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Workshops, online content show how Oracle infuses simplicity, mobility, extensibility into user experience

- by mvaughan

By Kathy Miedema & Misha Vaughan, Oracle Applications User Experience Oracle has made a huge investment into the user experience of its many different software product families, and recent releases showcase big changes and features that aim to promote end user engagement and efficiency by streamlining navigation and simplifying the user interface. But making Oracle’s enterprise software great-looking and usable doesn’t stop when Oracle products go out the door. The Applications User Experience (UX) team recognizes that our customers may need to customize software to fit their work processes. And that’s why we provide tools such as user experience design patterns to help you maintain the Oracle user experience as you tailor your application to fit your business needs. Often, however, customers may need some context around user experience. How has the Oracle user experience been designed and constructed? Why is a good user experience important for users? How does understanding what goes into the user experience benefit the people who purchase the software for users? There’s a short answer to these questions, and you can read about it on Usable Apps. But truly understanding Oracle’s investment and seeing how it applies across product families occasionally requires a deeper dive into the Oracle user experience, especially if you’re an influencer or decision-maker about Oracle products. To help frame these decisions, the Communications & Outreach team has developed several targeted workshops that explore what Oracle means when it talks about user experience, and provides a roadmap into where the Oracle user experience is going. These workshops require non-disclosure agreements, and have been delivered to Oracle sales folks, Oracle partners, Oracle ACE Directors and ACEs, and a few customers. Some of these audience members have been developers or have a technical background; just as many did not. Here’s a breakdown of the kind of training you can get around the Oracle user experience from the OAUX Communications & Outreach team.For Partners: George Papazzian, Principal, Naviscent with Joyce Ohgi, Oracle Oracle Fusion Applications HCM Pre-Sales Seminar: In concert with Worldwide Alliances and Channels under Applications Partner Enablement Director Jonathan Vinoskey’s guidance, the Applications User Experience team delivers a two-day workshop. Day one focuses on Oracle Fusion Applications HCM and pre-sales strategy, and Day two focuses on positioning and leveraging Oracle’s investment in the Oracle Fusion Applications user experience. The next workshops will occur on the following dates: December 4-5, 2013 @ Manchester, UK January 29-30, 2014 @ Reston, Virginia February 2014 @ Guadalajara, Mexico (email: Shannon Whiteman) March 11-12, 2014 @ Dubai, United Arab Emirates April 1-2, 2014 @ Chicago, Illinois Partner Advisory Board: A two-day board meeting in the U.S. and U.K. to discuss four main user experience areas for Oracle Fusion Applications: simplicity, visualization & analytics, mobility, & futures. This event is limited to Oracle Diamond Partners, UX bloggers, and key UX influencers and requires legal documentation. We will be talking about the Oracle applications UX strategy and roadmap. Partner Implementation Training on User Interface: How to Build Great-Looking, Usable Apps: In this two-day, hands-on workshop built around Oracle’s Application Development Framework, learn how to build desktop and mobile user interfaces and mobile user interfaces based on Oracle’s experience with Fusion Applications. This workshop is for partners with a technology background who are looking for ways to tailor Fusion Applications using ADF, or have built their own custom solutions using ADF. It includes an introduction to UX design patterns and provides tools to build usability-tested UX designs. Nov 5-6, 2013 @ Redwood Shores, CA, USA January 28-29th, 2014 @ Reston, Virginia, USA February 25-26, 2014 @ Guadalajara, Mexico March 9-10, 2014 @ Dubai, United Arab Emirates To register, contact [email protected] Simplified UI Customization & Extensibility: Pilot workshop: We will be reviewing the proposed content for communicating the user experience tool kit available with the next release of Oracle Fusion Applications. Our core focus will be on what toolkit components our system implementors and independent software vendors will need to respond to customer demand, whether they are extending Fusion Applications, or building custom applications, that will need to leverage the simplified UI. Dec 11th, 2013 @ Reading, UK For information: contact [email protected] Private lab tour and demos: Interested in seeing what’s going on in the Apps UX Labs? If you are headed to the San Francisco Bay Area, let us know. We can arrange a spin through our usability labs at headquarters. OAUX Expo: This open-house forum gives partners a look at what the UX team is working on, and showcases the next-generation user experiences in a demo environment where attendees can see and touch the applications. UX Direct: Use the same methods that Oracle uses to develop its own user experiences. We help you define your users and their needs, and then provide direction on how to tailor the best user experience you can for them. For CustomersAngela Johnston, Gozel Aamoth, Teena Singh, and Yen Chan, Oracle Lab tours: See demos of soon-to-be-released products, and take a spin on usability research equipment such as our eye-tracker. Watch this video to get an idea of what you’ll see. Get our newsletter: Learn about newly released products and see where you can meet us at user group conferences. Participate in a feedback session: Join a focus group or customer feedback session to get an early look at user experience designs for the next generation of software, and provide your thoughts on how well it will work. Join the OUAB: The Oracle Usability Advisory Board meets several times a year to discuss trends in the workforce and provide direction on user experience designs. UX Direct: Use the same methods that Oracle uses to develop its own user experiences. We help you define your users and their needs, and then provide direction on how to tailor the best user experience you can for them. For Developers (customers, partners, and consultants): Plinio Arbizu, SP Solutions, Richard Bingham, Oracle, Balaji Kamepalli, EiSTechnoogies, Praveen Pillalamarri, EiSTechnologies How to Build Great-Looking, Usable Apps: This workshop is for attendees with a strong technology background who are looking for ways to tailor customer software using ADF. It includes an introduction to UX design patterns and provides tools to build usability-tested UX designs. See above for dates and times. UX design patterns web site: Cut the length of your project down by months. Use these patterns to build out the task flow you need to develop for your users. The patterns have already been usability-tested and represent the best practices that the Oracle UX research team has found in its studies. UX Direct: Use the same methods that Oracle uses to develop its own user experiences. We help you define your users and their needs, and then provide direction on how to tailor the best user experience you can for them. For Oracle Sales Mike Klein, Jeremy Ashley, Brent White, Oracle Contact your local sales person for more information about the Oracle user experience and the training available from the Applications User Experience Communications & Outreach team. See customer-friendly user experience collateral ranging from the new simplified UI in Oracle Fusion Applications Release 7, to E-Business Suite user experience highlights, to Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards user experience highlights. Receive access to the same pre-sales and implementation training we provide to partners. For Oracle Sales only: Oracle-only training on the Oracle Fusion Applications UX Innovation Sales Kit.

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How to free up space on /boot? [closed]

- by Phrogz

Possible Duplicate: Free up more space on /boot I logged onto my server today to find the message: => /boot is using 98.9% of 91MB When I look at /boot I see that it is indeed very low on space, and has old-kernel files in it: phrogz@planar:~$ df -h /boot Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda1 92M 54M 33M 63% /boot phrogz@planar:~$ la /boot total 81880 drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 3072 2011-12-02 06:26 ./ drwxr-xr-x 22 root root 4096 2011-09-29 06:37 ../ -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 646419 2011-03-01 19:02 abi-2.6.32-30-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 646419 2011-04-08 17:07 abi-2.6.32-31-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 646454 2011-04-20 16:53 abi-2.6.32-32-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 646454 2011-07-29 16:07 abi-2.6.32-33-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 646710 2011-09-13 18:00 abi-2.6.32-34-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 646820 2011-10-11 11:10 abi-2.6.32-35-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 110687 2011-03-01 19:02 config-2.6.32-30-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 110676 2011-04-08 17:07 config-2.6.32-31-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 110687 2011-04-20 16:53 config-2.6.32-32-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 110687 2011-07-29 16:07 config-2.6.32-33-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 110687 2011-09-13 18:00 config-2.6.32-34-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 110687 2011-10-11 11:10 config-2.6.32-35-server drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 6144 2011-12-02 06:26 grub/ -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8258196 2011-05-18 11:58 initrd.img-2.6.32-30-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8259568 2011-05-23 20:24 initrd.img-2.6.32-31-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8257374 2011-05-30 07:47 initrd.img-2.6.32-32-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8287489 2011-08-10 06:37 initrd.img-2.6.32-33-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8288075 2011-09-29 06:37 initrd.img-2.6.32-34-server drwx------ 2 root root 12288 2011-05-18 11:46 lost+found/ -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 160280 2010-03-23 03:40 memtest86+.bin -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2179117 2011-03-01 19:02 System.map-2.6.32-30-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2179628 2011-04-08 17:07 System.map-2.6.32-31-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2178240 2011-04-20 16:53 System.map-2.6.32-32-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2178382 2011-07-29 16:07 System.map-2.6.32-33-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2178952 2011-09-13 18:00 System.map-2.6.32-34-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2179333 2011-10-11 11:10 System.map-2.6.32-35-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1336 2011-03-01 19:08 vmcoreinfo-2.6.32-30-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1336 2011-04-08 17:13 vmcoreinfo-2.6.32-31-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1336 2011-04-20 16:54 vmcoreinfo-2.6.32-32-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1336 2011-07-29 16:08 vmcoreinfo-2.6.32-33-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1336 2011-09-13 18:03 vmcoreinfo-2.6.32-34-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1336 2011-10-11 11:11 vmcoreinfo-2.6.32-35-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4111552 2011-03-01 19:02 vmlinuz-2.6.32-30-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4113344 2011-04-08 17:07 vmlinuz-2.6.32-31-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4106528 2011-04-20 16:53 vmlinuz-2.6.32-32-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4107648 2011-07-29 16:07 vmlinuz-2.6.32-33-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4108960 2011-09-13 18:00 vmlinuz-2.6.32-34-server -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4111040 2011-10-11 11:10 vmlinuz-2.6.32-35-server I was able to find the old kernel packages like so: phrogz@planar:/boot$ dpkg -l | grep linux-image ii linux-image-2.6.32-30-server 2.6.32-30.59 Linux kernel image for version 2.6.32 on x86 ii linux-image-2.6.32-31-server 2.6.32-31.61 Linux kernel image for version 2.6.32 on x86 ii linux-image-2.6.32-32-server 2.6.32-32.62 Linux kernel image for version 2.6.32 on x86 ii linux-image-2.6.32-33-server 2.6.32-33.72 Linux kernel image for version 2.6.32 on x86 ii linux-image-2.6.32-34-server 2.6.32-34.77 Linux kernel image for version 2.6.32 on x86 iF linux-image-2.6.32-35-server 2.6.32-35.78 Linux kernel image for version 2.6.32 on x86 iU linux-image-server 2.6.32.36.42 Linux kernel image on Server Equipment. …and I can see that many of them are older than my current image: phrogz@planar:/boot$ uname -a Linux planar 2.6.32-34-server #77-Ubuntu SMP Tue Sep 13 20:54:38 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux However, I can't actually remove them due to an unmet dependency: phrogz@planar:/boot$ sudo apt-get --purge remove linux-image-2.6.32-30-server Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these: The following packages have unmet dependencies: linux-image-server: Depends: linux-image-2.6.32-36-server but it is not going to be installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution). But I can't fix the dependency (presumably due to low disk space): phrogz@planar:/boot$ sudo apt-get -f install Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Correcting dependencies... Done The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: liblcms1 linux-headers-2.6.32-32-server libnspr4-0d linux-headers-2.6.32-33-server linux-headers-2.6.32-32 linux-headers-2.6.32-33 linux-headers-2.6.32-34 libcups2 tzdata-java libjpeg62 linux-headers-2.6.32-34-server libavahi-client3 ca-certificates-java libnss3-1d Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them. The following extra packages will be installed: linux-image-2.6.32-36-server Suggested packages: fdutils linux-doc-2.6.32 linux-source-2.6.32 linux-tools The following NEW packages will be installed: linux-image-2.6.32-36-server 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 8 not upgraded. 3 not fully installed or removed. Need to get 0B/31.8MB of archives. After this operation, 128MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? (Reading database ... 145200 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking linux-image-2.6.32-36-server (from .../linux-image-2.6.32-36-server_2.6.32-36.79_amd64.deb) ... Done. dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-2.6.32-36-server_2.6.32-36.79_amd64.deb (--unpack): failed in buffer_write(fd) (10, ret=-1): backend dpkg-deb during `./boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-36-server': No space left on device dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe) Running postrm hook script /usr/sbin/update-grub. Generating grub.cfg ... Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-35-server Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-34-server Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-34-server Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-33-server Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-33-server Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-32-server Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-32-server Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-31-server Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-31-server Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-30-server Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-30-server Found memtest86+ image: /memtest86+.bin done Errors were encountered while processing: /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-2.6.32-36-server_2.6.32-36.79_amd64.deb E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) How do I free up space on /boot so that I can fix my dependencies? Should I just delete the files manually? And then, should I resize my /boot to be larger, so this doesn't happen again? If so, how? If not, what maintenance should I be running regularly to prevent the accumulation of this cruft?

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Running Solaris 11 as a control domain on a T2000

- by jsavit

There is increased adoption of Oracle Solaris 11, and many customers are deploying it on systems that previously ran Solaris 10. That includes older T1-processor based systems like T1000 and T2000. Even though they are old (from 2005) and don't have the performance of current SPARC servers, they are still functional, stable servers that customers continue to operate. One reason to install Solaris 11 on them is that older machines are attractive for testing OS upgrades before updating current, production systems. Normally this does not present a challenge, because Solaris 11 runs on any T-series or M-series SPARC server. One scenario adds a complication: running Solaris 11 in a control domain on a T1000 or T2000 hosting logical domains. Solaris 11 pre-installed Oracle VM Server for SPARC incompatible with T1 Unlike Solaris 10, Solaris 11 comes with Oracle VM Server for SPARC preinstalled. The ldomsmanager package contains the logical domains manager for Oracle VM Server for SPARC 2.2, which requires a SPARC T2, T2+, T3, or T4 server. It does not work with T1-processor systems, which are only supported by LDoms Manager 1.2 and earlier. The following screenshot shows what happens (bold font) if you try to use Oracle VM Server for SPARC 2.x commands in a Solaris 11 control domain. The commands were issued in a control domain on a T2000 that previously ran Solaris 10. We also display the version of the logical domains manager installed in Solaris 11: root@t2000 psrinfo -vp The physical processor has 4 virtual processors (0-3) UltraSPARC-T1 (chipid 0, clock 1200 MHz) # prtconf|grep T SUNW,Sun-Fire-T200 # ldm -V Failed to connect to logical domain manager: Connection refused # pkg info ldomsmanager Name: system/ldoms/ldomsmanager Summary: Logical Domains Manager Description: LDoms Manager - Virtualization for SPARC T-Series Category: System/Virtualization State: Installed Publisher: solaris Version: 2.2.0.0 Build Release: 5.11 Branch: 0.175.0.8.0.3.0 Packaging Date: May 25, 2012 10:20:48 PM Size: 2.86 MB FMRI: pkg://solaris/system/ldoms/[email protected],5.11-0.175.0.8.0.3.0:20120525T222048Z The 2.2 version of the logical domains manager will have to be removed, and 1.2 installed, in order to use this as a control domain. Preparing to change - create a new boot environment Before doing anything else, lets create a new boot environment: # beadm list BE Active Mountpoint Space Policy Created -- ------ ---------- ----- ------ ------- solaris NR / 2.14G static 2012-09-25 10:32 # beadm create solaris-1 # beadm activate solaris-1 # beadm list BE Active Mountpoint Space Policy Created -- ------ ---------- ----- ------ ------- solaris N / 4.82M static 2012-09-25 10:32 solaris-1 R - 2.14G static 2012-09-29 11:40 # init 0 Normally an init 6 to reboot would have been sufficient, but in the next step I reset the system anyway in order to put the system in factory default mode for a "clean" domain configuration. Preparing to change - reset to factory default There was a leftover domain configuration on the T2000, so I reset it to the factory install state. Since the ldm command is't working yet, it can't be done from the control domain, so I did it by logging onto to the service processor: $ ssh -X admin@t2000-sc Copyright (c) 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle Advanced Lights Out Manager CMT v1.7.9 Please login: admin Please Enter password: ******** sc> showhost Sun-Fire-T2000 System Firmware 6.7.10 2010/07/14 16:35 Host flash versions: OBP 4.30.4.b 2010/07/09 13:48 Hypervisor 1.7.3.c 2010/07/09 15:14 POST 4.30.4.b 2010/07/09 14:24 sc> bootmode config="factory-default" sc> poweroff Are you sure you want to power off the system [y/n]? y SC Alert: SC Request to Power Off Host. SC Alert: Host system has shut down. sc> poweron SC Alert: Host System has Reset At this point I rebooted into the new Solaris 11 boot environment, and Solaris commands showed it was running on the factory default configuration of a single domain owning all 32 CPUs and 32GB of RAM (that's what it looked like in 2005.) # psrinfo -vp The physical processor has 8 cores and 32 virtual processors (0-31) The core has 4 virtual processors (0-3) The core has 4 virtual processors (4-7) The core has 4 virtual processors (8-11) The core has 4 virtual processors (12-15) The core has 4 virtual processors (16-19) The core has 4 virtual processors (20-23) The core has 4 virtual processors (24-27) The core has 4 virtual processors (28-31) UltraSPARC-T1 (chipid 0, clock 1200 MHz) # prtconf|grep Mem Memory size: 32640 Megabytes Note that the older processor has 4 virtual CPUs per core, while current processors have 8 per core. Remove ldomsmanager 2.2 and install the 1.2 version The Solaris 11 pkg command is now used to remove the 2.2 version that shipped with Solaris 11: # pkg uninstall ldomsmanager Packages to remove: 1 Create boot environment: No Create backup boot environment: No Services to change: 2 PHASE ACTIONS Removal Phase 130/130 PHASE ITEMS Package State Update Phase 1/1 Package Cache Update Phase 1/1 Image State Update Phase 2/2 Finally, LDoms 1.2 installed via its install script, the same way it was done years ago: # unzip LDoms-1_2-Integration-10.zip # cd LDoms-1_2-Integration-10/Install/ # ./install-ldm Welcome to the LDoms installer. You are about to install the Logical Domains Manager package that will enable you to create, destroy and control other domains on your system. Given the capabilities of the LDoms domain manager, you can now change the security configuration of this Solaris instance using the Solaris Security Toolkit. ... ... normal install messages omitted ... The Solaris Security Toolkit applies to Solaris 10, and cannot be used in Solaris 11 (in which several things hardened by the Toolkit are already hardened by default), so answer b in the choice below: You are about to install the Logical Domains Manager package that will enable you to create, destroy and control other domains on your system. Given the capabilities of the LDoms domain manager, you can now change the security configuration of this Solaris instance using the Solaris Security Toolkit. Select a security profile from this list: a) Hardened Solaris configuration for LDoms (recommended) b) Standard Solaris configuration c) Your custom-defined Solaris security configuration profile Enter a, b, or c [a]: b ... other install messages omitted for brevity... After install I ensure that the necessary services are enabled, and verify the version of the installed LDoms Manager: # svcs ldmd STATE STIME FMRI online 22:00:36 svc:/ldoms/ldmd:default # svcs vntsd STATE STIME FMRI disabled Aug_19 svc:/ldoms/vntsd:default # ldm -V Logical Domain Manager (v 1.2-debug) Hypervisor control protocol v 1.3 Using Hypervisor MD v 1.1 System PROM: Hypervisor v. 1.7.3. @(#)Hypervisor 1.7.3.c 2010/07/09 15:14\015 OpenBoot v. 4.30.4. @(#)OBP 4.30.4.b 2010/07/09 13:48 Set up control domain and domain services At this point we have a functioning LDoms 1.2 environment that can be configured in the usual fashion. One difference is that LDoms 1.2 behavior had 'delayed configuration mode (as expected) during initial configuration before rebooting the control domain. Another minor difference with a Solaris 11 control domain is that you define virtual switches using the 'vanity name' of the network interface, rather than the hardware driver name as in Solaris 10. # ldm list ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Notice: the LDom Manager is running in configuration mode. Configuration and resource information is displayed for the configuration under construction; not the current active configuration. The configuration being constructed will only take effect after it is downloaded to the system controller and the host is reset. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ NAME STATE FLAGS CONS VCPU MEMORY UTIL UPTIME primary active -n-c-- SP 32 32640M 3.2% 4d 2h 50m # ldm add-vdiskserver primary-vds0 primary # ldm add-vconscon port-range=5000-5100 primary-vcc0 primary # ldm add-vswitch net-dev=net0 primary-vsw0 primary # ldm set-mau 2 primary # ldm set-vcpu 8 primary # ldm set-memory 4g primary # ldm add-config initial # ldm list-spconfig factory-default initial [current] That's it, really. After reboot, we are ready to install guest domains. Summary - new wine in old bottles This example shows that (new) Solaris 11 can be installed on (old) T2000 servers and used as a control domain. The main activity is to remove the preinstalled Oracle VM Server for 2.2 and install Logical Domains 1.2 - the last version of LDoms to support T1-processor systems. I tested Solaris 10 and Solaris 11 guest domains running on this server and they worked without any surprises. This is a viable way to get further into Solaris 11 adoption, even on older T-series equipment.

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WebSocket Applications using Java: JSR 356 Early Draft Now Available (TOTD #183)

- by arungupta

WebSocket provide a full-duplex and bi-directional communication protocol over a single TCP connection. JSR 356 is defining a standard API for creating WebSocket applications in the Java EE 7 Platform. This Tip Of The Day (TOTD) will provide an introduction to WebSocket and how the JSR is evolving to support the programming model. First, a little primer on WebSocket! WebSocket is a combination of IETF RFC 6455 Protocol and W3C JavaScript API (still a Candidate Recommendation). The protocol defines an opening handshake and data transfer. The API enables Web pages to use the WebSocket protocol for two-way communication with the remote host. Unlike HTTP, there is no need to create a new TCP connection and send a chock-full of headers for every message exchange between client and server. The WebSocket protocol defines basic message framing, layered over TCP. Once the initial handshake happens using HTTP Upgrade, the client and server can send messages to each other, independent from the other. There are no pre-defined message exchange patterns of request/response or one-way between client and and server. These need to be explicitly defined over the basic protocol. The communication between client and server is pretty symmetric but there are two differences: A client initiates a connection to a server that is listening for a WebSocket request. A client connects to one server using a URI. A server may listen to requests from multiple clients on the same URI. Other than these two difference, the client and server behave symmetrically after the opening handshake. In that sense, they are considered as "peers". After a successful handshake, clients and servers transfer data back and forth in conceptual units referred as "messages". On the wire, a message is composed of one or more frames. Application frames carry payload intended for the application and can be text or binary data. Control frames carry data intended for protocol-level signaling. Now lets talk about the JSR! The Java API for WebSocket is worked upon as JSR 356 in the Java Community Process. This will define a standard API for building WebSocket applications. This JSR will provide support for: Creating WebSocket Java components to handle bi-directional WebSocket conversations Initiating and intercepting WebSocket events Creation and consumption of WebSocket text and binary messages The ability to define WebSocket protocols and content models for an application Configuration and management of WebSocket sessions, like timeouts, retries, cookies, connection pooling Specification of how WebSocket application will work within the Java EE security model Tyrus is the Reference Implementation for JSR 356 and is already integrated in GlassFish 4.0 Promoted Builds. And finally some code! The API allows to create WebSocket endpoints using annotations and interface. This TOTD will show a simple sample using annotations. A subsequent blog will show more advanced samples. A POJO can be converted to a WebSocket endpoint by specifying @WebSocketEndpoint and @WebSocketMessage. @WebSocketEndpoint(path="/hello")public class HelloBean { @WebSocketMessage public String sayHello(String name) { return "Hello " + name + "!"; }} @WebSocketEndpoint marks this class as a WebSocket endpoint listening at URI defined by the path attribute. The @WebSocketMessage identifies the method that will receive the incoming WebSocket message. This first method parameter is injected with payload of the incoming message. In this case it is assumed that the payload is text-based. It can also be of the type byte[] in case the payload is binary. A custom object may be specified if decoders attribute is specified in the @WebSocketEndpoint. This attribute will provide a list of classes that define how a custom object can be decoded. This method can also take an optional Session parameter. This is injected by the runtime and capture a conversation between two endpoints. The return type of the method can be String, byte[] or a custom object. The encoders attribute on @WebSocketEndpoint need to define how a custom object can be encoded. The client side is an index.jsp with embedded JavaScript. The JSP body looks like: <div style="text-align: center;"> <form action=""> <input onclick="say_hello()" value="Say Hello" type="button"> <input id="nameField" name="name" value="WebSocket" type="text"><br> </form> </div> <div id="output"></div> The code is relatively straight forward. It has an HTML form with a button that invokes say_hello() method and a text field named nameField. A div placeholder is available for displaying the output. Now, lets take a look at some JavaScript code: <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> var wsUri = "ws://localhost:8080/HelloWebSocket/hello"; var websocket = new WebSocket(wsUri); websocket.onopen = function(evt) { onOpen(evt) }; websocket.onmessage = function(evt) { onMessage(evt) }; websocket.onerror = function(evt) { onError(evt) }; function init() { output = document.getElementById("output"); } function say_hello() { websocket.send(nameField.value); writeToScreen("SENT: " + nameField.value); } This application is deployed as "HelloWebSocket.war" (download here) on GlassFish 4.0 promoted build 57. So the WebSocket endpoint is listening at "ws://localhost:8080/HelloWebSocket/hello". A new WebSocket connection is initiated by specifying the URI to connect to. The JavaScript API defines callback methods that are invoked when the connection is opened (onOpen), closed (onClose), error received (onError), or a message from the endpoint is received (onMessage). The client API has several send methods that transmit data over the connection. This particular script sends text data in the say_hello method using nameField's value from the HTML shown earlier. Each click on the button sends the textbox content to the endpoint over a WebSocket connection and receives a response based upon implementation in the sayHello method shown above. How to test this out ? Download the entire source project here or just the WAR file. Download GlassFish4.0 build 57 or later and unzip. Start GlassFish as "asadmin start-domain". Deploy the WAR file as "asadmin deploy HelloWebSocket.war". Access the application at http://localhost:8080/HelloWebSocket/index.jsp. After clicking on "Say Hello" button, the output would look like: Here are some references for you: WebSocket - Protocol and JavaScript API JSR 356: Java API for WebSocket - Specification (Early Draft) and Implementation (already integrated in GlassFish 4 promoted builds) Subsequent blogs will discuss the following topics (not necessary in that order) ... Binary data as payload Custom payloads using encoder/decoder Error handling Interface-driven WebSocket endpoint Java client API Client and Server configuration Security Subprotocols Extensions Other topics from the API Capturing WebSocket on-the-wire messages

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RIF PRD: Presentation syntax issues

- by Charles Young

Over Christmas I got to play a bit with the W3C RIF PRD and came across a few issues which I thought I would record for posterity. Specifically, I was working on a grammar for the presentation syntax using a GLR grammar parser tool (I was using the current CTP of ‘M’ (MGrammer) and Intellipad – I do so hope the MS guys don’t kill off M and Intellipad now they have dropped the other parts of SQL Server Modelling). I realise that the presentation syntax is non-normative and that any issues with it do not therefore compromise the standard. However, presentation syntax is useful in its own right, and it would be great to iron out any issues in a future revision of the standard. The main issues are actually not to do with the grammar at all, but rather with the ‘running example’ in the RIF PRD recommendation. I started with the code provided in Example 9.1. There are several discrepancies when compared with the EBNF rules documented in the standard. Broadly the problems can be categorised as follows: · Parenthesis mismatch – the wrong number of parentheses are used in various places. For example, in GoldRule, the RHS of the rule (the ‘Then’) is nested in the LHS (‘the If’). In NewCustomerAndWidgetRule, the RHS is orphaned from the LHS. Together with additional incorrect parenthesis, this leads to orphanage of UnknownStatusRule from the entire Document. · Invalid use of parenthesis in ‘Forall’ constructs. Parenthesis should not be used to enclose formulae. Removal of the invalid parenthesis gave me a feeling of inconsistency when comparing formulae in Forall to formulae in If. The use of parenthesis is not actually inconsistent in these two context, but in an If construct it ‘feels’ as if you are enclosing formulae in parenthesis in a LISP-like fashion. In reality, the parenthesis is simply being used to group subordinate syntax elements. The fact that an If construct can contain only a single formula as an immediate child adds to this feeling of inconsistency. · Invalid representation of compact URIs (CURIEs) in the context of Frame productions. In several places the URIs are not qualified with a namespace prefix (‘ex1:’). This conflicts with the definition of CURIEs in the RIF Datatypes and Built-Ins 1.0 document. Here are the productions: CURIE ::= PNAME_LN | PNAME_NS PNAME_LN ::= PNAME_NS PN_LOCAL PNAME_NS ::= PN_PREFIX? ':' PN_LOCAL ::= ( PN_CHARS_U | [0-9] ) ((PN_CHARS|'.')* PN_CHARS)? PN_CHARS ::= PN_CHARS_U | '-' | [0-9] | #x00B7 | [#x0300-#x036F] | [#x203F-#x2040] PN_CHARS_U ::= PN_CHARS_BASE | '_' PN_CHARS_BASE ::= [A-Z] | [a-z] | [#x00C0-#x00D6] | [#x00D8-#x00F6] | [#x00F8-#x02FF] | [#x0370-#x037D] | [#x037F-#x1FFF] | [#x200C-#x200D] | [#x2070-#x218F] | [#x2C00-#x2FEF] | [#x3001-#xD7FF] | [#xF900-#xFDCF] | [#xFDF0-#xFFFD] | [#x10000-#xEFFFF] PN_PREFIX ::= PN_CHARS_BASE ((PN_CHARS|'.')* PN_CHARS)? The more I look at CURIEs, the more my head hurts! The RIF specification allows prefixes and colons without local names, which surprised me. However, the CURIE Syntax 1.0 working group note specifically states that this form is supported…and then promptly provides a syntactic definition that seems to preclude it! However, on (much) deeper inspection, it appears that ‘ex1:’ (for example) is allowed, but would really represent a ‘fragment’ of the ‘reference’, rather than a prefix! Ouch! This is so completely ambiguous that it surely calls into question the whole CURIE specification. In any case, RIF does not allow local names without a prefix. · Missing ‘External’ specifiers for built-in functions and predicates. The EBNF specification enforces this for terms within frames, but does not appear to enforce (what I believe is) the correct use of External on built-in predicates. In any case, the running example only specifies ‘External’ once on the predicate in UnknownStatusRule. External() is required in several other places. · The List used on the LHS of UnknownStatusRule is comma-delimited. This is not supported by the EBNF definition. Similarly, the argument list of pred:list-contains is illegally comma-delimited. · Unnecessary use of conjunction around a single formula in DiscountRule. This is strictly legal in the EBNF, but redundant. All the above issues concern the presentation syntax used in the running example. There are a few minor issues with the grammar itself. Note that Michael Kiefer stated in his paper “Rule Interchange Format: The Framework” that: “The presentation syntax of RIF … is an abstract syntax and, as such, it omits certain details that might be important for unambiguous parsing.” · The grammar cannot differentiate unambiguously between strategies and priorities on groups. A processor is forced to resolve this by detecting the use of IRIs and integers. This could easily be fixed in the grammar. · The grammar cannot unambiguously parse the ‘->’ operator in frames. Specifically, ‘-’ characters are allowed in PN_LOCAL names and hence a parser cannot determine if ‘status->’ is (‘status’ ‘->’) or (‘status-’ ‘>’). One way to fix this is to amend the PN_LOCAL production as follows: PN_LOCAL ::= ( PN_CHARS_U | [0-9] ) ((PN_CHARS|'.')* ((PN_CHARS)-('-')))? However, unilaterally changing the definition of this production, which is defined in the SPARQL Query Language for RDF specification, makes me uncomfortable. · I assume that the presentation syntax is case-sensitive. I couldn’t find this stated anywhere in the documentation, but function/predicate names do appear to be documented as being case-sensitive. · The EBNF does not specify whitespace handling. A couple of productions (RULE and ACTION_BLOCK) are crafted to enforce the use of whitespace. This is not necessary. It seems inconsistent with the rest of the specification and can cause parsing issues. In addition, the Const production exhibits whitespaces issues. The intention may have been to disallow the use of whitespace around ‘^^’, but any direct implementation of the EBNF will probably allow whitespace between ‘^^’ and the SYMSPACE. Of course, I am being a little nit-picking about all this. On the whole, the EBNF translated very smoothly and directly to ‘M’ (MGrammar) and proved to be fairly complete. I have encountered far worse issues when translating other EBNF specifications into usable grammars. I can’t imagine there would be any difficulty in implementing the same grammar in Antlr, COCO/R, gppg, XText, Bison, etc. A general observation, which repeats a point made above, is that the use of parenthesis in the presentation syntax can feel inconsistent and un-intuitive. It isn’t actually inconsistent, but I think the presentation syntax could be improved by adopting braces, rather than parenthesis, to delimit subordinate syntax elements in a similar way to so many programming languages. The familiarity of braces would communicate the structure of the syntax more clearly to people like me. If braces were adopted, parentheses could be retained around ‘var (frame | ‘new()’) constructs in action blocks. This use of parenthesis feels very LISP-like, and I think that this is my issue. It’s as if the presentation syntax represents the deformed love-child of LISP and C. In some places (specifically, action blocks), parenthesis is used in a LISP-like fashion. In other places it is used like braces in C. I find this quite confusing. Here is a corrected version of the running example (Example 9.1) in compliant presentation syntax: Document( Prefix( ex1 <http://example.com/2009/prd2> ) (* ex1:CheckoutRuleset *) Group rif:forwardChaining ( (* ex1:GoldRule *) Group 10 ( Forall ?customer such that And(?customer # ex1:Customer ?customer[ex1:status->"Silver"]) (Forall ?shoppingCart such that ?customer[ex1:shoppingCart->?shoppingCart] (If Exists ?value (And(?shoppingCart[ex1:value->?value] External(pred:numeric-greater-than-or-equal(?value 2000)))) Then Do(Modify(?customer[ex1:status->"Gold"]))))) (* ex1:DiscountRule *) Group ( Forall ?customer such that ?customer # ex1:Customer (If Or( ?customer[ex1:status->"Silver"] ?customer[ex1:status->"Gold"]) Then Do ((?s ?customer[ex1:shoppingCart-> ?s]) (?v ?s[ex1:value->?v]) Modify(?s [ex1:value->External(func:numeric-multiply (?v 0.95))])))) (* ex1:NewCustomerAndWidgetRule *) Group ( Forall ?customer such that And(?customer # ex1:Customer ?customer[ex1:status->"New"] ) (If Exists ?shoppingCart ?item (And(?customer[ex1:shoppingCart->?shoppingCart] ?shoppingCart[ex1:containsItem->?item] ?item # ex1:Widget ) ) Then Do( (?s ?customer[ex1:shoppingCart->?s]) (?val ?s[ex1:value->?val]) (?voucher ?customer[ex1:voucher->?voucher]) Retract(?customer[ex1:voucher->?voucher]) Retract(?voucher) Modify(?s[ex1:value->External(func:numeric-multiply(?val 0.90))])))) (* ex1:UnknownStatusRule *) Group ( Forall ?customer such that ?customer # ex1:Customer (If Not(Exists ?status (And(?customer[ex1:status->?status] External(pred:list-contains(List("New" "Bronze" "Silver" "Gold") ?status)) ))) Then Do( Execute(act:print(External(func:concat("New customer: " ?customer)))) Assert(?customer[ex1:status->"New"])))) ) ) I hope that helps someone out there :-)

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It was a figure of speech!

- by Ratman21

Yesterday I posted the following as attention getter / advertisement (as well as my feelings). In the groups, (I am in) on the social networking site, LinkedIn and boy did I get responses. I am fighting mad about (a figure of speech, really) not having a job! Look just because I am over 55 and have gray hair. It does not mean, my brain is dead or I can no longer trouble shoot a router or circuit or LAN issue. Or that I can do “IT” work at all. And I could prove this if; some one would give me at job. Come on try me for 90 days at min. wage. I know you will end up keeping me (hope fully at normal pay) around. Is any one hearing me…come on take up the challenge! This was the responses I got. I hear you. We just need to retrain and get our skills up to speed is all. That is what I am doing. I have not given up. Just got to stay on top of the game. Experience is on our side if we have the credentials and we are reasonable about our salaries this should not be an issue. Already on it, going back to school and have got three certifications (CompTIA A+, Security+ and Network+. I am now studying for my CISCO CCNA certification. As to my salary, I am willing to work at very reasonable rate. You need to re-brand yourself like a product, market and sell yourself. You need to smarten up, look and feel a million dollars, re-energize yourself, regain your confidents. Either start your own business, or re-write your CV so it stands out from the rest, get the template off the internet. Contact every recruitment agent in your town, state, country and overseas, and on the web. Apply to every job you think you could do, you may not get it but you will make a contact for your network, which may lead to a job at the end of the tunnel. Get in touch with everyone you know from past jobs. Do charity work. I maintain the IT Network, stage electrical and the Telecom equipment in my church, Again already on it. I have email the world is seems with my resume and cover letters. So far, I have rewritten or had it rewrote, my resume and cover letters; over seven times so far. Re-energize? I never lost my energy level or my self-confidents in my work (now if could get some HR personal to see the same). I also volunteer at my church, I created and maintain the church web sit. I share your frustration. Sucks being over 50 and looking for work. Please don't sell yourself short at min wage because the employer will think that’s your worth. Keep trying!! I never stop trying and min wage is only for 90 days. If some one takes up the challenge. Some post asked if I am keeping up technology. Do you keep up with the latest technology and can speak the language fluidly? Yep to that and as to speaking it also a yep! I am a geek you know. I heard from others over the 50 year mark and younger too. I'm with you! I keep getting told that I don't have enough experience because I just recently completed a Masters level course in Microsoft SQL Server, which gave me a project-intensive equivalent of between 2 and 3 years of experience. On top of that training, I have 19 years as an applications programmer and database administrator. I can normalize rings around experienced DBAs and churn out effective code with the best of them. But my 19 years is worthless as far as most recruiters and HR people are concerned because it is not the specific experience for which they're looking. HR AND RECRUITERS TAKE NOTE: Experience, whatever the language, translates across platforms and technology! By the way, I'm also over 55 and still have "got it"! I never lost it and I also can work rings round younger techs. I'm 52 and female and seem to be having the same issues. I have over 10 years experience in tech support (with a BS in CIS) and can't get hired either. Ow, I only have an AS in computer science along with my certifications. Keep the faith, I have been unemployed since August of 2008. I agree with you...I am willing to return to the beginning of my retail career and work myself back through the ranks, if someone will look past the grey and realize the knowledge I would bring to the table. I also would like some one to look past the gray. Interesting approach, volunteering to work for minimum wage for 90 days. I'm in the same situation as you, being 55 & balding w/white hair, so I know where you're coming from. I've been out of work now for a year. I'm in Michigan, where the unemployment rate is estimated to be 15% (the worst in the nation) & even though I've got 30+ years of IT experience ranging from mainframe to PC desktop support, it's difficult to even get a face-to-face interview. I had one prospective employer tell me flat out that I "didn't have the energy required for this position". Mostly I never get any feedback. All I can say is good luck & try to remain optimistic. He said WHAT! Yes remaining optimistic is key. Along with faith in God. Then there was this (for lack of better word) jerk. Give it up already. You were too old to work in high tech 10 years ago. Scratch that, 20 years ago! Try selling hot dogs in front of Fry's Electronics. At least you would get a chance to eat lunch with your previous colleagues.... You know funny thing on this person is that I checked out his profile. He is older than I am.

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Corsair Hackers Reboot

It wasn't easy for me to attend but it was absolutely worth to go. The Linux User Group of Mauritius (LUGM) organised another get-together for any open source enthusiast here on the island. Strangely named "Corsair Hackers Reboot" but it stands for a positive cause: "Corsair Hackers Reboot Event A collaborative activity involving LUGM, UoM Computer Club, Fortune Way Shopping Mall and several geeks from around the island, striving to put FOSS into homes & offices. The public is invited to discover and explore Free Software & Open Source." And it was a good opportunity for me and the kids to visit the east coast of Mauritius, too. Perfect timing It couldn't have been better... Why? Well, for two important reasons (in terms of IT): End of support for Microsoft Windows XP - 08.04.2014 Release of Ubuntu 14.04 Long Term Support - 17.04.2014 Quite funnily, those two IT dates weren't the initial reasons and only during the weeks of preparations we put those together. And therefore it was even more positive to promote the use of Linux and open source software in general to a broader audience. Getting there ... Thanks to the new motor way M3 and all the additional road work which has been completed recently it was very simple to get across the island in a very quick and relaxed manner. Compared to my trips in the early days of living in Mauritius (and riding on a scooter) it was very smooth and within less than an hour we hit Centrale de Flacq. Well, being in the city doesn't necessarily mean that one has arrived at the destination. But thanks to modern technology I had a quick look on Google Maps, and we finally managed to get a parking behind the huge bus terminal in Flacq. From there it was just a short walk to Fortune Way. The children were trying to count the number of buses... Well, lots and lots of buses - really impressive actually. What was presented? There were different areas set up. Right at the entrance one's attention was directly drawn towards the elevated hacker's stage. Similar to rock stars performing their gig there was bunch of computers, laptops and networking equipment in order to cater the right working conditions for coding/programming challenge(s) on the one hand and for the pen-testing or system hacking competition on the other hand. Personally, I was very impresses that actually Nitin took care of the pen-testing competition. He hardly started one year back with Linux in general, and Kali Linux specifically. Seeing his personal development from absolute newbie to a decent Linux system administrator within such a short period of time, is really impressive. His passion to open source software made him a living. Next, clock-wise seen, was the Kid's Corner with face-painting as the main attraction. Additionally, there were numerous paper print outs to colour. Plus a decent workstation with the educational suite GCompris. Of course, my little ones were into that. They already know GCompris since a while as they are allowed to use it on an IGEL thin client terminal here at home. To simplify my life, I set up GCompris as full-screen guest session on the server, and they can pass the login screen without any further obstacles. And because it's a thin client hooked up to a XDMCP remote session I don't have to worry about the hardware on their desk, too. The next section was the main attraction of the event: BYOD - Bring Your Own Device Well, compared to the usual context of BYOD the corsairs had a completely different intention. Here, you could bring your own laptop and a team of knowledgeable experts - read: geeks and so on - offered to fully convert your system on any Linux distribution of your choice. And even though I came later, I was told that the USB pen drives had been in permanent use. From being prepared via dd command over launching LiveCD session to finally installing a fresh Linux system on bare metal. Most interestingly, I did a similar job already a couple of months ago, while upgrading an existing Windows XP system to Xubuntu 13.10. So far, the female owner is very happy and enjoys her system almost every evening to go shopping online, checking mails, and reading latest news from the Anime world. Back to the Hackers event, Ish told me that they managed approximately 20 conversion during the day. Furthermore, Ajay and others gladly assisted some visitors with some tricky issues and by the end of the day you can call is a success. While I was around, there was a elderly male visitor that got a full-fledged system conversion to a Linux system running completely in French language. A little bit more to the centre it was Yasir's turn to demonstrate his Arduino hardware that he hooked up with an experimental electrical circuit board connected to an LCD matrix display. That's the real spirit of hacking, and he showed some minor adjustments on the fly while demo'ing the system. Also, very interesting there was a thermal sensor around. Personally, I think that platforms like the Arduino as well as the Raspberry Pi have a great potential at a very affordable price in order to bring a better understanding of electronics as well as computer programming to a broader audience. It would be great to see more of those experiments during future activities. And last but not least there were a small number of vendors. Amongst them was Emtel - once again as sponsor of the general internet connectivity - and another hardware supplier from Riche Terre shopping mall. They had a good collection of Android related gimmicks, like a autonomous web cam that can convert any TV with HDMI connector into an online video chat system given WiFi. It's actually kind of awesome to have a Skype or Google hangout video session on the big screen rather than on the laptop. Some pictures of the event LUGM: Great conversations on Linux, open source and free software during the Corsair Hackers Reboot LUGM: Educational workstation running GCompris suite attracted the youngest attendees of the day. Of course, face painting had to be done prior to hacking... LUGM: Nadim demoing some Linux specifics to interested visitors. Everyone was pretty busy during the whole day LUGM: The hacking competition, here pen-testing a wireless connection and access point between multiple machines LUGM: Well prepared workstations to be able to 'upgrade' visitors' machines to any Linux operating system Final thoughts Gratefully, during the preparations of the event I was invited to leave some comments or suggestions, and the team of the LUGM did a great job. The outdoor banner was a eye-catcher, the various flyers and posters for the event were clearly written and as far as I understood from the quick chats I had with Ish, Nadim, Nitin, Ajay, and of course others all were very happy about the event execution. Great job, LUGM! And I'm already looking forward to the next Corsair Hackers Reboot event ... Crossing fingers: Very soon and hopefully this year again :) Update: In the media The event had been announced in local media, too. L'Express: Salon informatique: Hacking Challenge à Flacq

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First PC Build (Part 1)

- by Anthony Trudeau

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tonyt/archive/2014/08/05/157959.aspxA couple of months ago I made the decision to build myself a new computer. The intended use is gaming and for using the last real version of Photoshop. I was motivated by the poor state of console gaming and a simple desire to do something I haven’t done before – build a PC from the ground up. I’ve been using PCs for more than two decades. I’ve replaced a component hear and there, but for the last 10 years or so I’ve only used laptops. Therefore, this article will be written from the perspective of someone familiar with PCs, but completely new at building. I’m not an expert and this is not a definitive guide for building a PC, but I do hope that it encourages you to try it yourself. Component List Research There was a lot of research necessary, because building a PC is completely new to me, and I haven’t kept up with what’s out there. The first thing you want to do is nail down what your goals are. Your goals are going to be driven by what you want to do with your computer and personal choice. Don’t neglect the second one, because if you’re doing this for fun you want to get what you want. In my case, I focused on three things: performance, longevity, and aesthetics. The performance aspect is important for gaming and Photoshop. This will drive what components you get. For example, heavy gaming use is going to drive your choice of graphics card. Longevity is relevant to me, because I don’t want to be changing things out anytime soon for the next hot game. The consequence of performance and longevity is cost. Finally, aesthetics was my next consideration. I could have just built a box, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as fun for me. Aesthetics might not be important to you. They are for me. I also like gadgets and that played into at least one purchase for this build. I used PC Part Picker to put together my component list. I found it invaluable during the process and I’d recommend it to everyone. One caveat is that I wouldn’t trust the compatibility aspects. It does a pretty good job of not steering you wrong, but do your own research. The rest of it isn’t really sexy. I started out with what appealed to me and then I made changes and additions as I dived deep into researching each component and interaction I could find. The resources I used are innumerable. I used reviews, product descriptions, forum posts (praises and problems), et al. to assist me. I also asked friends into gaming what they thought about my component list. And when I got near the end I posted my list to the Reddit /r/buildapc forum. I cannot stress the value of extra sets of eyeballs and first hand experiences. Some of the resources I used: PC Part Picker Tom’s Hardware bit-tech Reddit Purchase PC Part Picker favors certain vendors. You should look at others too. In my case I found their favorites to be the best. My priorities were out-the-door price and shipping time. I knew that once I started getting parts I’d want to start building. Luckily, I timed it well and everything arrived within the span of a few days. Here are my opinions on the vendors I ended up using in alphabetical order. Amazon.com is a good, reliable choice. They have excellent customer service in my experience, and I knew I wouldn’t have trouble with them. However, shipping time is often a problem when you use their free shipping unless you order expensive items (I’ve found items over $100 ship quickly). Ultimately though, price wasn’t always the best and their collection of sales tax in my state turned me off them. I did purchase my case from them. I ordered the mouse as well, but I cancelled after it was stuck four days in a “shipping soon” state. I purchased the mouse locally. Best Buy is not my favorite place to do business. There’s a lot of history with poor, uninterested sales representatives and they used to have a lot of bad anti-consumer policies. That’s a lot better now, but the bad taste is still in my mouth. I ended up purchasing the accessories from them including mouse (locally) and headphones. NCIX is a company that I’ve never heard of before. It popped up as a recommendation for my CPU cooler on PC Part Picker. I didn’t do a lot of research on the company, because their policy on you buying insurance for your orders turned me off. That policy makes it clear to me that the company finds me responsible for the shipment once it leaves their dock. That’s not right, and may run afoul of state laws. Regardless they shipped my CPU cooler quickly and I didn’t have a problem. NewEgg.com is a well known company. I had never done business with them, but I’m glad I did. They shipped quickly and provided good visibility over everything. The prices were also the best in most cases. My main complaint is that they have a lot of exchange only return policies on components. To their credit those policies are listed in the cart underneath each item. The visibility tells me that they’re not playing any shenanigans and made me comfortable dealing with that risk. The vast majority of what I ordered came from them. Coming Next In the next part I’ll tackle my build experience.

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I Know What I Did This Summer: Put Down Trex Decking

- by thatjeffsmith

If you’re wondering why I would bore everyone with my pictures and frequent status updates/tweets from the past week – it’s so I could document the process of refurbishing my deck, or what some would call a porch. When we go to take a vacation, buy a car, do anything – we also read personal blogs to get the real story. So, if you’re curious about what it takes to tackle this sort of project, read on. Skills/Equipment/Manpower We Possessed I took the old decking out by myself. I’m about 230 lbs, more than 6′ tall, and I’m pretty healthy. This took about 8 hours over two afternoons. Three of us put the deck back together. My wife has two engineering degrees. Her father also has two engineering degrees. Lots of brainpower available here. Also, her dad ran the public works department for a country for more than 20 years – so lots and lots of practical experience on hand. We had a compound mitre saw, a skilsaw, 2-3 crowbars, a framing hammer, 3 cordless drills, a corded drill, lots of sawhorses, a power sander, an angle grinder, a 10×10 Coleman canopy tent, a Ford F-150 pickup truck, outdoor speakers and lots of iTunes playlists, plenty of water and cold beer. Why We Did This Our deck was relatively young – it was built in 2005. However, the pressure treated boards must not have been adequately maintained before we bought the house. I had powerwashed the deck every other year and had it stained a few times. The boards just rotted. We’re going to be in the house for a long time, and we wanted something that would look nice and require little maintenance. More bad deck boards The deck boards were in bad shape Things We Learned The two most important things: The hidden fasteners have to be put in JUST right. Wedge them into the grooved board, then bend down the bit that is screwed down. We didn’t do this on the first board and couldn’t get the second board to fit nearly close enough. Watching the official TREX YouTube video helped immensely, and we should have watched that first. When pre-drilling holes for the boards that need screwed down – DO NOT pre-drill through the underlying framing wood. ONLY pre-drill through the TREX itself. The screw won’t seat in the board properly. Instead of sitting down flush with the board, it will stop at the top of the board and just spin. I had to call the the place that sold me the screws to find this out. So about a third of our screws look like crap. If it doesn’t look or feel right – stop everything and pick up your computer or your phone. It’s not right, and it will be much easier to stop and find out why. We didn’t do this, and now I’m going to see every screw that’s not flush with the boards and get upset. Oh well. The Process How much time did it take? Well I spent about 8 hours taking the deck apart. And then the 3 of use spent 8 hours the first day, 10 hours the second day, 8 hours the third, and another 6 hours on the fourth day. That’s like 104 man-hours. We supposedly saved four or five thousand dollars in labor, but don’t do the math here or you might get a bit upset. The main thing is that we got what we wanted, and there won’t be any surprises later. Now for some pictures… This 6”+ pry bar made the destruction of the old deck much easier Most of the joists, once exposed, were OK. This joist wasn’t sitting on ANYTHING before. We think a lazy gas person cut the board to sneak a gas line in. Awesome… These monster lag bolts had to be accounted for when putting in the additional framing The border pattern Sheri wanted to put in required a lot more framing. These were the first boards to go down – we screwed them in as there was no way to attach clips I sat, kicked in the boards, and then drilled these clips in – but my wife was able to go MUCH faster by using her hands to lock the boards in and drill on her knees. I liked locking the board in with my feet when they needed to be ‘encouraged’ to go straight. The first board took FOREVER to go in, but then when we got rolling, we were able to put in a 20′ board in less than 10 minutes. This was end of construction day #2 – we got much further than we thought we would. Ah, the dreaded last 10% – what to do here? Remember those ‘floating’ stringers? Yeah, we fixed that up a bit, too. My wife used a website (and her brain) to calculate exactly how to cut the stringers to give us the rise/run we needed with the proper clearance and all that jazz. The stairs with stringers and toe kicks – this was worth the effort It started raining on us as I screwed down the steps – this we managed to get our shade tent up on the deck to protect us from the rain too The stairs, finished Finished, mostly Good corner shot The top of the stairs Stairs, looking down Celebratory beer In Summary There are a few things we’re not happy with. I think we can fix them up – but later. I have a few things left to finish, rewire the lighting, get the gas grille put back in, and rehang some screen doors. I was expecting this to be a lot worse than it was. If I didn’t have the help, I would have never done it myself. But I’m glad that I did have that help and did do that project. It’s not often you get to spend that kind of qualify time with family and building cool stuff.

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Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness and Capacity Assessment for SQL Server

- by SQLOS Team

Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness and Capacity Assessment for Windows Server Machine Running SQL Server With the release of MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta, we have added a new scenario to assess your Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness. The MAP 8.0 Beta performs a comprehensive assessment of Windows Servers running SQL Server to determine you level of readiness to migrate an on-premise physical or virtual machine to Windows Azure Virtual Machines. The MAP Toolkit then offers suggested changes to prepare the machines for migration, such as upgrading the operating system or SQL Server. MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta is available for download here Your participation and feedback is very important to make the MAP Toolkit work better for you. We encourage you to participate in the beta program and provide your feedback at [email protected] or through one of our surveys. Now, let’s walk through the MAP Toolkit task for completing the Windows Azure Virtual Machine assessment and capacity planning. The tasks include the following: Perform an inventory View the Windows Azure VM Readiness results and report Collect performance data for determine VM sizing View the Windows Azure Capacity results and report Perform an inventory: 1. To perform an inventory against a single machine or across a complete environment, choose Perform an Inventory to launch the Inventory and Assessment Wizard as shown below: 2. After the Inventory and Assessment Wizard launches, select either the Windows computers or SQL Server scenario to inventory Windows machines. HINT: If you don’t care about completely inventorying a machine, just select the SQL Server scenario. Click Next to Continue. 3. On the Discovery Methods page, select how you want to discover computers and then click Next to continue. Description of Discovery Methods: Use Active Directory Domain Services -- This method allows you to query a domain controller via the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and select computers in all or specific domains, containers, or OUs. Use this method if all computers and devices are in AD DS. Windows networking protocols -- This method uses the WIN32 LAN Manager application programming interfaces to query the Computer Browser service for computers in workgroups and Windows NT 4.0–based domains. If the computers on the network are not joined to an Active Directory domain, use only the Windows networking protocols option to find computers. System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) -- This method enables you to inventory computers managed by System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). You need to provide credentials to the System Center Configuration Manager server in order to inventory the managed computers. When you select this option, the MAP Toolkit will query SCCM for a list of computers and then MAP will connect to these computers. Scan an IP address range -- This method allows you to specify the starting address and ending address of an IP address range. The wizard will then scan all IP addresses in the range and inventory only those computers. Note: This option can perform poorly, if many IP addresses aren’t being used within the range. Manually enter computer names and credentials -- Use this method if you want to inventory a small number of specific computers. Import computer names from a files -- Using this method, you can create a text file with a list of computer names that will be inventoried. 4. On the All Computers Credentials page, enter the accounts that have administrator rights to connect to the discovered machines. This does not need to a domain account, but needs to be a local administrator. I have entered my domain account that is an administrator on my local machine. Click Next after one or more accounts have been added. NOTE: The MAP Toolkit primarily uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to collect hardware, device, and software information from the remote computers. In order for the MAP Toolkit to successfully connect and inventory computers in your environment, you have to configure your machines to inventory through WMI and also allow your firewall to enable remote access through WMI. The MAP Toolkit also requires remote registry access for certain assessments. In addition to enabling WMI, you need accounts with administrative privileges to access desktops and servers in your environment. 5. On the Credentials Order page, select the order in which want the MAP Toolkit to connect to the machine and SQL Server. Generally just accept the defaults and click Next. 6. On the Enter Computers Manually page, click Create to pull up at dialog to enter one or more computer names. 7. On the Summary page confirm your settings and then click Finish. After clicking Finish the inventory process will start, as shown below: Windows Azure Readiness results and report After the inventory progress has completed, you can review the results under the Database scenario. On the tile, you will see the number of Windows Server machine with SQL Server that were analyzed, the number of machines that are ready to move without changes and the number of machines that require further changes. If you click this Azure VM Readiness tile, you will see additional details and can generate the Windows Azure VM Readiness Report. After the report is generated, select View | Saved Reports and Proposals to view the location of the report. Open up WindowsAzureVMReadiness* report in Excel. On the Windows tab, you can see the results of the assessment. This report has a column for the Operating System and SQL Server assessment and provides a recommendation on how to resolve, if there a component is not supported. Collect Performance Data Launch the Performance Wizard to collect performance information for the Windows Server machines that you would like the MAP Toolkit to suggest a Windows Azure VM size for. Windows Azure Capacity results and report After the performance metrics are collected, the Azure VM Capacity title will display the number of Virtual Machine sizes that are suggested for the Windows Server and Linux machines that were analyzed. You can then click on the Azure VM Capacity tile to see the capacity details and generate the Windows Azure VM Capacity Report. Within this report, you can view the performance data that was collected and the Virtual Machine sizes. MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta is available for download here Your participation and feedback is very important to make the MAP Toolkit work better for you. We encourage you to participate in the beta program and provide your feedback at [email protected] or through one of our surveys. Useful References: Windows Azure Homepage How to guides for Windows Azure Virtual Machines Provisioning a SQL Server Virtual Machine on Windows Azure Windows Azure Pricing Peter Saddow Senior Program Manager – MAP Toolkit Team

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How to deal with transport level security policy with OSB

- by Jian Liang

Recently, we received a use case for Oracle Service Bus (OSB) 11gPS4 to consume a Web Service which is secured by HTTP transport level security policy. The WSDL of the remote web service looks like following where the part marked in red shows the security policy: <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?> <definitions xmlns:wssutil="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd" xmlns:wsp="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/09/policy" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/" xmlns:tns="https://httpsbasicauth" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/" targetNamespace="https://httpsbasicauth" name="HttpsBasicAuthService"> <wsp:UsingPolicy wssutil:Required="true"/> <wsp:Policy wssutil:Id="WSHttpBinding_IPartyServicePortType_policy"> <wsp:ExactlyOne> <wsp:All> <ns1:TransportBinding xmlns:ns1="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/07/securitypolicy"> <wsp:Policy> <ns1:TransportToken> <wsp:Policy> <ns1:HttpsToken RequireClientCertificate="false"/> </wsp:Policy> </ns1:TransportToken> <ns1:AlgorithmSuite> <wsp:Policy> <ns1:Basic256/> </wsp:Policy> </ns1:AlgorithmSuite> <ns1:Layout> <wsp:Policy> <ns1:Strict/> </wsp:Policy> </ns1:Layout> </wsp:Policy> </ns1:TransportBinding> <ns2:UsingAddressing xmlns:ns2="http://www.w3.org/2006/05/addressing/wsdl"/> </wsp:All> </wsp:ExactlyOne> </wsp:Policy> <types> <xsd:schema> <xsd:import namespace="https://proxyhttpsbasicauth" schemaLocation="http://localhost:7001/WS/HttpsBasicAuthService?xsd=1"/> </xsd:schema> <xsd:schema> <xsd:import namespace="https://httpsbasicauth" schemaLocation="http://localhost:7001/WS/HttpsBasicAuthService?xsd=2"/> </xsd:schema> </types> <message name="echoString"> <part name="parameters" element="tns:echoString"/> </message> <message name="echoStringResponse"> <part name="parameters" element="tns:echoStringResponse"/> </message> <portType name="HttpsBasicAuth"> <operation name="echoString"> <input message="tns:echoString"/> <output message="tns:echoStringResponse"/> </operation> </portType> <binding name="HttpsBasicAuthSoapPortBinding" type="tns:HttpsBasicAuth"> <wsp:PolicyReference URI="#WSHttpBinding_IPartyServicePortType_policy"/> <soap:binding transport="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/http" style="document"/> <operation name="echoString"> <soap:operation soapAction=""/> <input> <soap:body use="literal"/> </input> <output> <soap:body use="literal"/> </output> </operation> </binding> <service name="HttpsBasicAuthService"> <port name="HttpsBasicAuthSoapPort" binding="tns:HttpsBasicAuthSoapPortBinding"> <soap:address location="https://localhost:7002/WS/HttpsBasicAuthService"/> </port> </service> </definitions> The security assertion in the WSDL (marked in red) indicates that this is the HTTP transport level security policy which requires one way SSL with default authentication (aka. basic authenticate with username/password). Normally, there are two ways to handle web service security policy with OSB 11g: Use WebLogic 9.x policy Use OWSM Since OSB doesn’t support WebLogic 9.x WSSP transport level assertion (except for WS transport), when we tried to create the business service based on the imported WSDL, OSB complained with the following message: [OSB Kernel:398133]The service is based on WSDL with Web Services Security Policies that are not natively supported by Oracle Service Bus. Please select OWSM Policies - From OWSM Policy Store option and attach equivalent OWSM security policy. For the Business Service, either you can add the necessary client policies manually by clicking Add button or you can let Oracle Service Bus automatically pick and add compatible client policies by clicking Add Compatible button. Unfortunately, when tried with OWSM, we couldn’t find http_token_policy from OWSM since OSB PS4 doesn’t support OWSM http_token_policy. It seems that we ran into an unsupported situation that no appropriate policy can be used from both WebLogic and OWSM. As this security policy requires one way SSL with basic authentication at the transport level, a possible workaround is to meet the remote service's requirement at transport level without using web service policy. We can simply use OSB to establish SSL connection and provide username/password for authentication at the transport level to the remote web service. In this case, the business service within OSB will be transparent to the web service policy. However, we still need to deal with OSB console’s complaint related to unsupported security policy because the failure of WSDL validation prohibits OSB console to move forward. With the help from OSB Product Management team, we finally came up with the following solutions: Solution 1: OSB PS5 The good news is that the http_token_policy is made available in OSB PS5. With OSB PS5, you can simply add OWSM oracle/wss_http_token_over_ssl_client_policy to the business service. The simplest solution is to upgrade to OSB PS5 where the OWSM solution is provided out of the box. But if you are not in a position where upgrading is an immediate option, you might want to consider other two workaround solutions described below. Solution 2: Modifying WSDL This solution addresses OSB console’s complaint by removing the security policy from the imported WSDL within OSB. Without the security policy, OSB console allows the business service to be created based on modified WSDL. Please bear in mind, modifying WSDL is done only for the OSB side via OSB console, no change is required on the remote Web Service. The main steps of this solution: Connect to OSB console import the remote WSDL into OSB remove security assertion (the red marked part) from the imported WSDL create a service account. In our sample, we simply take the user weblogic create the business service and check "Basic" for Authentication and select the created service account make sure that OSB consumes the web service via https. This solution requires modifying WSDL. It is suitable for any OSB version (10g or OSB 11g version) prior to PS5 without OWSM. However, modifying WSDL by hand is troublesome as it requires the user to remember that the original WSDL was edited. It forces you to make the same edit each time you want to re-import the service WSDL when changes occur at the service level. This also prevents you from using UDDI to import WSDL. Solution 3: Using original WSDL This solution keeps the WSDL intact and ignores the embedded policy by using OWSM. By design, OWSM doesn’t like WSDL with embedded security assertion. Since OWSM doesn’t provide the feature to explicitly ignore the embedded policy from a remote WSDL, in this solution, we use OWSM in a tricky way to ignore the embedded policy. Connect to OSB console import the remote WSDL into OSB create a service account create the business service in which check "Basic" for Authentication and select the created service account as the imported WSDL is intact, the OSB Kernel:398133 error is expected ignore this error message for the moment and navigate to the Policies Page of business service Select “From OWSM Policy Store” and click “Add” button, the list of policies will pop-up Here is the tricky part: select an arbitrary policy, and click “Cancel” Update and save By clicking “Cancel’ button, we didn’t add any OWSM policy to business service, but the embedded policy is ignored. Yes, this is tricky. According to Oracle OSB Product Manager, the future release of OWSM will add a button “None” which allows to ignore the embedded policy explicitly. This solution keeps the imported WSDL intact which is the big advantage over the solution 2. It is suitable for OSB 11g (version prior to PS5) domain with OWSM configured. This blog addressed the unsupported transport level web service security policy with OSB PS4. To summarize, if you are using OSB PS5 or in a position to upgrade to PS5, the recommendation is to use OWSM OOTB transport level security policy directly. With the release prior to 11g PS5, you can consider the solution 2 or 3 depending on if OWSM is configured.

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Internationalize WebCenter Portal - Content Presenter

- by Stefan Krantz

Lately we have been involved in engagements where internationalization has been holding the project back from success. In this post we are going to explain how to get Content Presenter and its editorials to comply with the current selected locale for the WebCenter Portal session. As you probably know by now WebCenter Portal leverages the Localization support from Java Server Faces (JSF), in this post we will assume that the localization is controlled and enforced by switching the current browsers locale between English and Spanish. There is two main scenarios in internationalization of a content enabled pages, since Content Presenter offers both presentation of information as well as contribution of information, in this post we will look at how to enable seamless integration of correct localized version of the back end content file and how to enable the editor/author to edit the correct localized version of the file based on the current browser locale. Solution Scenario 1 - Localization aware content presentation Due to the amount of steps required to implement the enclosed solution proposal I have decided to share the solution with you in group components for each facet of the solution. If you want to get more details on each step, you can review the enclosed components. This post will guide you through the steps of enabling each component and what it enables/changes in each section of the system. Enable Content Presenter Customization By leveraging a predictable naming convention of the data files used to hold the content for the Content Presenter instance we can easily develop a component that will dynamically switch the name out before presenting the information. The naming convention we have leverage is the industry best practice by having a shared identifier as prefix (ContentABC) and a language enabled suffix (_EN) (_ES). So the assumption is that each file pair in above example should look like following:- English version - (ContentABC_EN)- Spanish version - (ContentABC_ES) Based on above theory we can now easily regardless of the primary version assigned to the content presenter instance switch the language out by using the localization support from JSF. Below java bean (oracle.webcenter.doclib.internal.view.presenter.NLSHelperBean) is enclosed in the customization project available for download at the bottom of the post: 1: public static final String CP_D_DOCNAME_FORMAT = "%s_%s"; 2: public static final int CP_UNIQUE_ID_INDEX = 0; 3: private ContentPresenter presenter = null; 4: 5: 6: public NLSHelperBean() { 7: super(); 8: } 9: 10: /** 11: * This method updates the configuration for the pageFlowScope to have the correct datafile 12: * for the current Locale 13: */ 14: public void initLocaleForDataFile() { 15: String dataFile = null; 16: // Checking that state of presenter is present, also make sure the item is eligible for localization by locating the "_" in the name 17: if(presenter.getConfiguration().getDatasource() != null && 18: presenter.getConfiguration().getDatasource().isNodeDatasource() && 19: presenter.getConfiguration().getDatasource().getNodeIdDatasource() != null && 20: !presenter.getConfiguration().getDatasource().getNodeIdDatasource().equals("") && 21: presenter.getConfiguration().getDatasource().getNodeIdDatasource().indexOf("_") > 0) { 22: dataFile = presenter.getConfiguration().getDatasource().getNodeIdDatasource(); 23: FacesContext fc = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance(); 24: //Leveraging the current faces contenxt to get current localization language 25: String currentLocale = fc.getViewRoot().getLocale().getLanguage().toUpperCase(); 26: String newDataFile = dataFile; 27: String [] uniqueIdArr = dataFile.split("_"); 28: if(uniqueIdArr.length > 0) { 29: newDataFile = String.format(CP_D_DOCNAME_FORMAT, uniqueIdArr[CP_UNIQUE_ID_INDEX], currentLocale); 30: } 31: //Replacing the current Node datasource with localized datafile. 32: presenter.getConfiguration().getDatasource().setNodeIdDatasource(newDataFile); 33: } 34: } With this bean code available to our WebCenter Portal implementation we can start the next step, by overriding the standard behavior in content presenter by applying a MDS Taskflow customization to the content presenter taskflow, following taskflow customization has been applied to the customization project attached to this post:- Library: WebCenter Document Library Service View- Path: oracle.webcenter.doclib.view.jsf.taskflows.presenter- File: contentPresenter.xml Changes made in above customization view:1. A new method invocation activity has been added (initLocaleForDataFile)2. The method invocation invokes the new NLSHelperBean3. The default activity is moved to the new Method invocation (initLocaleForDataFile)4. The outcome from the method invocation goes to determine-navigation (original default activity) The above changes concludes the presentation modification to support a compatible localization scenario for a content driven page. In addition this customization do not limit or disables the out of the box capabilities of WebCenter Portal. Steps to enable above customization Start JDeveloper and open your WebCenter Portal Application Select "Open Project" and include the extracted project you downloaded (CPNLSCustomizations.zip) Make sure the build out put from CPNLSCustomizations project is a dependency to your Portal project Deploy your Portal Application to your WC_CustomPortal managed server Make sure your naming convention of the two data files follow above recommendation Example result of the solution: Solution Scenario 2 - Localization aware content creation and authoring As you could see from Solution Scenario 1 we require the naming convention to be strictly followed, this means in the hands of a user with limited technology knowledge this can be one of the failing links in this solutions. Therefore I strongly recommend that you also follow this part since this will eliminate this risk and also increase the editors/authors usability with a magnitude. The current WebCenter Portal Architecture leverages WebCenter Content today to maintain, publish and manage content, therefore we need to make few efforts in making sure this part of the architecture is on board with our new naming practice and also simplifies the creation of content for our end users. As you probably remember the naming convention required a prefix to be common so I propose we enable a new component that help you auto name the content items dDocName (this means that the readable title can still be in a human readable format). The new component (WCP-LocalizationSupport.zip) built for this scenario will enable a couple of things: 1. A new service where a sequential number can be generate on request - service name: GET_WCP_LOCALE_CONTENTID 2. The content presenter is leveraging a specific function when launching the content creation wizard from within Content Presenter. Assumption is that users will create the content by clicking "Create Web Content" button. When clicking the button the wizard opened is actually running in side of WebCenter Content server, file executed (contentwizard.hcsp). This file uses JSON commands that will generate operations in the content server, I have extend this file to create two identical data files instead of one.- First it creates the English version by leveraging the new Service and a Global Rule to set the dDocName on the original check in screen, this global rule is available in a configuration package attached to this blog (NLSContentProfileRule.zip)- Secondly we run a set of JSON javascripts to create the Spanish version with the same details except for the name where we replace the suffix with (_ES)- Then content creation wizard ends with its out of the box behavior and assigns the Content Presenter instance the English versionSee Javascript markup below - this can be changed in the (WCP-LocalizationSupport.zip/component/WCP-LocalizationSupport/publish/webcenter) 1: //---------------------------------------A-TEAM--------------------------------------- 2: WCM.ContentWizard.CheckinContentPage.OnCheckinComplete = function(returnParams) 3: { 4: var callback = WCM.ContentWizard.CheckinContentPage.checkinCompleteCallback; 5: WCM.ContentWizard.ChooseContentPage.OnSelectionComplete(returnParams, callback); 6: // Load latest DOC_INFO_SIMPLE 7: var cgiPath = DOCLIB.config.httpCgiPath; 8: var jsonBinder = new WCM.Idc.JSONBinder(); 9: jsonBinder.SetLocalDataValue('IdcService', 'DOC_INFO_SIMPLE'); 10: jsonBinder.SetLocalDataValue('dID', returnParams.dID); 11: jsonBinder.Send(cgiPath, $CB(this, function(http) { 12: var ret = http.GetResponseText(); 13: var binder = new WCM.Idc.JSONBinder(ret); 14: var dDocName = binder.GetResultSetValue('DOC_INFO', 'dDocName', 0); 15: if(dDocName.indexOf("_") > 0){ 16: var ssBinder = new WCM.Idc.JSONBinder(); 17: ssBinder.SetLocalDataValue('IdcService', 'SS_CHECKIN_NEW'); 18: //Additional Localization dDocName generated 19: ssBinder.SetLocalDataValue('dDocName', getLocalizedDocName(dDocName, "es")); 20: ssBinder.SetLocalDataValue('primaryFile', 'default.xml'); 21: ssBinder.SetLocalDataValue('ssDefaultDocumentToken', 'SSContributorDataFile'); 22: 23: for(var n = 0 ; n < binder.GetResultSetFields('DOC_INFO').length ; n++) { 24: var field = binder.GetResultSetFields('DOC_INFO')[n]; 25: if(field != 'dID' && 26: field != 'dDocName' && 27: field != 'dID' && 28: field != 'dReleaseState' && 29: field != 'dRevClassID' && 30: field != 'dRevisionID' && 31: field != 'dRevLabel') { 32: ssBinder.SetLocalDataValue(field, binder.GetResultSetValue('DOC_INFO', field, 0)); 33: } 34: } 35: ssBinder.Send(cgiPath, $CB(this, function(http) {})); 36: } 37: })); 38: } 39: 40: //Support function to create localized dDocNames 41: function getLocalizedDocName(dDocName, lang) { 42: var result = dDocName.replace("_EN", ("_" + lang)); 43: return result; 44: } 45: //---------------------------------------A-TEAM--------------------------------------- 3. By applying the enclosed NLSContentProfileRule.zip, the check in screen for DataFile creation will have auto naming enabled with localization suffix (default is English)You can change the default language by updating the GlobalNlsRule and assign preferred prefix.See Rule markup for dDocName field below: <$executeService("GET_WCP_LOCALE_CONTENTID")$><$dprDefaultValue=WCP_LOCALE.LocaleContentId & "_EN"$> Steps to enable above extensions and configurations Install WebCenter Component (WCP-LocalizationSupport.zip), via the AdminServer in WebCenter Content Administration menus Enable the component and restart the content server Apply the configuration bundle to enable the new Global Rule (GlobalNlsRule), via the WebCenter Content Administration/Config Migration Admin New Content Creation Experience Result Content EditingContent editing will by default be enabled for authoring in the current select locale since the content file is selected by (Solution Scenario 1), this means that a user can switch his browser locale and then get the editing experience adaptable to the current selected locale. NotesA-Team are planning to post a solution on how to inline switch the locale of the WebCenter Portal Session, so the Content Presenter, Navigation Model and other Face related features are localized accordingly. Content Presenter examples used in this post is an extension to following post:https://blogs.oracle.com/ATEAM_WEBCENTER/entry/enable_content_editing_of_iterative Downloads CPNLSCustomizations.zip - WebCenter Portal, Content Presenter Customization https://blogs.oracle.com/ATEAM_WEBCENTER/resource/stefan.krantz/CPNLSCustomizations.zip WCP-LocalizationSupport.zip - WebCenter Content, Extension Component to enable localization creation of files with compliant auto naminghttps://blogs.oracle.com/ATEAM_WEBCENTER/resource/stefan.krantz/WCP-LocalizationSupport.zip NLSContentProfileRule.zip - WebCenter Content, Configuration Update Bundle to enable Global rule for new check in naming of data fileshttps://blogs.oracle.com/ATEAM_WEBCENTER/resource/stefan.krantz/NLSContentProfileRule.zip

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Oracle Fusion Applications: Changing the Game

- by kellsey.ruppel(at)oracle.com

Originally posted in the Oracle Profit Magazine, November 2010 Edition. When the order processing system red-flags a customer's credit status, the IT department doesn't get the customer's call. When a supplier misses a delivery date for a key automotive assembly, it's not the CIO who has to answer for the error. Knowledge workers (known in IT circles as "users") are on the front lines when an exception occurs in an established business process. They're also the ones who study sales trends to decide when to open a new store in an up-and-coming neighborhood, which products are most profitable, how employee skill sets are evolving, and which suppliers are most efficient. In short, knowledge workers are masters of business as unusual. Traditional enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and other familiar enterprise applications excel at automating, managing, and executing standard business processes. These programs shine when everything goes as planned. Life gets even trickier when a traditional application needs to be extended with a new service or an extra step is added to a business process when new products are brought to market, divisions are merged, or companies are acquired. Monolithic applications often need the IT department to step in and make the necessary adjustments--incurring additional costs and delays. Until now. When Oracle unveiled the much-anticipated family of Oracle Fusion Applications at Oracle OpenWorld in September 2010, knowledge workers in particular had a lot to cheer about. Business users will soon have ready access to analytical information and collaboration tools in the context of what they are working on, so they can make better decisions when problems or opportunities arise. Additionally, the Oracle Fusion Applications platform will make it easy for business users to tweak processes, create new capabilities, and find information, often without the need for IT department assistance and while still following company guidelines. And IT leaders will be happy to hear about new deployment options, guided implementation and setup tools, and cost-saving management capabilities. Just as important, the underlying technologies in Oracle Fusion Applications will allow organizations to choose among their existing investments and next-generation enterprise applications so they can introduce innovations at a pace that makes the most business and financial sense. "Oracle Fusion Applications are architected so you don't have to do rip and replace," says Jim Hayes, managing director of the consulting firm Accenture. "That's very important for creating a business case that will get through the steering committee and be approved by the board. It shows you can drive value and make a difference in the near term." For these and other reasons, analysts and early adopters are calling Oracle Fusion Applications a game changer for enterprise customers. The differences become apparent in three key areas: the way we innovate, work, and adopt technology. Game Changer #1: New Standard for InnovationChange is a constant challenge for most businesses, whether the catalysts are market dynamics, new competition, or the ever-expanding regulatory environment. And, in an ongoing effort to differentiate, business leaders are constantly looking for new ways to do business, serve constituents, and bring new products and services to market. In addition, companies face significant costs to keep their applications up-to-date. For example, when a company adds new suppliers to a procurement system, the IT shop typically has to invest time, effort, and even consulting fees for custom integrations that allow various ERP systems to communicate with each other. Oracle Fusion Applications were built on Web services and a modular SOA foundation to ease customizations and integration activities among all applications--whether from Oracle or another vendor. Interfaces and updates written in ubiquitous Java, rather than a proprietary coding language, allow organizations to tap into existing in-house technical skills rather than seek expensive outside specialists. And with SOA, organizations can extend a feature set or integrate with other SOA environments by combining Web services such as "look up customer" into a new business process managed by the BPEL orchestration engine. Flexibility like this has long-term implications. "Because users capture these changes at a higher metadata layer, not in the application's code, changes and additions are protected even as new versions of Oracle Fusion Applications are released," says Steve Miranda, senior vice president of applications development at Oracle. "This is a much more sustainable approach because you don't incur costly customizations that prevent upgrades and other innovations." And changes are easier to make: if one change is made in the metadata, that change is automatically reflected throughout the application interface, business intelligence, business process, and business logic. Game Changer #2: New Standard for WorkBoosting productivity comes down to doing the basics right: running business processes more efficiently and managing exceptions more effectively, so users can accomplish more in the course of a day or spend more quality time with the most profitable customers. The fastest way to improve process efficiency is to reduce the number of steps it takes to execute common tasks, such as ordering office equipment from an internal procurement system. Oracle Fusion Applications will deliver a complete role-based user experience with business intelligence and collaboration capabilities provided in the context of the work at hand. "We created every Oracle Fusion Applications screen by asking 'What does the user need to know?' 'What does he or she need to do?' and 'Who do they need to work with to get the job done?'" Miranda explains. So when the sales department heads need new laptops, the self-service procurement screen will not only display a list of approved vendors and configurations, but also a running list of reviews by coworkers who recently purchased the various models. Embedded intelligence may also display prevailing delivery lead times based on actual order histories, not the generic shipping dates vendors may quote. The pervasive business intelligence serves many other business activities across all areas of the enterprise. For example, a manager considering whether to promote a direct report can see the person's employee profile, with a salary history, appraisal summaries, and a rundown of skills and training. This approach to business intelligence also has implications for supply chain management. "One of the challenges at Ingersoll Rand is lack of visibility in our supply chain," says Mike Macrie, global director of enterprise applications for global industrial firm Ingersoll Rand. "Oracle Fusion Applications are going to provide the embedded intelligence to give us that visibility and give us the ability to analyze those orders at any point in our supply chain." Oracle Fusion Applications will also create a "role-based user experience" that displays a work list of events that need attention, based on user job function. Role awareness guides users with daily lists of action items and exceptions. So a credit manager may see seven invoices with discounts that are about to expire or 12 suppliers that have been put on hold because credit memos are awaiting approval. Individualization extends to the search capabilities of Oracle Fusion Applications. The platform uses Web-style search screens powered by an Oracle enterprise search engine, with a security framework that filters search results so individuals will only see the internal information they're authorized to access. A further aid to productivity is Oracle Fusion Applications' integration with Web 2.0 collaboration and social networking resources for business environments. Hover-over text will reveal relevant contact information whenever the name of a person appears in an Oracle Fusion Application. Users can connect via an online chat, phone call, or instant message without leaving the main application, reducing the time required for an accounts payable staffer to resolve a mismatch between an invoiced charge and the service record, for example. Addresses of suppliers, customers, or partners will also initiate hover-over text to show contact details and Web-based maps. Finally, Oracle Fusion Applications will promote a new way of working with purpose-driven communities that can bring new efficiencies to everything from cultivating sales leads to managing new projects. As soon as a lead or project materializes, the applications will automatically gather relevant participants into an online community that shares member contact information, schedules, discussion forums, and Wiki pages. "Oracle Fusion Applications will allow us to take it to the next level with embedded Web 2.0 tools and the embedded analytics," says Steve Printz, CIO and vice president, supply chain management, at window-and-door manufacturer Pella. "[This] allows those employees today who are processing transactions to really contribute to the success of the company and become decision-makers." Game Changer #3: New Standard for Technology AdoptionAs IT becomes a dominant component of how businesses run and compete, organizations need to lower the cost of implementing applications and introducing new application features. In the past, rolling out new code often required creating a test bed system, moving beta code to a separate system for user feedback, and--once all the revisions were made--moving version one of the software onto production systems, where business users could finally get the needed new features. Oracle Fusion Applications will use a dedicated setup manager application to streamline this process. First, the setup manager will help scope out the project, querying users about their requirements. "From those questions and answers we determine the steps and the order of those steps that will enable that task," Miranda says. Next, system utilities will assign tasks to owners, track completion status, and monitor the overall status of a programming effort. Oracle Fusion Applications can then recommend Web services that allow users to migrate setup choices and steps across all the various deployments of the application. Those setup capabilities automate the migration from test systems to production systems, as well as between different business units that may be using the same application. "The self-service ability of the setup manager helps business users change setups with very little intervention from the IT team," says Ravi Kumar, vice president at IT services company Infosys. "That to me is a big difference from how we've viewed enterprise applications before." For additional flexibility, organizations will be able to adopt Oracle Fusion Applications modules in either of two modes: a single-instance alternative uses one database for all Oracle Fusion Applications, while a "pillar mode" creates separate databases to underpin each application. This means IT departments running any one of Oracle's applications or even third-party applications can plug Oracle Fusion Applications modules into their environment and see additional business value created on top of their existing systems. And Oracle Fusion Applications offer a hybrid approach to deployment. The applications are all software-as-a-service-ready, so customers can choose on-premises, public or private cloud, or a combination of these to suit their business needs. It's that combination of flexibility and a roadmap for the future that may be the biggest game changer of all. "The Oracle Fusion Applications architecture allows us to migrate our company at a pace that's consistent with our business strategy, whereas before we might have had to do it with a massive upgrade," says Macrie of Ingersoll Rand. "We're looking forward to that architecture to really give us more flexibility in how we migrate over time." For More InformationUser Input Key to the Success of Oracle Fusion ApplicationsTransforming Coexistence into Strategic ValueUnder the HoodOracle Fusion ApplicationsOracle Service-Oriented Architecture

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Day 2 - Game Design Documentation

- by dapostolov

So yesterday I didn't cut any code for my game but I was able to do a tiny bit of research on the XNA Game Development Technology and the communities out there and do you know what? I feel I'm a bit closer to my goal. The bad news is today I didn't cut code either. However, not all is lost because I wanted to get my ideas on paper and today I just did that. Today, I began to jot down notes about the game and how I felt the visual elements would interact with each other. Unlike my workplace, my personal level of documentation is nothing more than a task list or a mind map of my ideas; it helps me streamline my solutions quiet effectively and circumvent the long process of articulating each thought to the n-th degree. I truly dislike documentation (because I have an extremely hard time articulating my thought and solutions); however, because I tend to do a really good job with documentation I tend to get stuck writing the buggers. But as a generalist remark: 'No Developer likes documentation.' For now let's stick with my basic notes and call this post a living document. Here are my notes, fresh, from after watching the new first episode of Merlin second season! Actually, a quick recommendation to anyone who is reading this (if anyone is): I truly recommend you envelope yourself in the medium or task you're trying to tackle. Be one with moment and feel it! For instance: Are you writing a fantasy script / game? What would the music of the genre sound like? For me the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack by Basil Poledouris is frackin awesome. There are many other good CD's out there, which I listen to (some who even use medival instruments, but Conan I keep returning to. It's a creative trigger for me. Ask yourself what would the imagery look like? Time to surf google for artist renditions of fantasy! What would the game feel like? Start playing some of your favorite games that inspire you, be wary though, have some self control and don't let it absorb your time. Anyhow, onto the documentation... Screens, Scenes, and Sprites. Oh My! (groan...) The first thing that came to mind were the screens, I thought the following would suffice: Menu Screen Character Customisation Screen Loading Screen? Battle Ground The Menu Screen Ok. So, the thought here is when the game loads a huge title is displayed: Wizard Wars. The player is prompted with 3 menu items: 1 Player Game, 2 Player Game, and Exit. Since I'm targetting the PC platform, as a non-networked game to start, I picture myself running my mouse over each menu option and the visual element of the menu item changes, along with a sound to indicate that I am over a curent menu item. And as I move my mouse away, it changes back, and possibly an exit mouse sound. Maybe on the screen somewhere is a brazier alit with a magical tome open right beside it, OR, maybe the tome is the menu! I hear the menu music as mellow, not obtrusive or piercing. On a menu item select, a confirmation sound bellows to indicate the players selection. The Esc key will always return me to the previous screens or desktop. The menu screen must feel...dark, like a really important ritual is about to happen and thus the music should build up. 1 Player Game - > Customize Character(s) 2 Player Game - > Customize Character(s) Exit - > Back to Windows Notes: So the first thing I pick up here are a couple things: First and foremost, my artistic abilities suck crap, so I may have to hire an artist (now that i've said that, lets get techy) graphical objects will be positioned within a scene on each screen / window. Menu items will be represented grapically, possibly animated, and have sound / animation effects triggered by user input or a time line. I have an animated scene involving a brazier or fire on a stick IF I was to move this game to the xbox, I'd have to track which menu item is currently selected (unless I do a mouse pointer type thing.) WindowObject has a scene A Scene has many GameObjects GameObject has a position graphic or animation MenuObject is a GameObject which has a mouse in, mouse out, and click event which either does something graphically (animation), does something with sound, or moves to another screen. Character Customisation Screen With either the 1 or 2 player option selected, both selections will come to this screen; a wizard requires a name, powers, and vestements of course! Player one will configure his character first and then player two. I considered a split screen for PC but to have two people fighting over a keyboard would probably suck. For XBox, a split screen could work; maybe when I get into the networking portion (phase 2 blog?) of this game I will remove the 2 player option for PC and provide only multiplayer and I will leave 2 player for xbox...hmm... Anyhow...I picture the creation process as follows: Name: (textbox / keyboard entry) - for xbox, this would have to be different. Robe Color: (color box, or something) Stats: Speed, Oomph, and Health. (as sliders) 1 as minimum and 10 as maximum. Ok, Back, and Cancel buttons / options. Each stat has a benefit which are listed below. The idea is the player decides if he wants his wizard to run fast, be a tank and ... hit with a purse.Regardless, the player will have a pool of 12 points to use. Ideally, A balanced wizard will have 5 in each attribute. Spells? The only spell of choice is a ball of fire which comes without question. The music and screen should still feel like a ritual. The Character Speed Basically, how fast your character moves and casts. Oomph (Best Monster Truck Voice): PURE POWAH!!! The damage output of your fireball. Health How much damage you can take. Notes: I realise the game dynamics may sound uninteresting at the moment; but I think after a couple releases, we could have some other grand ideas such as: saved profiles, gold to upgrade arsenal of spells, talents, etc...but for now...a vanilla fireball thrower mage will suffice for this experiment. OK. So... a MenuObject may need to be loosely coupled to allow future items such as networking? may be a button? a CharacterObject has a name speed oomph health and a funky robe color. cap on the three stats (1-10) an arsenal of 1 spell (possibly could expand this) The Loading Screen As is. The Battleground Screen For now, I'm keeping the screen as max resolution for the PC. The screen isn't going to move or even be a split screen. I'm not aiming high here because I want to see what level of change is involved when new features / concepts are added to game content. I'm interested to find out if we could apply techniques such as MVC or MVVM to this type of development or is it too tightly coupled? This reminds me when when my best friend and I were brainstorming our game idea (this is going back a while...1994, 6?) and he cringed at the thought of bringing business technology into games, especially when I suggested a database to store character information and COM / DCOM as the medium, but it seems I wasn't far off (reflecting); just like his implementation of a xml "config file" for dynamic direct-x menus back before .net in 1999...anyhow...i digress... The Battle One screen, two characters lobing balls of fire at each other...It doesn't get better than that. Every so often a scroll appears...and the fireballs bounce off walls, or the wizard has rapid fire, or even scrolls of healing! The scroll options are endless. Two bars at the top, each the color of the wizard (with their name beside the bar) indicate how much health they have. Possibly the appearance of the scrolls means the battle is taking too long? I'm thinking 1 player controls: up, down, left, right and space to fire the button. Or even possibly, mouse click and shift - mouse button to fire a spell in the direction they are facing. Two player controls: a, s, d, f and space AND arrows (up, down, left, right) and Del key or Crtl. The game ends when a player has 0 health and a dialog box appears asking for a rematch / reconfigure / exit. Health goes down when a fireball (friendly or not), connects with a wizard. When a wizard connects with a scroll, a countdown clock / icon appears near the health bar and the wizard begins to glow. For the most part, a wizard can have only scroll 1 effect on him at a time. Notes: Ok, there's alot to cover here. a CharacterObject is a GameObject it travels at a set velocity it travels in a direction it has sounds (walking, running, casting, impact, dying, laughing, whistling, other?) it has animations (walking, running, casting, impact, dying, laughing, idle, other?) it has a lifespan (determined by health) it is alive or dead it has a position a ScrollObject is a GameObject it carries a transferance of points "damage" (or healing, bad scroll effect?) (determinde by caster) it carries a transferance of "other" it is stationary it has a sound on impact it has a stationary animation it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it has a fade animation? it has a lifespan (determined by game) it is alive or dead it has a position a WallObject is a GameObject it has a sound on fireball impact? it is a still image / stationary it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it is dead it has a position A FireBall is a GameObject it carries a transferance of poinst "damage" (or healing, bad scroll effect?) (determinde by caster) it travels at a set velocity it travels in a direction it has a sound it has a travel animation it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it has a fade animation? it has a lifespan (determined by caster) it is alive or dead it has a position As I look at this, I can see some common attributes in each object that I can carry up to the GameObject. I think I'm going to end the documentation here, it's taken me a bit of time to type this all out, tomorrow. I'll load up my IDE and my paint studio to get some good old fashioned cowboy hacking going! D.

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Creating HTML5 Offline Web Applications with ASP.NET

- by Stephen Walther

The goal of this blog entry is to describe how you can create HTML5 Offline Web Applications when building ASP.NET web applications. I describe the method that I used to create an offline Web application when building the JavaScript Reference application. You can read about the HTML5 Offline Web Application standard by visiting the following links: Offline Web Applications Firefox Offline Web Applications Safari Offline Web Applications Currently, the HTML5 Offline Web Applications feature works with all modern browsers with one important exception. You can use Offline Web Applications with Firefox, Chrome, and Safari (including iPhone Safari). Unfortunately, however, Internet Explorer does not support Offline Web Applications (not even IE 9). Why Build an HTML5 Offline Web Application? The official reason to build an Offline Web Application is so that you do not need to be connected to the Internet to use it. For example, you can use the JavaScript Reference Application when flying in an airplane, riding a subway, or hiding in a cave in Borneo. The JavaScript Reference Application works great on my iPhone even when I am completely disconnected from any network. The following screenshot shows the JavaScript Reference Application running on my iPhone when airplane mode is enabled (notice the little orange airplane): Admittedly, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find locations where you can’t get Internet access. A second, and possibly better, reason to create Offline Web Applications is speed. An Offline Web Application must be downloaded only once. After it gets downloaded, all of the files required by your Web application (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Image) are stored persistently on your computer. Think of Offline Web Applications as providing you with a super browser cache. Normally, when you cache files in a browser, the files are cached on a file-by-file basis. For each HTML, CSS, image, or JavaScript file, you specify how long the file should remain in the cache by setting cache headers. Unlike the normal browser caching mechanism, the HTML5 Offline Web Application cache is used to specify a caching policy for an entire set of files. You use a manifest file to list the files that you want to cache and these files are cached until the manifest is changed. Another advantage of using the HTML5 offline cache is that the HTML5 standard supports several JavaScript events and methods related to the offline cache. For example, you can be notified in your JavaScript code whenever the offline application has been updated. You can use JavaScript methods, such as the ApplicationCache.update() method, to update the cache programmatically. Creating the Manifest File The HTML5 Offline Cache uses a manifest file to determine the files that get cached. Here’s what the manifest file looks like for the JavaScript Reference application: CACHE MANIFEST # v30 Default.aspx # Standard Script Libraries Scripts/jquery-1.4.4.min.js Scripts/jquery-ui-1.8.7.custom.min.js Scripts/jquery.tmpl.min.js Scripts/json2.js # App Scripts App_Scripts/combine.js App_Scripts/combine.debug.js # Content (CSS & images) Content/default.css Content/logo.png Content/ui-lightness/jquery-ui-1.8.7.custom.css Content/ui-lightness/images/ui-bg_glass_65_ffffff_1x400.png Content/ui-lightness/images/ui-bg_glass_100_f6f6f6_1x400.png Content/ui-lightness/images/ui-bg_highlight-soft_100_eeeeee_1x100.png Content/ui-lightness/images/ui-icons_222222_256x240.png Content/ui-lightness/images/ui-bg_glass_100_fdf5ce_1x400.png Content/ui-lightness/images/ui-bg_diagonals-thick_20_666666_40x40.png Content/ui-lightness/images/ui-bg_gloss-wave_35_f6a828_500x100.png Content/ui-lightness/images/ui-icons_ffffff_256x240.png Content/ui-lightness/images/ui-icons_ef8c08_256x240.png Content/browsers/c8.png Content/browsers/es3.png Content/browsers/es5.png Content/browsers/ff3_6.png Content/browsers/ie8.png Content/browsers/ie9.png Content/browsers/sf5.png NETWORK: Services/EntryService.svc http://superexpert.com/resources/JavaScriptReference/ A Cache Manifest file always starts with the line of text Cache Manifest. In the manifest above, all of the CSS, image, and JavaScript files required by the JavaScript Reference application are listed. For example, the Default.aspx ASP.NET page, jQuery library, JQuery UI library, and several images are listed. Notice that you can add comments to a manifest by starting a line with the hash character (#). I use comments in the manifest above to group JavaScript and image files. Finally, notice that there is a NETWORK: section of the manifest. You list any file that you do not want to cache (any file that requires network access) in this section. In the manifest above, the NETWORK: section includes the URL for a WCF Service named EntryService.svc. This service is called to get the JavaScript entries displayed by the JavaScript Reference. There are two important things that you need to be aware of when using a manifest file. First, all relative URLs listed in a manifest are resolved relative to the manifest file. The URLs listed in the manifest above are all resolved relative to the root of the application because the manifest file is located in the application root. Second, whenever you make a change to the manifest file, browsers will download all of the files contained in the manifest (all of them). For example, if you add a new file to the manifest then any browser that supports the Offline Cache standard will detect the change in the manifest and download all of the files listed in the manifest automatically. If you make changes to files in the manifest (for example, modify a JavaScript file) then you need to make a change in the manifest file in order for the new version of the file to be downloaded. The standard way of updating a manifest file is to include a comment with a version number. The manifest above includes a # v30 comment. If you make a change to a file then you need to modify the comment to be # v31 in order for the new file to be downloaded. When Are Updated Files Downloaded? When you make changes to a manifest, the changes are not reflected the very next time you open the offline application in your web browser. Your web browser will download the updated files in the background. This can be very confusing when you are working with JavaScript files. If you make a change to a JavaScript file, and you have cached the application offline, then the changes to the JavaScript file won’t appear when you reload the application. The HTML5 standard includes new JavaScript events and methods that you can use to track changes and make changes to the Application Cache. You can use the ApplicationCache.update() method to initiate an update to the application cache and you can use the ApplicationCache.swapCache() method to switch to the latest version of a cached application. My heartfelt recommendation is that you do not enable your application for offline storage until after you finish writing your application code. Otherwise, debugging the application can become a very confusing experience. Offline Web Applications versus Local Storage Be careful to not confuse the HTML5 Offline Web Application feature and HTML5 Local Storage (aka DOM storage) feature. The JavaScript Reference Application uses both features. HTML5 Local Storage enables you to store key/value pairs persistently. Think of Local Storage as a super cookie. I describe how the JavaScript Reference Application uses Local Storage to store the database of JavaScript entries in a separate blog entry. Offline Web Applications enable you to store static files persistently. Think of Offline Web Applications as a super cache. Creating a Manifest File in an ASP.NET Application A manifest file must be served with the MIME type text/cache-manifest. In order to serve the JavaScript Reference manifest with the proper MIME type, I added two files to the JavaScript Reference Application project: Manifest.txt – This text file contains the actual manifest file. Manifest.ashx – This generic handler sends the Manifest.txt file with the MIME type text/cache-manifest. Here’s the code for the generic handler: using System.Web; namespace JavaScriptReference { public class Manifest : IHttpHandler { public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) { context.Response.ContentType = "text/cache-manifest"; context.Response.WriteFile(context.Server.MapPath("Manifest.txt")); } public bool IsReusable { get { return false; } } } } The Default.aspx file contains a reference to the manifest. The opening HTML tag in the Default.aspx file looks like this: <html manifest="Manifest.ashx"> Notice that the HTML tag contains a manifest attribute that points to the Manifest.ashx generic handler. Internet Explorer simply ignores this attribute. Every other modern browser will download the manifest when the Default.aspx page is requested. Seeing the Offline Web Application in Action The experience of using an HTML5 Web Application is different with different browsers. When you first open the JavaScript Reference application with Firefox, you get the following warning: Notice that you are provided with the choice of whether you want to use the application offline or not. Browsers other than Firefox, such as Chrome and Safari, do not provide you with this choice. Chrome and Safari will create an offline cache automatically. If you click the Allow button then Firefox will download all of the files listed in the manifest. You can view the files contained in the Firefox offline application cache by typing about:cache in the Firefox address bar: You can view the actual items being cached by clicking the List Cache Entries link: The Offline Web Application experience is different in the case of Google Chrome. You can view the entries in the offline cache by opening the Developer Tools (hit Shift+CTRL+I), selecting the Storage tab, and selecting Application Cache: Notice that you view the status of the Application Cache. In the screen shot above, the status is UNCACHED which means that the files listed in the manifest have not been downloaded and cached yet. The different possible values for the status are included in the HTML5 Offline Web Application standard: UNCACHED – The Application Cache has not been initialized. IDLE – The Application Cache is not currently being updated. CHECKING – The Application Cache is being fetched and checked for updates. DOWNLOADING – The files in the Application Cache are being updated. UPDATEREADY – There is a new version of the Application. OBSOLETE – The contents of the Application Cache are obsolete. Summary In this blog entry, I provided a description of how you can use the HTML5 Offline Web Application feature in the context of an ASP.NET application. I described how this feature is used with the JavaScript Reference Application to store the entire application on a user’s computer. By taking advantage of this new feature of the HTML5 standard, you can improve the performance of your ASP.NET web applications by requiring users of your web application to download your application once and only once. Furthermore, you can enable users to take advantage of your applications anywhere -- regardless of whether or not they are connected to the Internet.

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, June 04, 2010

CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, June 04, 2010New Projects23 Umbraco addons: 23 Umbraco addonsAdd-ons for EPiServer Relate+: In the Add-ons for EPiServer Relate+ you will find add-ons, extensions and modules that work together with EPiServer Relate+.Advanced Mail Merge (AMM) for Microsoft Office: Advanced Mail Merge for Microsoft Word 2007/2010, offers great extensable functionality: - Merge to document (PDF) - Merge to attachment - Use Out...Cenobith RLS Sample: Simple implementation of Row Level Security for Microsoft SQL ServerCodingWheels.DataTypes: DataTypes tries to make it easier for developers to have concrete typesafe objects for working with many common forms of data. Many times these dat...DigitArchive: Digit Archive makes it easy for the DIGIT magazine readers to find the correct software or movie bundled in the media along with the magazine. You'...dNet.DB: dNetDB is a .net framework that simplifies model and data access by providing a database independent object-based persistence, where objects are pe...Dynamic Application Framework: The Dynamic Application Framework provides a highly flexible environment for creating applications. Multiple UI and Execution Environments, along w...ECoG: ECoG toolkitFB Toolkit with Contracts: This is a research project where I have inserted code contracts into the Facebook Toolkit source code., version 3.1 beta. This delivers an efficien...GeneCMS: GeneCMS allows users to generate static HTML based websites by offering an ASP.NET editing front-end that can be run in the local machine. It is ta...HooIzDat: HooIzDat is game that asks, who the heck is that?! It's a two player game where your task is to guess your opponent's person before he or she guess...JingQiao.Interacting: JingQiao Interacting MessagingKanbanBoard: Visual task board for Kanban and Scrum.Learning CSharp: Just Learning CSharpMammoth: mammothMapWindow Mobile: MapWindow Mobile is mobile GIS Software which can run on windows mobile, developed in C# .NET Compact Framework. It provides basic GIS functionalit...Mindless Setback: Setback is a card game popular in New England. This project uses a combination of brute force and Monte Carlo methods to play Setback. This is an e...MSNCore(DirectUI) Element Viewer: MSNCore Element Viewer is an application designed to enumerate the elements with in applications built with MSNCore.dll and UXCore.dll. This appli...MSVN Team: bài tập thầy lườngNugget: Web Socket Server: A web socket server implemented in c#. The goal of the projects is to create an easy way to start using HTML5 web sockets in .NET web applications.oSoft ColorPicker Control for Visual Studio 2010: oSoft ColorPicker is an user control that can be used instead of the ColorDialog when you want to allow your users to select a color in a windows f...Prism Software Factory: The Prism Software Factory is a software factory for Visual Studio 2010 assisting developers in the process of building WPF & Silverlight applicati...Project Lion: Project lion is forum developed in Silverlight technology. Refix - .NET dependency management: Refix is an attempt to solve the problem of binary dependency management in large .NET solutions. It will achieve the goal using (amongst other thi...Rich Task List: Rich Task List is a tutorial project for DotNetNuke Module Development.SharePoint PowerRSS: Easy/Clean way to get SharePoint list data via more standard RSS feed. I found CleanRSS.aspx as part of SPRSS: Enhanced RSS Functionality for WSS ...SOAPI - StackOverflow API Generator: Generates, directly from the self documenting StackOverflow API specification, an end-to-end, fully documented API wrapper library with Visual Stu...SQL Script Application Utility: This C# project allows you to apply scripts to a database for table creation, data creation, etc. You can keep DDL in separate SQL scripts which c...Sql Server Reports Viewer: Sql Server Reports Viewer makes it easier to render Sql Server Reports without the need to setup a SSRS Server. This makes deployments a breeze. ...StorageHD: StorageHD system for large video filesUrzaGatherer: UrzaGatherer is a WPF 4.0 client application to handle Magic The Gathering cards collections. You can manage expansions, blocks and all informatio...webrel: This tool executes simple relational algebra expressions. It is useful for learning of Database course. Javascript and xhtml is used to develop thi...World Wide Grab: World Wide Grab allows retrieval and integration of various semi-structured data sorces, expecially Web applications. It turns every available res...New Releases3FD - Framework For Fast Development (C++): Alpha 3: This release was compiled in Visual Studio Release mode. It means you can use it in whatever compiler you want. However, the compatibility with ano...Advanced Mail Merge (AMM) for Microsoft Office: Advanced MailMerge 2007.zip: Release 1.1.0.0Army Bodger: Bodger 3 Archetype Test: Ok so it's later and I've largely finished it. Right now the Space Wolves have their Troops written and one HQ unit. The equipment panel largely wo...AwesomiumDotNet: AwesomiumDotNet 1.6 beta: Preview of AwesomiumDotNet 1.6.Bojinx: Bojinx Core V4.6: New features in this release: Greatly improved logging for INFO and DEBUG. Improved the getClassName function in ObjectUtils. Added the ability ...Cenobith RLS Sample: Sample App: Change connection strings in App.config and Web.config files.Christoc's DotNetNuke C# Module Development Template: 00.00.02: A minor update from the original release with a few fixes including Localization and some updated documentation.Community Forums NNTP bridge: Community Forums NNTP Bridge V25: Release of the Community Forums NNTP Bridge to access the social and anwsers MS forums with a single, open source NNTP bridge. This release has ad...DEWD: DEWD for Umbraco v1.0: Beta release of the package. Functional feature set and fairly stable. Since the alpha: Validation on input fields Custom view controls Ability...DotNetNuke Developers Help File: DNNHelpSystem 05.04.02: Release of the developer core API help documentation of DotNetNuke in MSDN style format, both as .CHM stand alone file as well as a html website ba...Drive Backup: Drive Backup V.0604: This release includes the following fixes/features: * Fixed incompatibility with some USB drives (those marked as “fixed” by Windows) * Ad...Event Scavenger: Version 3.3 (Refresh): Archiving bit added to database plus archiving stored procedure updated. Rest of items just refreshed. Database set to version 3.3Expression Encoder Batch Processor: Expression Batch v0.3: Now set the newly-converted file's Created DateTime to equal the source file's. This helps keep your videos sorterd chronologically in media librar...Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 1.6.1: The latest version of Folder Bookmarks (1.6.1), with Mini-Menu bug fixes and 'Help' feature - all the instructions needed to use the software (If y...Genesis Smart Client Framework: Genesis v2.0 - Ruby User Experience Platform (UXP): This is the start of the rewrite of the entire framework. The rewrite will include support for XAML through WPF and Silverlight, WCF, Workflow Serv...Global: http requester tool: Added a brnad new console app for making http requests.GMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & Presentation: Hot Build: this is latest change-set build, unstable previewHERB.IQ: Alpha 0.1 Source code release 4: As of 6-23-10 @ 9:48ESTInfragistics Analytics Framework: Infragistics Analytics Framework 1.0: This project includes wrappers for the Infragistics controls that integrate with the recently launched Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework. 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Metro: Query Selectors

- by Stephen.Walther

The goal of this blog entry is to explain how to perform queries using selectors when using the WinJS library. In particular, you learn how to use the WinJS.Utilities.query() method and the QueryCollection class to retrieve and modify the elements of an HTML document. Introduction to Selectors When you are building a Web application, you need some way of easily retrieving elements from an HTML document. For example, you might want to retrieve all of the input elements which have a certain class. Or, you might want to retrieve the one and only element with an id of favoriteColor. The standard way of retrieving elements from an HTML document is by using a selector. Anyone who has ever created a Cascading Style Sheet has already used selectors. You use selectors in Cascading Style Sheets to apply formatting rules to elements in a document. For example, the following Cascading Style Sheet rule changes the background color of every INPUT element with a class of .required in a document to the color red: input.red { background-color: red } The “input.red” part is the selector which matches all INPUT elements with a class of red. The W3C standard for selectors (technically, their recommendation) is entitled “Selectors Level 3” and the standard is located here: http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/ Selectors are not only useful for adding formatting to the elements of a document. Selectors are also useful when you need to apply behavior to the elements of a document. For example, you might want to select a particular BUTTON element with a selector and add a click handler to the element so that something happens whenever you click the button. Selectors are not specific to Cascading Style Sheets. You can use selectors in your JavaScript code to retrieve elements from an HTML document. jQuery is famous for its support for selectors. Using jQuery, you can use a selector to retrieve matching elements from a document and modify the elements. The WinJS library enables you to perform the same types of queries as jQuery using the W3C selector syntax. Performing Queries with the WinJS.Utilities.query() Method When using the WinJS library, you perform a query using a selector by using the WinJS.Utilities.query() method. The following HTML document contains a BUTTON and a DIV element: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Application1</title>  <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/ui.js"></script>  <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> </head> <body> <button>Click Me!</button> <div style="display:none"> <h1>Secret Message</h1> </div> </body> </html> The document contains a reference to the following JavaScript file named \js\default.js: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { WinJS.Utilities.query("button").listen("click", function () { WinJS.Utilities.query("div").clearStyle("display"); }); } }; app.start(); })(); The default.js script uses the WinJS.Utilities.query() method to retrieve all of the BUTTON elements in the page. The listen() method is used to wire an event handler to the BUTTON click event. When you click the BUTTON, the secret message contained in the hidden DIV element is displayed. The clearStyle() method is used to remove the display:none style attribute from the DIV element. Under the covers, the WinJS.Utilities.query() method uses the standard querySelectorAll() method. This means that you can use any selector which is compatible with the querySelectorAll() method when using the WinJS.Utilities.query() method. The querySelectorAll() method is defined in the W3C Selectors API Level 1 standard located here: http://www.w3.org/TR/selectors-api/ Unlike the querySelectorAll() method, the WinJS.Utilities.query() method returns a QueryCollection. We talk about the methods of the QueryCollection class below. Retrieving a Single Element with the WinJS.Utilities.id() Method If you want to retrieve a single element from a document, instead of matching a set of elements, then you can use the WinJS.Utilities.id() method. For example, the following line of code changes the background color of an element to the color red: WinJS.Utilities.id("message").setStyle("background-color", "red"); The statement above matches the one and only element with an Id of message. For example, the statement matches the following DIV element: <div id="message">Hello!</div> Notice that you do not use a hash when matching a single element with the WinJS.Utilities.id() method. You would need to use a hash when using the WinJS.Utilities.query() method to do the same thing like this: WinJS.Utilities.query("#message").setStyle("background-color", "red"); Under the covers, the WinJS.Utilities.id() method calls the standard document.getElementById() method. The WinJS.Utilities.id() method returns the result as a QueryCollection. If no element matches the identifier passed to WinJS.Utilities.id() then you do not get an error. Instead, you get a QueryCollection with no elements (length=0). Using the WinJS.Utilities.children() method The WinJS.Utilities.children() method enables you to retrieve a QueryCollection which contains all of the children of a DOM element. For example, imagine that you have a DIV element which contains children DIV elements like this: <div id="discussContainer"> <div>Message 1</div> <div>Message 2</div> <div>Message 3</div> </div> You can use the following code to add borders around all of the child DIV element and not the container DIV element: var discussContainer = WinJS.Utilities.id("discussContainer").get(0); WinJS.Utilities.children(discussContainer).setStyle("border", "2px dashed red"); It is important to understand that the WinJS.Utilities.children() method only works with a DOM element and not a QueryCollection. Notice that the get() method is used to retrieve the DOM element which represents the discussContainer. Working with the QueryCollection Class Both the WinJS.Utilities.query() method and the WinJS.Utilities.id() method return an instance of the QueryCollection class. The QueryCollection class derives from the base JavaScript Array class and adds several useful methods for working with HTML elements: addClass(name) – Adds a class to every element in the QueryCollection. clearStyle(name) – Removes a style from every element in the QueryCollection. conrols(ctor, options) – Enables you to create controls. get(index) – Retrieves the element from the QueryCollection at the specified index. getAttribute(name) – Retrieves the value of an attribute for the first element in the QueryCollection. hasClass(name) – Returns true if the first element in the QueryCollection has a certain class. include(items) – Includes a collection of items in the QueryCollection. listen(eventType, listener, capture) – Adds an event listener to every element in the QueryCollection. query(query) – Performs an additional query on the QueryCollection and returns a new QueryCollection. removeClass(name) – Removes a class from the every element in the QueryCollection. removeEventListener(eventType, listener, capture) – Removes an event listener from every element in the QueryCollection. setAttribute(name, value) – Adds an attribute to every element in the QueryCollection. setStyle(name, value) – Adds a style attribute to every element in the QueryCollection. template(templateElement, data, renderDonePromiseContract) – Renders a template using the supplied data. toggleClass(name) – Toggles the specified class for every element in the QueryCollection. Because the QueryCollection class derives from the base Array class, it also contains all of the standard Array methods like forEach() and slice(). Summary In this blog post, I’ve described how you can perform queries using selectors within a Windows Metro Style application written with JavaScript. You learned how to return an instance of the QueryCollection class by using the WinJS.Utilities.query(), WinJS.Utilities.id(), and WinJS.Utilities.children() methods. You also learned about the methods of the QueryCollection class.

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Poor home office network performance and cannot figure out where the issue is

- by Jeff Willener

This is the most bizarre issue. I have worked with small to mid size networks for quite a long time and can say I'm comfortable connecting hardware. Where you will start to lose me is with managed switches and firewalls. To start, let me describe my network (sigh, shouldn't but I MUST solve this). 1) Comcast Cable Internet 2) Motorola SURFboard eXtreme Cable Modem. a) Model: SB6120 b) DOCSIS 3.0 and 2.0 support c) IPv4 and IPv6 support 3-A) Cisco Small Business RV220W Wireless N Firewall a) Latest firmware b) Model: RV220W-A-K9-NA c) WAN Port to Modem (2) d) vlan 1: work e) vlan 2: everything else. 3-B) D-Link DIR-615 Draft 802.11 N Wireless Router a) Latest firmware b) WAN Port to Modem (2) 4) Servers connected directly to firewall a) If firewall 3-A, then vlan 1 b) CAT5e patch cables c) Dell PowerEdge 1400SC w/ 10/100 integrated NIC (Domain Controller, DNS, former DHCP) d) Dell PowerEdge 400SC w/ 10/100/1000 integrated NIC (VMWare Server) 4) Linksys EZXS88W unmanaged Workgroup 10/100 Switch a) If firewall 3-A, then vlan 2 b) 25' CAT5e patch cable to firewall (3-A or 3-B) c) Connects xBox 360, Blu-Ray player, PC at TV 5) Office equipment connected directly to firewall a) If firewall 3-A, then vlan 1 b) ~80' CAT6 or CAT5e patch cable to firewall (3-A or 3-B) c) Connects 1) Dell Latitude laptop 10/100/1000 2) Dell Inspiron laptop 10/100 3) Dell Workstation 10/100/1000 (Pristine host, VMWare Workstation 7.x with many bridged VM's) 4) Brother Laser Printer 10/100 5) Epson All-In-One Workforce 310 10/100 5-A) NetGear FS116 unmanaged 10/100 switch a) I've had this switch for a long time and never had issues. 5-B) NetGear GS108 unmanaged 10/100/1000 switch a) Bought new for this issue and returned. 5-C) Linksys SE2500 unmanaged 10/100/1000 switch a) Bought new for this issue and returned. 5-D) TP-Link TL-SG10008D unmanaged 10/100/1000 a) Bought new for this issue and still have. 6) VLan 1 Wireless Connections (on same subnet if 3-B) a) Any of those at 5c b) HP Laptop 7) VLan 2 Wireless Connection (on same subnet if 3-B) a) IPad, IPod b) Compaq Laptop c) Epson Wireless Printer Shew, without hosting a diagram I hope that paints a good picture. The Issue The breakdown here is at item 5. No matter what I do I cannot have a switch at 5 and have to run everything wireless regardless of router. Issues related to using a switch (point 5 above) SpeedTest is good. Poor throughput to other devices if can communicate at all. Usually cannot ping other devices even on the same switch although, when able, ping times are good. Eventual lose of connectivity and can "sometimes" be restored by unplugging everything for several days, not minutes or hours but we're talking a week if at all. Directly connect to computer gives good internet connection however throughput to other devices connected to firewall is at best horrible. Yet printing doesn't seem to be an issue as long as they are connected via wireless. I have to force the RV220W to 1000Mb on the respective port if using a Gig Switch Issues related to using wireless in place of a switch (point 5 above) Poor throughput to other devices if can communicate. SpeedTest is good. Bottom line Internet speeds are awesome. By the way, Comcast went WAY above and beyond to make sure it was not them. They rewired EVERYTHING which did solve internet drops. Computer to computer connections are garbage Cannot get switch at 5 to work, yet other at 4 has never had an issue. Direct connection, bypass switch, is good for DHCP and internet. DNS must be on server, not firewall. Cisco insists its my switches but as you can see I have used four and two different cables with the same result. My gut feeling is something is happening with routing. But I'm not smart enough to know that answer. I run a lot of VM's at 5-c-3, could that cause it? What's different compared to my previous house is I have introduced Gigabit hardware (firewall/switches/computers). Some of my computers might have IPv6 turned on if I haven't turned it off already. I'm truly at a loss and hope anyone has some crazy idea how to solve this. Bottom line, I need a switch in my office behind the firewall. I've changed everything. The real crux is I will find a working solution and, again, after days it will stop working. So this means I cannot isolate if its a computer since I have to use them. Oh and a solution is not throwing more money at this. I'm well into $1k already. Yah, lame.

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Clusterware 11gR2 – Setting up an Active/Passive failover configuration

- by Gilles Haro

Oracle is providing a large range of interesting solutions to ensure High Availability of the database. Dataguard, RAC or even both configurations (as recommended by Oracle for a Maximum Available Architecture - MAA) are the most frequently found and used solutions. But, when it comes to protecting a system with an Active/Passive architecture with failover capabilities, people often thinks to other expensive third party cluster systems. Oracle Clusterware technology, which comes along at no extra-cost with Oracle Database or Oracle Unbreakable Linux, is - in the knowing of most people - often linked to Oracle RAC and therefore, is seldom used to implement failover solutions. Oracle Clusterware 11gR2 (a part of Oracle 11gR2 Grid Infrastructure) provides a comprehensive framework to setup automatic failover configurations. It is actually possible to make "failover-able'", and then to protect, almost any kind of application (from the simple xclock to the most complex Application Server). Quoting Oracle: “Oracle Clusterware is a portable cluster software that allows clustering of single servers so that they cooperate as a single system. Oracle Clusterware also provides the required infrastructure for Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC). In addition Oracle Clusterware enables the protection of any Oracle application or any other kind of application within a cluster.” In the next couple of lines, I will try to present the different steps to achieve this goal : Have a fully operational 11gR2 database protected by automatic failover capabilities. I assume you are fluent in installing Oracle Database 11gR2, Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11gR2 on a Linux system and that ASM is not a problem for you (as I am using it as a shared storage). If not, please have a look at Oracle Documentation. As often, I made my tests using an Oracle VirtualBox environment. The scripts are tested and functional on my system. Unfortunately, there can always be a typo or a mistake. This blog entry does not replace a course around the Clusterware Framework. I just hope it will let you see how powerful it is and that it will give you the whilst to go further with it... Note : This entry has been revised (rev.2) following comments from Philip Newlan. Prerequisite 2 Linux boxes (OELCluster01 and OELCluster02) at the same OS level. I used OEL 5 Update 5 with an Enterprise Kernel. Shared Storage (SAN). On my VirtualBox system, I used Openfiler to simulate the SAN Oracle 11gR2 Database (11.2.0.1) Oracle 11gR2 Grid Infrastructure (11.2.0.1) Step 1 - Install the software Using asmlib, create 3 ASM disks (ASM_CRS, ASM_DTA and ASM_FRA) Install Grid Infrastructure for a cluster (OELCluster01 and OELCluster02 are the 2 nodes of the cluster) Use ASM_CRS to store Voting Disk and OCR. Use SCAN. Install Oracle Database Standalone binaries on both nodes. Use asmca to check/mount the disk groups on 2 nodes Use dbca to create and configure a database on the primary node Let's name it DB11G. Copy the pfile, password file to the second node. Create adump directoty on the second node. Step 2 - Setup the resource to be protected After its creation with dbca, the database is automatically protected by the Oracle Restart technology available with Grid Infrastructure. Consequently, it restarts automatically (if possible) after a crash (ex: kill -9 smon). A database resource has been created for that in the Cluster Registry. We can observe this with the command : crsctl status resource that shows and ora.dba11g.db entry. Let's save the definition of this resource, for future use : mkdir -p /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts chown oracle:oinstall /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts crsctl status resource ora.db11g.db -p > /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/myResource.txt Although very interesting, Oracle Restart is not cluster aware and cannot restart the database on any other node of the cluster. So, let's remove it from the OCR definitions, we don't need it ! srvctl stop database -d DB11G srvctl remove database -d DB11G Instead of it, we need to create a new resource of a more general type : cluster_resource. Here are the steps to achieve this : Create an action script : /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/my_ActivePassive_Cluster.sh #!/bin/bash export ORACLE_HOME=/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 export ORACLE_SID=DB11G case $1 in 'start') $ORACLE_HOME/bin/sqlplus /nolog <<EOF connect / as sysdba startup EOF RET=0 ;; 'stop') $ORACLE_HOME/bin/sqlplus /nolog <<EOF connect / as sysdba shutdown immediate EOF RET=0 ;; 'clean') $ORACLE_HOME/bin/sqlplus /nolog <<EOF connect / as sysdba shutdown abort ##for i in `ps -ef | grep -i $ORACLE_SID | awk '{print $2}' ` ;do kill -9 $i; done EOF RET=0 ;; 'check') ok=`ps -ef | grep smon | grep $ORACLE_SID | wc -l` if [ $ok = 0 ]; then RET=1 else RET=0 fi ;; '*') RET=0 ;; esac if [ $RET -eq 0 ]; then exit 0 else exit 1 fi This script must provide, at least, methods to start, stop, clean and check the database. It is self-explaining and contains nothing special. Just be aware that it must be runnable (+x), it runs as Oracle user (because of the ACL property - see later) and needs to know about the environment. Also make sure it exists on every node of the cluster. Moreover, as of 11.2, the clean method is mandatory. It must provide the “last gasp clean up”, for example, a shutdown abort or a kill –9 of all the remaining processes. chmod +x /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/my_ActivePassive_Cluster.sh scp /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/my_ActivePassive_Cluster.sh oracle@OELCluster02:/crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts Create a new resource file, based on the information we got from previous myResource.txt . Name it myNewResource.txt. myResource.txt is shown below. As we can see, it defines an ora.database.type resource, named ora.db11g.db. A lot of properties are related to this type of resource and do not need to be used for a cluster_resource. NAME=ora.db11g.db TYPE=ora.database.type ACL=owner:oracle:rwx,pgrp:oinstall:rwx,other::r-- ACTION_FAILURE_TEMPLATE= ACTION_SCRIPT= ACTIVE_PLACEMENT=1 AGENT_FILENAME=%CRS_HOME%/bin/oraagent%CRS_EXE_SUFFIX% AUTO_START=restore CARDINALITY=1 CHECK_INTERVAL=1 CHECK_TIMEOUT=600 CLUSTER_DATABASE=false DB_UNIQUE_NAME=DB11G DEFAULT_TEMPLATE=PROPERTY(RESOURCE_CLASS=database) PROPERTY(DB_UNIQUE_NAME= CONCAT(PARSE(%NAME%, ., 2), %USR_ORA_DOMAIN%, .)) ELEMENT(INSTANCE_NAME= %GEN_USR_ORA_INST_NAME%) DEGREE=1 DESCRIPTION=Oracle Database resource ENABLED=1 FAILOVER_DELAY=0 FAILURE_INTERVAL=60 FAILURE_THRESHOLD=1 GEN_AUDIT_FILE_DEST=/oracle/admin/DB11G/adump GEN_USR_ORA_INST_NAME= GEN_USR_ORA_INST_NAME@SERVERNAME(oelcluster01)=DB11G HOSTING_MEMBERS= INSTANCE_FAILOVER=0 LOAD=1 LOGGING_LEVEL=1 MANAGEMENT_POLICY=AUTOMATIC NLS_LANG= NOT_RESTARTING_TEMPLATE= OFFLINE_CHECK_INTERVAL=0 ORACLE_HOME=/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 PLACEMENT=restricted PROFILE_CHANGE_TEMPLATE= RESTART_ATTEMPTS=2 ROLE=PRIMARY SCRIPT_TIMEOUT=60 SERVER_POOLS=ora.DB11G SPFILE=+DTA/DB11G/spfileDB11G.ora START_DEPENDENCIES=hard(ora.DTA.dg,ora.FRA.dg) weak(type:ora.listener.type,uniform:ora.ons,uniform:ora.eons) pullup(ora.DTA.dg,ora.FRA.dg) START_TIMEOUT=600 STATE_CHANGE_TEMPLATE= STOP_DEPENDENCIES=hard(intermediate:ora.asm,shutdown:ora.DTA.dg,shutdown:ora.FRA.dg) STOP_TIMEOUT=600 UPTIME_THRESHOLD=1h USR_ORA_DB_NAME=DB11G USR_ORA_DOMAIN=haroland USR_ORA_ENV= USR_ORA_FLAGS= USR_ORA_INST_NAME=DB11G USR_ORA_OPEN_MODE=open USR_ORA_OPI=false USR_ORA_STOP_MODE=immediate VERSION=11.2.0.1.0 I removed database type related entries from myResource.txt and modified some other to produce the following myNewResource.txt. Notice the NAME property that should not have the ora. prefix Notice the TYPE property that is not ora.database.type but cluster_resource. Notice the definition of ACTION_SCRIPT. Notice the HOSTING_MEMBERS that enumerates the members of the cluster (as returned by the olsnodes command). NAME=DB11G.db TYPE=cluster_resource DESCRIPTION=Oracle Database resource ACL=owner:oracle:rwx,pgrp:oinstall:rwx,other::r-- ACTION_SCRIPT=/crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/my_ActivePassive_Cluster.sh PLACEMENT=restricted ACTIVE_PLACEMENT=0 AUTO_START=restore CARDINALITY=1 CHECK_INTERVAL=10 DEGREE=1 ENABLED=1 HOSTING_MEMBERS=oelcluster01 oelcluster02 LOGGING_LEVEL=1 RESTART_ATTEMPTS=1 START_DEPENDENCIES=hard(ora.DTA.dg,ora.FRA.dg) weak(type:ora.listener.type,uniform:ora.ons,uniform:ora.eons) pullup(ora.DTA.dg,ora.FRA.dg) START_TIMEOUT=600 STOP_DEPENDENCIES=hard(intermediate:ora.asm,shutdown:ora.DTA.dg,shutdown:ora.FRA.dg) STOP_TIMEOUT=600 UPTIME_THRESHOLD=1h Register the resource. Take care of the resource type. It needs to be a cluster_resource and not a ora.database.type resource (Oracle recommendation) . crsctl add resource DB11G.db -type cluster_resource -file /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/myNewResource.txt Step 3 - Start the resource crsctl start resource DB11G.db This command launches the ACTION_SCRIPT with a start and a check parameter on the primary node of the cluster. Step 4 - Test this We will test the setup using 2 methods. crsctl relocate resource DB11G.db This command calls the ACTION_SCRIPT (on the two nodes) to stop the database on the active node and start it on the other node. Once done, we can revert back to the original node, but, this time we can use a more "MS$ like" method :Turn off the server on which the database is running. After short delay, you should observe that the database is relocated on node 1. Conclusion Once the software installed and the standalone database created (which is a rather common and usual task), the steps to reach the objective are quite easy : Create an executable action script on every node of the cluster. Create a resource file. Create/Register the resource with OCR using the resource file. Start the resource. This solution is a very interesting alternative to licensable third party solutions. References Clusterware 11gR2 documentation Oracle Clusterware Resource Reference Clusterware for Unbreakable Linux Using Oracle Clusterware to Protect A Single Instance Oracle Database 11gR1 (to have an idea of complexity) Oracle Clusterware on OTN Gilles Haro Technical Expert - Core Technology, Oracle Consulting

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, November 09, 2013

CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, November 09, 2013Popular ReleasesCoolpy: CoolpyI: Coolpy???，????rom??????window phone????????????。???????????Praxis2: Especificaciones de Casos de Uso Iteracción 1: Especificaciones de Casos de Uso Iteracción 1 Responsables Anderson CU Buscar Obra CU Registrar Obra CU Registrar Alquiler Juan Victor CU Buscar Cliente CU Registrar Cliente CU Registrar EntregaMedia Companion: Media Companion MC3.586b: Tv - Multi-episodes restored to MCThere's been a plenty of bug fixes occuring lately, with IMDB changing their info, and some great feed-back by users. But Thanks to Billyad2000, Multi-episodes, are now displaying correctly in Media Companion, complete with all functionality. This was a hard effort, with more than a few dev's in the past having looked at this code to get it working. But, like a light-bulb going off, Billy's managed to massage the code, and restore this much missed function...Dynamics AX 2012 R2 Kitting: AX 2012 R2 CU7 release of Kitting: Here is the AX 2012 R2 CU7 release of kitting. Released both as a XPO and a model.PantheR's GraphX for .NET: GraphX for .NET RELEASE v1.0.1: PLEASE RATE THIS RELEASE IF YOU LIKED IT! THANKS! :) RELEASE 1.0.1 + Changed ExportToImage() parameters: added useZoomControlSurface param that enables zoom control parent visual space to be used for export instead whole GraphArea panel. Using this technique it is possible to export graphs with negative vertices coordinates. + Added common interface IZoomControl for all included Zoom controls + Added new method GraphArea.GenerateGraph() that accepts only optional parameters and will use in...ConEmu - Windows console with tabs: ConEmu 131107 [Alpha]: ConEmu - developer build x86 and x64 versions. Written in C++, no additional packages required. Run "ConEmu.exe" or "ConEmu64.exe". Some useful information you may found: http://superuser.com/questions/tagged/conemu http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/wiki/ConEmuFAQ http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/wiki/TableOfContents If you want to use ConEmu in portable mode, just create empty "ConEmu.xml" file near to "ConEmu.exe"Team Foundation Server Upgrade Guide: v3 - TFS 2013 Upgrade Guide: Welcome to the Team Foundation Server Upgrade Guide Quality-Bar Details Documentation has been reviewed by Visual Studio ALM Rangers Documentation has not been through an independent technical review Known issues NoneUpgrading SharePoint section is not included yet. Independent technical review is pending.VidCoder: 1.5.12 Beta: Added an option to preserve Created and Last Modified times when converting files. In Options -> Advanced. Added an option to mark an automatically selected subtitle track as "Default". Updated HandBrake core to SVN 5878. Fixed auto passthrough not applying just after switching to it. Fixed bug where preset/profile/tune could disappear when reverting a preset.Toolbox for Dynamics CRM 2011/2013: XrmToolBox (v1.2013.9.25): XrmToolbox improvement Correct changing connection from the status dropdown Tools improvement Updated tool Audit Center (v1.2013.9.10) -> Publish entities Iconator (v1.2013.9.27) -> Optimized asynchronous loading of images and entities MetadataDocumentGenerator (v1.2013.11.6) -> Correct system entities reading with incorrect attribute type Script Manager (v1.2013.9.27) -> Retrieve only custom events SiteMapEditor (v1.2013.11.7) -> Reset of CRM 2013 SiteMap ViewLayoutReplicator (v1.201...Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Database: SQL Server 2014 CTP2 In-Memory OLTP Sample, based: This sample showcases the new In-Memory OLTP feature, which is part of SQL Server 2014 CTP2. It shows the new memory-optimized tables and natively-compiled stored procedures, and can be used to show the performance benefit of in-memory OLTP. Installation instructions for the sample are included in the file ‘awinmemsample.doc’, which is part of the download. You can ask a question about this sample at the SQL Server Samples Forum Composite C1 CMS - Open Source on .NET: Composite C1 4.1: Composite C1 4.1 (4.1.5058.34326) Write a review for this release - help us improve, recommend us. Getting started If you are new to Composite C1 and want to install it: http://docs.composite.net/Getting-started What's new in Composite C1 4.1 The following are highlights of major changes since Composite C1 4.0: General user features: Drag-and-drop images and files like PDF and Word directly from own your desktop and folders into page content Allow you to install Composite Form Builder ...CS-Script for Notepad++ (C# intellisense and code execution): Release v1.0.9.0: Implemented Recent Scripts list Added checking for plugin updates from AboutBox Multiple formatting improvements/fixes Implemented selection of the CLR version when preparing distribution package Added project panel button for showing plugin shortcuts list Added 'What's New?' panel Fixed auto-formatting scrolling artifact Implemented navigation to "logical" file (vs. auto-generated) file from output panel To avoid the DLLs getting locked by OS use MSI file for the installation.Home Access Plus+: v9.7: Updated: JSON.net Fixed: Issue with the Windows 8 App Added: Windows 8.1 App Added: Win: Self Signed HAP+ Install Support Added: Win: Delete File Support Added: Timeout for the Logon Tracker Removed: Error Dialogs on the User Card Fixed: Green line showing over the booking form Note: a web.config file update is requiredWPF Extended DataGrid: WPF Extended DataGrid 2.0.0.10 binaries: Now row summaries are updated whenever autofilter value sis modified.xUnit.net - Unit testing framework for C# and .NET (a successor to NUnit): xUnit.net Visual Studio Runner: A placeholder for downloading Visual Studio runner VSIX files, in case the Gallery is down (or you want to downgrade to older versions).VeraCrypt: VeraCrypt version 1.0c: Changes between 1.0b and 1.0c (11 November 2013) : Set correctly the minimum required version in volumes header (this value must always follow the program version after any major changes). This also solves also the hidden volume issueCaptcha MVC: Captcha MVC 2.5: v 2.5: Added support for MVC 5. The DefaultCaptchaManager is no longer throws an error if the captcha values was entered incorrectly. Minor changes. v 2.4.1: Fixed issues with deleting incorrect values of the captcha token in the SessionStorageProvider. This could lead to a situation when the captcha was not working with the SessionStorageProvider. Minor changes. v 2.4: Changed the IIntelligencePolicy interface, added ICaptchaManager as parameter for all methods. Improved font size ...Duplica: duplica 0.2.498: this is first stable releaseDNN Blog: 06.00.01: 06.00.01 ReleaseThis is the first bugfix release of the new v6 blog module. These are the changes: Added some robustness in v5-v6 scripts to cater for some rare upgrade scenarios Changed the name of the module definition to avoid clash with Evoq Social Addition of sitemap providerVG-Ripper & PG-Ripper: VG-Ripper 2.9.50: changes NEW: Added Support for "ImageHostHQ.com" links NEW: Added Support for "ImgMoney.net" links NEW: Added Support for "ImgSavy.com" links NEW: Added Support for "PixTreat.com" links Bug fixesNew ProjectsAppBootloader: ???CS????????????? Let your C\S program more flexible for automatic updatesArduino Visual Studio: Purpose of this project is to demonstrate using Visual Studio 2012 with Atmel chip on a Arduino UNO board.ASP.NET Identity: ASP.NET Identity is the new membership system for building ASP.NET web applications. ASP.NET Identity allows you to add login features to your application and mAsset Maintenance Management Console: A.M.M.C is an attempt at creating an extremely versatile interface tool to maintain assets.AX 2012 R2 SYNC: SYNC for AX 2012 introduces a centralized company concept which holds and manages the enterprise-wide master data for synchronizing across multiple companies.BYOND - Build Your OwN Device (audio synths, effects, DSP, sequencer, VST): Byond is an environment for audio and midi programming in C#. It's available as VST plugin or standalone application.CoveSmushbox: A simple .NET library and a Windows CLI to the SMUSH Box.FORMULA 2.0: Formula specifications are highly declarative logic programs that can express rich synthesis and verification problems.Grostbite Engine: Free 3D game engine.hMailServer from RoundCube: A RoundCube plugin for interacting with hMailServer 5.4B1950. The plugin allows to configure vacation configuration of hMailServer from RoundCube.KDG's IP Reporter: Baisc reporter for local and private IP addresses.LADNS Service Watcher: LADNS Service WatcherLampguiden: LampguidenMedia Recommender Service: We are 6 software engineer students developing a media recommendation service as part of our 3rd semester project. photograp: SPA Photo gallery. Work in progress... Power Buddy: The Windows power tray icon only displays two power plans. If this has bothered you since 2009, Power Buddy is for you. Power Buddy displays all of them.Programming Demos: This project contains demonstration code that may be helpful to people learning VisualBasic .NET.Prototype : Traveling Alone Website: A website aiming to become an online community for solo travelers.ShowDBPool: ShowDBPoolThali: Thali is about making it falling off a log easy for users to run their own services on their own devices by building a peer to peer web.TiendaWebCursoAccentureNet: aWpf PdfReader: This is a pdf reader, development based WPF and MuPDF,You can use the keyboard to operate it.This is pdf reader can save the user's open records.

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Different Flavors of Leases Back On

- by Theresa Hickman

Given the continued interest regarding the proposed changes to Lease Accounting, I decided to write another entry on this controversial topic with colorful commentary from our resident accounting expert, Seamus Moran. Background (A History Lesson) Back in 1976, the FASB issued FAS 13, “Accounting for Leases” that permitted leases to be either an operating lease or capital (finance) lease. In substance, operating leases are a form of off-balance sheet financing. According to Seamus, operating leases date back to the launch of the Boeing 707 in the 1950s. Because the aircraft was so much more expensive than previous aircrafts, the industry came up with the operating lease concept to accommodate these jet liners that dominated air transport. How it worked was the bank would buy the plane and lease it to the airline. Because the bank never controlled or flew the plane, they never placed the asset on their balance sheet, and because the airline never owned the plane, they didn’t place it on their balance sheet either. They simply treated the monthly lease payments as rental expenses on the P&L. August 2010 Original Lease Accounting Changes In August 2010, FASB and IASB decided to overhaul lease accounting as part of their joint commitment “to insure that investors and other users of financial statements are provided useful, transparent, and complete information about leasing transactions in the financial statements.” Some say that the current lease accounting standards are broken because it keeps assets off the balance sheet, hidden from investors’ view. The original proposal abolished operating leases and only permitted capital leases where all leases would be recorded on the balance sheet as assets and liabilities. The asset side would reflect the right to use the asset for the leased term, and the liability side would reflect the obligation to make lease payments. Why Companies Were Freaking Out According to the SEC, the financial impact of the aforementioned lease changes was estimated to add more than $1.3 trillion of operating lease obligations to corporate balance sheets. Many companies in various industries, especially retail, are concerned because the changes are significant and will impact existing leases with no grandfather clause for existing operating leases. Of course, the banks and airlines I mentioned earlier really hate this because neither wants to report the airplane (now costing around $60 M) as an asset. Regular companies were concerned that they would have to report routine short term leases of real estate or equipment as fixed assets, even though they were really just longer term rentals. One company we spoke to leased roadside billboards, and really did not consider them to be fixed assets in any way. Obviously, these changes would have had a profound and lasting effect on a company’s financial and real estate strategies and significantly impact its financial statements. Financial statements would show higher depreciation and interest expense with significantly higher total assets and debt. In terms of financial metrics, they’re negatively impacted. It would raise a company’s debt-to-capital ratio to reflect the higher debt compared to equity, it would negatively impact their return-on-assets because now companies will appear more asset intensive, and it will decrease EPS, lowering shareholder ROI. Feb. 2011 Recent Update The comment period on leases closed in December 2010. The FASB and the IASB have met several times since then and published their initial responses to the input they received from the various interested parties. They are “redeliberating” the principles involved in Lease Accounting. Some of the issues they are looking at include: The core definition of a lease. This will articulate principles on what is a lease and what is “not-a-lease.” One theory or supposition is that they might define a lease as the transfer of certain but not all major ownership attributes for a certain period of time. So a year’s lease of an aircraft might be a “lease,” but a year’s lease of half a floor in an office building would be “not-a-lease.” The ownership attributes transferred from the core owner to the user are different; the airline must maintain, paint, and do whatever it needs to do on the aircraft. However, the office renter will have strictly limited rights in respect to the rented space. The differences between a lease contract and service contract. Even if they call them “leases” for the purpose of commercial law, a service contract might not be accounted for as a lease. The accounting to be done by the lessee. They would define when the bank or landlord would retain the asset on their balance sheet, and perhaps by implication, when the lessor would not need to include the asset on theirs. So if the finance house keeps the airplane or office on their balance sheet, the tenant doesn’t need to. I’m not sure that I can draw the opposite conclusion where the finance house doesn’t report but the tenant must. The difference, if any, between a financing lease and other leases, and the implications to the accounting. The present value calculation when renewable terms exist. They have reduced the circumstances in which one must look at the renewable terms of a lease in calculating the present value. In most circumstances, you will use the lease term rather than the potential renewable term. Their latest discussion this past week with the contents of the discussion was not available at the time of me writing this entry. For more details, the results of the discussions are posted on both the FASB and the IASB websites. Implied Software Changes Whatever the final rules turn out to be, all ERP systems, such as Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise, JD Edwards, and Oracle Hyperion will need to change their software to accommodate the new rules. The following lists some changes that might have to be made to accounting software depending on what the final standards will be in June 2011: Lease tracking may require modifications with tracking of additional lease details that might require a centralized repository to maintain Accounting may need to be modified as there are many changes to how capital leases and the new “other than finance” leases are accounted for both on the lessee and lessor side. For example, valuation, amortization, and disclosure will be considerably different requiring different types of data to be captured. Companies may need to modify their chart of accounts depending on how they want to track leases, which could then impact financial reporting and consolidation Business processes may require changes which could then impact internal controls Software applications may need to perform more advanced computations on leases Reports and KPIs may need to reflect new operating metrics Hold Onto Your Seats Before you redo all your lease agreements and call your software vendors asking when the changes to the software will be made, remember that the rules are not finalized yet, and from appearances, will not reflect the proposals in the exposure draft. Not only are there objections to putting the operating lease assets on anyone’s balance sheet, there are lots of objections to subjectivity and the data required for the valuation. According to Seamus, there is huge opposition from New York bankers, the airlines, the EU, the Communist Party of China (since it impacts their exporting business), and Republicans (hearing complaints from small and large businesses). Even if everyone can agree on the proposed changes, 2013 might be the earliest that companies would need to change how they report leases. The Boards will finish their deliberations in April, May or June 2011. As we’ve seen with other Exposure Drafts, if the changes are minor and the principles met the General Acceptance consensus criteria, the Standard could be finalized at that time. However, if substantial changes are made, a fresh exposure draft, comment period, and review period might be involved, too. Seamus added an interesting perspective. Even if the proposed changes do pass, don’t you think our customers, such as Boeing, GE Capital, United Airlines, etc. will be clever enough to come up with a new kind of financing arrangement that complies with the new accounting? How about the large retail customers, such as Best Buy and Macerich? Don’t you think they might simply cut deals around retail locations with new contracts that prevent their leases from being capital leases? Instead of blindly adapting the software to meet the principles outlined in the final standard, our software needs to accommodate how businesses will respond to the new rules. We cannot know our customers’ responses until the rules are finalized. Oracle is aware of the potential changes and is staying abreast of the developments through our domain expertise staff, our relationship with customers, our market awareness, and, of course, our relationships with the Big 4. This is part of our normal process with respect to worldwide regulatory compliance. Oracle products have been IFRS and GAAP compliant for years and we will continue to maintain those standards going forward.

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Adopting Technologies for the Sake of Technologies

- by shiju

Unlike other engineering industries, the software engineering industry is really lacking maturity. The lack of maturity can see in different aspects of entire software development life cycle. I think other engineering industries are well organised and structured with common, proven engineering practices. The software engineering industry is greatly a diverse industry with different operating systems, and variety of development platforms, programming languages, frameworks and tools. Now these days, people are going behind the hypes and intellectual thoughts without understanding their core business problems and adopting technologies and practices for the sake of technologies and practices and simply becoming a “poster child” of technologies and practices. Understanding the core business problem and providing best, solid solution with a platform neutral approach, will give you more business values and ROI, instead of blindly adopting technologies and tailor-made your applications for the sake of technologies and practices. People have been simply migrating their solutions in favour of new technologies and different versions of frameworks without any business need. The “Pepsi Challenge” in the Software Development Pepsi Challenge marketing campaign of the 1980s was a popular and very interesting marketing promotion in which people taste one cup of Pepsi and another cup with Coca Cola. In the taste test, more than 50% of people were preferred Pepsi over Coca Cola. The success story behind the Pepsi was more sweetness contains in the Pepsi cola. They have simply added more sugar and more people preferred more sweet flavour. You can’t simply identify the better one after sipping one cup of cola based on the sweetness which contains. These things have been happening in the software industry for choosing development frameworks and technologies. People have been simply choosing frameworks based on the initial sugary feeling without understanding its core strengths and weakness. The sugary framework might be more harmful when you develop real-world systems. There is not any silver bullet for solving all kind of problems and frameworks and tools do have strengths and weakness. So it would be better to understand their strength and weakness. And please keep in mind that you have to develop real apps to understand the real capabilities and weakness of a framework. Evaluating a technology based on few blog posts will harm your projects and these bloggers might be lacking real-world experience with the framework. The Problem with Align a Development Practice with Tools Recently I have observed a discussion in a group where one guy asked suggestions for practicing Continuous Delivery (CD) as part of the agile based application engineering. Then the discussion quickly went to using and choosing a Continuous Integration (CI) tool and different people suggested different Continuous Integration (CI) tools for simply practicing Continuous Delivery. If you have worked with core agile engineering practices, you could clearly know that the real essence of agile is neither choosing a tool nor choosing a process. By simply choosing CI tool from a particular vendor will not ensure that you are delivering an evolving software based on customer feedback. You have to understand the real essence of a engineering practice and choose a right tool for practicing it instead of simply focus on a particular tool for a practicing an development practice. If you want to adopt a practice, you need a solid understanding on it with its real essence where tools are just helping us for better automation. Adopting New Technologies for the Sake of Technologies The another problem is that developers have been a tendency to adopt new technologies and simply migrating their existing apps to new technologies. It is okay if your existing system is having problem with a technology stack or or maintainability challenge with existing solution, and moving to new technology for solving the current problems. We have been adopting new technologies for solving new challenges like solving the scalability challenges when the application or user bases is growing unpredictably. Please keep in mind that all new technologies will become old after working with it for few years. The below Facebook status update of Janakiraman, expresses the attitude of a typical customer. For an example, Node.js is becoming a hottest buzzword in the software industry and many developers are trying to adopt Node.js for their apps. The important thing is that Node.js is a minimalist framework that does some great things for some problems, but it’s not a silver bullet. I have been also working with Node.js which is good for some problems, but really bad for choosing it for all kind of problems. By adopting new technologies for new projects is good if we could get real business values from it because newer framework would solve some existing well known problems and provide better solutions where it can incorporate good solutions for the latest challenges . But adopting a new technology for the sake of new technology is really bad idea. Another example is JavaScript is getting lot of attention so that lot of developers are developing heavy JavaScript centric web apps. First, they will adopt a client-side JavaScript MV* framework from AngularJS, Ember, Backbone etc, and develop a Single Page App(SPA) where they are repeating the mistakes we did in the past with server-side. The mistakes we did in the server-side is transforming to client-side. The problem is that people are just adopting new technologies, but not improving their solutions. I predict that many Single Page App will suck in the future. We need a hybrid approach where we should be able to leverage both server-side and client-side for developing next-generation web apps. The another problem is that if you like a particular framework, use it for all kind of apps. In the past, I know some Silverlight passionate guys were tried to use that framework for all kind of apps including larger line of business apps. And these days developers are migrating their existing Silverlight apps in favour of HTML5 buzzword. So the real question is, what is the business values we are getting from these apps when we are developing it for the sake of a particular technology instead of business need. The another problem is that our solutions consultants are trying to provide unnecessary solutions for the sake of a particular technology or for a hype. For an example, Big Data solutions are great for solving the problem of three Vs : volume, velocity and variety. But trying to put this for every application will make problems. Let’s say, there is a small web site running with limited budget and saying that we need a recommendation engine for the web site with a Hadoop based solution with a 16 node cluster, would be really horrible. If we really need a Hadoop based solution, got for it, but trying to put this for all application would be a big disaster. It would be great if could understand the core business problems first, and later choose a right framework for providing solutions for the actual business problem, instead of trying to provide so many solutions. The Problem with Tied Up to a Platform Vendor Some organizations and teams are tied up with a particular platform vendor where they don’t want to use any product other than their preferred or existing platform vendor. They will accept any product provided by the vendor regardless of its capability. This will lets you some benefits regards with integration and collaboration of different products provided by the same vendor, but it will loose your opportunity to provide better solution for your business problems. For a real world sample scenario, lot of companies have been using SAP for their ERP solutions. When they are thinking about mobility or thinking about developing hybrid mobile apps, they can easily find out a framework from SAP. SAP provides a framework for HTML 5 based UI development named SAPUI5. If you are simply adopting that framework only based for the preference of existing platform vendor, you might be loose different opportunities for providing better solution. Initially you might enjoy the sugary feeling provided by the platform vendor, but you have to think about developing apps which should be capable for solving future challenges. I am not saying that any framework is not good and I believe that all frameworks are good over another one for solving at least one problem. My point is that we should not tied up with any specific platform vendor unless your organization is having resource availability problems. Being Polyglot for Providing Right Solutions The modern software engineering industry is greatly diverse with different tools and platforms. Lot of open source frameworks and new programming languages have been releasing to the developer community, where choosing the right platform without any biased opinion, is really a difficult task. But it would really great if we could develop an attitude with platform neutral mindset and being a polyglot developer for providing better solutions based on the actual business problems. IMHO, we should learn a new programming language and a new framework every year. This will improve the quality of our developer capabilities and also improve the quality of our primary programming language skills. Being polyglot for individual developers and organizational teams will give you greater opportunity to your developer experience and also for your applications. Organizations can analyse their business problem without tied with any technology and later they can provide solutions by choosing different platform and tools. Summary In this blog post, what I was trying to say that we should not tied up or biased with any development platform, technology, vendor or programming language and we should not adopt technologies and practices for the sake of technologies. If we are adopting a technology or a practice for the sake of it, we are simply becoming a “poster child” of the technology and practice. We should not become a poster child of other people’s intellectual thoughts and theories, instead of it we should become solutions developers and solutions consultants where we should be able to provide better solutions for the business problems. Being a polyglot developer is a good idea for improving your developer skills which lets you provide better solutions for the business problems. The most important thing is that we should become platform neutral developers where our passion should be for providing brilliant solutions. It would be great if we could provide minimalist, pragmatic business solutions. You can follow me on Twitter @shijucv

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Taking web sites offline for demonstration

While working in software development in general, and in web development for a couple of customers it is quite common that it is necessary to provide a test bed where the client is able to get an image, or better said, a feeling for the visions and ideas you are talking about. Usually here at IOS Indian Ocean Software Ltd. we set up a demo web site on one of our staging servers, and provide credentials to the customer to access and review our progress and work ad hoc. This gives us the highest flexibility on both sides, as the test bed is simply online and available 24/7. We can update the structure, the UI and data at any time, and the client is able to view it as it suits best for her/him. Limited or lack of online connectivity But what is going to happen when your client is not capable to be online - no matter for what reasons; here are some more obvious ones: No internet connection (permanently or temporarily) Expensive connection, ie. mobile data package, stay at a hotel, etc. Presentation devices at an exhibition, ie. using tablets or iPads Being abroad for a certain time, and only occasionally online No network coverage, especially on mobile Bad infrastructure, like ie. in Third World countries Providing a catalogue on CD or USB pen drive Anyway, it doesn't matter really. We should be able to provide a solution for the circumstances of our customers. Presentation during an exhibition Recently, we had the following request from a customer: Is it possible to let us have a desktop version of ResortWork.co.uk that we can use for demo purposes at the forthcoming Ski Shows? It would allow us to let stand visitors browse the sites on an iPad to view jobs and training directory course listings. Yes, sure we can do that. Eventually, you might think why don't they simply use 3G enabled iPads for that purpose? As stated above, there might be several reasons for that - low coverage, expensive data packages, etc. Anyway, it is not a question on how to circumvent the request but to deliver a solution to that. Possible solutions... or not? We already did offline websites earlier, and even established complete mirrors of one or two web sites on our systems. There are actually several possibilities to handle this kind of request, and it mainly depends on the system or device where the offline site should be available on. Here, it is clearly expressed that we have to address this on an Apple iPad, well actually, I think that they'd like to use multiple devices during their exhibitions. Following is an overview of possible solutions depending on the technology or device in use, and how it can be done: Replication of source files and database The above mentioned web site is running on ASP.NET, IIS and SQL Server. In case that a laptop or slate runs a Windows OS, the easiest way would be to take a snapshot of the source files and database, and transfer them as local installation to those Windows machines. This approach would be fully operational on the local machine. Saving pages for offline usage This is actually a quite tedious job but still practicable for small web sites Tool based approach to 'harvest' the web site There quite some tools in the wild that could handle this job, namely wget, httrack, web copier, etc. Screenshots bundled as PDF document Not really... ;-) Creating screencast or video Simply navigate through your website and record your desktop session. Actually, we are using this kind of approach to track down difficult problems in order to see and understand exactly what the user was doing to cause an error. Of course, this list isn't complete and I'd love to get more of your ideas in the comments section below the article. Preparations for offline browsing The original website is dynamically and data-driven by ASP.NET, and looks like this: As we have to put the result onto iPads we are going to choose the tool-based approach to 'download' the whole web site for offline usage. Again, depending on the complexity of your web site you might have to check which of the applications produces the best results for you. My usual choice is to use wget but in this case, we run into problems related to the rewriting of hyperlinks. As a consequence of that we opted for using HTTrack. HTTrack comes in different flavours, like console application but also as either GUI (WinHTTrack on Windows) or Web client (WebHTTrack on Linux/Unix/BSD). Here's a brief description taken from the original website about HTTrack: HTTrack is a free (GPL, libre/free software) and easy-to-use offline browser utility. It allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer. HTTrack arranges the original site's relative link-structure. Simply open a page of the "mirrored" website in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. And there is an extensive documentation for all options and switches online. General recommendation is to go through the HTTrack Users Guide By Fred Cohen. It covers all the initial steps you need to get up and running. Be aware that it will take quite some time to get all the necessary resources down to your machine. Actually, for our customer we run the tool directly on their web server to avoid unnecessary traffic and bandwidth. After a couple of runs and some additional fine-tuning - explicit inclusion or exclusion of various external linked web sites - we finally had a more or less complete offline version available. A very handsome feature of HTTrack is the error/warning log after completing the download. It contains some detailed information about errors that appeared on the pages and the links within the pages that have been processed. Error: "Bad Request" (400) at link www.resortwork.co.uk/job-details_Ski_hire:tech_or_mgr_or_driver_37854.aspx (from www.resortwork.co.uk/Jobs_A_to_Z.aspx)Error: "Not Found" (404) at link www.247recruit.net/images/applynow.png (from www.247recruit.net/css/global.css)Error: "Not Found" (404) at link www.247recruit.net/activate.html (from www.247recruit.net/247recruit_tefl_jobs_network.html) In our situation, we took the records of HTTP 400/404 errors and passed them to the web development department. Improvements are to be expected soon. ;-) Quality assurance on the full-featured desktop Unfortunately, the generated output of HTTrack was still incomplete but luckily there were only images missing. Being directly on the web server we simply copied the missing images from the original source folder into our offline version. After that, we created an archive and transferred the file securely to our local workspace for further review and checks. From that point on, it wasn't necessary to get any more files from the original web server, and we could focus ourselves completely on the process of browsing and navigating through the offline version to isolate visual differences and functional problems. As said, the original web site runs on ASP.NET Web Forms and uses Postback calls for interaction like search, pagination and partly for navigation. This is the main field of improving the offline experience. Of course, same as for standard web development it is advised to test with various browsers, and strangely we discovered that the offline version looked pretty good on Firefox, Chrome and Safari, but not in Internet Explorer. A quick look at the HTML source shed some light on this, and there are conditional CSS inclusions based on the user agent. HTTrack is not acting as Internet Explorer and so we didn't have the necessary overrides for this browser. Not problematic after all in our case, but you might have to pay attention to this and get the IE-specific files explicitly. And while having a view at the source code, we also found out that HTTrack actually modifies the generated HTML output. In several occasions we discovered that <div> elements were converted into <table> constructs for no obvious reason; even nested structures. Search 'e'nd destroy - sed (or Notepad++) to the rescue During our intensive root cause analysis for a couple of HTML/CSS problems that needed some extra attention it is very helpful to be familiar with any editor that allows search and replace over multiple files like, ie. sed - stream editor for filtering and transforming text on Linux or my personal favourite Notepad++ on Windows. This allowed us to quickly fix a lot of anchors with onclick attributes and Javascript code that was addressed to ASP.NET files instead of their generated HTML counterparts, like so: grep -lr -e '.aspx' * | xargs sed -e 's/.aspx/.html?/g' The additional question mark after the HTML extension helps to separate the query string from the actual target and solved all our missing hyperlinks very fast. The same can be done in Notepad++ on Windows, too. Just use the 'Replace in files' feature and you are settled. Especially, in combination with Regular Expressions (regex). Landscape of browsers Okay, after several runs of HTML/CSS code analysis, searching and replacing some strings in a pool of more than 4.000 files, we finally had a very good match of an offline browsing experience in Firefox and Chrome on Linux. Next, we transferred that modified set of files to a Windows 8 machine for review on Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer 7 to 10, and a Mac mini running Mac OS X 10.7 to check the output on Safari and again on Chrome. Besides IE, for reasons already mentioned above, the results were identical. And last but not least it was about to check web site on tablets. Please continue to read on the following articles: Taking web sites offline for demonstration on Galaxy Tablet Taking web sites offline for demonstration on iPad

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Clusterware 11gR2 – Setting up an Active/Passive failover configuration

- by Gilles Haro

Oracle provides many interesting ways to ensure High Availability. Dataguard configurations, RAC configurations or even both (as recommended for a Maximum Available Architecture - MAA) are the most frequently found. But when it comes to protecting a system with an Active/Passive architecture with failover capabilities, one often thinks to expensive third party cluster systems. Oracle Clusterware technology, which comes free with Oracle Database, is – in the knowing of most people - often linked to Oracle RAC and therefore, is rarely used to implement failover solutions. 11gR2 Clusterware – which is part of Oracle Grid Infrastructure - provides a comprehensive framework to setup automatic failover configurations. It is actually possible to make “failover-able'” and, therefore to protect, almost every kind of application (from xclock to the more complex Application Server) In the next couple of lines, I will try to present the different steps to achieve this goal : Have a fully operational 11gR2 database protected by automatic failover capabilities. I assume you are fluent in installing Oracle Database 11gR2, Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11gR2 on a Linux system and that ASM is not a problem for you (as I am using it as a shared storage). If not, please have a look at Oracle Documentation. As often, I made my tests using an Oracle VirtualBox environment. The scripts are tested and functional. Unfortunately, there can always be a typo or a mistake. This blog entry is not a course around the Clusterware Framework. I just hope it will let you see how powerful it is and that it will give you the whilst to go further with it… Prerequisite 2 Linux boxes (OELCluster01 and OELCluster02) at the same OS level. I used OEL 5 Update 5 with Enterprise Kernel. Shared Storage (SAN). On my VirtualBox system, I used Openfiler to simulate the SAN Oracle 11gR2 Database (11.2.0.1) Oracle 11gR2 Grid Infrastructure (11.2.0.1) Step 1 – Install the software Using asmlib, create 3 ASM disks (ASM_CRS, ASM_DTA and ASM_FRA) Install Grid Infrastructure for a cluster (OELCluster01 and OELCluster02 are the 2 nodes of the cluster) Use ASM_CRS to store Voting Disk and OCR. Use SCAN. Install Oracle Database Standalone binaries on both nodes. Use asmca to check/mount the disk groups on 2 nodes Use dbca to create and configure a database on the primary node Let’s name it DB11G. Copy the pfile, password file to the second node. Create adump directoty on the second node. Step 2 - Setup the resource to be protected After its creation with dbca, the database is automatically protected by the Oracle Restart technology available with Grid Infrastructure. Consequently, it restarts automatically (if possible) after a crash (ex: kill –9 smon). A database resource has been created for that in the Cluster Registry. We can observe this with the command : crsctl status resource that shows and ora.dba11g.db entry. Let’s save the definition of this resource, for future use : mkdir –p /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts chown oracle:oinstall /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts crsctl status resource ora.db11g.db -p > /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/myResource.txt Although very interesting, Oracle Restart is not cluster aware and cannot restart the database on any other node of the cluster. So, let’s remove it from the OCR definitions, we don’t need it ! srvctl stop database -d DB11G srvctl remove database -d DB11G Instead of it, we need to create a new resource of a more general type : cluster_resource. Here are the steps to achieve this : Create an action script : /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/my_ActivePassive_Cluster.sh #!/bin/bash export ORACLE_HOME=/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 export ORACLE_SID=DB11G case $1 in 'start') $ORACLE_HOME/bin/sqlplus /nolog <<EOF connect / as sysdba startup EOF RET=0 ;; 'stop') $ORACLE_HOME/bin/sqlplus /nolog <<EOF connect / as sysdba shutdown immediate EOF RET=0 ;; 'check') ok=`ps -ef | grep smon | grep $ORACLE_SID | wc -l` if [ $ok = 0 ]; then RET=1 else RET=0 fi ;; '*') RET=0 ;; esac if [ $RET -eq 0 ]; then exit 0 else exit 1 fi This script must provide, at least, methods to start, stop and check the database. It is self-explaining and contains nothing special. Just be aware that it is run as Oracle user (because of the ACL property – see later) and needs to know about the environment. It also needs to be present on every node of the cluster. chmod +x /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/my_ActivePassive_Cluster.sh scp /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/my_ActivePassive_Cluster.sh oracle@OELCluster02:/crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts Create a new resource file, based on the information we got from previous myResource.txt . Name it myNewResource.txt. myResource.txt is shown below. As we can see, it defines an ora.database.type resource, named ora.db11g.db. A lot of properties are related to this type of resource and do not need to be used for a cluster_resource. NAME=ora.db11g.db TYPE=ora.database.type ACL=owner:oracle:rwx,pgrp:oinstall:rwx,other::r-- ACTION_FAILURE_TEMPLATE= ACTION_SCRIPT= ACTIVE_PLACEMENT=1 AGENT_FILENAME=%CRS_HOME%/bin/oraagent%CRS_EXE_SUFFIX% AUTO_START=restore CARDINALITY=1 CHECK_INTERVAL=1 CHECK_TIMEOUT=600 CLUSTER_DATABASE=false DB_UNIQUE_NAME=DB11G DEFAULT_TEMPLATE=PROPERTY(RESOURCE_CLASS=database) PROPERTY(DB_UNIQUE_NAME= CONCAT(PARSE(%NAME%, ., 2), %USR_ORA_DOMAIN%, .)) ELEMENT(INSTANCE_NAME= %GEN_USR_ORA_INST_NAME%) DEGREE=1 DESCRIPTION=Oracle Database resource ENABLED=1 FAILOVER_DELAY=0 FAILURE_INTERVAL=60 FAILURE_THRESHOLD=1 GEN_AUDIT_FILE_DEST=/oracle/admin/DB11G/adump GEN_USR_ORA_INST_NAME= GEN_USR_ORA_INST_NAME@SERVERNAME(oelcluster01)=DB11G HOSTING_MEMBERS= INSTANCE_FAILOVER=0 LOAD=1 LOGGING_LEVEL=1 MANAGEMENT_POLICY=AUTOMATIC NLS_LANG= NOT_RESTARTING_TEMPLATE= OFFLINE_CHECK_INTERVAL=0 ORACLE_HOME=/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 PLACEMENT=restricted PROFILE_CHANGE_TEMPLATE= RESTART_ATTEMPTS=2 ROLE=PRIMARY SCRIPT_TIMEOUT=60 SERVER_POOLS=ora.DB11G SPFILE=+DTA/DB11G/spfileDB11G.ora START_DEPENDENCIES=hard(ora.DTA.dg,ora.FRA.dg) weak(type:ora.listener.type,uniform:ora.ons,uniform:ora.eons) pullup(ora.DTA.dg,ora.FRA.dg) START_TIMEOUT=600 STATE_CHANGE_TEMPLATE= STOP_DEPENDENCIES=hard(intermediate:ora.asm,shutdown:ora.DTA.dg,shutdown:ora.FRA.dg) STOP_TIMEOUT=600 UPTIME_THRESHOLD=1h USR_ORA_DB_NAME=DB11G USR_ORA_DOMAIN=haroland USR_ORA_ENV= USR_ORA_FLAGS= USR_ORA_INST_NAME=DB11G USR_ORA_OPEN_MODE=open USR_ORA_OPI=false USR_ORA_STOP_MODE=immediate VERSION=11.2.0.1.0 I removed database type related entries from myResource.txt and modified some other to produce the following myNewResource.txt. Notice the NAME property that should not have the ora. prefix Notice the TYPE property that is not ora.database.type but cluster_resource. Notice the definition of ACTION_SCRIPT. Notice the HOSTING_MEMBERS that enumerates the members of the cluster (as returned by the olsnodes command). NAME=DB11G.db TYPE=cluster_resource DESCRIPTION=Oracle Database resource ACL=owner:oracle:rwx,pgrp:oinstall:rwx,other::r-- ACTION_SCRIPT=/crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/my_ActivePassive_Cluster.sh PLACEMENT=restricted ACTIVE_PLACEMENT=0 AUTO_START=restore CARDINALITY=1 CHECK_INTERVAL=10 DEGREE=1 ENABLED=1 HOSTING_MEMBERS=oelcluster01 oelcluster02 LOGGING_LEVEL=1 RESTART_ATTEMPTS=1 START_DEPENDENCIES=hard(ora.DTA.dg,ora.FRA.dg) weak(type:ora.listener.type,uniform:ora.ons,uniform:ora.eons) pullup(ora.DTA.dg,ora.FRA.dg) START_TIMEOUT=600 STOP_DEPENDENCIES=hard(intermediate:ora.asm,shutdown:ora.DTA.dg,shutdown:ora.FRA.dg) STOP_TIMEOUT=600 UPTIME_THRESHOLD=1h Register the resource. Take care of the resource type. It needs to be a cluster_resource and not a ora.database.type resource (Oracle recommendation) . crsctl add resource DB11G.db -type cluster_resource -file /crs/11.2.0/HA_scripts/myNewResource.txt Step 3 - Start the resource crsctl start resource DB11G.db This command launches the ACTION_SCRIPT with a start and a check parameter on the primary node of the cluster. Step 4 - Test this We will test the setup using 2 methods. crsctl relocate resource DB11G.db This command calls the ACTION_SCRIPT (on the two nodes) to stop the database on the active node and start it on the other node. Once done, we can revert back to the original node, but, this time we can use a more “MS$ like” method :Turn off the server on which the database is running. After short delay, you should observe that the database is relocated on node 1. Conclusion Once the software installed and the standalone database created (which is a rather common and usual task), the steps to reach the objective are quite easy : Create an executable action script on every node of the cluster. Create a resource file. Create/Register the resource with OCR using the resource file. Start the resource. This solution is a very interesting alternative to licensable third party solutions. References Clusterware 11gR2 documentation Oracle Clusterware Resource Reference Gilles Haro Technical Expert - Core Technology, Oracle Consulting

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Common Live Upgrade problems

- by user12611829

As I have worked with customers deploying Live Upgrade in their environments, several problems seem to surface over and over. With this blog article, I will try to collect these troubles, as well as suggest some workarounds. If this sounds like the beginnings of a Wiki, you would be right. At present, there is not enough material for one, so we will use this blog for the time being. I do expect new material to be posted on occasion, so if you wish to bookmark it for future reference, a permanent link can be found here. Live Upgrade copies over ZFS root clone This was introduced in Solaris 10 10/09 (u8) and the root of the problem is a duplicate entry in the source boot environments ICF configuration file. Prior to u8, a ZFS root file system was not included in /etc/vfstab, since the mount is implicit at boot time. Starting with u8, the root file system is included in /etc/vfstab, and when the boot environment is scanned to create the ICF file, a duplicate entry is recorded. Here's what the error looks like. # lucreate -n s10u9-baseline Checking GRUB menu... System has findroot enabled GRUB Analyzing system configuration. Comparing source boot environment file systems with the file system(s) you specified for the new boot environment. Determining which file systems should be in the new boot environment. Updating boot environment description database on all BEs. Updating system configuration files. Creating configuration for boot environment . Source boot environment is . Creating boot environment . Creating file systems on boot environment . Creating file system for in zone on . The error indicator ----- /usr/lib/lu/lumkfs: test: unknown operator zfs Populating file systems on boot environment . Checking selection integrity. Integrity check OK. Populating contents of mount point . This should not happen ------ Copying. Ctrl-C and cleanup If you weren't paying close attention, you might not even know this is an error. The symptoms are lucreate times that are way too long due to the extraneous copy, or the one that alerted me to the problem, the root file system is filling up - again thanks to a redundant copy. This problem has already been identified and corrected, and a patch (121431-58 or later for x86, 121430-57 for SPARC) is available. Unfortunately, this patch has not yet made it into the Solaris 10 Recommended Patch Cluster. Applying the prerequisite patches from the latest cluster is a recommendation from the Live Upgrade Survival Guide blog, so an additional step will be required until the patch is included. Let's see how this works. # patchadd -p | grep 121431 Patch: 121429-13 Obsoletes: Requires: 120236-01 121431-16 Incompatibles: Packages: SUNWluzone Patch: 121431-54 Obsoletes: 121436-05 121438-02 Requires: Incompatibles: Packages: SUNWlucfg SUNWluu SUNWlur # unzip 121431-58 # patchadd 121431-58 Validating patches... Loading patches installed on the system... Done! Loading patches requested to install. Done! Checking patches that you specified for installation. Done! Approved patches will be installed in this order: 121431-58 Checking installed patches... Executing prepatch script... Installing patch packages... Patch 121431-58 has been successfully installed. See /var/sadm/patch/121431-58/log for details Executing postpatch script... Patch packages installed: SUNWlucfg SUNWlur SUNWluu # lucreate -n s10u9-baseline Checking GRUB menu... System has findroot enabled GRUB Analyzing system configuration. INFORMATION: Unable to determine size or capacity of slice . Comparing source boot environment file systems with the file system(s) you specified for the new boot environment. Determining which file systems should be in the new boot environment. INFORMATION: Unable to determine size or capacity of slice . Updating boot environment description database on all BEs. Updating system configuration files. Creating configuration for boot environment . Source boot environment is . Creating boot environment . Cloning file systems from boot environment to create boot environment . Creating snapshot for on . Creating clone for on . Setting canmount=noauto for in zone on . Saving existing file in top level dataset for BE as //boot/grub/menu.lst.prev. Saving existing file in top level dataset for BE as //boot/grub/menu.lst.prev. Saving existing file in top level dataset for BE as //boot/grub/menu.lst.prev. File propagation successful Copied GRUB menu from PBE to ABE No entry for BE in GRUB menu Population of boot environment successful. Creation of boot environment successful. This time it took just a few seconds. A cursory examination of the offending ICF file (/etc/lu/ICF.3 in this case) shows that the duplicate root file system entry is now gone. # cat /etc/lu/ICF.3 s10u8-baseline:-:/dev/zvol/dsk/panroot/swap:swap:8388608 s10u8-baseline:/:panroot/ROOT/s10u8-baseline:zfs:0 s10u8-baseline:/vbox:pandora/vbox:zfs:0 s10u8-baseline:/setup:pandora/setup:zfs:0 s10u8-baseline:/export:pandora/export:zfs:0 s10u8-baseline:/pandora:pandora:zfs:0 s10u8-baseline:/panroot:panroot:zfs:0 s10u8-baseline:/workshop:pandora/workshop:zfs:0 s10u8-baseline:/export/iso:pandora/iso:zfs:0 s10u8-baseline:/export/home:pandora/home:zfs:0 s10u8-baseline:/vbox/HardDisks:pandora/vbox/HardDisks:zfs:0 s10u8-baseline:/vbox/HardDisks/WinXP:pandora/vbox/HardDisks/WinXP:zfs:0 Solaris 10 9/10 introduces new autoregistration file This one is actually mentioned in the Oracle Solaris 9/10 release notes. I know, I hate it when that happens too. Here's what the "error" looks like. # luupgrade -u -s /mnt -n s10u9-baseline System has findroot enabled GRUB No entry for BE in GRUB menu Copying failsafe kernel from media. 61364 blocks miniroot filesystem is Mounting miniroot at ERROR: The auto registration file does not exist or incomplete. The auto registration file is mandatory for this upgrade. Use -k argument along with luupgrade command. autoreg_file is path to auto registration information file. See sysidcfg(4) for a list of valid keywords for use in this file. The format of the file is as follows. oracle_user=xxxx oracle_pw=xxxx http_proxy_host=xxxx http_proxy_port=xxxx http_proxy_user=xxxx http_proxy_pw=xxxx For more details refer "Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 Installation Guide: Planning for Installation and Upgrade". As with the previous problem, this is also easy to work around. Assuming that you don't want to use the auto-registration feature at upgrade time, create a file that contains just autoreg=disable and pass the filename on to luupgrade. Here is an example. # echo "autoreg=disable" /var/tmp/no-autoreg # luupgrade -u -s /mnt -k /var/tmp/no-autoreg -n s10u9-baseline System has findroot enabled GRUB No entry for BE in GRUB menu Copying failsafe kernel from media. 61364 blocks miniroot filesystem is Mounting miniroot at ####################################################################### NOTE: To improve products and services, Oracle Solaris communicates configuration data to Oracle after rebooting. You can register your version of Oracle Solaris to capture this data for your use, or the data is sent anonymously. For information about what configuration data is communicated and how to control this facility, see the Release Notes or www.oracle.com/goto/solarisautoreg. INFORMATION: After activated and booted into new BE , Auto Registration happens automatically with the following Information autoreg=disable ####################################################################### Validating the contents of the media . The media is a standard Solaris media. The media contains an operating system upgrade image. The media contains version . Constructing upgrade profile to use. Locating the operating system upgrade program. Checking for existence of previously scheduled Live Upgrade requests. Creating upgrade profile for BE . Checking for GRUB menu on ABE . Saving GRUB menu on ABE . Checking for x86 boot partition on ABE. Determining packages to install or upgrade for BE . Performing the operating system upgrade of the BE . CAUTION: Interrupting this process may leave the boot environment unstable or unbootable. The Live Upgrade operation now proceeds as expected. Once the system upgrade is complete, we can manually register the system. If you want to do a hands off registration during the upgrade, see the Oracle Solaris Auto Registration section of the Oracle Solaris Release Notes for instructions on how to do that. Technocrati Tags: Oracle Solaris Patching Live Upgrade var sc_project=1193495; var sc_invisible=1; var sc_security="a46f6831";

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