something like this: try { var socket:Socket = new Socket(); socket.connect('192.168.110.1', 9999); Alert.show('Connected.'); socket.writeByte(108); // 'l' socket.writeByte(115); // 's' socket.writeByte(4); socket.writeMultiByte('HHHH', 'ISO-8859-1'); socket.flush(); } catch (err:Error) { Alert.show(err.message + ": " + err.toString()); } The first thing is that Flex does a <policy-file-request/>. I've modified the server to respond with: <?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE cross-domain-policy SYSTEM "/xml/dtds/cross-domain-policy.dtd"> <cross-domain-policy> <site-control permitted-cross-domain-policies="master-only"/> <allow-access-from domain="192.168.110.1" to-ports="*" /> </cross-domain-policy> After that - EOFException happens on the server and that's it. So the question is, am I approaching whole streaming data issue wrong when it comes to Flex? Am I sending the policy file wrong? Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a good solid example of how to do it. It seems to me that Flex can do binary Client-Server application, but I personally lack some basic knowledge when doing it. I'm using Flex 3.5 in IntelliJ IDEA IDE. Any help is appreciated. Thank you!

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• QT vs. Net - REAL comparisons for R.A.D. projects

  - by Pirate for Profit

  Man in all these Qt vs. .NET discussions 90% these people argue about the dumbest crap. Trying to get a real comparison chart here, because I know a little about both frameworks but I don't know everything. I believe Qt and .NET both have strengths and weaknesses. This is to make a comparison that highlights these so people can make more informed decisions before embarking on a project, in the spirit of R.A.D. Event Handling In Qt the event handling system is very simple. You just emit signals when something cool happens and then catch them in slots. ie. // run some calculations, then emit valueChanged(30, false, 20.2); and then catching it, any object can make a slot to recieve that message easily void MyObj::valueChanged(int percent, bool ok, float timeRemaining). It's easy to "block" an event or "disconnect" when needed, and works seamlessly across threads... once you get the hang of it, it just seems a lot more natural and intuitive than the way the .NET event handling is set up (you know, void valueChanged(object sender, CustomEventArgs e). And I'm not just talking about syntax, because in the end the .NET anonymous delegates are the bomb. I'm also talking about in more than just reflection (because, yes, .NET obviously has much stronger reflection capabilities). I'm talking about in the way the system feels to a human being. Qt wins hands down for the simplest yet still flexible event handling system ever i m o. Plugins and such I do love some of the ease of C# compared to C++, as well as .NET's assembly architecture, even though it leads to a bunch of .dll's (there's ways to combine everything into a single exe though). That is a big bonus for modular projects, which are a PITA to import stuff in C++ as far as RAD is concerned. Database Ease of Doing Crap Also what about datasets and database manipulations. I think .net wins here but I'm not sure. Threading/Conccurency How do you guys think of the threading? In .NET, all I've ever done is make like a list of master worker threads with locks. I like QConcurrentFramework, you don't worry about locks or anything, and with the ease of the signal slot system across threads it's nice to get notified about the progress of things. QConcurrent is the simplest threading mechanism I've ever played with. Memory Usage Also what do you think of the overall memory usage comparison. Is the .NET garbage collector pretty on the ball and quick compared to the instantaneous nature of native memory management? Or does it just let programs leak up a storm and lag the computer then clean it up when it's about to really lag? Doesn't the just-in-time compiler make native code that is pretty good, like and that only happens the first time the program is run? However, I am a n00b who doesn't know what I'm talking about, please school me on the subject.

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• Artichow PlotGroup: Legends not showing

  - by Hameed

  I am working on a little project on OpenCATS, developing some charts. In one of the charts, I need to add multiple plots to a PlotGroup and add Legends as well. I have written a small function that creates the chart, however I have difficulty displaying the legends when I add them to a PlotGroup object. Here is the code: public function draw($format = false) { /* Make sure we have GD support. */ if (!function_exists('imagecreatefromjpeg')) { die(); } if ($format === false) { $format = IMG_PNG; } $group = new PlotGroup(); $graph = new Graph($this->width, $this->height, NULL, 0, $this->width-135); $graph->setFormat($format); $graph->setBackgroundColor(new Color(0xF4, 0xF4, 0xF4)); $graph->shadow->setSize(3); $graph->title->set($this->title); $graph->title->setFont(new Tuffy(10)); $graph->title->setColor(new Color(0x00, 0x00, 0x8B)); $graph->border->setColor(new Color(187, 187, 187, 15)); $group->axis->bottom->setLabelText($this->xLabels); $group->axis->bottom->label->setFont(new Tuffy(8)); $group->setPadding(25, 145, 10, 22); $plotcount = 0; $plot = array(); foreach ($this->xValues as $xVal) { $plotcount++; $plot[$plotcount-1] = new LinePlot($xVal, LinePlot::LINE); $plot[$plotcount-1]->setPadding(25, 145, 10, 22); if ($plotcount % 5 ==0 ) $plot[$plotcount-1]->setColor(new Blue); else if ($plotcount % 4 ==0 ) $plot[$plotcount-1]->setColor(new DarkGreen); else if ($plotcount % 3 ==0 ) $plot[$plotcount-1]->setColor(new Red); else if ($plotcount % 2 ==0 ) $plot[$plotcount-1]->setColor(new Orange); $plot[$plotcount-1]->setThickness(2); $plot[$plotcount-1]->legend->add($plot[$plotcount-1], $this->legends[$plotcount-1]); $plot[$plotcount-1]->legend->setTextFont(new Tuffy(8)); $plot[$plotcount-1]->legend->setPadding(3, 3, 3, 3, 3); $plot[$plotcount-1]->legend->setPosition(1, 0.825); $plot[$plotcount-1]->legend->setBackgroundColor(new Color(0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF)); $plot[$plotcount-1]->legend->border->setColor(new Color(0xD0, 0xD0, 0xD0)); $plot[$plotcount-1]->legend->shadow->setSize(0); $group->add($plot[$plotcount-1]); } $graph->add($group); $graph->draw(); } } If I draw only one LinePlot it works: So for instance if I change $graph->add($group); to $graph->add($plot[0]); then only one of the lines will show up with the legend next to it.

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• Mailer issue, PHP values do not change

  - by Roland

  I have a script that runs once every month and send out stats to clients, now the stats are displayed in normal text and in the shape of a Pie Graph, now if I run the script mannually from the command line all info on the graphs are correct, but when the cron job executes the script the values for the first client are displaying on the graphs of all clients. but the text is correct. I'm using domDocument to build the HTML and PHPMailer to send out the email with the Graphs embedded into the mail also use pChart to generate the Graph My code that generates the PIE graph is below include_once "pChart.1.26e/pChart/pData.class"; include_once "pChart.1.26e/pChart/pChart.class"; // Dataset definition unset($DataSet); $DataSet = new pData; $DataSet->AddPoint(array($data['total_clicks'],$remaining),"Serie1"); if($remaining < 0){ $DataSet->AddPoint(array("Clicks delivered todate","Clicks remaining = 0"),"Serie2"); }else{ $DataSet->AddPoint(array("Clicks delivered todate","Clicks remaining"),"Serie2"); } $DataSet->AddAllSeries(); $DataSet->SetAbsciseLabelSerie("Serie2"); // Initialise the graph $pie = new pChart(492,292); $pie->drawBackground(255,255,254); $pie->LineWidth = 1.1; $pie->Values = 2; // $pie->drawRoundedRectangle(5,5,375,195,5,230,230,230); //$pie->drawRectangle(0,0,480,288,169,169,169); $pie->drawRectangle(5,5,487,287,169,169,169); $pie->loadColorPalette('pChart.1.26e/color/tones-3.txt',','); // Draw the pie chart $pie->setFontProperties("pChart.1.26e/Fonts/calibrib.ttf",18); $pie->drawTitle(140,33,"Campaign Overview",0,0,0); $pie->setFontProperties("pChart.1.26e/Fonts/calibrib.ttf",11); $pie->drawTitle(343,125,"Total clicks : ".$total_clicks,0,0,0); $pie->setFontProperties("pChart.1.26e/Fonts/calibri.ttf",10); if($remaining < 0){ $pie->setFontProperties("pChart.1.26e/Fonts/calibrib.ttf",10); $pie->drawTitle(260,250,"Campaign over-delivered by ".substr($remaining,1)." clicks",205,53,53); $pie->setFontProperties("pChart.1.26e/Fonts/calibri.ttf",10); } $pie->drawPieLegend(328,140,$DataSet->GetData(),$DataSet->GetDataDescription(),255,255,255); $pie->drawPieGraph($DataSet->GetData(),$DataSet->GetDataDescription(),170,150,130,PIE_VALUE,FALSE,50,30,0); $pie->Render("generated/3dpie.png"); unset($pie); unset($DataSet); $mail->AddEmbeddedImage("/var/www/html/stats/generated/3dpie.png","5"); I just can't understand why this only happens when the cronjob runs?

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• How to catch 'exceptions' for out of order execution in Workflow Foundation 4?

  - by Alex Key

  Hi, I am attempting to model a worklfow using a "WCF Workflow Service" in .net / vs 2010 that needs to handle out of order execution gracefully (but not allow it - if thath makes sense!?) For example I have 2 receive activities one called Initialize and the other called GetValue inside a FlowChart. In most cases Initialize should be called first and GetValue after (as modled in the flow chart). However if GetValue is executed before Initialize I do not want to return an "out of order" exception (although when I look at the WCF test client, I can't actually see an exception). But instead a custom exception saying something like "you must initialize first". In theory I could model this with lots of parallel activities and conditions to check if Initialized / Running / Terminated etc. But the business process I am modelling if very very similar to a state machine... except it must handle people executing things in the wrong order. Ideally I would like to catch the "out of order" exception (thought I don't think it's really an exception as such), check the 'exception' to see which function was attempted to run and then handle it. I have done some research around enabling AllowBufferedReceive. However I don't want to be able to execute out of order (I don't think), but instead give a detailed response if it does happen. I've looked at the new beta state machine template for WF 4 - but i'm not sure if it does what i'm after? I'm not sure if I have the wrong end of the stick, so any help would be greatly appreciated. [EDIT] To help clarify... Sorry it's a tricky one to explain. The standard I am trying to implement (the e-learning standard SCORM RTE) is structured like a state machine i.e. certain functions can only be executed in certain states. However the standard specifies that if the calling clients tries to execute a function that it is not meant to, then a warning should be issued... for example "you cannot use GetValue(), because you have not yet Initialized". Ideally I'd like to structure the workflow as the theoretical state machine and not need to have to use multiple if/else's to handle all the scenarios where something could be executed out-of-order. I'd like to catch a out-of-order exception (but I don't think there is such an exception - as it's not in the debugger) and rethrow it.

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• javascript DOM how to know what node is?

  - by Fernando SBS

  here is the source code: <table id="movements" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1"><thead><tr><th colspan="3">Movimentações de tropas:</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr> <td class="typ"><a href="build.php?gid=16"><img src="img/x.gif" class="att1" alt="Tropas atacantes chegando" title="Tropas atacantes chegando" /></a><span class="a1">&raquo;</span></td> <td><div class="mov"><span class="a1">1&nbsp;Ataque</span></div><div class="dur_r">em&nbsp;<span id="timer1">13:21:06</span>&nbsp;hrs.</div></div></td></tr><tr> <td class="typ"><a href="build.php?gid=16"><img src="img/x.gif" class="def1" alt="Tropas de reforço chegando" title="Tropas de reforço chegando" /></a><span class="d1">&raquo;</span></td> <td><div class="mov"><span class="d1">1&nbsp;Reforço</span></div><div class="dur_r">em&nbsp;<span id="timer2">0:14:55</span>&nbsp;hrs.</div></div></td></tr><tr> <td class="typ"><a href="build.php?gid=16"><img src="img/x.gif" class="att2" alt="Próprias tropas atacando" title="Próprias tropas atacando" /></a><span class="a2">&laquo;</span></td> <td><div class="mov"><span class="a2">1&nbsp;Ataque</span></div><div class="dur_r">em&nbsp;<span id="timer3">0:08:50</span>&nbsp;hrs.</div></div></td></tr><tr> <td class="typ"><a href="build.php?gid=16"><img src="img/x.gif" class="def2" alt="Próprias tropas reforçando" title="Próprias tropas reforçando" /></a><span class="d2">&laquo;</span></td> <td><div class="mov"><span class="d2">1&nbsp;Reforço</span></div><div class="dur_r">em&nbsp;<span id="timer4">2:50:45</span>&nbsp;hrs.</div></div></td></tr></tbody></table> and this is the View Source Chart of the document html (for easy DOM working): I would like to get to the 0:14:55 value coming from <span class="d1">, how to do it? EDIT Marcel Korpel: The value is always in the span in a div coming directly after a div containing a span with class d1, like: <div class="mov"><span class="d1">1&nbsp;Reforço</span></div><div class="dur_r">em&nbsp;<span id="timer2">0:14:55</span>&nbsp;hrs.</div>

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• CSS Graph- Bars not showing correctly

  - by Olivia

  I'm trying to create a CSS/HTML based graph using this tutorial here. However instead of putting the data directly into the html code I'm importing it from a CSV file using PHP with the following code. <?PHP /* Open CSV file */ $handle = fopen("defects.csv", "r"); $c = 0; /* gets data from csv file */ while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, ",")) !== FALSE) { /* stores dates as variable $date */ $date[$c] = $data[0]; $c++; /* inserts defect data into html code */ echo "<dd class=\"p" . $data[2] . "\"><span><b>" . $data[2] . "</b></span></dd>"; echo "<dd class=\"sub p" . $data[3] . "\" ><span><b>" . $data[3] . "</b></span></dd>"; } echo "</dl>"; echo "<ul class=\"xAxis\">"; /* X AXIS */ /* inserts date data into html code for x axis */ for ($d=0; $d < $c; $d++) { echo "<li>" . $date[$d] . "</li>"; } ?> The values are being placed correctly on the chart, but the bars aren't appearing. The CSS code I have for the bars is: /* default column styling */ dl#csschart span{ height:50%; background:url(../images/barx.png) repeat-y; } dl#csschart .sub{ margin-left:-33px; } dl#csschart .sub span{ background:url(../images/subBarx.png) repeat-y; } Just in case it helps, I've print screened how the graph should look. You can see it at: http://allured.info/graph/failgraph.png

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• Core Plot: x-axis labels not plotted when using scaleToFitPlots

  - by AlexR

  Problem: I can't get Core Plot (1.1) to plot automatic labels for my x-axis when using autoscaling ([plotSpace scaleToFitPlots:[graph allPlots]). What I have tried: I changed the values for the offsets and paddings, but this did not change the result. However, when turning autoscale off (not using [plotSpace scaleToFitPlots:[graph allPlots]]and setting the y scale automatically, the automatic labeling of the x-axis works. Question: Is there a bug in Core Plot or what did I do wrong? I would appreciate any help! Thank you! This is how I have set up my chart: CPTBarPlot *barPlot = [CPTBarPlot tubularBarPlotWithColor:[CPTColor blueColor] horizontalBars:NO]; barPlot.baseValue = CPTDecimalFromInt(0); barPlot.barOffset = CPTDecimalFromFloat(0.0f); // CPTDecimalFromFloat(0.5f); barPlot.barWidth = CPTDecimalFromFloat(0.4f); barPlot.barCornerRadius = 4; barPlot.labelOffset = 5; barPlot.dataSource = self; barPlot.delegate = self; graph = [[CPTXYGraph alloc]initWithFrame:self.view.bounds]; self.hostView.hostedGraph = graph; graph.paddingLeft = 40.0f; graph.paddingTop = 30.0f; graph.paddingRight = 30.0f; graph.paddingBottom = 50.0f; [graph addPlot:barPlot]; graph.plotAreaFrame.masksToBorder = NO; graph.plotAreaFrame.cornerRadius = 0.0f; graph.plotAreaFrame.borderLineStyle = borderLineStyle; double xAxisStart = 0; CPTXYAxisSet *xyAxisSet = (CPTXYAxisSet *)graph.axisSet; CPTXYAxis *xAxis = xyAxisSet.xAxis; CPTMutableLineStyle *lineStyle = [xAxis.axisLineStyle mutableCopy]; lineStyle.lineCap = kCGLineCapButt; xAxis.axisLineStyle = lineStyle; xAxis.majorTickLength = 10; xAxis.orthogonalCoordinateDecimal = CPTDecimalFromDouble(yAxisStart); xAxis.paddingBottom = 5; xyAxisSet.delegate = self; xAxis.delegate = self; xAxis.labelOffset = 0; xAxis.labelingPolicy = CPTAxisLabelingPolicyAutomatic; [plotSpace scaleToFitPlots:[graph allPlots]]; CPTMutablePlotRange *yRange = plotSpace.yRange.mutableCopy; [yRange expandRangeByFactor:CPTDecimalFromDouble(1.3)]; plotSpace.yRange = yRange; NSInteger xLength = CPTDecimalIntegerValue(plotSpace.xRange.length) + 1; plotSpace.xRange = [CPTPlotRange plotRangeWithLocation:CPTDecimalFromDouble(xAxisStart) length:CPTDecimalFromDouble(xLength)] ;

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• Code to generate random numbers in C++

  - by user1678927

  Basically I have to write a program to generate random numbers to simulate the rolling of a pair of dice. This program should be constructed in multiple files. The main function should be in one file, the other functions should be in a second source file, and their prototypes should be in a header file. First I write a short function that returns a random value between 1 and 6 to simulate the rolling of a single 6-sided die.Second, i write a function that pretends to roll a pair of dice by calling this function twice. My program starts by asking the user how many rolls should be made. Then I write a function to simulate rolling the dice this many times, keeping a count of exactly how many times the values 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12(each number is the sum of a pair of dice) occur in an array. Later I write a function to display a small bar chart using these counts that ideally would look something like below for a sample of 144 rolls, where the number of asterisks printed corresponds to the count: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Next, to see how well the random number generator is doing, I write a function to compute the average value rolled. Compare this to the ideal average of 7. Also, print out a small table showing the counts of each roll made by the program, the ideal count based on the frequencies above given the total number of rolls, and the difference between these values in separate columns. This is my incomplete code so far: "Compiler visual studio 2010" int rolling(){ //Function that returns a random value between 1 and 6 rand(unsigned(time(NULL))); int dice = 1 + (rand() %6); return dice; } int roll_dice(int num1,int num2){ //it calls 'rolling function' twice int result1,result2; num1 = rolling(); num2 = rolling(); result1 = num1; result2 = num2; return result1,result2; } int main(void){ int times,i,sum,n1,n2; int c1,c2,c3,c4,c5,c6,c7,c8,c9,c10,c11;//counters for each sum printf("Please enter how many times you want to roll the dice.\n") scanf_s("%i",&times); I pretend to use counters to count each sum and store the number(the count) in an array. I know i need a loop (for) and some conditional statements (if) but m main problem is to get the values from roll_dice and store them in n1 and n2 so then i can sum them up and store the sum in 'sum'.

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• Python - 2 Questions: Editing a variable in a function and changing the order of if else statements

  - by Eric

  First of all, I should explain what I'm trying to do first. I'm creating a dungeon crawler-like game, and I'm trying to program the movement of computer characters/monsters in the map. The map is basically a Cartesian coordinate grid. The locations of characters are represented by tuples of the x and y values, (x,y). The game works by turns, and in a turn a character can only move up, down, left or right 1 space. I'm creating a very simple movement system where the character will simply make decisions to move on a turn by turn basis. Essentially a 'forgetful' movement system. A basic flow chart of what I'm intending to do: Find direction towards destination Make a priority list of movements to be done using the direction eg.('r','u','d','l') means it would try to move right first, then up, then down, then left. Try each of the possibilities following the priority order. If the first movement fails (blocked by obstacle etc.), then it would successively try the movements until the first one that is successful, then it would stop. At step 3, the way I'm trying to do it is like this: def move(direction,location): try: -snip- # Tries to move, raises the exception Movementerror if cannot move in the direction return 1 # Indicates movement successful except Movementerror: return 0 # Indicates movement unsuccessful (thus character has not moved yet) prioritylist = ('r','u','d','l') if move('r',location): pass elif move('u',location): pass elif move('d',location): pass elif move('l',location): pass else: pass In the if/else block, the program would try the first movement on the priority on the priority list. At the move function, the character would try to move. If the character is not blocked and does move, it returns 1, leading to the pass where it would stop. If the character is blocked, it returns 0, then it tries the next movement. However, this results in 2 problems: How do I edit a variable passed into a function inside the function itself, while returning if the edit is successful? I have been told that you can't edit a variable inside a function as it won't really change the value of the variable, it just makes the variable inside the function refer to something else while the original variable remain unchanged. So, the solution is to return the value and then assign the variable to the returned value. However, I want it to return another value indicating if this edit is successful, so I want to edit this variable inside the function itself. How do I do so? How do I change the order of the if/else statements to follow the order of the priority list? It needs to be able to change during runtime as the priority list can change resulting in a different order of movement to try.

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• How do I overlay text on an image who's size is to be set?

  - by Mike

  I am trying to make a bar chart using tables, which I have almost accomplished to my liking. The last step I want is text over my image which represents the bar. Here is the code I have thus far for building my little bar charts: $height = 50; //build length $width = 450; $multi = $brewAvg / 5; $width = $width * $multi; print " <tr > <td > $count. <a href=\"$breweryURL\"> $brewR</a> </td> <td > <img src=\"blueBar.png\" width=\"$width\" height=\"$height\"> </td> </tr> "; And this produces something like this: You can see in the code how I simply calculate the length of the bar based on a breweries rating. What I want to do next is have the rating number show on top of each breweries on the left hand side. How would I go about accomplishing this? Update: I tried a tutorial I read here: http://www.kavoir.com/2009/02/css-text-over-image.html and I changed my code to this: print "<div class=\"overlay\"> "; print " <tr valign=\"middle\" > <td > $count. <a href=\"$breweryURL\"> $brewR</a> </td> <td > <img src=\"blueBar.png\" width=\"$width\" height=\"$height\"> </td> </tr> "; print" <div class=\"text\"> <p> $brewAvg </p> </div> </div> "; And my css I added was this: <style> .overlay { position:relative; float:left; /* optional */ } .overlay .text { position:absolute; top:10px; /* in conjunction with left property, decides the text position */ left:10px; width:300px; /* optional, though better have one */ } </style> And it did put any of the value son top of my images. All the text is in a list above all the bars like this:

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• Display BLOB (image) through JSP

  - by jMarcel

  I have a code to show a chart o employees. The data (name, phone, photo etc) are stored in SQLServer and displayed through JSP. Showing the data is ok, except the image .jpg (stored in IMAGE=BLOB column). By the way, I've already got the image displayed (see code below), but I dont't know how to put it in the area defined in a .css (see code below, too), since the image got through the resultSet is loaded in the whole page in the browser. Does anyone knows how can I 'frame' the image ? <% Connection con = FactoryConnection_SQL_SERVER.getConnection("empCHART"); Statement stSuper = con.createStatement(); Statement stSetor = con.createStatement(); Blob image = null; byte[] imgData = null; ResultSet rsSuper = stSuper.executeQuery("SELECT * FROM funChart WHERE dept = 'myDept'"); if (rsSuper.next()) { image = rsSuper.getBlob(12); imgData = image.getBytes(1, (int) image.length()); response.setContentType("image/gif"); OutputStream o = response.getOutputStream(); //o.write(imgData); // even here we got the same as below. //o.flush(); //o.close(); --[...] <table style="margin: 0px; margin-top: 15px;"> <tr> <td id="photo"> <img title="<%=rsSuper.getString("empName").trim()%>" src="<%= o.wite(imageData); o.flush(); o.close(); %>" /> </td> </td> <td id="empData"> <h3><%=rsSuper.getString("empName")%></h3> <p><%=rsSuper.getString("Position")%></p> <p>Id:<br/><%=rsSuper.getString("id")%></p> <p>Phone:<br/><%=rsSuper.getString("Phone")%></p> <p>E-Mail:<br/><%=rsSuper.getString("Email")%></p> </td> </table> And here is the fragment supposed to frame the image: #photo { padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; text-align: center; width: 170px; height: 220px; } Thanks in advance !

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• How To Activate Your Free Office 2007 to 2010 Tech Guarantee Upgrade

  - by Matthew Guay

  Have you purchased Office 2007 since March 5th, 2010?  If so, here’s how you can activate and download your free upgrade to Office 2010! Microsoft Office 2010 has just been released, and today you can purchase upgrades from most retail stores or directly from Microsoft via download.  But if you’ve purchased a new copy of Office 2007 or a new computer that came with Office 2007 since March 5th, 2010, then you’re entitled to an absolutely free upgrade to Office 2010.  You’ll need enter information about your Office 2007 and then download the upgrade, so we’ll step you through the process. Getting Started First, if you’ve recently purchased Office 2007 but haven’t installed it, you’ll need to go ahead and install it before you can get your free Office 2010 upgrade.  Install it as normal.   Once Office 2007 is installed, run any of the Office programs.  You’ll be prompted to activate Office.  Make sure you’re connected to the internet, and then click Next to activate. Get your Free Upgrade to Office 2010 Now you’re ready to download your upgrade to Office 2010.  Head to the Office Tech Guarantee site (link below), and click Upgrade now. You’ll need to enter some information about your Office 2007.  Check that you purchased your copy of Office 2007 after March 5th, select your computer manufacturer, and check that you agree to the terms. Now you’re going to need the Product ID number from Office 2007.  To find this, open Word or any other Office 2007 application.  Click the Office Orb, and select Options on the bottom. Select the Resources button on the left, and then click About. Near the bottom of this dialog, you’ll see your Product ID.  This should be a number like: 12345-123-1234567-12345   Go back to the Office Tech Guarantee signup page in your browser, and enter this Product ID.  Select the language of your edition of Office 2007, enter the verification code, and then click Submit. It may take a few moments to validate your Product ID. When it is finished, you’ll be taken to an order page that shows the edition of Office 2010 you’re eligible to receive.  The upgrade download is free, but if you’d like to purchase a backup DVD of Office 2010, you can add it to your order for $13.99.  Otherwise, simply click Continue to accept. Do note that the edition of Office 2010 you receive may be different that the edition of Office 2007 you purchased, as the number of editions has been streamlined in the Office 2010 release.  Here’s a chart you can check to see what edition you’ll receive.  Note that you’ll still be allowed to install Office on the same number of computers; for example, Office 2007 Home and Student allows you to install it on up to 3 computers in the same house, and your Office 2010 upgrade will allow the same. Office 2007 Edition Office 2010 Upgrade You’ll Receive Office 2007 Home and Student Office Home and Student 2010 Office Basic 2007Office Standard 2007 Office Home and Business 2010 Office Small Business 2007Office Professional 2007Office Ultimate 2007 Office Professional 2010 Office Professional 2007 AcademicOffice Ultimate 2007 Academic Office Professional Academic 2010 Sign in with your Windows Live ID, or create a new one if you don’t already have one. Enter your name, select your country, and click Create My Account.  Note that Office will send Office 2010 tips to your email address; if you don’t wish to receive them, you can unsubscribe from the emails later.   Finally, you’re ready to download Office 2010!  Click the Download Now link to start downloading Office 2010.  Your Product Key will appear directly above the Download link, so you can copy it and then paste it in the installer when your download is finished.  You will additionally receive an email with the download links and product key, so if your download fails you can always restart it from that link. If your edition of Office 2007 included the Office Business Contact Manager, you will be able to download it from the second Download link.  And, of course, even if you didn’t order a backup DVD, you can always burn the installers to a DVD for a backup.   Install Office 2010 Once you’re finished downloading Office 2010, run the installer to get it installed on your computer.  Enter your Product Key from the Tech Guarantee website as above, and click Continue. Accept the license agreement, and then click Upgrade to upgrade to the latest version of Office.   The installer will remove all of your Office 2007 applications, and then install their 2010 counterparts.  If you wish to keep some of your Office 2007 applications instead, click Customize and then select to either keep all previous versions or simply keep specific applications. By default, Office 2010 will try to activate online automatically.  If it doesn’t activate during the install, you’ll need to activate it when you first run any of the Office 2010 apps.   Conclusion The Tech Guarantee makes it easy to get the latest version of Office if you recently purchased Office 2007.  The Tech Guarantee program is open through the end of September, so make sure to grab your upgrade during this time.  Actually, if you find a great deal on Office 2007 from a major retailer between now and then, you could also take advantage of this program to get Office 2010 cheaper. And if you need help getting started with Office 2010, check out our articles that can help you get situated in your new version of Office! Link Activate and Download Your free Office 2010 Tech Guarantee Upgrade Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Remove Office 2010 Beta and Reinstall Office 2007Upgrade Office 2003 to 2010 on XP or Run them Side by SideCenter Pictures and Other Objects in Office 2007 & 2010Change the Default Color Scheme in Office 2010Show Two Time Zones in Your Outlook 2007 Calendar TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Windows Media Player Plus! – Cool WMP Enhancer Get Your Team’s World Cup Schedule In Google Calendar Backup Drivers With Driver Magician TubeSort: YouTube Playlist Organizer XPS file format & XPS Viewer Explained Microsoft Office Web Apps Guide

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• SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services - The Word is But a Stage (T-SQL Tuesday #006)

  - by smisner

  Host Michael Coles (blog|twitter) has selected LOB data as the topic for this month's T-SQL Tuesday, so I'll take this opportunity to post an overview of reporting with spatial data types. As part of my work with SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services, I've been exploring the use of spatial data types in the new map data region. You can create a map using any of the following data sources: Map Gallery - a set of Shapefiles for the United States only that ships with Reporting Services ESRI Shapefile - a .shp file conforming to the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) shapefile spatial data format SQL Server spatial data - a query that includes SQLGeography or SQLGeometry data types Rob Farley (blog|twitter) points out today in his T-SQL Tuesday post that using the SQL geography field is a preferable alternative to ESRI shapefiles for storing spatial data in SQL Server. So how do you get spatial data? If you don't already have a GIS application in-house, you can find a variety of sources. Here are a few to get you started: US Census Bureau Website, http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/ Global Administrative Areas Spatial Database, http://biogeo.berkeley.edu/gadm/ Digital Chart of the World Data Server, http://www.maproom.psu.edu/dcw/ In a recent post by Pinal Dave (blog|twitter), you can find a link to free shapefiles for download and a tutorial for using Shape2SQL, a free tool to convert shapefiles into SQL Server data. In my post today, I'll show you how to use combine spatial data that describes boundaries with spatial data in AdventureWorks2008R2 that identifies stores locations to embed a map in a report. Preparing the spatial data First, I downloaded Shapefile data for the administrative boundaries in France and unzipped the data to a local folder. Then I used Shape2SQL to upload the data into a SQL Server database called Spatial. I'm not sure of the reason why, but I had to uncheck the option to create a spatial index to upload the data. Otherwise, the upload appeared to run successfully, but no table appeared in my database. The zip file that I downloaded contained three files, but I didn't know what was in them until I used Shape2SQL to upload the data into tables. Then I found that FRA_adm0 contains spatial data for the country of France, FRA_adm1 contains spatial data for each region, and FRA_adm2 contains spatial data for each department (a subdivision of region). Next I prepared my SQL query containing sales data for fictional stores selling Adventure Works products in France. The Person.Address table in the AdventureWorks2008R2 database (which you can download from Codeplex) contains a SpatialLocation column which I joined - along with several other tables - to the Sales.Customer and Sales.Store tables. I'll be able to superimpose this data on a map to see where these stores are located. I included the SQL script for this query (as well as the spatial data for France) in the downloadable project that I created for this post. Step 1: Using the Map Wizard to Create a Map of France You can build a map without using the wizard, but I find it's rather useful in this case. Whether you use Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) or Report Builder 3.0, the map wizard is the same. I used BIDS so that I could create a project that includes all the files related to this post. To get started, I added an empty report template to the project and named it France Stores. Then I opened the Toolbox window and dragged the Map item to the report body which starts the wizard. Here are the steps to perform to create a map of France: On the Choose a source of spatial data page of the wizard, select SQL Server spatial query, and click Next. On the Choose a dataset with SQL Server spatial data page, select Add a new dataset with SQL Server spatial data. On the Choose a connection to a SQL Server spatial data source page, select New. In the Data Source Properties dialog box, on the General page, add a connecton string like this (changing your server name if necessary): Data Source=(local);Initial Catalog=Spatial Click OK and then click Next. On the Design a query page, add a query for the country shape, like this: select * from fra_adm1 Click Next. The map wizard reads the spatial data and renders it for you on the Choose spatial data and map view options page, as shown below. You have the option to add a Bing Maps layer which shows surrounding countries. Depending on the type of Bing Maps layer that you choose to add (from Road, Aerial, or Hybrid) and the zoom percentage you select, you can view city names and roads and various boundaries. To keep from cluttering my map, I'm going to omit the Bing Maps layer in this example, but I do recommend that you experiment with this feature. It's a nice integration feature. Use the + or - button to rexize the map as needed. (I used the + button to increase the size of the map until its edges were just inside the boundaries of the visible map area (which is called the viewport). You can eliminate the color scale and distance scale boxes that appear in the map area later. Select the Embed map data in this report for faster rendering. The spatial data won't be changing, so there's no need to leave it in the database. However, it does increase the size of the RDL. Click Next. On the Choose map visualization page, select Basic Map. We'll add data for visualization later. For now, we have just the outline of France to serve as the foundation layer for our map. Click Next, and then click Finish. Now click the color scale box in the lower left corner of the map, and press the Delete key to remove it. Then repeat to remove the distance scale box in the lower right corner of the map. Step 2: Add a Map Layer to an Existing Map The map data region allows you to add multiple layers. Each layer is associated with a different data set. Thus far, we have the spatial data that defines the regional boundaries in the first map layer. Now I'll add in another layer for the store locations by following these steps: If the Map Layers windows is not visible, click the report body, and then click twice anywhere on the map data region to display it. Click on the New Layer Wizard button in the Map layers window. And then we start over again with the process by choosing a spatial data source. Select SQL Server spatial query, and click Next. Select Add a new dataset with SQL Server spatial data, and click Next. Click New, add a connection string to the AdventureWorks2008R2 database, and click Next. Add a query with spatial data (like the one I included in the downloadable project), and click Next. The location data now appears as another layer on top of the regional map created earlier. Use the + button to resize the map again to fill as much of the viewport as possible without cutting off edges of the map. You might need to drag the map within the viewport to center it properly. Select Embed map data in this report, and click Next. On the Choose map visualization page, select Basic Marker Map, and click Next. On the Choose color theme and data visualization page, in the Marker drop-down list, change the marker to diamond. There's no particular reason for a diamond; I think it stands out a little better than a circle on this map. Clear the Single color map checkbox as another way to distinguish the markers from the map. You can of course create an analytical map instead, which would change the size and/or color of the markers according to criteria that you specify, such as sales volume of each store, but I'll save that exploration for another post on another day. Click Finish and then click Preview to see the rendered report. Et voilà...c'est fini. Yes, it's a very simple map at this point, but there are many other things you can do to enhance the map. I'll create a series of posts to explore the possibilities. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• SSL certificates and types for securing your websites and applications

  - by Mit Naik

  Need to share few information regarding SSL certificates and there types, which SSL certificates are widely used etc. There are several SSL certificates available in the market today inorder to secure your domains, multiple subdomains, your applications and code too. Few of the details are mentioned below. CheapSSL certificates available today are Standard Rapidssl certificate, Thwate SSL 123 etc certificates which are basic level certificates. Most of these cheap SSL certificates are domain-validated only and don't provide the greatest trust for your customers. This means you shouldn't use cheap SSL certificates on e-commerce stores or other public-facing sites that require people to trust the site. EV certificates I found Geotrust Truebusinessid with EV certificate which is one of the cheapest certificate available in market today, you can also find Thwate, Versign EV version of certificates. Its designed to prevent phishing attacks better than normal SSL certificates. What makes an EV Certificate so special? An SSL Certificate Provider has to do some extensive validation to give you one including: Verifying that your organization is legally registered and active, Verifying the address and phone number of your organization, Verifying that your organization has exclusive right to use the domain specified in the EV Certificate, Verifying that the person ordering the certificate has been authorized by the organization, Verifying that your organization is not on any government blacklists. SSL WILDCARD CERTIFICATES, SSL Wildcard Certificates are big money-savers. An SSL Wildcard Certificate allows you to secure an unlimited number of first-level sub-domains on a single domain name. For example, if you need to secure the following websites: * www.yourdomain.com * secure.yourdomain.com * product.yourdomain.com * info.yourdomain.com * download.yourdomain.com * anything.yourdomain.com and all of these websites are hosted on the multiple server box, you can purchase and install one Wildcard certificate issued to *.yourdomain.com to secure all these sites. SAN CERTIFICATES, are interesting certificates and are helpfull if you want to secure multiple domains by generating single CSR and can install the same certificate on your additional sites without generating new CSRs for all the additional domains. CODE SIGNING CERTIFICATES, A code signing certificate is a file containing a digital signature that can be used to sign executables and scripts in order to verify your identity and ensure that your code has not been tampered with since it was signed. This helps your users to determine whether your software can be trusted. Scroll to the chart below to compare cheap code signing certificates. A code signing certificate allows you to sign code using a private and public key system similar to how an SSL certificate secures a website. When you request a code signing certificate, a public/private key pair is generated. The certificate authority will then issue a code signing certificate that contains the public key. A certificate for code signing needs to be signed by a trusted certificate authority so that the operating system knows that your identity has been validated. You could still use the code signing certificate to sign and distribute malicious software but you will be held legally accountable for it. You can sign many different types of code. The most common types include Windows applications such as .exe, .cab, .dll, .ocx, and .xpi files (using an Authenticode certificate), Apple applications (using an Apple code signing certificate), Microsoft Office VBA objects and macros (using a VBA code signing certificate), .jar files (using a Java code signing certificate), .air or .airi files (using an Adobe AIR certificate), and Windows Vista drivers and other kernel-mode software (using a Vista code certificate). In reality, a code signing certificate can sign almost all types of code as long as you convert the certificate to the correct format first. Also I found the below URL which provides you good suggestion regarding purchasing best SSL certificates for securing your site, as per the Financial institution, Bank, Hosting providers, ISP, Retail Merchants etc. Please vote and provide comments or any additional suggestions regarding SSL certificates.

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• Blogging tips for SQL Server professionals

  - by jamiet

  For some time now I have been intending to put some material together relating my blogging experiences since I began blogging in 2004 and that led to me submitting a session for SQLBits recently where I intended to do just that. That didn’t get enough votes to allow me to present however so instead I resolved to write a blog post about it and Simon Sabin’s recent post Blogging – how do you do it? has prompted me to get around to completing it. So, here I present a compendium of tips that I’ve picked up from authoring a fair few blog posts over the past 6 years. Feedburner Feedburner.com is a service that can consume your blog’s default RSS feed and provide another, replacement, feed that has exactly the same content. You can then supply that replacement feed on your blog site for other people to consume in their RSS readers. Why would you want to do this? Well, two reasons actually: It makes your blog portable. If you ever want to move your blog to a different URL you don’t have to tell your subscribers to move to a different feed. The feedburner feed is a pointer to your blog content rather than being a copy of it. Feedburner will collect stats telling you how many people are subscribed to your feed, which RSS readers they use, stuff like that. Here’s a sample screenshot for http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/: It also tells you what your most viewed posts are: Web stats like these are notoriously inaccurate but then again the method of measurement here is not important, what IS important is that it gives you a trustworthy ranking of your blog posts and (in my opinion) knowing which are your most popular posts is more important than knowing exactly how many views each post has had. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what Feedburner provides and I recommend every new blogger to try it! Monitor subscribers using Google Reader If for some reason Feedburner is not to your taste or (more likely) you already have an established RSS feed that you do not want to change then Google provide another way in which you can monitor your readership in the shape of their online RSS reader, Google Reader. It provides, for every RSS feed, a collection of stats including the number of Google Reader users that have subscribed to that RSS feed. This is really valuable information and in fact I have been recording this statistic for mine and a number of other blogs for a few years now and as such I can produce the following chart that indicates how readership is trending for those blogs over time: [Good news for my fellow SQLBlog bloggers.] As Stephen Few readily points out, its not the numbers that are important but the trend. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) SEO (or “How do I get my blog to show up in Google”) is a massive area of expertise which I don’t want (and am unable) to cover in much detail here but there are some simple rules of thumb that will help: Tags – If your blog engine offers the ability to add tags to your blog post, use them. Invariably those tags go into the meta section of the page HTML and search engines lap that stuff up. For example, from my recent post Microsoft publish Visual Studio 2010 Database Project Guidance: Title – Search engines take notice of web page titles as well so make them specific and descriptive (e.g. “Configuring dtsConfig connection strings”) rather than esoteric and meaningless in a vain attempt to be humorous (e.g. “Last night a DJ saved my ETL batch”)! Title(2) – Make your title even more search engine friendly by mentioning high level subject areas, not dissimilar to Twitter hashtags. For example, if you look at all of my posts related to SSIS you will notice that nearly all contain the word “SSIS” in the title even if I had to shoehorn it in there by putting it in square brackets or similar. Another tip, if you ARE putting words into your titles in this artificial manner then put them at the end so that they’re not that prominent in search engine results; they’re there for the search engines to consume, not for human beings. Images – Always add titles and alternate text (ALT attribute) to images in your blog post. If you use Windows 7 or Windows Vista then you can use Live Writer (which Simon recommended) makes this easy for you. Headings – If you want to highlight section headings use heading tags (e.g. <H1>, <H2>, <H3> etc…) rather than just formatting the text appropriately – again, Live makes this easy. These tags give your blog posts structure that is understood by search engines and RSS readers alike. (I believe it makes them more amenable to CSS as well – though that’s not something I know too much about). If you check the HTML source for the blog post you’re reading right now you’ll be able to scan through and see where I have used heading tags. Microsoft provide a free tool called the SEO Toolkit that will analyse your blog site (for free) and tell you what things you should change to improve SEO. Go read more and download for free at Search Engine Optimization Toolkit. Did I mention that it was free? Miscellaneous Tips If you are including code in your blog post then ensure it is formatted correctly. Use SQL Server Central’s T-SQL prettifier for formatting T-SQL code. Use images and videos. Personally speaking there’s nothing I like less when reading a blog than paragraph after paragraph of text. Images make your blog more appealing which means people are more likely to read what you have written. Be original. Don’t plagiarise other people’s content and don’t simply rewrite the contents of Books Online. Every time you publish a blog post tweet a link to it. Include hashtags in your tweet that are more likely to grab people’s attention. That’s probably enough for now - I hope this blog post proves useful to someone out there. If you would appreciate a related session at a forthcoming SQLBits conference then please let me know. This will likely be my last blog post for 2010 so I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has commented on, linked to or read any of my blog posts in that time. 2011 is shaping up to be a very interesting for SQL Server observers with the impending release of SQL Server code-named Denali and I promise I’ll have lots more content on that as the year progresses. Happy New Year. @Jamiet

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• User Experience Highlights in PeopleSoft and PeopleTools: Direct from Jeff Robbins

  - by mvaughan

  By Kathy Miedema, Oracle Applications User Experience  This is the fifth in a series of blog posts on the user experience (UX) highlights in various Oracle product families. The last posted interview was with Nadia Bendjedou, Senior Director, Product Strategy on upcoming Oracle E-Business Suite user experience highlights. You’ll see themes around productivity and efficiency, and get an early look at the latest mobile offerings coming through these product lines. Today’s post is on the user experience in PeopleSoft and PeopleTools. To learn more about what’s ahead, attend PeopleSoft or PeopleTools OpenWorld presentations.This interview is with Jeff Robbins, Senior Director, PeopleSoft Development. Jeff Robbins Q: How would you describe the vision you have for the user experience of PeopleSoft?A: Intuitive – Specifically, customers use PeopleSoft to help their employees do their day-to-day work, and the UI (user interface) has been helpful and assistive in that effort. If it’s not obvious what they need to do a task, then the UI isn’t working. So the application needs to make it simple for users to find information they need, complete a task, do all the things they are responsible for, and it really helps when the UI just makes sense. Productive – PeopleSoft is a tool used to support people to do their work, and a lot of users are measured by how much work they’re able to get done per hour, per day, etc. The UI needs to help them be as productive as possible, and can’t make them waste time or energy. The UI needs to reflect the type of work necessary for a task -- if it's data entry, the UI needs to assist the user to get information into the system. For analysts, the UI needs help users assess or analyze information in a particular way. Innovative – The concept of the UI being innovative is something we’ve been working on for years. It’s not just that we want to be seen as innovative, the fact is that companies are asking their employees to do more than they’ve ever asked before. More often companies want to roll out processes as employee or manager self-service, where an employee is responsible to review and maintain their own data. So we’ve had to reinvent, and ask,  “How can we modify the ways an employee interacts with our applications so that they can be more productive and efficient – even with tasks that are entirely unfamiliar?”  Our focus on innovation has forced us to design new ways for users to interact with the entire application.Q: How are the UX features you have delivered so far resonating with customers?  A: Resonating very well. We’re hearing tremendous responses from users, managers, decision-makers -- who are very happy with the improved user experience. Many of the individual features resonate well. Some have really hit home, others are better than they used to be but show us that there’s still room for improvement.A couple innovations really stand out; features that have a significant effect on how users interact with PeopleSoft.First, the deployment of PeopleSoft in a way that’s more like a consumer website with the PeopleSoft Home page and Dashboards.  This new approach is very web-centric, where users feel they’re coming to a website rather than logging into an enterprise application.  There’s lots of information from all around the organization collected in a way that feels very familiar to users. In order to do your job, you can come to this web site rather than having to learn how to log into an application and figure out a complicated menu. Companies can host these really rich web sites for employees that are home pages for accessing critical tasks and information. The UI elements of incorporating search into the whole navigation process is another hit. Rather than having to log in and choose a task from a menu, users come to the web site and begin a task by simply searching for data: themselves, another employee, a customer record, whatever.  The search results include the data along with a set of actions the user might take, completely eliminating the need to hunt through a complicated system menu. Search-centric navigation is really sitting well with customers who are trying to deploy an intuitive set of systems. Q: Are any UX highlights more popular than you expected them to be?  A: We introduced a feature called Pivot Grid in the last release, which is a combination of an interactive grid, like an Excel Pivot Table, along with a dynamic visual chart that automatically graphs the data. I wasn’t certain at first how extensively this would be used. It looked like an innovative tool, but it wasn’t clear how it would be incorporated in business process applications. The fact is that everyone who sees Pivot Grids is thrilled with that kind of interactivity.  It reflects the amount of analytical thinking customers are asking employees to do. Employees can’t just enter data any more. They must interact with it, analyze it, and make decisions. Pivot Grids fit into this way of working. Q: What can you tell us about PeopleSoft’s mobile offerings?A: A lot of customers are finding that mobile is the chief priority in their organization.  They tell us they want their employees to be able to access company information from their mobile devices.  Of course, not everyone has the same requirements, so we’re working to make sure we can help our customers accomplish what they’re trying to do.  We’ve already delivered a number of mobile features.  For instance, PeopleSoft home pages, dashboards and workcenters all work well on an iPad, straight out of the box.  We’ve delivered a number of key functions and tasks for mobile workers – those who are responsible for using a mobile device to manage inventory, for example.  Customers tell us they also need a holistic strategy, one that allows their employees to access nearly every task from a mobile device.  While we don’t expect users to do extensive data entry from their smartphone, it makes sense that they have access to company information and systems while away from their desk.  That’s where our strategy is going now.  We plan to unveil a number of new mobile offerings at OpenWorld.  Some will be available then, some shortly after. Q: What else are you working on now that you think is going to be exciting to customers at Oracle OpenWorld?A: Our next release -- the big thing is PeopleSoft 9.2, and we’ll be talking about the huge amount of work that’s gone into the next versions. A new toolset, 8.53, will be coming, and there’s a lot to talk about there, and the next generation of PeopleSoft 9.2.  We have a ton of new stuff coming.Q: What do you want PeopleSoft customers to know? A: We have been focusing on the user experience in PeopleSoft as a very high priority for the last 4 years, and it’s had interesting effects. One thing is that the application is better, more usable.  We’ve made visible improvements. Another aspect is that in customers’ minds, the PeopleSoft brand is being reinvigorated. Customers invested in PeopleSoft years ago, and then they weren’t sure where PeopleSoft was going.  This investment in the UI and overall user experience keeps PeopleSoft current, innovative and fresh.  Customers  are able to take advantage of a lot of new features, even on the older applications, simply by upgrading their PeopleTools. The interest in that ability has been tremendous. Knowing they have a lot of these features available -- right now, that’s pretty huge. There’s been a tremendous amount of positive response, just on the fact that we’re focusing on the user experience. Editor’s note: For more on PeopleSoft and PeopleTools user experience highlights, visit the Usable Apps web site.To find out more about these enhancements at Openworld, be sure to check out these sessions: GEN8928     General Session: PeopleSoft Update and Product RoadmapCON9183     PeopleSoft PeopleTools Technology Roadmap CON8932     New Functional PeopleSoft PeopleTools Capabilities for the Line-of-Business UserCON9196     PeopleSoft PeopleTools Roadmap: Mobile ApplicationsCON9186     Case Study: Delivering a Groundbreaking User Interface with PeopleSoft PeopleTools

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• Product Development Investment: A Measure of Vendor Performance

  - by Jim Mcglothlin

  The relationship between a large, complex organization and its key suppliers of information technology is normally more than just "strategic". Expectations about the duration of the relationship typically exceed 20 years. Enterprise applications and technology infrastructure are not expected to be changed out like petunias. So how would you rate the due diligence processes as performed in Higher Education when selecting critical, transformational information technology? My observation: I see a lot of effort put into elaborate demonstration of basic software functionality. I see a lot of attention paid to the cost element of technology acquisition, including the contracted cost of implementation consulting services. But the factor that receives only cursory analysis and due diligence is long-term performance--the ability of a vendor to grow, expand, and develop, and bring its customers along with it. So what should you look for in a long-term IT supplier? Oracle has a public track record for product development. The annual investment has been on a run rate of almost $3 Billion organic product development. Oracle's well-publicized acquisitions and mergers have been supplemental to its R&D. This is important for Higher Education. Another meaningful way to evaluate a company is to look at the tangible track record of enhancement. Consider the Oracle-PeopleSoft enterprise business platform since acquired by Oracle 6 years ago: Product or Technology Enhancement Customer or User Impact Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) 300+ new web services delivered in versions 9.0 & 9.1 provide flexibility, so that customers can integrate PeopleSoft with other applications. Campus Solutions has added Admissions and Constituent Web Services. Constituent Relationship Management PeopleSoft CRM 9.1 for Higher Education introduced new process flows for student recruiting and retention to support "Student Success" initiatives. A 360 view of the constituent is now delivered, and the concept of a single-stop Student Services Center is now in CRM 9.1 with tight integration to PeopleSoft Campus Solutions. Human Capital Management Contract Pay for Education, with flexibility for configuration and calculation, has been extended in HCM 9.1. New chartfield integration among Project Costing - Time & Labor - Payroll to serve the labor distribution requirements for Grants / Sponsored Research. Talent Management PeopleSoft 9.0 and 9.1 feature an integrated talent management approach centered on definitions in "Profile Manager", with all new usability improvements. Internal and external candidate pools, and the entire recruitment process, are driven by delivered configurable selection and on-boarding processes. Interview scheduling, and online job offers are newly delivered processes. Performance Management PeopleSoft HCM ePerformance 9.1 will include significant new functionality designed to help organizations more effectively align business objectives with employee goals. Using an Organization Chart view, your business goals can flow down to become tangible objectives per employee. Succession Planning / Workforce Development New in HCM 9.0, enhanced in 9.1, is a planning capability for regular or unusual (major organizational change) succession of internal or external candidates. PeopleSoft supports employee-based career planning, which ultimately increases the integrity of the succession planning process (identify their career needs, plans, preferences, and interests). Dashboards / Oracle Business Intelligence Application Suite Oracle Human Resources Analytics provides the workforce information foundation that integrates data from HR functional areas and Finance. Oracle Human Resources Analytics delivers 9 dashboards and over 200 reports. Provide your HR professionals and front-line managers the tools to analyze workforce staffing, retention, productivity, to better source high-quality applicants, and to reduce absence costs. Multi-year Planning and Commitment Control External funding sources, especially Grants, require a multi-year encumbrance business process. PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 adds multi-year funding and commitment control, including budget checking. The newly designed Real Time Budget Checking will provide the customer with an updated snapshot of their budget and encumbrances at any given time. Position Budgeting with Hyperion Hyperion Planning world-class products now include delivered integration to PeopleSoft HCM. Position Budgeting is available in the new Public Sector Planning module of Hyperion. Web 2.0 features for the latest in usability PeopleSoft 9.1 features a contemporary internet user experience: Partial-page refreshing Drag and drop pagelets New menu structure Navigation pagelets Modal popup message windows Favorites & recently used links Type-ahead Drag and drop grid columns, pop-out grids Portal Workspaces Enterprise 2.0 for your collaborative web communities, using new content management, along with Wikis, blogs, and discussion forums in PeopleSoft Portal 9.1. PeopleTools enhanced by Oracle Fusion Middleware Standards-based tools have been added to the PeopleTools application infrastructure: BI (XML) Publisher, Java tools. Certified for use with PeopleSoft: Oracle Business Intelligence (OBIEE), Oracle Enterprise Manager, Oracle Weblogic Server, Oracle SOA Suite. Hosting for PeopleSoft applications A solid new deployment option: Oracle On Demand remote hosting center for high scalability, security, and continuity of operations. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) for HCM / Payroll functions Partnership with AT&T provides hosting of HR/Payroll application along with payroll business process operations, and subscription-based service fees (SaaS). AT&T BPO full service includes pay sheet processing, bank and 3rd party file transfer, payroll tax handling, etc. Continuous Delivery Model Feature Packs provide faster time-to-benefit; new features become available in PeopleSoft 9.1 (or Campus Solutions 9.0) without need to perform upgrade. Golden person data model across all campus applications Oracle Higher Education Constituent Hub provides synchronization and data governance of person data across any application, e.g. HR/ Payroll, Student Information System, Housing, Emergency Contact, LMS, CRM. Oracle's aggressive enhancement plans within the "Applications Unlimited" program continue, as new functionality is under development for a new version of a PeopleSoft release planned for 2012. Meanwhile, new capabilities are planned on an annual basis in Feature Packs. PeopleSoft just delivered the HCM 2010 Feature Pack and another is planned for 2011. In February we plan to have over 100 customers from our Customer Advisory Boards at our PeopleSoft Development Center in California to review designs for all of these releases. For those of you near New York City The investment and progressive development story described above is the subject of an Oracle road show event on February 9, 2011. Charting Your Course with Oracle Applications is a global event series designed to help business and IT executives assess the impact of new inflection points on their business and applications roadmap: changing workforces, shifting customer and constituent bases, and increased volatility. Learn how innovations ranging from new deployment models like cloud computing to the introduction of social applications and smart devices are delivering results across all areas of business and industry. THIS DOCUMENT IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND MAY NOT BE INCORPORATED INTO A CONTRACT OR AGREEMENT.

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• SQL SERVER – SSMS: Disk Usage Report

  - by Pinal Dave

  Let us start with humor!  I think we the series on various reports, we come to a logical point. We covered all the reports at server level. This means the reports we saw were targeted towards activities that are related to instance level operations. These are mostly like how a doctor diagnoses a patient. At this point I am reminded of a dialog which I read somewhere: Patient: Doc, It hurts when I touch my head. Doc: Ok, go on. What else have you experienced? Patient: It hurts even when I touch my eye, it hurts when I touch my arms, it even hurts when I touch my feet, etc. Doc: Hmmm … Patient: I feel it hurts when I touch anywhere in my body. Doc: Ahh … now I get it. You need a plaster to your finger John. Sometimes the server level gives an indicator to what is happening in the system, but we need to get to the root cause for a specific database. So, this is the first blog in series where we would start discussing about database level reports. To launch database level reports, expand selected server in Object Explorer, expand the Databases folder, and then right-click any database for which we want to look at reports. From the menu, select Reports, then Standard Reports, and then any of database level reports. In this blog, we would talk about four “disk” reports because they are similar: Disk Usage Disk Usage by Top Tables Disk Usage by Table Disk Usage by Partition Disk Usage This report shows multiple information about the database. Let us discuss them one by one.  We have divided the output into 5 different sections. Section 1 shows the high level summary of the database. It shows the space used by database files (mdf and ldf). Under the hood, the report uses, various DMVs and DBCC Commands, it is using sys.data_spaces and DBCC SHOWFILESTATS. Section 2 and 3 are pie charts. One for data file allocation and another for the transaction log file. Pie chart for “Data Files Space Usage (%)” shows space consumed data, indexes, allocated to the SQL Server database, and unallocated space which is allocated to the SQL Server database but not yet filled with anything. “Transaction Log Space Usage (%)” used DBCC SQLPERF (LOGSPACE) and shows how much empty space we have in the physical transaction log file. Section 4 shows the data from Default Trace and looks at Event IDs 92, 93, 94, 95 which are for “Data File Auto Grow”, “Log File Auto Grow”, “Data File Auto Shrink” and “Log File Auto Shrink” respectively. Here is an expanded view for that section. If default trace is not enabled, then this section would be replaced by the message “Trace Log is disabled” as highlighted below. Section 5 of the report uses DBCC SHOWFILESTATS to get information. Here is the enhanced version of that section. This shows the physical layout of the file. In case you have In-Memory Objects in the database (from SQL Server 2014), then report would show information about those as well. Here is the screenshot taken for a different database, which has In-Memory table. I have highlighted new things which are only shown for in-memory database. The new sections which are highlighted above are using sys.dm_db_xtp_checkpoint_files, sys.database_files and sys.data_spaces. The new type for in-memory OLTP is ‘FX’ in sys.data_space. The next set of reports is targeted to get information about a table and its storage. These reports can answer questions like: Which is the biggest table in the database? How many rows we have in table? Is there any table which has a lot of reserved space but its unused? Which partition of the table is having more data? Disk Usage by Top Tables This report provides detailed data on the utilization of disk space by top 1000 tables within the Database. The report does not provide data for memory optimized tables. Disk Usage by Table This report is same as earlier report with few difference. First Report shows only 1000 rows First Report does order by values in DMV sys.dm_db_partition_stats whereas second one does it based on name of the table. Both of the reports have interactive sort facility. We can click on any column header and change the sorting order of data. Disk Usage by Partition This report shows the distribution of the data in table based on partition in the table. This is so similar to previous output with the partition details now. Here is the query taken from profiler. SELECT row_number() OVER (ORDER BY a1.used_page_count DESC, a1.index_id) AS row_number ,      (dense_rank() OVER (ORDER BY a5.name, a2.name))%2 AS l1 ,      a1.OBJECT_ID ,      a5.name AS [schema] ,       a2.name ,       a1.index_id ,       a3.name AS index_name ,       a3.type_desc ,       a1.partition_number ,       a1.used_page_count * 8 AS total_used_pages ,       a1.reserved_page_count * 8 AS total_reserved_pages ,       a1.row_count FROM sys.dm_db_partition_stats a1 INNER JOIN sys.all_objects a2  ON ( a1.OBJECT_ID = a2.OBJECT_ID) AND a1.OBJECT_ID NOT IN (SELECT OBJECT_ID FROM sys.tables WHERE is_memory_optimized = 1) INNER JOIN sys.schemas a5 ON (a5.schema_id = a2.schema_id) LEFT OUTER JOIN  sys.indexes a3  ON ( (a1.OBJECT_ID = a3.OBJECT_ID) AND (a1.index_id = a3.index_id) ) WHERE (SELECT MAX(DISTINCT partition_number) FROM sys.dm_db_partition_stats a4 WHERE (a4.OBJECT_ID = a1.OBJECT_ID)) >= 1 AND a2.TYPE <> N'S' AND  a2.TYPE <> N'IT' ORDER BY a5.name ASC, a2.name ASC, a1.index_id, a1.used_page_count DESC, a1.partition_number Using all of the above reports, you should be able to get the usage of database files and also space used by tables. I think this is too much disk information for a single blog and I hope you have used them in the past to get data. Do let me know if you found anything interesting using these reports in your environments. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: SQL Reports

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• The Data Scientist

  - by BuckWoody

  A new term - well, perhaps not that new - has come up and I’m actually very excited about it. The term is Data Scientist, and since it’s new, it’s fairly undefined. I’ll explain what I think it means, and why I’m excited about it. In general, I’ve found the term deals at its most basic with analyzing data. Of course, we all do that, and the term itself in that definition is redundant. There is no science that I know of that does not work with analyzing lots of data. But the term seems to refer to more than the common practices of looking at data visually, putting it in a spreadsheet or report, or even using simple coding to examine data sets. The term Data Scientist (as far as I can make out this early in it’s use) is someone who has a strong understanding of data sources, relevance (statistical and otherwise) and processing methods as well as front-end displays of large sets of complicated data. Some - but not all - Business Intelligence professionals have these skills. In other cases, senior developers, database architects or others fill these needs, but in my experience, many lack the strong mathematical skills needed to make these choices properly. I’ve divided the knowledge base for someone that would wear this title into three large segments. It remains to be seen if a given Data Scientist would be responsible for knowing all these areas or would specialize. There are pretty high requirements on the math side, specifically in graduate-degree level statistics, but in my experience a company will only have a few of these folks, so they are expected to know quite a bit in each of these areas. Persistence The first area is finding, cleaning and storing the data. In some cases, no cleaning is done prior to storage - it’s just identified and the cleansing is done in a later step. This area is where the professional would be able to tell if a particular data set should be stored in a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), across a set of key/value pair storage (NoSQL) or in a file system like HDFS (part of the Hadoop landscape) or other methods. Or do you examine the stream of data without storing it in another system at all? This is an important decision - it’s a foundation choice that deals not only with a lot of expense of purchasing systems or even using Cloud Computing (PaaS, SaaS or IaaS) to source it, but also the skillsets and other resources needed to care and feed the system for a long time. The Data Scientist sets something into motion that will probably outlast his or her career at a company or organization. Often these choices are made by senior developers, database administrators or architects in a company. But sometimes each of these has a certain bias towards making a decision one way or another. The Data Scientist would examine these choices in light of the data itself, starting perhaps even before the business requirements are created. The business may not even be aware of all the strategic and tactical data sources that they have access to. Processing Once the decision is made to store the data, the next set of decisions are based around how to process the data. An RDBMS scales well to a certain level, and provides a high degree of ACID compliance as well as offering a well-known set-based language to work with this data. In other cases, scale should be spread among multiple nodes (as in the case of Hadoop landscapes or NoSQL offerings) or even across a Cloud provider like Windows Azure Table Storage. In fact, in many cases - most of the ones I’m dealing with lately - the data should be split among multiple types of processing environments. This is a newer idea. Many data professionals simply pick a methodology (RDBMS with Star Schemas, NoSQL, etc.) and put all data there, regardless of its shape, processing needs and so on. A Data Scientist is familiar not only with the various processing methods, but how they work, so that they can choose the right one for a given need. This is a huge time commitment, hence the need for a dedicated title like this one. Presentation This is where the need for a Data Scientist is most often already being filled, sometimes with more or less success. The latest Business Intelligence systems are quite good at allowing you to create amazing graphics - but it’s the data behind the graphics that are the most important component of truly effective displays. This is where the mathematics requirement of the Data Scientist title is the most unforgiving. In fact, someone without a good foundation in statistics is not a good candidate for creating reports. Even a basic level of statistics can be dangerous. Anyone who works in analyzing data will tell you that there are multiple errors possible when data just seems right - and basic statistics bears out that you’re on the right track - that are only solvable when you understanding why the statistical formula works the way it does. And there are lots of ways of presenting data. Sometimes all you need is a “yes” or “no” answer that can only come after heavy analysis work. In that case, a simple e-mail might be all the reporting you need. In others, complex relationships and multiple components require a deep understanding of the various graphical methods of presenting data. Knowing which kind of chart, color, graphic or shape conveys a particular datum best is essential knowledge for the Data Scientist. Why I’m excited I love this area of study. I like math, stats, and computing technologies, but it goes beyond that. I love what data can do - how it can help an organization. I’ve been fortunate enough in my professional career these past two decades to work with lots of folks who perform this role at companies from aerospace to medical firms, from manufacturing to retail. Interestingly, the size of the company really isn’t germane here. I worked with one very small bio-tech (cryogenics) company that worked deeply with analysis of complex interrelated data. So  watch this space. No, I’m not leaving Azure or distributed computing or Microsoft. In fact, I think I’m perfectly situated to investigate this role further. We have a huge set of tools, from RDBMS to Hadoop to allow me to explore. And I’m happy to share what I learn along the way.

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• Massive Silverlight Giveaway! DevExpress , Syncfusion, Crypto Obfuscator and SL Spy!

  - by mbcrump

  Oh my, have we grown! Maybe I should change the name to Multiple Silverlight Giveaways. So far, my Silverlight giveaways have been such a success that I’m going to be able to give away more than one Silverlight product every month. Last month, we gave away 3 great products. 1) ComponentOne Silverlight Controls 2)  ComponentOne XAP Optimizer (with obfuscation) and 3) Silverlight Spy. This month, we will give away 4 great Silverlight products and have 4 different winners. This way the Silverlight community can grow with more than just one person winning all the prizes. This month we will be giving away: DevExpress Silverlight Controls – Over 50+ Silverlight Controls Syncfusion User Interface Edition - Create stunning line of business silverlight applications with a wide range of components including a high performance grid, docking manager, chart, gauge, scheduler and much more. Crypto Obfuscator – Works for all .NET including Silverlight/Windows Phone 7. Silverlight Spy – provides a license EVERY month for this giveaway. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Win a FREE developer’s license of one of the products listed above! 4 winners will be announced on April 1st, 2011! To be entered into the contest do the following things: Subscribe to my feed. – Use Google Reader, email or whatever is best for you.  Leave a comment below with a valid email account (I WILL NOT share this info with anyone.) Retweet the following : I just entered to win free #Silverlight controls from @mbcrump . Register here: http://mcrump.me/fTSmB8 ! Don’t change the URL because this will allow me to track the users that Tweet this page. Don’t forget to visit each of the vendors sites because they made this possible. MichaelCrump.Net provides Silverlight Giveaways every month. You can also see the latest giveaway by bookmarking http://giveaways.michaelcrump.net . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DevExpress Silverlight Controls Let’s take a quick look at some of the software that is provided in this giveaway. Before we get started with the Silverlight Controls, here is a couple of links to bookmark for the DevExpress Silverlight Controls: The Live Demos of the Silverlight Controls is located here. Great Video Tutorials of the Silverlight Controls are here. One thing that I liked about the DevExpress is how easy it was to find demos of each control. After you install the controls the following Program Group appears complete with “demos” that include full-source.   So, the first question that you may ask is, “What is included?” Here is the official list below. I wanted to show several of the controls that I think developers will use the most. The Book – Very rich animation between switching pages. Very easy to add your own images and custom text. The Menu – This is another control that just looked great. You can easily add images to the menu items with a few lines of XAML. The Window / Dialog Box – You can use this control to make a very beautiful “Wizard” to help your users navigate between pages. This is useful in setup or installation. Calculator – This would be useful for any type of Banking app. Also a first that I’ve seen from a 3rd party Control company. DatePicker – This controls feels a lot smoother than the one provided by Microsoft. It also provides the ability to “Clear” the selection. Overall the DevExpress Silverlight Controls feature a lot of quality controls that you should check out. You can go ahead and download a trial version of it right now by clicking here. If you win the contest you can simply enter your registration key and continue using the product without reinstalling. Syncfusion User Interface Edition Before we get started with the Syncfusion User Interface Edition, here is a couple of links to bookmark. The Live Demos can be found here. You can download a demo of it now at http://www.syncfusion.com/downloads/evalstart. After you install the Syncfusion, you can view the dashboard to run locally installed samples. You may also download the documentation to your local machine if needed. Since the name of the package is “User Interface Edition”, I decided to share several samples that struck me as “awesome”. Dashboard Gauges – I was very impressed with the various gauges they have included. The digital clock also looks very impressive. Diagram – The diagrams are also very easy to build. In the sample project below you can drag/drop the shapes onto the content pane. More complex lines like the Bezier lines are also easy to create using Syncfusion. Scheduling – Another strong component was the Scheduling with built-in support for Themes. Tools – If all of that wasn’t enough, it also comes with a nice pack of essential tools. Syncfusion has a nice variety of Silverlight Controls that you should check out. You can go ahead and download a trial version of it right now by clicking here. Crypto Obfuscator The following feature set is what is important to me in an Obfuscator since I am a Silverlight/WP7 Developer: And thankfully this is what you get in Crypto Obfuscator. You can download a trial version right now if you want to go ahead and play with it. Let’s spend a few moments taking a look at the application. After you have installed Crypto Obfuscator you will see the following screen: After you click on Assemblies you have the option to add your .XAP file in: I went ahead and loaded my .xap file from a Silverlight Application. At this point, you can simply save your project and hit “Obfuscate” and your done. You don’t have to mess with any of the other settings if you don’t want too. Of course, you can change the settings and add obfuscation rules, watermarks and signing if you wish.  After Obfuscation, it looks like this in .NET Reflector: I was trying to browse through methods and it actually crashed Reflector. This confirms the level of protection the obfuscator is providing. If this were a commercial application that my team built, I would have a huge smile on my face right now. Crypto Obfuscator is a great product and I hope you will spend the time learning more about it. Silverlight Spy Silverlight Spy is a runtime inspector tool that will tell you pretty much everything that is going on with the application. Basically, you give it a URL that contains a Silverlight application and you can explore the element tree, events, xaml and so much more. This has already been reviewed on MichaelCrump.net. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Thanks for reading and don’t forget to leave a comment below in order to win one of the four prizes available! Subscribe to my feed

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