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  • Selecting items from events, as evenly spaced as possible

    - by Matt Warren
    If I have an event that happens 15 times a second (numbered 1 - 15), but I only want to process it 3 times I can choose [1], [6] and [11],. It's important that the events I process are as evenly spaced as possible and take into account wrap-around, i.e. the events are continuous 13, 14, 15, 1, 2, 3 etc. If I want 4 items the best I can do is [1], [5], [9] & [13]. Is there a general algorithm that will calculate which events I need to process given the total number of events (total) and the number to process (processAmount).

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  • Can I move the order of XCode, Cocoa, and User Templates around in XCode 3.1?

    - by Warren P
    I followed the other questions on StackOverflow and made custom User Templates. Instead of replacing the factory default Cocoa class template, I have to pick a new user template. The order that is shown in XCode's New File dialog box is: iPhone templates first (great if you mostly do iphone development) Second the User templates Third the default Mac OS templates. I want my user stuff first, Mac OS templates second, and I want to bury iPhone templates in third and last place. The sort is obviously not alphabetical. And you can't drag/drop reorder. (At least not in xcode 3.1.3)? From stackoverflow

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  • How to 'insert if not exists' in MySQL?

    - by warren
    I started by googling, and found this article which talks about mutex tables. I have a table with ~14 million records. If I want to add more data in the same format, is there a way to ensure the record I want to insert does not already exist without using a pair of queries (ie, one query to check and one to insert is the result set is empty)? Does a unique constraint on a field guarantee the insert will fail if it's already there? It seems that with merely a constraint, when I issue the insert via php, the script croaks.

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  • Delphi component you can't live without?

    - by Warren P
    Most delphi developers have a list of delphi components they wouldn't live without. Not including anything that ships with Delphi (standard VCL or included third-party software like Rave or Indy), what are the components you can't live without, be they commercial or open-source? I will refrain from adding my own answers unless this becomes a community wiki. One component name, or product name, per answer please. Please vote up on components and do not post duplicates.

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  • Exemplars of large document-centric applications with COM/XPCOM/.NET interfaces.

    - by Warren P
    I am looking for exemplars (design examples) showing the use of interfaces (aka 'protocols' for you smalltalkers) to design a document management architecture in a large Word Processor, Spreadsheet, vector graphic or publishing package, or office-productivity (non-database) application with support for as many of the following as possible: any open source project, will be ideal, and language of implementation is unimportant since I am looking for design examples, however an object oriented language with support for "interfaces" is a must. I know at least a dozen languages, and I'm willing to study any application's source. use of "interface" could loosely be applied to either XPCOM or COM interfaces, or .NET interfaces, or even the use of pure-virtual (virtual+abstract) base-classes for OOP languages that lack the ability to declare an interface distinct from a class. I am mostly looking for a robust, thorough and flexible implementation for a document, IDocument, various document views (IDocumentView), and whatever operations make sense in that case. I am particular interested in cases where the product in question is a real-world product. For example, if anybody familiar with OpenOffice can tell me if the code contains a good sample design. I am looking for design documentation that outlines the design of the interfaces for such an application. So for example, if the openoffice spreadsheet has such an interface design, then that might be the best case, because it is a widely used real-world design, with millions of users, rather than a textbook example, which is minimal, and contrived. I know that the Mozilla platform uses XPCOM, and its design is heavily "interface" oriented, but I am looking more for a "word processor" or "spreadsheet" type of document design, rather than a web-browser. I am particularly interested in the interfaces used to access to data and meta-data such as markup (attributes like bold, and italics, and font size), and the ability to search and look up named entities within a document.

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  • Force an object to be allocated on the heap

    - by Warren Seine
    A C++ class I'm writing uses shared_from_this() to return a valid boost::shared_ptr<>. Besides, I don't want to manage memory for this kind of object. At the moment, I'm not restricting the way the user allocates the object, which causes an error if shared_from_this() is called on a stack-allocated object. I'd like to force the object to be allocated with new and managed by a smart pointer, no matter how the user declares it. I thought it could be done through a proxy or an overloaded new operator, but I can't find a proper way of doing that. Is there a common design pattern for such usage? If it's not possible, how can I test it at compile time?

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  • Typedef equivalence in function arguments

    - by Warren Seine
    Hi guys, The question is kind of hard to ask without an example so here it is: #include <vector> struct O { }; struct C { template <typename T> void function1(void (C::*callback)(const O*)); template <typename T> void function2(void (C::*callback)(const typename T::value_type)); void print(const O*); }; int main() { C c; c.function1< std::vector<O*> >(&C::print); // Success. c.function2< std::vector<O*> >(&C::print); // Fail. } The error that I am given is: error: no matching function for call to ‘C::function2(void (C::*)(const O*))’. Basically, the only difference between calls is that in function2, I'm more generic since I use the typedef std::vector<O*>::value_type which should resolve to O*, hence similar to function1. I'm using G++ 4.2.1 (I know it's old), but Comeau confirms I'm wrong. Why does the compilation fail?

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  • Delphi components you can't live without

    - by Warren P
    Most Delphi developers have a list of Delphi components they wouldn't live without. Not including anything that ships with Delphi (standard VCL or included third-party software like Rave or Indy), what are the components you can't live without, be they commercial or open-source? One component or product name per answer, please. Please do not post duplicates.

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  • does a git repository have its own local value for core.autocrlf that overrides the global one?

    - by Warren P
    As per this question, I understand that core.autocrlf=true in git will cause CRLF to LF translations. However when I type : git config core.autocrlf I see: false However, when I stage modified files that are already in the repo, I still get these warnings: Warning: CRLF will be replaced by LF in File1.X. The file will have its original line endings in your working directory. My guess is that the repo copy of the file is already set to "autocrlf=true". Questions: A. How do I query whether a file or git repo is already forcing AutoCrlf? B. How do I turn it autocrlf off?

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  • An Array returned by a model association is not an Array?

    - by Warren
    We have a model association that looks something like this: class Example < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :others, :order => 'others.rank' end The rank column is an integer type. The details of these particular models are not really important though as we have found the same problem with other has_many associations between other models. We have also added to the Enumerable module: module Enumerable def method_missing(name) super unless name.to_s[0..7] == 'collect_' method = name.to_s[8..-1] collect{|element| element.send(method)} end end This adds a collect_id method that we can use to get an array of record ids from an array of ActiveRecord objects. So if we use a normal ActiveRecord find :all, we get a nice array which we can then use collect_id on but if we use Example.others.collect_id, we get NoMethodError: undefined method `collect_id' for #<Class:0x2aaaac0060a0> Example.others.class returns "Array" so is it lying or confused? Our solution thus far has been to use it this way: Example.others.to_a.collect_id This works but this seems a bit strange. Why would you have to do that? We are on Ruby 1.8.7 and Rails 2.3.4

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  • How to access property in sub method after it runs?

    - by Warren
    I'm having a hard time working this one out but I think it should be pretty simple. Basically, I have this method which talks to a webservice and I need to return some data from the sub method, the "authCode". What am I doing wrong? How can I get the authCode out of the manager, or can I create a block or something to to ensure that the manager block runs first? Am I even using the right words - blocks, sub methods??? Please help :) - (NSString *)getAuthCodeEXAMPLE { __block NSString *returnString = @"nothing yet!"; NSURL *baseURL = [NSURL URLWithString:BaseURLString]; NSDictionary *parametersGetAuthCode = @{@"req": @"getauth"}; AFHTTPSessionManager *manager = [[AFHTTPSessionManager alloc] initWithBaseURL:baseURL]; manager.responseSerializer = [AFJSONResponseSerializer serializer]; [manager POST:APIscript parameters:parametersGetAuthCode success:^(NSURLSessionDataTask *task, id responseObject) { if ([task.response isKindOfClass:[NSHTTPURLResponse class]]) { NSHTTPURLResponse *r = (NSHTTPURLResponse *)task.response; if ([r statusCode] == 200) { self.returnedData = responseObject; NSString *authCode = [self.returnedData authcode]; NSLog(@"Authcode: %@", authCode); returnString = authCode; } } } failure:^(NSURLSessionDataTask *task, NSError *error) { UIAlertView *alertView = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"Error" message:[error localizedDescription] delegate:nil cancelButtonTitle:@"Ok" otherButtonTitles:nil]; [alertView show]; }]; //this currently returns "nothing yet!" return returnString; }

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  • Best way to randomly select rows *per* column in SQL Server

    - by LesterDove
    A search of SO yields many results describing how to select random rows of data from a database table. My requirement is a bit different, though, in that I'd like to select individual columns from across random rows in the most efficient/random/interesting way possible. To better illustrate: I have a large Customers table, and from that I'd like to generate a bunch of fictitious demo Customer records that aren't real people. I'm thinking of just querying randomly from the Customers table, and then randomly pairing FirstNames with LastNames, Address, City, State, etc. So if this is my real Customer data (simplified): FirstName LastName State ========================== Sally Simpson SD Will Warren WI Mike Malone MN Kelly Kline KS Then I'd generate several records that look like this: FirstName LastName State ========================== Sally Warren MN Kelly Malone SD Etc. My initial approach works, but it lacks the elegance that I'm hoping the final answer will provide. (I'm particularly unhappy with the repetitiveness of the subqueries, and the fact that this solution requires a known/fixed number of fields and therefore isn't reusable.) SELECT FirstName = (SELECT TOP 1 FirstName FROM Customer ORDER BY newid()), LastName= (SELECT TOP 1 LastNameFROM Customer ORDER BY newid()), State = (SELECT TOP 1 State FROM Customer ORDER BY newid()) Thanks!

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  • Best way to randomly select columns from random rows of SQL results.

    - by LesterDove
    A search of SO yields many results describing how to select random rows of data from a database table. My requirement is a bit different, though, in that I'd like to select individual columns from across random rows in the most efficient/random/interesting way possible. To better illustrate: I have a large Customers table, and from that I'd like to generate a bunch of fictitious demo Customer records that aren't real people. I'm thinking of just querying randomly from the Customers table, and then randomly pairing FirstNames with LastNames, Address, City, State, etc. So if this is my real Customer data (simplified): FirstName LastName State ========================== Sally Simpson SD Will Warren WI Mike Malone MN Kelly Kline KS Then I'd generate several records that look like this: FirstName LastName State ========================== Sally Warren MN Kelly Malone SD Etc. My initial approach works, but it lacks the elegance that I'm hoping the final answer will provide. (I'm particularly unhappy with the repetitiveness of the subqueries, and the fact that this solution requires a known/fixed number of fields and therefore isn't reusable.) SELECT FirstName = (SELECT TOP 1 FirstName FROM Customer ORDER BY newid()), LastName= (SELECT TOP 1 LastNameFROM Customer ORDER BY newid()), State = (SELECT TOP 1 State FROM Customer ORDER BY newid()) Thanks!

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  • What Should PASS Be?

    - by andyleonard
    Introduction As he does so well, Andy Warren ( Blog | @sqlAndy ) has issued a challenge to the community: What Should PASS Be? I'm sure lots of people have responded already, but I've been struck by two: Grant Fritchey's ( Blog | @GFritchey ) What Should PASS Be? and Robert Matthew Cook's ( Blog | @sqlmashup ) [blog] What Should PASS Be? #sqlpass . They're... Different I don't know Robert well. That doesn't mean there's something wrong with Robert. It simply means he's one of hundreds of the cool...(read more)

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  • Sun2Oracle: Hub City Media Webcast Reminder - Thursday, September 13, 2012

    - by Darin Pendergraft
    Our Sun2Oracle webcast featuring Steve Giovanetti from Hub City Media is this Thursday, September 13th at 10:00 am PST.  If you haven't registered yet, there is still time: Register Here. Scott Bonell, Sr. Director of Product Management will be talking to Steve about their recent project to upgrade a large University from Sun DSEE Directory to Oracle Unified Directory.  Scott and Steve will talk through details of the project, from planning through implementation. In addition to this webcast, Steve Giovanetti will also be participating in two sessions at Oracle OpenWorld 2012: CON9465 - Next-Generation Directory: Oracle Unified Directory  Etienne Remillon, Principal Product Manager, Oracle  Steve Giovanetti, CTO Hub City Media  Warren Leung, Sr. Architect, UCLA  Tuesday, Oct 2, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM  Moscone West – 3008 CON5749 - Solutions for Migration of Oracle Waveset to Oracle Identity Manager Steve Giovanetti, CTO Hub City Media Kevin Moulton, Senior Sales Consulting  Manager, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM Moscone West - 3008

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  • Google I/O 2012 - Developing for a Global Audience: Tools for Localization and Internationalization

    Google I/O 2012 - Developing for a Global Audience: Tools for Localization and Internationalization C. Andrew Warren, Manish Bhargava As internet and mobile penetration continue to rise, developers face a unique and challenging opportunity: billions of new users speaking dozens of distinct languages. English has often been considered a lingua franca for apps and websites, but fewer than half of the current online population now speaks it - success in the global web will require a more nimble approach. This tech talk will explore some of the tips, tricks, and tools that can make internationalization (i18n) and localization (L10n) simpler for web and mobile app developers (with a focus on Chrome, Android, and App Engine apps). For all I/O 2012 sessions, go to developers.google.com From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 9 0 ratings Time: 50:24 More in Science & Technology

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  • 3rd Annual South Florida SQL Saturday - August 13th!

    - by ScottKlein
    The 3rd annual South Florida SQL Saturday event will be help August 13th, 2011 at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, FL. This is a change in venue from last year as DeVry is in the middle of a major remodling project. We has almost 450 last year, and we expect to have over 500 this year with great speakers such as Andy Warren, Herve Roggero, and more! As always, we our goal is to feed you well, so we are shooting for some hot lunch food this year. We are working on that now and will update you as soon as we firm it up. One of the things we will be trying this year is 90-100 minute sessions on a couple of tracks. We strongly feel that several topics are just getting warmed up in 45 minutes, so we are going to experiment with 90-100 minute sessions on some of the BI topics. We would love to see you there!

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  • question about books

    - by davit-datuashvili
    i have question how good is this book? http://www.amazon.com/Concrete-Mathematics-Foundation-Computer-Science/dp/0201558025/ ? and can anybody advise good books about bit manipulations? for example how good is this book? http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Delight-Henry-S-Warren/dp/0201914654/

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  • Modify MDT wizard to automate computer naming

    - by Jeramy
    I originally posted this question to StackOverflow, but upon further consideration it might be more appropriate here. Situation: I am imaging new systems using MDT Lite-Touch. I am trying to customize the wizard to automate the naming of new systems so that they include a prefix "AG-", a department code which is selected from a drop-down box in the wizard page (eg. "COMM"), and finally the serial number of the computer being imaged, so that my result in this case would be "AG-COMM-1234567890" Status: I have banged away at this for a while but my Google searches have not turned up answers, my trial-and-error is not producing useful error messages and I think I am missing some fundamentals of how to get variables from the wizard page into the variables used by the lite-touch wizard. Progress: I first created the HTML page which I will include below and added a script to the page to concatenate the pieces into a variable called OSDComputername which, for testing, I could output in a msgbox and get to display correctly. The problem with this is I don't know how to trigger the script then assign it to the OSDComputername variable that is used throughout the rest of the Light-Touch process. I changed the script to a function and added it to DeployWiz_Initization.vbs then used the Initialization field in WDS to call it. I'll include the function below. The problem with this is I would get "Undefined Variable" for OSDComputername and I am not sure it is pulling the data from the HTML correctly. I tried adding the scripting into the customsettings.ini file after the "OSDComputername=" This resulted in the wizard just outputting my code in text as the computer name. I am now trying adding variables to "Properties=" (eg.DepartmentName) in the customsettings.ini, pulling thier value from the HTML Form and setting that value to the variable in my function in DeployWiz_Initization.vbs and calling them after "OSDComputername=" in the fashion "OSDComputername="AG-" & %DepartmentName%" in customsettings.ini I am rebuilding right now and will see how this goes Any help would be appreciated. The HTML page: <HTML> <H1>Configure the computer name.</H1> <span style="width: 95%;"> <p>Please answer the following questions. Your answers will be used to formulate the computer's name and description.</p> <FORM NAME="TestForm"> <p>Departmental Prefix: <!-- <label class=ErrMsg id=DepartmentalPrefix_Err>* Required (MISSING)</label> --> <SELECT NAME="DepartmentalPrefix_Edit" class=WideEdit> <option value="AADC">AADC</option> <option value="AEM">AEM</option> <option value="AIP">AIP</option> <option value="COM">COM</option> <option value="DO">DO</option> <option value="DSOC">DSOC</option> <option value="EDU">EDU</option> <option value="EPE">EPE</option> <option value="ITN">ITN</option> <option value="LA">LA</option> <option value="OAP">OAP</option> <option value="SML">SML</option> </SELECT> </p> <p><span class="Larger">Client's Net<u class=larger>I</u>D:</span> <INPUT NAME="ClientNetID" TYPE="TEXT" ID="ClientNetID" SIZE="15"></p> <p>Building: <!-- <label class=ErrMsg id=Building_Err>* Required (MISSING)</label> --> <SELECT NAME="Building_Edit" class=WideEdit> <option value="Academic Surge Facility A">Academic Surge Facility A</option> <option value="Academic Surge Facility B">Academic Surge Facility B</option> <option value="Caldwell">Caldwell</option> <option value="Kennedy">Kennedy</option> <option value="Roberts">Roberts</option> <option value="Warren">Warren</option> </SELECT> </p> <p> <span class="Larger">Room <u class=larger>N</u>umber:</span> <input type=text id="RoomNumber" name=RoomNumber size=15 /> </p> </FORM> </span> </HTML> The Function: Function SetComputerName OSDComputerName = "AG-" & oEnvironment.Item("DepartmentalPrefix_Edit") ComputerDescription = oEnvironment.Item("DepartmentalPrefix_Edit") & ", " & oEnvironment.Item("ClientNetID") & ", " & oEnvironment.Item("RoomNumber") & " " & oEnvironment.Item("Building_Edit") End Function

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  • Twitter Feeds in Umbraco using XSLT

    - by Vizioz Limited
    There are currently two packages tagged on the Umbraco forum that can be used to add a twitter feed to your website. I was playing around with "Twitter for Umbraco" by Warren Buckley and noticed a bug in the way it converted twitter @names to links, so I thought I would try and solve this using XSLT.It may also be useful for those of you using Darren Ferguson's "Feed Cache" package as the demo on Darren's site does not add links to the tweets.To use this XSLT you simple call the XSLT Template passing in your Twitter message:<xsl:call-template name="formaturl"> <xsl:with-param name="url" select="text"/></xsl:call-template>Then add the XSLT template to your XSLT macro (outside of the main template)<xsl:template name="formaturl"> <xsl:param name="twitterfeed"/> <xsl:variable name="transform-http" select="Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions:replace($twitterfeed, '(http\:\/\/\S+)',ig,'<a href="$1">$1</a>')"/> <xsl:variable name="transform-https" select="Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions:replace($transform-http, '(HTTps\:\/\/\S+)',ig,'<a href="$1">$1</a>')"/> <xsl:variable name="transform-AT" select="Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions:replace($transform-https, '(^|\s)@(\w+)',ig,' <a href="http://www.twitter.com/$2">@$2</a>')"/> <xsl:variable name="transform-HASH" select="Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions:replace($transform-AT, '(^|\s)#(\w+)',ig,' <a href="http://www.twitter.com/search?q=$2">#$2</a>')"/> <xsl:value-of select="$transform-HASH" disable-output-escaping="yes"/> </xsl:template>You should find that this now replaces all the @names, #names and URL's with links!

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  • The Changing Face of PASS

    - by Bill Graziano
    I’m starting my sixth year on the PASS Board.  I served two years as the Program Director, two years as the Vice-President of Marketing and I’m starting my second year as the Executive Vice-President of Finance.  There’s a pretty good chance that if PASS has done something you don’t like or is doing something you don’t like, that I’m involved in one way or another. Andy Leonard asked in a comment on his blog if the Board had ever reversed itself based on community input.  He asserted that it hadn’t.  I disagree.  I’m not going to try and list all the changes we make inside portfolios based on feedback from and meetings with the community.  I’m going to focus on major governance issues since I was elected to the Board. Management Company The first big change was our management company.  Our old management company had a standard approach to running a non-profit.  It worked well when PASS was launched.  Having a ready-made structure and process to run the organization enabled the organization to grow quickly.  As time went on we were limited in some of the things we wanted to do.  The more involved you were with PASS, the more you saw these limitations.  Key volunteers were regularly providing feedback that they wanted certain changes that were difficult for us to accomplish.  The Board at that time wanted changes that were difficult or impossible to accomplish under that structure. This was not a simple change.  Imagine a $2.5 million dollar company letting all its employees go on a Friday and starting with a new staff on Monday.  We also had a very narrow window to accomplish that so that we wouldn’t affect the Summit – our only source of revenue.  We spent the year after the change rebuilding processes and putting on the Summit in Denver.  That’s a concrete example of a huge change that PASS made to better serve its members.  And it was a change that many in the community were telling us we needed to make. Financials We heard regularly from our members that they wanted our financials posted.  Today on our web site you can find audited financials going back to 2004.  We publish our budget at the start of each year.  If you ask a question about the financials on the PASS site I do my best to answer it.  I’m also trying to do a better job answering financial questions posted in other locations.  (And yes, I know I owe a few of you some blog posts.) That’s another concrete example of a change that our members asked for that the Board agreed was a good decision. Minutes When I started on the Board the meeting minutes were very limited.  The minutes from a two day Board meeting might fit on one page.  I think we did the bare minimum we were legally required to do.  Today Board meeting minutes run from 5 to 12 pages and go into incredible detail on what we talk about.  There are certain topics that are NDA but where possible we try to list the topic we discussed but that the actual discussion was under NDA.  We also publish the agenda of Board meetings ahead of time. This is another specific example where input from the community influenced the decision.  It was certainly easier to have limited minutes but I think the extra effort helps our members understand what’s going on. Board Q&A At the 2009 Summit the Board held its first public Q&A with our members.  We’d always been available individually to answer questions.  There’s a benefit to getting us all in one room and asking the really hard questions to watch us squirm.  We learn what questions we don’t have good answers for.  We get to see how many people in the crowd look interested in the various questions and answers. I don’t recall the genesis of how this came about.  I’m fairly certain there was some community pressure though. Board Votes Until last November, the Board only reported the vote totals and not how individual Board members voted.  That was one of the topics at a great lunch I had with Tim Mitchell and Kendal van Dyke at the Summit.  That was also the topic of the first question asked at the Board Q&A by Kendal.  Kendal expressed his opposition to to anonymous votes clearly and passionately and without trying to paint anyone into a corner.  Less than 24 hours later the PASS Board voted to make individual votes public unless the topic was under NDA.  That’s another area where the Board decided to change based on feedback from our members. Summit Location While this isn’t actually a governance issue it is one of the more public decisions we make that has taken some public criticism.  There is a significant portion of our members that want the Summit near them.  There is a significant portion of our members that like the Summit in Seattle.  There is a significant portion of our members that think it should move around the country.  I was one that felt strongly that there were significant, tangible benefits to our attendees to being in Seattle every year.  I’m also one that has been swayed by some very compelling arguments that we need to have at least one outside Seattle and then revisit the decision.  I can’t tell you how the Board will vote but I know the opinion of our members weighs heavily on the decision. Elections And that brings us to the grand-daddy of all governance issues.  My thesis for this blog post is that the PASS Board has implemented policy changes in response to member feedback.  It isn’t to defend or criticize our election process.  It’s just to say that is has been under going continuous change since I’ve been on the Board.  I ran for the Board in the fall of 2005.  I don’t know much about what happened before then.  I was actively volunteering for PASS for four years prior to that as a chapter leader and on the program committee.  I don’t recall any complaints about elections but that doesn’t mean they didn’t occur.  The questions from the Nominating Committee (NomCom) were trivial and the selection process rudimentary (For example, “Tell us about your accomplishments”).  I don’t even remember who I ran against or how many other people ran.  I ran for the VP of Marketing in the fall of 2007.  I don’t recall any significant changes the Board made in the election process for that election.  I think a lot of the changes in 2007 came from us asking the management company to work on the election process.  I was expecting a similar set of puff ball questions from my previous election.  Boy, was I in for a shock.  The NomCom had found a much better set of questions and really made the interview portion difficult.  The questions were much more behavioral in nature.  I’d already written about my vision for PASS and my goals.  They wanted to know how I handled adversity, how I handled criticism, how I handled conflict, how I handled troublesome volunteers, how I motivated people and how I responded to motivation. And many, many other things. They grilled me for over an hour.  I’ve done a fair bit of technical sales in my time.  I feel I speak well under pressure addressing pointed questions.  This interview intentionally put me under pressure.  In addition to wanting to know about my interpersonal skills, my work experience, my volunteer experience and my supervisory experience they wanted to see how I’d do under pressure.  They wanted to see who would respond under pressure and who wouldn’t.  It was a bit of a shock. That was the first big change I remember in the election process.  I know there were other improvements around the process but none of them stick in my mind quite like the unexpected hour-long grilling. The next big change I remember was after the 2009 elections.  Andy Warren was unhappy with the election process and wanted to make some changes.  He worked with Hannes at HQ and they came up with a better set of processes.  I think Andy moved PASS in the right direction.  Nonetheless, after the 2010 election even more people were very publicly clamoring for changes to our election process.  In August of 2010 we had a choice to make.  There were numerous bloggers criticizing the Board and our upcoming election.  The easy change would be to announce that we were changing the process in a way that would satisfy our critics.  I believe that a knee-jerk response to criticism is seldom correct. Instead the Board spent August and September and October and November listening to the community.  I visited two SQLSaturdays and asked questions of everyone I could.  I attended chapter meetings and asked questions of as many people as they’d let me.  At Summit I made it a point to introduce myself to strangers and ask them about the election.  At every breakfast I’d sit down at a table full of strangers and ask about the election.  I’m happy to say that I left most tables arguing about the election.  Most days I managed to get 2 or 3 breakfasts in. I spent less time talking to people that had already written about the election.  They were already expressing their opinion.  I wanted to talk to people that hadn’t spoken up.  I wanted to know what the silent majority thought.  The Board all attended the Q&A session where our members expressed their concerns about a variety of issues including the election. The PASS Board also chose to create the Election Review Committee.  We wanted people from the community that had been involved with PASS to look at our election process with fresh eyes while listening to what the community had to say and give us some advice on how we could improve the process.  I’m a part of this as is Andy Warren.  None of the other members are on the Board.  I’ve sat in numerous calls and interviews with this group and attended an open meeting at the Summit.  We asked anyone that wanted to discuss the election to come speak with us.  The ERC held an open meeting at the Summit and invited anyone to attend.  There are forums on the ERC web site where we’ve invited people to participate.  The ERC has reached to key people involved in recent elections.  The years that I haven’t mentioned also saw minor improvements in the election process.  Off the top of my head I don’t recall what exact changes were made each year.  Specifically since the 2010 election we’ve gone out of our way to seek input from the community about the process.  I’m not sure what more we could have done to invite feedback from the community. I think to say that we haven’t “fixed” the election process isn’t a fair criticism at this time.  We haven’t rushed any changes through the process.  If you don’t see any changes in our election process in July or August then I think it’s fair to criticize us for ignoring the community or ask for an explanation for what we’ve done. In Summary Andy’s main point was that the PASS Board hasn’t changed in response to our members wishes.  I think I’ve shown that time and time again the PASS Board has changed in response to what our members want.  There are only two outstanding issues: Summit location and elections.  The 2013 Summit location hasn’t been decided yet.  Our work on the elections is also in progress.  And at every step in the election review we’ve gone out of our way to listen to the community and incorporate their feedback on the process. I also hope I’m not encouraging everyone that wants some change in the organization to organize a “blog rush” against the Board.  We take public suggestions very seriously but we also take the time to evaluate those suggestions and learn what the rest of our members think and make a measured decision.

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  • vSphere - datastore falling off a host

    - by Chadddada
    Recently we have been running the vCheck powershell script daily in order to help in monitoring our vSphere ESX 4.0 environment. One of the oddities that we have been seeing is that some of the datastores on the SAN don't always show up on every host. Our hosts are connected redundantly, via FC, to some brocade FC switches, which then connect via fiber to our EMC Ax4 SAN. While all the datastores are presented to each host we have, and they see them initially, they sometimes seem to fall off and are no longer visible. It easy enough to rescan for datastores and add them back to the hosts the hosts but this seems to be an error. Has anyone else seen this or know why it may be happening? Responses to questions: 1. Is it always the same ESX servers that lose their connection? – Scott Warren No this happens randomly on random hosts. If a VM is running on a particular host, of which the VM's disks are on a SAN datastore, then that datastore won't disappear. It seems to happen if a host doesn't touch a datastore for a bit and it just forgets about it.

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  • Proving What You are Worth

    - by Ted Henson
    Here is a challenge for everyone. Just about everyone has been asked to provide or calculate the Return on Investment (ROI), so I will assume everyone has a method they use. The problem with stopping once you have an ROI is that those in the C-Suite probably do not care about the ROI as much as Return on Equity (ROE). Shareholders are mostly concerned with their return on the money the invested. Warren Buffett looks at ROE when deciding whether to make a deal or not. This article will outline how you can add more meaning to your ROI and show how you can potentially enhance the ROE of the company.   First I want to start with a base definition I am using for ROI and ROE. Return on investment (ROI) and return on equity (ROE) are ways to measure management effectiveness, parts of a system of measures that also includes profit margins for profitability, price-to-earnings ratio for valuation, and various debt-to-equity ratios for financial strength. Without a set of evaluation metrics, a company's financial performance cannot be fully examined by investors. ROI and ROE calculate the rate of return on a specific investment and the equity capital respectively, assessing how efficient financial resources have been used. Typically, the best way to improve financial efficiency is to reduce production cost, so that will be the focus. Now that the challenge has been made and items have been defined, let’s go deeper. Most research about implementation stops short at system start-up and seldom addresses post-implementation issues. However, we know implementation is a continuous improvement effort, and continued efforts after system start-up will influence the ultimate success of a system.   Most UPK ROI’s I have seen only include the cost savings in developing the training material. Some will also include savings based on reduced Help Desk calls. Using just those values you get a good ROI. To get an ROE you need to go a little deeper. Typically, the best way to improve financial efficiency is to reduce production cost, which is the purpose of implementing/upgrading an enterprise application. Let’s assume the new system is up and running and all users have been properly trained and are comfortable using the system. You provide senior management with your ROI that justifies the original cost. What you want to do now is develop a good base value to a measure the current efficiency. Using usage tracking you can look for various patterns. For example, you may find that users that are accessing UPK assistance are processing a procedure, such as entering an order, 5 minutes faster than those that don’t.  You do some research and discover each minute saved in processing a claim saves the company one dollar. That translates to the company saving five dollars on every transaction. Assuming 100,000 transactions are performed a year, and all users improve their performance, the company will be saving $500,000 a year. That $500,000 can be re-invested, used to reduce debt or paid to the shareholders.   With continued refinement during the life cycle, you should be able to find ways to reduce cost. These are the type of numbers and productivity gains that senior management and shareholders want to see. Being able to quantify savings and increase productivity may also help when seeking a raise or promotion.

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