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• Getting the current item number or index when using will_paginate in rails app

  - by Rich

  I have a rails app that stores movies watched, books read, etc. The index page for each type lists paged collections of all its items, using will_paginate to bring back 50 items per page. When I output the items I want to display a number to indicate what item in the total collection it is. The numbering should be reversed as the collection is displayed with most recent first. This might not relate to will_paginate but rather some other method of calculation. I will be using the same ordering in multiple types so it will need to be reusable. As an example, say I have 51 movies. The first item of the first page should display: Fight Club - Watched: 30th Dec 2010 Whilst the last item on the page should display: The Matrix - Watched: 3rd Jan 2010 The paged collection is available as an instance variable e.g. @movies, and @movies.count will display the number of items in the paged collection. So if we're on page 1, movies.count == 50, whilst on page 2 @movies.count == 1. Using Movie.count would give 51. If the page number and page size can be accessed the number could be calculated so how can they be returned? Though I'm hopeful there is something that already exists to handle this calculation!

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• A stupid question about wordpress and php

  - by bubdada

  It may seem stupid question, but i've a serious problem... if you could check out orcik.net the thumbnail images does not appear. I figured out the reason but I don't know how to solve.. http://orcik.net/projects/thumb/orcikthumb.php?src=http://orcik.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/mac-safari-search-cache.png If you go to the above link you will get page not found error. However, if you go to the link below you'll get the thumbnail version of the image... http://orcik.net/projects/thumb/orcikthumb.php?src=/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/mac-safari-search-cache.png I'm using this piece of code on wordpress and the line appears like <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark"> <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/includes/orcikthumb.php?src=<?php get_thumbnail($post->ID, 'full'); ?>&amp;h=<?php echo get_theme_mod($height); ?>&amp;w=<?php echo get_theme_mod($width); ?>&amp;zc=1" alt="<?php the_title(); ?>" /> </a> Thus, I believe I can't change the directory of image. But I could not figure out why I am getting page not found error. Is that might be CHMOD'es??? or something else?? Thanks

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• How do I turn a Wi-Fi "hotspot" into a local wired network?

  - by Max Schmeling

  Here's the situation: In a remote "office" I have a computer with no network connection, that I need to network with when I'm at this remote office. There is a wireless network where this computer is, but no wireless adapter in the computer. I have a laptop running Windows 7 that can connect to the wireless, and the computer is running Windows Vista. What is the best way to get them both connected? I know I can buy a USB wireless adapter or something for the computer, but is there an easy way to do it with what I've got?

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• Redundancy in doing sum()

  - by Abhi

  table1 - id, time_stamp, value This table consists of 10 id's. Each id would be having a value for each hour in a day. So for 1 day, there would be 240 records in this table. table2 - id Table2 consists of a dynamically changing subset of id's present in table1. At a particular instance, the intention is to get sum(value) from table1, considering id's only in table2, grouping by each hour in that day, giving the summarized values a rank and repeating this each day. the query is at this stage: select time_stamp, sum(value), rank() over (partition by trunc(time_stamp) order by sum(value) desc) rn from table1 where exists (select t2.id from table2 t2 where id=t2.id) and time_stamp >= to_date('05/04/2010 00','dd/mm/yyyy hh24') and time_stamp <= to_date('25/04/2010 23','dd/mm/yyyy hh24') group by time_stamp order by time_stamp asc If the query is correct, can this be made more efficient, considering that, table1 will actually consist of thousand's of id's instead of 10 ? EDIT: I am using sum(value) 2 times in the query, which I am not able to get a workaround such that the sum() is done only once. Pls help on this

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• "Add another item" form functionality

  - by GSTAR

  I have a form that lets a user enter their career history - it's a very simple form with only 3 fields - type (dropdown), details (textfield) and year (dropdown). Basically I want to include some dynamic functionality whereby the user can enter multiple items on the same page and then submit them all in one go. I had a search on Google and found some examples but they were all based on tables - my markup is based on DIV tags: <div class="form-fields"> <div class="row"> <label for="type">Type</label> <select id="type" name="type"> <option value="Work">Work</option> </select> </div> <div class="row"> <label for="details">Details</label> <input id="details" type="text" name="details" /> </div> <div class="row"> <label for="year">Year</label> <select id="year" name="year"> <option value="2010">2010</option> </select> </div> </div> So basically the 3 DIV tags with class "row" need to be duplicated, or to simplify things - the div "form-fields" could just be duplicated. I am also aware that the input names would have to converted to array format. Additionally each item will require a "remove" button. There will be a main submit button at the bottom which submits all the data. Anyone got an elegant solution for this?

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• Which is the recommended filesystem for VMware Server / ESXi?

  - by elitalon

  We have a couple of servers in office with VMware Server as virtualization solution. We are planning an upgrade of our infrastructure. Some servers will remain with VMware Server, but we want to migrate some others to VMware ESXi. In both cases we are making a fresh install, and I wonder if there any suggestion/guidelines regarding the host filesystem and its partitions. EDIT: We are using local storage instead of SAN/NAS external storage, because we are not sure if it is worth it to use them given our office size/requirements.

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• trouble accessing mail server from outside domain

  - by cinqoTimo

  Our organization just moved our Website/Domain to a hosted VPS. We elected, for the time being, to keep our email (Exchange) running at our office. On our new VPS, we simply add a DNS record to redirect our mail to our on-site exchange server. This worked out well, as mail is coming and going with no problems. Recently, we ran across an issue when setting up outlook from outside of our office (Not on same network as exchange server). When configuring mail server address, it keeps prompting for credentials. Anyone got any ideas on why this is happening? Is our VPS not allowing Outlook to find our exchange server? If so, how can we bypass it?

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• Management API - The request body XML was invalid or not correctly specified

  - by maartenba

  Cross posting from http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsazuretroubleshooting/thread/31b6aedc-c069-4e32-8e8f-2ff4b7c30793 I'm getting this error on changing configuration through the service management API: The request body XML was invalid or not correctly specified The request body payload: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ChangeConfiguration xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsazu re"> <Configuration>PD94bWwgdmVyc2lvbj0iMS4wIj8+CjxTZXJ2aWNlQ29uZmlndX JhdGlvbiB4bWxuczp4c2k9Imh0dHA6Ly93d3cudzMub3JnLzIwMDEvWE1MU2NoZW1hLWluc3RhbmNlIi B4bWxuczp4c2Q9Imh0dHA6Ly93d3cudzMub3JnLzIwMDEvWE1MU2NoZW1hIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3 NjaGVtYXMubWljcm9zb2Z0LmNvbS9TZXJ2aWNlSG9zdGluZy8yMDA4LzEwL1NlcnZpY2VDb25maWd1cm F0aW9uIiBzZXJ2aWNlTmFtZT0iIiBvc0ZhbWlseT0iMSIgb3NWZXJzaW9uPSIqIj4KICA8Um9sZSBuYW 1lPSJXZWJSb2xlMSI+CiAgICA8Q29uZmlndXJhdGlvblNldHRpbmdzPgogICAgICA8U2V0dGluZyBuYW 1lPSJNaWNyb3NvZnQuV2luZG93c0F6dXJlLlBsdWdpbnMuRGlhZ25vc3RpY3MuQ29ubmVjdGlvblN0cm luZyIgdmFsdWU9IlVzZURldmVsb3BtZW50U3RvcmFnZT10cnVlIi8+CiAgICA8L0NvbmZpZ3VyYXRpb2 5TZXR0aW5ncz4KICAgIDxJbnN0YW5jZXMgY291bnQ9IjIiLz4KICAgIDxDZXJ0aWZpY2F0ZXMvPgogID wvUm9sZT4KPC9TZXJ2aWNlQ29uZmlndXJhdGlvbj4K</Configuration> </ChangeConfiguration> I'm passing it the following configuration: $configuration = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" serviceName="" osFamily="1" osVersion="*"> <Role name="WebRole1"> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true"/> </ConfigurationSettings> <Instances count="2"/> <Certificates/> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration>'; Does anyone know why this error occurs? I suspect it has something to do with encoding but not sure.

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• Speeding up a group by date query on a big table in postgres

  - by zaius

  I've got a table with around 20 million rows. For arguments sake, lets say there are two columns in the table - an id and a timestamp. I'm trying to get a count of the number of items per day. Here's what I have at the moment. SELECT DATE(timestamp) AS day, COUNT(*) FROM actions WHERE DATE(timestamp) >= '20100101' AND DATE(timestamp) < '20110101' GROUP BY day; Without any indices, this takes about a 30s to run on my machine. Here's the explain analyze output: GroupAggregate (cost=675462.78..676813.42 rows=46532 width=8) (actual time=24467.404..32417.643 rows=346 loops=1) -> Sort (cost=675462.78..675680.34 rows=87021 width=8) (actual time=24466.730..29071.438 rows=17321121 loops=1) Sort Key: (date("timestamp")) Sort Method: external merge Disk: 372496kB -> Seq Scan on actions (cost=0.00..667133.11 rows=87021 width=8) (actual time=1.981..12368.186 rows=17321121 loops=1) Filter: ((date("timestamp") >= '2010-01-01'::date) AND (date("timestamp") < '2011-01-01'::date)) Total runtime: 32447.762 ms Since I'm seeing a sequential scan, I tried to index on the date aggregate CREATE INDEX ON actions (DATE(timestamp)); Which cuts the speed by about 50%. HashAggregate (cost=796710.64..796716.19 rows=370 width=8) (actual time=17038.503..17038.590 rows=346 loops=1) -> Seq Scan on actions (cost=0.00..710202.27 rows=17301674 width=8) (actual time=1.745..12080.877 rows=17321121 loops=1) Filter: ((date("timestamp") >= '2010-01-01'::date) AND (date("timestamp") < '2011-01-01'::date)) Total runtime: 17038.663 ms I'm new to this whole query-optimization business, and I have no idea what to do next. Any clues how I could get this query running faster?

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• Image error with wordpress and php

  - by bubdada

  It may seem stupid question, but i've a serious problem... if you could check out orcik.net the thumbnail images does not appear. I figured out the reason but I don't know how to solve.. http://orcik.net/projects/thumb/orcikthumb.php?src=http://orcik.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/mac-safari-search-cache.png If you go to the above link you will get page not found error. However, if you go to the link below you'll get the thumbnail version of the image... http://orcik.net/projects/thumb/orcikthumb.php?src=/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/mac-safari-search-cache.png I'm using this piece of code on wordpress and the line appears like <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark"> <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/includes/orcikthumb.php?src=<?php get_thumbnail($post->ID, 'full'); ?>&amp;h=<?php echo get_theme_mod($height); ?>&amp;w=<?php echo get_theme_mod($width); ?>&amp;zc=1" alt="<?php the_title(); ?>" /> </a> Thus, I believe I can't change the directory of image. But I could not figure out why I am getting page not found error. Is that might be CHMOD'es??? or something else?? Thanks

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• Best way to get distinct values from large table

  - by derivation

  I have a db table with about 10 or so columns, two of which are month and year. The table has about 250k rows now, and we expect it to grow by about 100-150k records a month. A lot of queries involve the month and year column (ex, all records from march 2010), and so we frequently need to get the available month and year combinations (ie do we have records for april 2010?). A coworker thinks that we should have a separate table from our main one that only contains the months and years we have data for. We only add records to our main table once a month, so it would just be a small update on the end of our scripts to add the new entry to this second table. This second table would be queried whenever we need to find the available month/year entries on the first table. This solution feels kludgy to me and a violation of DRY. What do you think is the correct way of solving this problem? Is there a better way than having two tables?

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• exchange server 5.5 stops responding

  - by user57221

  From last couple of weeks I am getting connection problem with my in-house exchange server 5.5 running on windows 2003. It has been working fine from last 5 years. but from few weeks it is loosing connection with other outlook clients. I have to restart my exchange server to make it work. This happens few times in a week. It looses connection somewhere between 7PM to 8AM as when I come in office. I find this problem, while it leave office it works fine. We have not installed any updates or software since last more than 2 years. What could be the reason for stop working?

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• Populate an Object Model from a data dataTable(C#3.0)

  - by Newbie

  I have a situation I am getting data from some external sources and is populating into the datatable. The data looks like this DATE WEEK FACTOR 3/26/2010 1 RM_GLOBAL_EQUITY 3/26/2010 1 RM_GLOBAL_GROWTH 3/26/2010 2 RM_GLOBAL_VALUE 3/26/2010 2 RM_GLOBAL_SIZE 3/26/2010 2 RM_GLOBAL_MOMENTUM 3/26/2010 3 RM_GLOBAL_HIST_BETA I have a object model like this public class FactorReturn { public int WeekNo { get; set; } public DateTime WeekDate { get; set; } public Dictionary<string, decimal> FactorCollection { get; set; } } As can be seen that the Date field is always constant. And a single(means unique) week can have multiple FACTORS. i.e. For a date(3/26/2010), for Week No. 1, there are two FACTORS(RM_GLOBAL_EQUITY and RM_GLOBAL_GROWTH). Similarly, For a date(3/26/2010), for Week No. 2, there are three FACTORS(RM_GLOBAL_VALUE , RM_GLOBAL_SIZE and RM_GLOBAL_MOMENTUM ). Now we need to populate this data into our object model. The final output will be WeekDate: 3/26/2010 WeekNo : 1 FactorCollection : RM_GLOBAL_EQUITY FactorCollection : RM_GLOBAL_GROWTH WeekNo : 2 FactorCollection : RM_GLOBAL_VALUE FactorCollection : RM_GLOBAL_SIZE FactorCollection : RM_GLOBAL_MOMENTUM WeekNo : 3 FactorCollection : RM_GLOBAL_HIST_BETA That is, overall only 1 single collection, where the Factor type will vary depending on week numbers. I have tried but of useless. Nothing works. Could you please help me?. I feel it is very tough I am using C# 3.0 Thanks

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• '<=' operator is not working in sql server 2000

  - by Lalit

  Hello, Scenario is, database is in the maintenance phase. this database is not developed by ours developer. it is an existing database developed by the 'xyz' company in sql server 2000. This is real time database, where i am working now. I wanted to write the stored procedure which will retrieve me the records From date1 to date 2.so query is : Select * from MyTableName Where colDate>= '3-May-2010' and colDate<= '5-Oct-2010' and colName='xyzName' whereas my understanding I must get data including upper bound date as well as lower bound date. but somehow I am getting records from '3-May-2010' (which is fine but) to '10-Oct-2010' As i observe in table design , for ColDate, developer had used 'varchar' to store the date. i know this is wrong remedy by them. so in my stored procedure I have also used varchar parameters as @FromDate1 and @ToDate to get inputs for SP. this is giving me result which i have explained. i tried to take the parameter type as 'Datetime' but it is showing error while saving/altering the stored procedure that "@FromDate1 has invalid datatype", same for "@ToDate". situation is that, I can not change the table design at all. what i have to do here ? i know we can use user defined table in sql server 2008 , but there is version sql server 2000. which does not support the same. Please guide me for this scenario. **Edited** I am trying to write like this SP: CREATE PROCEDURE USP_Data (@Location varchar(100), @FromDate DATETIME, @ToDate DATETIME) AS SELECT * FROM dbo.TableName Where CAST(Dt AS DATETIME) >=@fromDate and CAST(Dt AS DATETIME)<=@ToDate and Location=@Location GO but getting Error: Arithmetic overflow error converting expression to data type datetime. in sql server 2000 What should be that ? is i am wrong some where ? also (202 row(s) affected) is changes every time in circular manner means first time sayin (122 row(s) affected) run again saying (80 row(s) affected) if again (202 row(s) affected) if again (122 row(s) affected) I can not understand what is going on ?

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• Joining windows LANs through SSH tunnel

  - by Akke

  I have at home a computer (a windows 7 ult machine) I need to use to manage stuff at the office which hosts windows and linux servers. I am able to set up a SSH tunnel (atleast for firefox proxying) and I'd like to be able to access shared windows network drives on the other end too. I heard something about needing some kind of samba service but I couldn't find anything useful by googling that. What do I need in order to make an SSH tunnel to the office (a NAS, running linux) so that I can access windows server 2008 and windows 7 network drives? Bonus: I'd like to be able to access a MSSQL database server too if it's possible.

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• use local ip and maintain ssl warning free [duplicate]

  - by Timothy Clemans

  This question already has an answer here: Loopback to forwarded Public IP address from local network - Hairpin NAT 6 answers I have a public facing website for a doctor's office for accessing the medical record. I'm using SSL. The server is at the doctor's office. When I access the website on the same network as the server I want the DNS to point to the local IP address. I don't want to do a HTTP redirect to the local ip because of the scary SSL warning. What's the recommended way of doing this?

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• Export data to Excel from Silverlight/WPF DataGrid

  - by outcoldman

  Data export from DataGrid to Excel is very common task, and it can be solved with different ways, and chosen way depend on kind of app which you are design. If you are developing app for enterprise, and it will be installed on several computes, then you can to advance a claim (system requirements) with which your app will be work for client. Or customer will advance system requirements on which your app should work. In this case you can use COM for export (use infrastructure of Excel or OpenOffice). This approach will give you much more flexibility and give you possibility to use all features of Excel app. About this approach I’ll speak below. Other way – your app is for personal use, it can be installed on any home computer, in this case it is not good to ask user to install MS Office or OpenOffice just for using your app. In this way you can use foreign tools for export, or export to xml/html format which MS Office can read (this approach used by JIRA). But in this case will be more difficult to satisfy user tasks, like create document with landscape rotation and with defined fields for printing. At this article I'll show you how to work with Excel object from .NET 4 and Silverlight 4 with dynamic objects and give you an approach which allow you to export data from DataGrid Silverlight and WPF controls. Read more...

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• Week in Geek: New Security Flaw Confirmed for Internet Explorer Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to use a PC to stay entertained while traveling for the holidays, create quality photo prints with free software, share links between any browser and any smartphone, create perfect Christmas photos using How-To Geek’s 10 best how-to photo guides, and had fun decorating Firefox with a collection of Holiday 2010 Personas themes. Photo by Repoort. Random Geek Links Photo by Asian Angel. Critical 0-Day Flaw Affects All Internet Explorer Versions, Microsoft Warns Microsoft has confirmed a zero-day vulnerability affecting all supported versions of Internet Explorer, including IE8, IE7 and IE6. Note: Article contains link to Microsoft Security Advisory detailing two work-arounds until a security update is released. Hackers targeting human rights, indie media groups Hackers are increasingly hitting the Web sites of human rights and independent media groups in an attempt to silence them, says a new study released this week by Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. OpenBSD: audits give no indication of back doors So far, the analyses of OpenBSD’s crypto and IPSec code have not provided any indication that the system contains back doors for listening to encrypted VPN connections. But the developers have already found two bugs during their current audits. Sophos: Beware Facebook’s new facial-recognition feature Facebook’s new facial recognition software might result in undesirable photos of users being circulated online, warned a security expert, who urged users to keep abreast with the social network’s privacy settings to prevent the abovementioned scenario from becoming a reality. Microsoft withdraws flawed Outlook update Microsoft has withdrawn update KB2412171 for Outlook 2007, released last Patch Tuesday, after a number of user complaints. Skype: Millions still without service Skype was still working to right itself going into the holiday weekend from a major outage that began this past Wednesday. Mozilla improves sync setup and WebGL in Firefox 4 beta 8 Firefox 4.0 beta 8 brings better support for WebGL and introduces an improved setup process for Firefox Sync that simplifies the steps for configuring the synchronization service across multiple devices. Chrome OS the litmus test for cloud The success or failure of Google’s browser-oriented Chrome OS will be the litmus test to decide if the cloud is capable of addressing user needs for content and services, according to a new Ovum report released Monday. FCC Net neutrality rules reach mobile apps The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) finally released its long-expected regulations on Thursday and the related explanations total a whopping 194 pages. One new item that was not previously disclosed: mobile wireless providers can’t block “applications that compete with the provider’s” own voice or video telephony services. KDE and the Document Foundation join Open Invention Network The KDE e.V. and the Document Foundation (TDF) have both joined the Open Invention Network (OIN) as licensees, expanding the organization’s roster of supporters. Report: SEC looks into Hurd’s ousting from HP The scandal surrounding Mark Hurd’s departure from the world’s largest technology company in August has officially drawn attention from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Report: Google requests delay of new Google TVs Google TV is apparently encountering a bit of static that has resulted in a programming change. Geek Video of the Week This week we have a double dose of geeky video goodness for you with the original Mac vs PC video and the trailer for the sequel. Photo courtesy of Peacer. Mac vs PC Photo courtesy of Peacer. Mac vs PC 2 Trailer Random TinyHacker Links Awesome Tools To Extract Audio From Video Here’s a list of really useful, and free tools to rip audio from videos. Getting Your iPhone Out of Recovery Mode Is your iPhone stuck in recovery mode? This tutorial will help you get it out of that state. Google Shared Spaces Quickly create a shared space and collaborate with friends online. McAfee Internet Security 2011 – Upgrade not worthy of a version change McAfee has released their 2011 version of security products. And as this review details, the upgrades are minimal when compared to their 2010 products. For more information, check out the review. 200 Countries Plotted Hans Rosling’s famous lectures combine enormous quantities of public data with a sport’s commentator’s style to reveal the story of the world’s past, present and future development. Now he explores stats in a way he has never done before – using augmented reality animation. Super User Questions Enjoy looking through this week’s batch of popular questions and answers from Super User. How to restore windows 7 to a known working state every time it boots? Is there an easy way to mass-transfer all files between two computers? Coffee spilled inside computer, damaged hard drive Computer does not boot after ram upgrade Keyboard not detected when trying to install Ubuntu 10.10 How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Have you had a super busy week while preparing for the holiday weekend? Then here is your chance to get caught up on your reading with our five hottest articles for the week. Ask How-To Geek: Rescuing an Infected PC, Installing Bloat-free iTunes, and Taming a Crazy Trackpad How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC Eight Geektacular Christmas Projects for Your Day Off VirtualBox 4.0 Rocks Extensions and a Simplified GUI Ask the Readers: How Many Monitors Do You Use with Your Computer? One Year Ago on How-To Geek Here are more great articles from one year ago for you to read and enjoy during the holiday break. Enjoy Distraction-Free Writing with WriteMonkey Shutter is a State of Art Screenshot Tool for Ubuntu Get Hex & RGB Color Codes the Easy Way Find User Scripts for Your Favorite Websites the Easy Way Access Your Unsorted Bookmarks the Easy Way (Firefox) The Geek Note That “wraps” things up for this week and we hope that everyone enjoys the rest of their holiday break! Found a great tip during the break? Then be sure to send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by ArSiSa7. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials Is Your Desktop Printer More Expensive Than Printing Services? 20 OS X Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know HTG Explains: Which Linux File System Should You Choose? HTG Explains: Why Does Photo Paper Improve Print Quality? Simon’s Cat Explores the Christmas Tree! [Video] The Outdoor Lights Scene from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation [Video] The Famous Home Alone Pizza Delivery Scene [Classic Video] Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Theme for Windows 7 Cardinal and Rabbit Sharing a Tree on a Cold Winter Morning Wallpaper An Alternate Star Wars Christmas Special [Video]

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• Introducing SSIS Reporting Pack for SQL Server code-named Denali

  - by jamiet

  In recent blog posts I have introduced the new SSIS Catalog that is forthcoming in SQL Server Code-named Denali: What's new in SSIS in Denali Introduction to SSIS Projects in Denali Parameters in SSIS In Denali SSIS Server, Catalogs, Environments and Environment Variables in SSIS in Denali The SSIS Catalog is responsible for executing SSIS packages and also for capturing the metadata from those executions. However, at the time of writing there is no mechanism provided to view analyse and drill into that metadata and that is the reason that I am, in this blog post, introducing a suite of SSIS Catalog reports called the SSIS Reporting Pack which you can download from my SkyDrive at http://cid-550f681dad532637.office.live.com/self.aspx/Public/SSIS%20Reporting%20Pack/SSISReportingPack%20v0.1.zip. In this first release the SSIS Reporting Pack includes five reports: Catalog – A high-level summary of all activity in the Catalog Folders – A summary of activity in each Catalog Folder Folder – Project-level activity per single Folder Executions – A visualisation of all executions per Folder/Project/Package/Environment or subset thereof Execution – Information about an individual execution Here is a screenshot of the Executions report: Notice that the SSIS Reporting Pack provides a visual overview of all executions in the Catalog. Each execution is represented as a bar on the bar chart, the success or otherwise of each execution is indicated by the colour of the bar and the execution time is indicated by the bar height. I have recorded a video that gives an overview of the SSIS Reporting which I have embedded below. If you are having any trouble viewing the video go see it at http://vimeo.com/17617974 I must stress that this is a very early version of the SSIS Reporting Pack and I am expecting it to change a lot over the coming year. I am very keen to get some feedback about this, specifically: let me know if anything does not work as you expect give me your feature requests The easiest way to get hold of of me for now is within the comments section of this blog post. That’s all for now. I hope the SSIS Reporting Pack proves useful and I look forward to hearing your feedback. Lastly, that download link again: http://cid-550f681dad532637.office.live.com/self.aspx/Public/SSIS%20Reporting%20Pack/SSISReportingPack%20v0.1.zip. @jamiet

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• Adding Volcanos and Options - Earthquake Locator, part 2

  - by Bobby Diaz

  Since volcanos are often associated with earthquakes, and vice versa, I decided to show recent volcanic activity on the Earthquake Locator map.  I am pulling the data from a website created for a joint project between the Smithsonian's Global Volcanism Program and the US Geological Survey's Volcano Hazards Program, found here.  They provide a Weekly Volcanic Activity Report as an RSS feed.   I started implementing this new functionality by creating a new Volcano entity in the domain model and adding the following to the EarthquakeService class (I also factored out the common reading/parsing helper methods to a separate FeedReader class that can be used by multiple domain service classes):           private static readonly string VolcanoFeedUrl =             ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["VolcanoFeedUrl"];           /// <summary>         /// Gets the volcano data for the previous week.         /// </summary>         /// <returns>A queryable collection of <see cref="Volcano"/> objects.</returns>         public IQueryable<Volcano> GetVolcanos()         {             var feed = FeedReader.Load(VolcanoFeedUrl);             var list = new List<Volcano>();               if ( feed != null )             {                 foreach ( var item in feed.Items )                 {                     var quake = CreateVolcano(item);                     if ( quake != null )                     {                         list.Add(quake);                     }                 }             }               return list.AsQueryable();         }           /// <summary>         /// Creates a <see cref="Volcano"/> object for each item in the RSS feed.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="item">The RSS item.</param>         /// <returns></returns>         private Volcano CreateVolcano(SyndicationItem item)         {             Volcano volcano = null;             string title = item.Title.Text;             string desc = item.Summary.Text;             double? latitude = null;             double? longitude = null;               FeedReader.GetGeoRssPoint(item, out latitude, out longitude);               if ( !String.IsNullOrEmpty(title) )             {                 title = title.Substring(0, title.IndexOf('-'));             }             if ( !String.IsNullOrEmpty(desc) )             {                 desc = String.Join("\n\n", desc                         .Replace("<p>", "")                         .Split(                             new string[] { "</p>" },                             StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)                         .Select(s => s.Trim())                         .ToArray())                         .Trim();             }               if ( latitude != null && longitude != null )             {                 volcano = new Volcano()                 {                     Id = item.Id,                     Title = title,                     Description = desc,                     Url = item.Links.Select(l => l.Uri.OriginalString).FirstOrDefault(),                     Latitude = latitude.GetValueOrDefault(),                     Longitude = longitude.GetValueOrDefault()                 };             }               return volcano;         } I then added the corresponding LoadVolcanos() method and Volcanos collection to the EarthquakeViewModel class in much the same way I did with the Earthquakes in my previous article in this series. Now that I am starting to add more information to the map, I wanted to give the user some options as to what is displayed and allowing them to choose what gets turned off.  I have updated the MainPage.xaml to look like this:   <UserControl x:Class="EarthquakeLocator.MainPage"     xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"     xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"     xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"     xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"     xmlns:basic="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls"     xmlns:bing="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Maps.MapControl;assembly=Microsoft.Maps.MapControl"     xmlns:vm="clr-namespace:EarthquakeLocator.ViewModel"     mc:Ignorable="d" d:DesignWidth="640" d:DesignHeight="480" >     <UserControl.Resources>         <DataTemplate x:Key="EarthquakeTemplate">             <Ellipse Fill="Red" Stroke="Black" StrokeThickness="1"                      Width="{Binding Size}" Height="{Binding Size}"                      bing:MapLayer.Position="{Binding Location}"                      bing:MapLayer.PositionOrigin="Center">                 <ToolTipService.ToolTip>                     <StackPanel>                         <TextBlock Text="{Binding Title}" FontSize="14" FontWeight="Bold" />                         <TextBlock Text="{Binding UtcTime}" />                         <TextBlock Text="{Binding LocalTime}" />                         <TextBlock Text="{Binding DepthDesc}" />                     </StackPanel>                 </ToolTipService.ToolTip>             </Ellipse>         </DataTemplate>           <DataTemplate x:Key="VolcanoTemplate">             <Polygon Fill="Gold" Stroke="Black" StrokeThickness="1" Points="0,10 5,0 10,10"                      bing:MapLayer.Position="{Binding Location}"                      bing:MapLayer.PositionOrigin="Center"                      MouseLeftButtonUp="Volcano_MouseLeftButtonUp">                 <ToolTipService.ToolTip>                     <StackPanel>                         <TextBlock Text="{Binding Title}" FontSize="14" FontWeight="Bold" />                         <TextBlock Text="Click icon for more information..." />                     </StackPanel>                 </ToolTipService.ToolTip>             </Polygon>         </DataTemplate>     </UserControl.Resources>       <UserControl.DataContext>         <vm:EarthquakeViewModel AutoLoadData="True" />     </UserControl.DataContext>       <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot">           <bing:Map x:Name="map" CredentialsProvider="--Your-Bing-Maps-Key--"                   Center="{Binding MapCenter, Mode=TwoWay}"                   ZoomLevel="{Binding ZoomLevel, Mode=TwoWay}">               <bing:MapItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding Earthquakes}"                                   ItemTemplate="{StaticResource EarthquakeTemplate}" />               <bing:MapItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding Volcanos}"                                   ItemTemplate="{StaticResource VolcanoTemplate}" />         </bing:Map>           <basic:TabControl x:Name="tabs" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" MaxHeight="25" Opacity="0.7">             <basic:TabItem Margin="90,0,-90,0" MouseLeftButtonUp="TabItem_MouseLeftButtonUp">                 <basic:TabItem.Header>                     <TextBlock x:Name="txtHeader" Text="Options"                                FontSize="13" FontWeight="Bold" />                 </basic:TabItem.Header>                   <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">                     <TextBlock Text="Earthquakes:" FontWeight="Bold" Margin="3" />                     <StackPanel Margin="3">                         <CheckBox Content=" &lt; 4.0"                                   IsChecked="{Binding ShowLt4, Mode=TwoWay}" />                         <CheckBox Content="4.0 - 4.9"                                   IsChecked="{Binding Show4s, Mode=TwoWay}" />                         <CheckBox Content="5.0 - 5.9"                                   IsChecked="{Binding Show5s, Mode=TwoWay}" />                     </StackPanel>                       <StackPanel Margin="10,3,3,3">                         <CheckBox Content="6.0 - 6.9"                                   IsChecked="{Binding Show6s, Mode=TwoWay}" />                         <CheckBox Content="7.0 - 7.9"                                   IsChecked="{Binding Show7s, Mode=TwoWay}" />                         <CheckBox Content="8.0 +"                                   IsChecked="{Binding ShowGe8, Mode=TwoWay}" />                     </StackPanel>                       <TextBlock Text="Other:" FontWeight="Bold" Margin="50,3,3,3" />                     <StackPanel Margin="3">                         <CheckBox Content="Volcanos"                                   IsChecked="{Binding ShowVolcanos, Mode=TwoWay}" />                     </StackPanel>                 </StackPanel>               </basic:TabItem>         </basic:TabControl>       </Grid> </UserControl> Notice that I added a VolcanoTemplate that uses a triangle-shaped Polygon to represent the Volcano locations, and I also added a second <bing:MapItemsControl /> tag to the map to bind to the Volcanos collection.  The TabControl found below the map houses the options panel that will present the user with several checkboxes so they can filter the different points based on type and other properties (i.e. Magnitude).  Initially, the TabItem is collapsed to reduce it's footprint, but the screen shot below shows the options panel expanded to reveal the available settings:     I have updated the Source Code and Live Demo to include these new features.   Happy Mapping!

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• Win a place at a SQL Server Masterclass with Kimberly Tripp and Paul Randal

  - by Testas

  The top things YOU need to know about managing SQL Server - in one place, on one day - presented by two of the best SQL Server industry trainers!And you could be there courtesy of UK SQL Server User Group and SQL Server Magazine! This week the UK SQL Server User Group will provide you with details of how to win a place at this must see seminar   You can also register for the seminar yourself at:www.regonline.co.uk/kimtrippsql More information about the seminar   Where: Radisson Edwardian Heathrow Hotel, London When: Thursday 17th June 2010 This one-day MasterClass will focus on many of the top issues companies face when implementing and maintaining a SQL Server-based solution. In the case where a company has no dedicated DBA, IT managers sometimes struggle to keep the data tier performing well and the data available. This can be especially troublesome when the development team is unfamiliar with the affect application design choices have on database performance. The Microsoft SQL Server MasterClass 2010 is presented by Paul S. Randal and Kimberly L. Tripp, two of the most experienced and respected people in the SQL Server world. Together they have over 30 years combined experience working with SQL Server in the field, and on the SQL Server product team itself. This is a unique opportunity to hear them present at a UK event which will:·         Debunk many of the ingrained misconceptions around SQL Server's behaviour   ·         Show you disaster recovery techniques critical to preserving your company's life-blood - the data   ·         Explain how a common application design pattern can wreak havoc in the database ·         Walk through the top-10 points to follow around operations and maintenance for a well-performing and available data tier! Please Note: Agenda may be subject to changeSessions AbstractsKEYNOTE: Bridging the Gap Between Development and Production  Applications are commonly developed with little regard for how design choices will affect performance in production. This is often because developers don't realize the implications of their design on how SQL Server will be able to handle a high workload (e.g. blocking, fragmentation) and/or because there's no full-time trained DBA that can recognize production problems and help educate developers. The keynote sets the stage for the rest of the day. Discussing some of the issues that can arise, explaining how some can be avoided and highlighting some of the features in SQL 2008 that can help developers and DBAs make better use of SQL Server, and troubleshoot when things go wrong.  SESSION ONE: SQL Server MythbustersIt's amazing how many myths and misconceptions have sprung up and persisted over the years about SQL Server - after many years helping people out on forums, newsgroups, and customer engagements, Paul and Kimberly have heard it all. Are there really non-logged operations? Can interrupting shrinks or rebuilds cause corruption? Can you override the server's MAXDOP setting? Will the server always do a table-scan to get a row count? Many myths lead to poor design choices and inappropriate maintenance practices so these are just a few of many, many myths that Paul and Kimberly will debunk in this fast-paced session on how SQL Server operates and should be managed and maintained. SESSION TWO: Database Recovery Techniques Demo-Fest Even if a company has a disaster recovery strategy in place, they need to practice to make sure that the plan will work when a disaster does strike. In this fast-paced demo session Paul and Kimberly will repeatedly do nasty things to databases and then show how they are recovered - demonstrating many techniques that can be used in production for disaster recovery. Not for the faint-hearted! SESSION THREE: GUIDs: Use, Abuse, and How To Move Forward Since the addition of the GUID (Microsoft’s implementation of the UUID), my life as a consultant and "tuner" has been busy. I’ve seen databases designed with GUID keys run fairly well with small workloads but completely fall over and fail because they just cannot scale. And, I know why GUIDs are chosen - it simplifies the handling of parent/child rows in your batches so you can reduce round-trips or avoid dealing with identity values. And, yes, sometimes it's even for distributed databases and/or security that GUIDs are chosen. I'm not entirely against ever using a GUID but overusing and abusing GUIDs just has to be stopped! Please, please, please let me give you better solutions and explanations on how to deal with your parent/child rows, round-trips and clustering keys! SESSION 4: Essential Database MaintenanceIn this session, Paul and Kimberly will run you through their top-ten database maintenance recommendations, with a lot of tips and tricks along the way. These are distilled from almost 30 years combined experience working with SQL Server customers and are geared towards making your databases more performant, more available, and more easily managed (to save you time!). Everything in this session will be practical and applicable to a wide variety of databases. Topics covered include: backups, shrinks, fragmentation, statistics, and much more! Focus will be on 2005 but we'll explain some of the key differences for 2000 and 2008 as well.    Speaker Biographies     Paul S.Randal  Kimberley L. Tripp Paul and Kimberly are a husband-and-wife team who own and run SQLskills.com, a world-renowned SQL Server consulting and training company. They are both SQL Server MVPs and Microsoft Regional Directors, with over 30 years of combined experience on SQL Server. Paul worked on the SQL Server team for nine years in development and management roles, writing many of the DBCC commands, and ultimately with responsibility for core Storage Engine for SQL Server 2008. Paul writes extensively on his blog (SQLskills.com/blogs/Paul) and for TechNet Magazine, for which he is also a Contributing Editor. Kimberly worked on the SQL Server team in the early 1990s as a tester and writer before leaving to found SQLskills and embrace her passion for teaching and consulting. Kimberly has been a staple at worldwide conferences since she first presented at TechEd in 1996, and she blogs at SQLskills.com/blogs/Kimberly. They have written Microsoft whitepapers and books for SQL Server 2000, 2005 and 2008, and are regular, top-rated presenters worldwide on database maintenance, high availability, disaster recovery, performance tuning, and SQL Server internals. Together they teach the SQL MCM certification and throughout Microsoft.In their spare time, they like to find frogfish in remote corners of the world.  

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• New Validation Attributes in ASP.NET MVC 3 Future

  - by imran_ku07

       Introduction:             Validating user inputs is an very important step in collecting information from users because it helps you to prevent errors during processing data. Incomplete or improperly formatted user inputs will create lot of problems for your application. Fortunately, ASP.NET MVC 3 makes it very easy to validate most common input validations. ASP.NET MVC 3 includes Required, StringLength, Range, RegularExpression, Compare and Remote validation attributes for common input validation scenarios. These validation attributes validates most of your user inputs but still validation for Email, File Extension, Credit Card, URL, etc are missing. Fortunately, some of these validation attributes are available in ASP.NET MVC 3 Future. In this article, I will show you how to leverage Email, Url, CreditCard and FileExtensions validation attributes(which are available in ASP.NET MVC 3 Future) in ASP.NET MVC 3 application.       Description:             First of all you need to download ASP.NET MVC 3 RTM Source Code from here. Then extract all files in a folder. Then open MvcFutures project from mvc3-rtm-sources\mvc3\src\MvcFutures folder. Build the project. In case, if you get compile time error(s) then simply remove the reference of System.Web.WebPages and System.Web.Mvc assemblies and add the reference of System.Web.WebPages and System.Web.Mvc 3 assemblies again but from the .NET tab and then build the project again, it will create a Microsoft.Web.Mvc assembly inside mvc3-rtm-sources\mvc3\src\MvcFutures\obj\Debug folder. Now we can use Microsoft.Web.Mvc assembly inside our application.             Create a new ASP.NET MVC 3 application. For demonstration purpose, I will create a dummy model UserInformation. So create a new class file UserInformation.cs inside Model folder and add the following code,   public class UserInformation { [Required] public string Name { get; set; } [Required] [EmailAddress] public string Email { get; set; } [Required] [Url] public string Website { get; set; } [Required] [CreditCard] public string CreditCard { get; set; } [Required] [FileExtensions(Extensions = "jpg,jpeg")] public string Image { get; set; } }             Inside UserInformation class, I am using Email, Url, CreditCard and FileExtensions validation attributes which are defined in Microsoft.Web.Mvc assembly. By default FileExtensionsAttribute allows png, jpg, jpeg and gif extensions. You can override this by using Extensions property of FileExtensionsAttribute class.             Then just open(or create) HomeController.cs file and add the following code,   public class HomeController : Controller { public ActionResult Index() { return View(); } [HttpPost] public ActionResult Index(UserInformation u) { return View(); } }             Next just open(or create) Index view for Home controller and add the following code,  @model NewValidationAttributesinASPNETMVC3Future.Model.UserInformation @{ ViewBag.Title = "Index"; Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml"; } <h2>Index</h2> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> @using (Html.BeginForm()) { @Html.ValidationSummary(true) <fieldset> <legend>UserInformation</legend> <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Name) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Name) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Name) </div> <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Email) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Email) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Email) </div> <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Website) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Website) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Website) </div> <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.CreditCard) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.CreditCard) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.CreditCard) </div> <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Image) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Image) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Image) </div> <p> <input type="submit" value="Save" /> </p> </fieldset> } <div> @Html.ActionLink("Back to List", "Index") </div>             Now just run your application. You will find that both client side and server side validation for the above validation attributes works smoothly.                      Summary:             Email, URL, Credit Card and File Extension input validations are very common. In this article, I showed you how you can validate these input validations into your application. I explained this with an example. I am also attaching a sample application which also includes Microsoft.Web.Mvc.dll. So you can add a reference of Microsoft.Web.Mvc assembly directly instead of doing any manual work. Hope you will enjoy this article too.   SyntaxHighlighter.all()

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• VSTO is Free But Aspose is Speed

  - by Ken Cox [MVP]

  I’ve taken over the completion, deployment, and maintenance of an ASP.NET Web site that generates Office documents using VSTO. VSTO’s a decent concept and works fine for small-scale scenarios like a desktop app or small intranet. However, with multiple simultaneous requests via ASP.NET, we found the Web server performance suffered badly. To spread out the server’s workload, I implemented MSMQ task queuing via a WCF Windows service.  That helped a lot. IIS didn’t drag with only one VSTO/Office instance running. But I  still found it taking too long to produce a single report. A nicely formatted VSTO Excel document was taking 45 minutes.  (The client  didn’t know any better and therefore considered 45 minutes tolerable.) On my own time, I pulled out an old copy of Aspose.Total for .NET. Within an hour, I had converted the VSTO Excel C# code to Aspose Cells code. The improvement was astonishing: Instead of the 45-minutes, the report took under a minute! I’ve pasted the client’s exact chat response after he tried the speedy Aspose version: “WWWWWOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Microsoft’s VSTO is a free product while the Aspose components cost $$$.  Certainly, it can be a tough call when budgets are tight. If you’re trying to convince the client to shell out for something more suitable for the application, get an eval version of Aspose.Total and offer a direct comparison demo. Ken Full Disclosure: Aspose (like several other component vendors) gives free copies of their suite to MVPs and other .NET influencers.

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• Fragmented Log files could be slowing down your database

  - by Fatherjack

  Something that is sometimes forgotten by a lot of DBAs is the fact that database log files get fragmented in the same way that you get fragmentation in a data file. The cause is very different but the effect is the same – too much effort reading and writing data. Data files get fragmented as data is changed through normal system activity, INSERTs, UPDATEs and DELETEs cause fragmentation and most experienced DBAs are monitoring their indexes for fragmentation and dealing with it accordingly. However, you don’t hear about so many working on their log files. How can a log file get fragmented? I’m glad you asked. When you create a database there are at least two files created on the disk storage; an mdf for the data and an ldf for the log file (you can also have ndf files for extra data storage but that’s off topic for now). It is wholly possible to have more than one log file but in most cases there is little point in creating more than one as the log file is written to in a ‘wrap-around’ method (more on that later). When a log file is created at the time that a database is created the file is actually sub divided into a number of virtual log files (VLFs). The number and size of these VLFs depends on the size chosen for the log file. VLFs are also created in the space added to a log file when a log file growth event takes place. Do you have your log files set to auto grow? Then you have potentially been introducing many VLFs into your log file. Let’s get to see how many VLFs we have in a brand new database. USE master GO CREATE DATABASE VLF_Test ON ( NAME = VLF_Test, FILENAME = 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.ROCK_2008\MSSQL\DATA\VLF_Test.mdf', SIZE = 100, MAXSIZE = 500, FILEGROWTH = 50 ) LOG ON ( NAME = VLF_Test_Log, FILENAME = 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.ROCK_2008\MSSQL\DATA\VLF_Test_log.ldf', SIZE = 5MB, MAXSIZE = 250MB, FILEGROWTH = 5MB ); go USE VLF_Test go DBCC LOGINFO; The results of this are firstly a new database is created with specified files sizes and the the DBCC LOGINFO results are returned to the script editor. The DBCC LOGINFO results have plenty of interesting information in them but lets first note there are 4 rows of information, this relates to the fact that 4 VLFs have been created in the log file. The values in the FileSize column are the sizes of each VLF in bytes, you will see that the last one to be created is slightly larger than the others. So, a 5MB log file has 4 VLFs of roughly 1.25 MB. Lets alter the CREATE DATABASE script to create a log file that’s a bit bigger and see what happens. Alter the code above so that the log file details are replaced by LOG ON ( NAME = VLF_Test_Log, FILENAME = 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.ROCK_2008\MSSQL\DATA\VLF_Test_log.ldf', SIZE = 1GB, MAXSIZE = 25GB, FILEGROWTH = 1GB ); With a bigger log file specified we get more VLFs What if we make it bigger again? LOG ON ( NAME = VLF_Test_Log, FILENAME = 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.ROCK_2008\MSSQL\DATA\VLF_Test_log.ldf', SIZE = 5GB, MAXSIZE = 250GB, FILEGROWTH = 5GB ); This time we see more VLFs are created within our log file. We now have our 5GB log file comprised of 16 files of 320MB each. In fact these sizes fall into all the ranges that control the VLF creation criteria – what a coincidence! The rules that are followed when a log file is created or has it’s size increased are pretty basic. If the file growth is lower than 64MB then 4 VLFs are created If the growth is between 64MB and 1GB then 8 VLFs are created If the growth is greater than 1GB then 16 VLFs are created. Now the potential for chaos comes if the default values and settings for log file growth are used. By default a database log file gets a 1MB log file with unlimited growth in steps of 10%. The database we just created is 6 MB, let’s add some data and see what happens. USE vlf_test go -- we need somewhere to put the data so, a table is in order IF OBJECT_ID('A_Table') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE A_Table go CREATE TABLE A_Table ( Col_A int IDENTITY, Col_B CHAR(8000) ) GO -- Let's check the state of the log file -- 4 VLFs found EXECUTE ('DBCC LOGINFO'); go -- We can go ahead and insert some data and then check the state of the log file again INSERT A_Table (col_b) SELECT TOP 500 REPLICATE('a',2000) FROM sys.columns AS sc, sys.columns AS sc2 GO -- insert 500 rows and we get 22 VLFs EXECUTE ('DBCC LOGINFO'); go -- Let's insert more rows INSERT A_Table (col_b) SELECT TOP 2000 REPLICATE('a',2000) FROM sys.columns AS sc, sys.columns AS sc2 GO 10 -- insert 2000 rows, in 10 batches and we suddenly have 107 VLFs EXECUTE ('DBCC LOGINFO'); Well, that escalated quickly! Our log file is split, internally, into 107 fragments after a few thousand inserts. The same happens with any logged transactions, I just chose to illustrate this with INSERTs. Having too many VLFs can cause performance degradation at times of database start up, log backup and log restore operations so it’s well worth keeping a check on this property. How do we prevent excessive VLF creation? Creating the database with larger files and also with larger growth steps and actively choosing to grow your databases rather than leaving it to the Auto Grow event can make sure that the growths are made with a size that is optimal. How do we resolve a situation of a database with too many VLFs? This process needs to be done when the database is under little or no stress so that you don’t affect system users. The steps are: BACKUP LOG YourDBName TO YourBackupDestinationOfChoice Shrink the log file to its smallest possible size DBCC SHRINKFILE(FileNameOfTLogHere, TRUNCATEONLY) * Re-size the log file to the size you want it to, taking in to account your expected needs for the coming months or year. ALTER DATABASE YourDBName MODIFY FILE ( NAME = FileNameOfTLogHere, SIZE = TheSizeYouWantItToBeIn_MB) * – If you don’t know the file name of your log file then run sp_helpfile while you are connected to the database that you want to work on and you will get the details you need. The resize step can take quite a while This is already detailed far better than I can explain it by Kimberley Tripp in her blog 8-Steps-to-better-Transaction-Log-throughput.aspx. The result of this will be a log file with a VLF count according to the bullet list above. Knowing when VLFs are being created By complete coincidence while I have been writing this blog (it’s been quite some time from it’s inception to going live) Jonathan Kehayias from SQLSkills.com has written a great article on how to track database file growth using Event Notifications and Service Broker. I strongly recommend taking a look at it as this is going to catch any sneaky auto grows that take place and let you know about them right away. Hassle free monitoring of VLFs If you are lucky or wise enough to be using SQL Monitor or another monitoring tool that let’s you write your own custom metrics then you can keep an eye on this very easily. There is a custom metric for VLFs (written by Stuart Ainsworth) already on the site and there are some others there are very useful so take a moment or two to look around while you are there. Resources MSDN – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms179355(v=sql.105).aspx Kimberly Tripp from SQLSkills.com – http://www.sqlskills.com/BLOGS/KIMBERLY/post/8-Steps-to-better-Transaction-Log-throughput.aspx Thomas LaRock at Simple-Talk.com – http://www.simple-talk.com/sql/database-administration/monitoring-sql-server-virtual-log-file-fragmentation/ Disclosure I am a Friend of Red Gate. This means that I am more than likely to say good things about Red Gate DBA and Developer tools. No matter how awesome I make them sound, take the time to compare them with other products before you contact the Red Gate sales team to make your order.

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• SQL Server Master class winner

  - by Testas

   The winner of the SQL Server MasterClass competition courtesy of the UK SQL Server User Group and SQL Server Magazine!    Steve Hindmarsh     There is still time to register for the seminar yourself at:  www.regonline.co.uk/kimtrippsql     More information about the seminar     Where: Radisson Edwardian Heathrow Hotel, London  When: Thursday 17th June 2010  This one-day MasterClass will focus on many of the top issues companies face when implementing and maintaining a SQL Server-based solution. In the case where a company has no dedicated DBA, IT managers sometimes struggle to keep the data tier performing well and the data available. This can be especially troublesome when the development team is unfamiliar with the affect application design choices have on database performance. The Microsoft SQL Server MasterClass 2010 is presented by Paul S. Randal and Kimberly L. Tripp, two of the most experienced and respected people in the SQL Server world. Together they have over 30 years combined experience working with SQL Server in the field, and on the SQL Server product team itself. This is a unique opportunity to hear them present at a UK event which will: Debunk many of the ingrained misconceptions around SQL Server's behaviour    Show you disaster recovery techniques critical to preserving your company's life-blood - the data    Explain how a common application design pattern can wreak havoc in the database Walk through the top-10 points to follow around operations and maintenance for a well-performing and available data tier! Please Note: Agenda may be subject to change  Sessions Abstracts  KEYNOTE: Bridging the Gap Between Development and Production    Applications are commonly developed with little regard for how design choices will affect performance in production. This is often because developers don't realize the implications of their design on how SQL Server will be able to handle a high workload (e.g. blocking, fragmentation) and/or because there's no full-time trained DBA that can recognize production problems and help educate developers. The keynote sets the stage for the rest of the day. Discussing some of the issues that can arise, explaining how some can be avoided and highlighting some of the features in SQL 2008 that can help developers and DBAs make better use of SQL Server, and troubleshoot when things go wrong.   SESSION ONE: SQL Server Mythbusters  It's amazing how many myths and misconceptions have sprung up and persisted over the years about SQL Server - after many years helping people out on forums, newsgroups, and customer engagements, Paul and Kimberly have heard it all. Are there really non-logged operations? Can interrupting shrinks or rebuilds cause corruption? Can you override the server's MAXDOP setting? Will the server always do a table-scan to get a row count? Many myths lead to poor design choices and inappropriate maintenance practices so these are just a few of many, many myths that Paul and Kimberly will debunk in this fast-paced session on how SQL Server operates and should be managed and maintained.   SESSION TWO: Database Recovery Techniques Demo-Fest  Even if a company has a disaster recovery strategy in place, they need to practice to make sure that the plan will work when a disaster does strike. In this fast-paced demo session Paul and Kimberly will repeatedly do nasty things to databases and then show how they are recovered - demonstrating many techniques that can be used in production for disaster recovery. Not for the faint-hearted!   SESSION THREE: GUIDs: Use, Abuse, and How To Move Forward   Since the addition of the GUID (Microsoft’s implementation of the UUID), my life as a consultant and "tuner" has been busy. I’ve seen databases designed with GUID keys run fairly well with small workloads but completely fall over and fail because they just cannot scale. And, I know why GUIDs are chosen - it simplifies the handling of parent/child rows in your batches so you can reduce round-trips or avoid dealing with identity values. And, yes, sometimes it's even for distributed databases and/or security that GUIDs are chosen. I'm not entirely against ever using a GUID but overusing and abusing GUIDs just has to be stopped! Please, please, please let me give you better solutions and explanations on how to deal with your parent/child rows, round-trips and clustering keys!   SESSION 4: Essential Database Maintenance  In this session, Paul and Kimberly will run you through their top-ten database maintenance recommendations, with a lot of tips and tricks along the way. These are distilled from almost 30 years combined experience working with SQL Server customers and are geared towards making your databases more performant, more available, and more easily managed (to save you time!). Everything in this session will be practical and applicable to a wide variety of databases. Topics covered include: backups, shrinks, fragmentation, statistics, and much more! Focus will be on 2005 but we'll explain some of the key differences for 2000 and 2008 as well. Speaker Biographies     Kimberley L. Tripp Paul and Kimberly are a husband-and-wife team who own and run SQLskills.com, a world-renowned SQL Server consulting and training company. They are both SQL Server MVPs and Microsoft Regional Directors, with over 30 years of combined experience on SQL Server. Paul worked on the SQL Server team for nine years in development and management roles, writing many of the DBCC commands, and ultimately with responsibility for core Storage Engine for SQL Server 2008. Paul writes extensively on his blog (SQLskills.com/blogs/Paul) and for TechNet Magazine, for which he is also a Contributing Editor. Kimberly worked on the SQL Server team in the early 1990s as a tester and writer before leaving to found SQLskills and embrace her passion for teaching and consulting. Kimberly has been a staple at worldwide conferences since she first presented at TechEd in 1996, and she blogs at SQLskills.com/blogs/Kimberly. They have written Microsoft whitepapers and books for SQL Server 2000, 2005 and 2008, and are regular, top-rated presenters worldwide on database maintenance, high availability, disaster recovery, performance tuning, and SQL Server internals. Together they teach the SQL MCM certification and throughout Microsoft.In their spare time, they like to find frogfish in remote corners of the world.   Speaker Testimonials  "To call them good trainers is an epic understatement. They know how to deliver technical material in ways that illustrate it well. I had to stop Paul at one point and ask him how long it took to build a particular slide because the animations were so good at conveying a hard-to-describe process." "These are not beginner presenters, and they put an extreme amount of preparation and attention to detail into everything that they do. Completely, utterly professional." "When it comes to the instructors themselves, Kimberly and Paul simply have no equal. Not only are they both ultimate authorities, but they have endless enthusiasm about the material, and spot on delivery. If either ever got tired they never showed it, even after going all day and all week. We witnessed countless demos over the course of the week, some extremely involved, multi-step processes, and I can’t recall one that didn’t go the way it was supposed to." "You might think that with this extreme level of skill comes extreme levels of egotism and lack of patience. Nothing could be further from the truth. ... They simply know how to teach, and are approachable, humble, and patient." "The experience Paul and Kimberly have had with real live customers yields a lot more information and things to watch out for than you'd ever get from documentation alone." “Kimberly, I just wanted to send you an email to let you know how awesome you are! I have applied some of your indexing strategies to our website’s homegrown CMS and we are experiencing a significant performance increase. WOW....amazing tips delivered in an exciting way!  Thanks again” 

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