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• SQLIO Writes

  - by Grant Fritchey

  SQLIO is a fantastic utility for testing the abilities of the disks in your system. It has a very unfortunate name though, since it's not really a SQL Server testing utility at all. It really is a disk utility. They ought to call it DiskIO because they'd get more people using I think. Anyway, branding is not the point of this blog post. Writes are the point of this blog post. SQLIO works by slamming your disk. It performs as mean reads as it can or it performs as many writes as it can depending on how you've configured your tests. There are much smarter people than me who will get into all the various types of tests you should run. I'd suggest reading a bit of what Jonathan Kehayias (blog|twitter) has to say or wade into Denny Cherry's (blog|twitter) work. They're going to do a better job than I can describing all the benefits and mechanisms around using this excellent piece of software. My concerns are very focused. I needed to set up a series of tests to see how well our product SQL Storage Compress worked. I wanted to know the effects it would have on a system, the disk for sure, but also memory and CPU. How to stress the system? SQLIO of course. But when I set it up and ran it, following the documentation that comes with it, I was seeing better than 99% compression on the files. Don't get me wrong. Our product is magnificent, wonderful, all things great and beautiful, gets you coffee in the morning and is made mostly from bacon. But 99% compression. No, it's not that good. So what's up? Well, it's the configuration. The default mechanism is to load up a file, something large that will overwhelm your disk cache. You're instructed to load the file with a character 0x0. I never got a computer science degree. I went to film school. Because of this, I didn't memorize ASCII tables so when I saw this, I thought it was zero's or something. Nope. It's NULL. That's right, you're making a very large file, but you're filling it with NULL values. That's actually ok when all you're testing is the disk sub-system. But, when you want to test a compression and decompression, that can be an issue. I got around this fairly quickly. Instead of generating a file filled with NULL values, I just copied a database file for my tests. And to test it with SQL Storage Compress, I used a database file that had already been run through compression (about 40% compression on that file if you're interested). Now the reads were taken care of. I am seeing very realistic performance from decompressing the information for reads through SQLIO. But what about writes? Well, the issue is, what does SQLIO write? I don't have access to the code. But I do have access to the results. I did two different tests, just to be sure of what I was seeing. First test, use the .DAT file as described in the documentation. I opened the .DAT file after I was done with SQLIO, using WordPad. Guess what? It's a giant file full of air. SQLIO writes NULL values. What does that do to compression? I did the test again on a copy of an uncompressed database file. Then I ran the original and the SQLIO modified copy through ZIP to see what happened. I got better than 99% compression out of the SQLIO modified file (original file of 624,896kb went to 275,871kb compressed, after SQLIO it went to 608kb compressed). So, what does SQLIO write? It writes air. If you're trying to test it with compression or maybe some other type of file storage mechanism like dedupe, you need to know this because your tests really won't be valid. Should I find some other mechanism for testing? Yeah, if all I'm interested in is establishing performance to my own satisfaction, yes. But, I want to be able to compare my results with other people's results and we all need to be using the same tool in order for that to happen. SQLIO is the common mechanism that most people I know use to establish disk performance behavior. It'd be better if we could get SQLIO to do writes in some other fashion. Oh, and before I go, I get to brag a bit. Measuring IOPS, SQL Storage Compress outperforms my disk alone by about 30%.

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• The Best How-To Geek Articles for June 2011

  - by Asian Angel

  June has been a busy month here at How-To Geek where we covered topics like cleaning keyboards, what to do when your e-mail has been compromised, creating high resolution Windows 7 icons, and more. Join us as we look back at the most popular articles from this past month. Note: Articles are listed as #10 through #1. What You Said: How Do You Keep Notes? Note taking applications have grown increasingly sophisticated. Historically, when people took notes on a computer they simply used the word processor or text editor installed on it and left it at that—mostly because there were few widely available alternatives. While many people still use simple txt files for their note taking needs an entire ecosystem of note taking apps exists now—thanks, in large part, to the rise of widespread internet access and easy synchronization.How To Encrypt Your Cloud-Based Drive with BoxcryptorHTG Explains: Photography with Film-Based CamerasHow to Clean Your Dirty Smartphone (Without Breaking Something)

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• Ubuntu 12.04 - compiz - make sphere to like like a planet

  - by gotqn

  I have read topics of people that what to style their compiz sphere like a planet and set a background image like space. It definitely very good idea, but I have not been able to find a tutorial of how this is done (only some clips in youtube of people who have done this and a plugin, but it is not known to work work 12.04 version of Ubuntu). I have set my settings of compiz manager, so I have a sphere now, but I need some help with the images that I need to set. Has anyone idea how these pictures should be created and who the compiz will concatenate them?

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• What does the Spring framework do? Should I use it? Why or why not?

  - by sangfroid

  So, I'm starting a brand-new project in Java, and am considering using Spring. Why am I considering Spring? Because lots of people tell me I should use Spring! Seriously, any time I've tried to get people to explain what exactly Spring is or what it does, they can never give me a straight answer. I've checked the intros on the SpringSource site, and they're either really complicated or really tutorial-focused, and none of them give me a good idea of why I should be using it, or how it will make my life easier. Sometimes people throw around the term "dependency injection", which just confuses me even more, because I think I have a different understanding of what that term means. Anyway, here's a little about my background and my app : Been developing in Java for a while, doing back-end web development. Yes, I do a ton of unit testing. To facilitate this, I typically make (at least) two versions of a method : one that uses instance variables, and one that only uses variables that are passed in to the method. The one that uses instance variables calls the other one, supplying the instance variables. When it comes time to unit test, I use Mockito to mock up the objects and then make calls to the method that doesn't use instance variables. This is what I've always understood "dependency injection" to be. My app is pretty simple, from a CS perspective. Small project, 1-2 developers to start with. Mostly CRUD-type operations with a a bunch of search thrown in. Basically a bunch of RESTful web services, plus a web front-end and then eventually some mobile clients. I'm thinking of doing the front-end in straight HTML/CSS/JS/JQuery, so no real plans to use JSP. Using Hibernate as an ORM, and Jersey to implement the webservices. I've already started coding, and am really eager to get a demo out there that I can shop around and see if anyone wants to invest. So obviously time is of the essence. I understand Spring has quite the learning curve, plus it looks like it necessitates a whole bunch of XML configuration, which I typically try to avoid like the plague. But if it can make my life easier and (especially) if make it can make development and testing faster, I'm willing to bite the bullet and learn Spring. So please. Educate me. Should I use Spring? Why or why not?

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• HTG Explains: Why Deleted Files Can Be Recovered and How You Can Prevent It

  - by Chris Hoffman

  When you a delete a file, it isn’t really erased – it continues existing on your hard drive, even after you empty it from the Recycle Bin. This allows you (and other people) to recover files you’ve deleted. If you’re not careful, this will also allow other people to recover your confidential files, even if you think you’ve deleted them. This is a particularly important concern when you’re disposing of a computer or hard drive. Image Credit: Norlando Pobre on Flickr 8 Deadly Commands You Should Never Run on Linux 14 Special Google Searches That Show Instant Answers How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates

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• Which programming career path fits my terms? [closed]

  - by Goward Gerald

  I am sick and tired of my enterprise development job, I need some programming direction like this: Demanded in jobs-market Demanded in freelance market Can use Ubuntu as development environment Not enterprise. Standalone, mobile, web-development, anything, just not enterprise. Basically, I need a programming direction which doesn't need 20 developers, terribly big databases systems and long going projects with intense long-term support, I don't want enterprise job where a lot of people are working on one terribly big project and do modules to it all day long. Instead, I need something where: Projects change pretty often Projects are little, or medium-sized (in terms of code, modules and people working on it) but still not enterprise-sized Possible for freelance, solo-development, or at least requires a team of 3-4 programmers. Not like in enterprise where you feel like a drop in the sea with your 50 classes while system itself has hundreds of classes. Suggestions please?

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• How to become a good team player?

  - by Nick

  I've been programming (obsessively) since I was 12. I am fairly knowledgeable across the spectrum of languages out there, from assembly, to C++, to Javascript, to Haskell, Lisp, and Qi. But all of my projects have been by myself. I got my degree in chemical engineering, not CS or computer engineering, but for the first time this fall I'll be working on a large programming project with other people, and I have no clue how to prepare. I've been using Windows all of my life, but this project is going to be very unix-y, so I purchased a Mac recently in the hopes of familiarizing myself with the environment. I was fortunate to participate in a hackathon with some friends this past year -- both CS majors -- and excitingly enough, we won. But I realized as I worked with them that their workflow was very different from mine. They used Git for version control. I had never used it at the time, but I've since learned all that I can about it. They also used a lot of frameworks and libraries. I had to learn what Rails was pretty much overnight for the hackathon (on the other hand, they didn't know what lexical scoping or closures were). All of our code worked well, but they didn't understand mine, and I didn't understand theirs. I hear references to things that real programmers do on a daily basis -- unit testing, code reviews, but I only have the vaguest sense of what these are. I normally don't have many bugs in my little projects, so I have never needed a bug tracking system or tests for them. And the last thing is that it takes me a long time to understand other people's code. Variable naming conventions (that vary with each new language) are difficult (__mzkwpSomRidicAbbrev), and I find the loose coupling difficult. That's not to say I don't loosely couple things -- I think I'm quite good at it for my own work, but when I download something like the Linux kernel or the Chromium source code to look at it, I spend hours trying to figure out how all of these oddly named directories and files connect. It's a programming sin to reinvent the wheel, but I often find it's just quicker to write up the functionality myself than to spend hours dissecting some library. Obviously, people who do this for a living don't have these problems, and I'll need to get to that point myself. Question: What are some steps that I can take to begin "integrating" with everyone else? Thanks!

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• What should a game have in order to keep humans playing it?

  - by Adam Davis

  In many entertainment professions there suggestions, loose rules, or general frameworks one follows that appeal to humans in one way or another. For instance, many movies and books follow the monomyth. In video games I find many types of games that attract people in different ways. Some are addicted to facebook gem matching games. Others can't get enough of FPS games. Once in awhile, though, you find a game that seems to transcend stereotypes and appeals almost immediately to everyone that plays it. For instance, Plants Versus Zombies seems to have a very, very large demographic of players. There are other games similar in reach. I'm curious what books, blogs, etc there are that explore these game types and styles, and tries to suss out one or more popular frameworks/styles that satisfy people, while keeping them coming back for more.

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• My Feelings About Microsoft Surface

  - by Valter Minute

  Advice: read the title carefully, I’m talking about “feelings” and not about advanced technical points proved in a scientific and objective way I still haven’t had a chance to play with a MS Surface tablet (I would love to, of course) and so my ideas just came from reading different articles on the net and MS official statements. Remember also that the MVP motto begins with “Independent” (“Independent Experts. Real World Answers.”) and this is just my humble opinion about a product and a technology. I know that, being an MS MVP you can be called an “MS-fanboy”, I don’t care, I hope that people can appreciate my opinion, even if it doesn’t match theirs. The “Surface” brand can be confusing for techies that knew the “original” surface concept but I think that will be a fresh new brand name for most of the people out there. But marketing department are here to confuse people… so I can understand this “recycle” of an existing name. So Microsoft is entering the hardware arena… for me this is good news. Microsoft developed some nice hardware in the past: the xbox, zune (even if the commercial success was quite limited) and, last but not least, the two arc mices (old and new model) that I use and appreciate. In the past Microsoft worked with OEMs and that model lead to good and bad things. Good thing (for microsoft, at least) is market domination by windows-based PCs that only in the last years has been reduced by the return of the Mac and tablets. Google is also moving in the hardware business with its acquisition of Motorola, and Apple leveraged his control of both the hardware and software sides to develop innovative products. Microsoft can scare OEMs and make them fly away from windows (but where?) or just lead the pack, showing how devices should be designed to compete in the market and bring back some of the innovation that disappeared from recent PC products (look at the shelves of your favorite electronics store and try to distinguish a laptop between the huge mass of anonymous PCs on displays… only Macs shine out there…). Having to compete with MS “official” hardware will force OEMs to develop better product and bring back some real competition in a market that was ruled only by prices (the lower the better even when that means low quality) and no innovative features at all (when it was the last time that a new PC surprised you?). Moving into a new market is a big and risky move, but with Windows 8 Microsoft is playing a crucial move for its future, trying to be back in the innovation run against apple and google. MS can’t afford to fail this time. I saw the new devices (the WinRT and Pro) and the specifications are scarce, misleading and confusing. The first impression is that the device looks like an iPad with a nice keyboard cover… Using “HD” and “full HD” to define display resolution instead of using the real figures and reviving the “ClearType” brand (now dead on Win8 as reported here and missed by people who hate to read text on displays, like myself) without providing clear figures (couldn’t you count those damned pixels?) seems to imply that MS was caught by surprise by apple recent “retina” displays that brought very high definition screens on tablets.Also there are no specifications about the processors used (even if some sources report NVidia Tegra for the ARM tablet and i5 for the x86 one) and expected battery life (a critical point for tablets and the point that killed Windows7 x86 based tablets). Also nothing about the price, and this will be another critical point because other platform out there already provide lots of applications and have a good user base, if MS want to enter this market tablets pricing must be competitive. There are some expansion ports (SD and USB), so no fixed storage model (even if the specs talks about 32-64GB for RT and 128-256GB for pro). I like this and don’t like the apple model where flash memory (that it’s dirt cheap used in thumdrives or SD cards) is as expensive as gold (or cocaine to have a more accurate per gram measurement) when mounted inside a tablet/phone. For big files you’ll be able to use external media and an SD card could be used to store files that don’t require super-fast SSD-like access times, I hope. To be honest I really don’t like the marketplace model and the limitation of Windows RT APIs (no local database? from a company that based a good share of its success on VB6+Access!) and lack of desktop support on the ARM (even if the support is here and has been used to port office). It’s a step toward the consumer market (where competitors are making big money), but may impact enterprise (and embedded) users that may not appreciate Windows 8 new UI or the limitations of the new app model (if you aren’t connected you are dead ). Not having compatibility with the desktop will require brand new applications and honestly made all the CPU cycles spent to convert .NET IL into real machine code in the past like a huge waste of time… as soon as a new processor architecture is supported by Windows you still have to rewrite part of your application (and MS is pushing HTML5+JS and native code more than .NET in my perception). On the other side I believe that the development experience provided by Visual Studio is still miles (or kilometres) ahead of the competition and even the all-uppercase menu of VS2012 hasn’t changed this situation. The new metro UI got mixed reviews. On my side I should say that is very pleasant to use on a touch screen, I like the minimalist design (even if sometimes is too minimal and hides stuff that, in my opinion, should be visible) but I should also say that using it with mouse and keyboard is like trying to pick your nose with boxing gloves… Metro is also very interesting for embedded devices where touch screen usage is quite common and where having an application taking all the screen is the norm. For devices like kiosks, vending machines etc. this kind of UI can be a great selling point. I don’t need a new tablet (to be honest I’m pretty happy with my wife’s iPad and with my PC), but I may change my opinion after having a chance to play a little bit with those new devices and understand what’s hidden under all this mysterious and generic announcements and specifications!

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• Where Do You Start Your Day: Facebook Or E-Mail?

  - by Gopinath

  EMails and Facebook are integral part of our digital lives. But where do we start our daily digital life can tell a lot about us, says a research firm. According to a research People who check email first tend to be motivated to interact with brands online for the sake of obtaining deals, promotions, or new product information People who initially check Facebook tend to become fans of brands for entertainment purposes or to show support-not to obtain deals. They’re more likely to seek promotions through email. Here is an info graphics that gives insights where is the first place go on net You can read more finding of the research over here Join us on Facebook to read all our stories right inside your Facebook news feed.

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• Focus on Javascript or Jquery?

  - by daxflame

  Hello, I am a student in college, and I notice that a lot of companies look for people who have experience with Javascript. Does this include Javascript's libraries, like JQuery? Or, are they looking for Javascript people only? It probably depends on the company, but what is the general advice for a student wanting to do some front end work? Is Javascript more powerful than JQuery? I know Jquery is a library and simplifies many tasks, but is there some reason why you would use Javascript over Jquery?

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• What is "networking" for your career and how do you know if you have done it successfully?

  - by Jay Godse

  Many people suggest "networking" as a tool or technique to build your career, get better jobs, get promotions, et cetera. But what is "networking"? And more importantly, how do you know if you have "networked" or "built your network" "successfully"? (I quoted all the terms which I think may have subjective and widely varying definitions). Many folks think that networking is schmoozing at networking events. Others think it is adding "friends" to Facebook or LinkedIn. But how do measure the success of such networks or activities? But we all know people (perhaps ourselves) who have done those things and still have trouble getting jobs, promotions, and recognition.

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• Is type safety worth the trade-offs?

  - by Prof Plum

  I began coding in in Python primarily where there is no type safety, then moved to C# and Java where there is. I found that I could work a bit more quickly and with less headaches in Python, but then again, my C# and Java apps are at much higher level of complexity so I have never given Python a true stress test I suppose. The Java and C# camps make it sound like without the type safety in place, most people would be running into all sorts of horrible bugs left an right and it would be more trouble than its worth. This is not a language comparison, so please do not address issues like compiled vs interpreted. Is type safety worth the hit to speed of development and flexibilty? WHY? to the people who wanted an example of the opinion that dynamic typing is faster: "Use a dynamically typed language during development. It gives you faster feedback, turn-around time, and development speed." - http://blog.jayway.com/2010/04/14/static-typing-is-the-root-of-all-evil/

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• Why isn't LISP more widespread?

  - by Andrea

  I am starting to learn Scheme by the SICP videos, and I would like to move to Common Lisp next. The language seems very interesting, and most of the people writings books on it advocate that it has unequalled expressive power. CL seems to have a decent standard library. Why is not Lisp more widespread? If it is really that powerful, people should be using it all over, but instead it is nearly impossible to find, say, Lisp job advertisements. I hope it is not just the parenthesis, as they are not a great problem after a little while.

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• Strategy/algorithm to divide fair teams based on history

  - by Vegar

  We are a group of people playing floorball together on a regular basis. Every session starts with the daunting task of dividing teams... So what would be better than an application to pick teams automatically? So, given a history of team-combinations and results, and a list of people showing up for this particular session, what would be a good strategy to find the optimal teams? By optimal, I mean teams as equal as possible. Any ideas? Edit: To make it clear, the date that I have to base the picking on, would be something like this: [{ team1: ["playerA", "playerB", "playerC"], team2: ["playerD", "playerE", "playerF"], goals_team1: 10, goals_team2: 8 }, { team1: ["playerD", "playerB", "playerC"], team2: ["playerA", "playerE", "playerG"], goals_team1: 2, goals_team2: 5 }, { team1: ["playerD", "playerB", "playerF"], team2: ["playerA", "playerE", "playerC"], goals_team1: 4, goals_team2: 2 }]

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• Recommendations for finding part-time consultancy work

  - by Mark Heath

  Although I have a full-time development job, I have occasionally done some part-time paid work in evenings / weekends for various people who have contacted me as a result of open-source projects I have worked on. It's a nice way to earn a bit of extra cash, but obviously it is not always available. My question is, what is a good way of getting your name out there to do some small projects? I have seen a few programmers-for-hire type websites, but I don't know which I can trust or whether there are too many people willing to work for very low prices. Also, being UK based, I would want something which did not assume I have a US bank account.

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• How to Root Your Android Device & Why You Might Want To

  - by Chris Hoffman

  You’ve probably heard of people “rooting” their Android phones. If you’ve ever wondered how to do that yourself – or wondered why people would bother – you’re in luck. You can root your Android in just a few minutes. After rooting your device, you have full access to the entire system and can run special types of apps that require root permissions. These apps can disable bloatware, control app permissions, enable tethering, and do lots of other cool things. HTG Explains: Why Linux Doesn’t Need Defragmenting How to Convert News Feeds to Ebooks with Calibre How To Customize Your Wallpaper with Google Image Searches, RSS Feeds, and More

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• How to fix the copy/paste-pattern?

  - by Lenny222

  Where i work, people (consultants) feel pressed to release features as fast as possible. So instead of spending too much time on thinking about how to do things the right way or because they don't want to break anything, code gets copied from different modules and modified. It's not easy to prevent this, since the code base is open to the whole company. Lots of people work on this. Now that the mess is there already, what is the best way to remove those redundancies without breaking too much?

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• How to survive if you can only do things your way as a programmer?

  - by niceguyjava

  I hate hibernate, I hate spring and I am the kind of programmer who likes to do things his way. I hate micro-management and other people making decisions for me about what framework I should use, what patterns I should apply (hate patterns too) and what architecture I should design. I consider myself a successful programmer and have a descent financial situation due to my performance in past jobs, but I just can't take the standard Java jobs out there. I really love to design things from scratch and hate when I have to maintain other people's bad code, design and architecture, which is the majority you find out there for sure. Does anybody relate to that? What do you guys recommend me? Open up my on company, do consulting, or just keep looking hard until I find a job that suits my preferences, as hard as this may look like with all the hibernate and spring crap out there?

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• What level/format of access should be given to a client to the issue tracking system?

  - by dukeofgaming

  So, I used to think that it would be a good idea to give the customer access to the issue tracking system, but now I've seen that it creates less than ideal situations, like: Customer judging progress solely on ticket count Developers denied to add issues to avoid customer thinking that there is less progress Customer appointing people on their side to add issues who don't always do a good job (lots of duplicate issues, insufficient information to reproduce, and other things that distract people from doing their real job) However, I think customers should have access to some indicators or proof that there is progress being done, as well as a right to report bugs. So, what would be the ideal solution to this situation?, specially, getting out of or improving the first situation described?

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• What is the single most effective thing you did to improve your programming skills?

  - by Oded

  Looking back at my career and life as a programmer, there were plenty of different ways I improved my programming skills - reading code, writing code, reading books, listening to podcasts, watching screencasts and more. My question is: What is the most effective thing you have done that improved your programming skills? What would you recommend to others that want to improve? I do expect varied answers here and no single "one size fits all" answer - I would like to know what worked for different people. Edit: Wow - what great answers! Keep 'em coming people!!!

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• Simple form validation

  - by ElendilTheTall

  Hi, I have a site with a simple contact form using ASP for customers to e-mail quote requests. However, I'm getting quite a few messages through with no contact information; I think people assume that their e-mail address is coming through automatically. I'd like a simple way to make the e-mail and/or telephone number fields required, preferably so that the fields are highlighted as such if they're submitted without anything in them. I've Googled for this but they seem either too simple, diverting people to a separate page and requiring a 'back click', or incredibly complicated with massive reams of code. Any suggestions?

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• The Softer Side of Customer Experience

  - by Christina McKeon

  It’s election season in the U.S., and you know what that means. It means I stop by the recycling bin in my garage before entering the house with the contents of my mailbox. A couple of weeks ago, I was doing my usual direct mail purge when I came across a piece from The Container Store®. This piece would have gone straight to the recycling bin, but the title stopped me: Learn what WE STAND FOR! Under full disclaimer, I’m probably a “frequent flier” at The Container Store. One can never be too organized! Now, back to the direct mail piece. I opened it to discover that The Container Store has taken their customer experience beyond “a shopping experience that makes you smile” to giving customers more insight and transparency into how they feel about their employees, the vendors they partner with, and the communities they live in. The direct mail piece included several employees showcasing a skill, hobby or talent with their photo and a personal note that used one word to describe what these employees believe The Container Store stands for. I do not recall the last time I read through an entire piece of direct mail. But this time, I pored over all the comments and photos.  Summer, a salesperson, believes that one word is PASSION. Thomas in distribution center inventory systems chooses the word ACTION. The list goes on to include MATCHLESS, FUN, FAMILY, LOVE, and EMPOWERMENT. The Container Store is running a contest asking you to tell them what nonprofit organization you stand for. Anyone can submit their favorite nonprofit to win cash, products and services from The Container Store. Don’t forget about the softer side of customer experience. With many organizations working feverishly to transform their business into being more customer-centric, it’s easy to get caught up in processes and technology. Focusing on people and social responsibility often falls behind and becomes a lower priority. Keeping people and social responsibility at the forefront is crucial. Your customers will use your processes and technology, but they will see or hear your people and feel their passion. The latter is what they will remember most about your brand. I’m sure there are many other great examples of the softer side of customer experience. Please share your examples in the comments section.

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• How to ask questions on the Forums

  - by TATWORTH

  Based upon answering many questions on forums such as forums.asp.net, here are some tips on getting your questions answered, once you have exhausted searching on your own. Choose a concise but meaningful title but avoid words like "urgent" Post to the correct section of the forum - some people specialise in a particular section of a given forum Make it clear that you have already made an effort to answer yourself. Summerise the environmental context of your question e.g. If using SQL then state the version e.g. SQLExpress 2008 If you need to post a code or markup sample, tidy it up by removing extraneous blank lines and set the tab spacing to 2 rather than 4. Take your time composing the question so that it is set out as clearly as possible. Remember that the majority of people providing answers do so in their own time. Be very polite and thank those that help you.

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• My First 5K, the recap.

  - by Chris Williams

  It was a nice day to be outside (and trust me, those aren't words you'll hear from me often.) I got to the site around 7:45, hit the pre-reg table and got my number along with a goody bag full of coupons for racing gear, a water bottle and a tshirt. Oh and a map. Stashed all that stuff in the jeep, emptied my pockets of everything but my iPhone and my jeep key, and proceeded to walk around for a bit as people started showing up and signing in. It was fairly breezy, and there was definitely a storm coming... but it was anyone's guess on when it would actually arrive. It was interesting to see everyone who was participating. If I had to guess, I would say the event was 60-70% women, with a pretty broad distribution of age... as young as 13 to well over 60 (in both genders.) I don't know exactly how many folks were there, but it was well over 300. Eventually it was time to kick things off, and everyone made their way to the start line. All of the 5k and 10k runners were mixed together, starting at the same time. All the walkers and the people with strollers or dogs were in the back. It was pretty chaotic at first, once things started, but it thinned out fairly quickly. The 10k people and the hardcore runners sped ahead of everyone else and the walkers gradually lagged behind. The 5K course was pretty nice, winding around a lake down in Eden Prairie. The 10K course overlapped most of ours, but branched off a couple times too. I didn't run the whole time, but I started the race running and I ended it running, and did a mix of walking and running along the way. I met my goals, which were a) don't ever stop and b) don't be last. The weather managed to hold out for the entire race. It never got too hot, there was a nice breeze and it was mostly overcast. Pretty much perfect in my book. About 20-30 minutes after I left, the rain came down pretty hard. I had a good time, and will most likely do more of them. We'll see.

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