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• How do you quantify competency in terms of time (years)?

  - by o.k.w

  While looking for a job via agencies some time ago, I kept having questions from the recuitment agents or in the application forms like: How many years of experience do you have in: Oracle ASP.NET J2EE etc etc etc.... At first I answered faithfully... 5yrs, 7yrs, 2 yrs, none, few months etc etc.. Then I thought; I can be doing something shallow for 7 years and not being competent at it simply because I am just doing a minor support for a legacy system running SQL2000 which requires 10 days of my time for the past 7 years. Eventualy I declined to answers such questions. I wonder why do they ask these questions anymore. Anyone who just graduated with a computer science can claim 3 to 4 years experience in anything they 'touched' in the cirriculum, which to me can be equivalent to zero or 10 years depending how you look at it. It might hold true decades ago where programmers and IT skills are of very different nature. I might be wrong but I really doubt 'time' or 'years' are a good gauge of competency or experience anymore. Any opinion/rebuttal are welcome!

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• Microsoft SyncFramework - Sync different tables into one

  - by evnu

  Hello, we are trying to get the Microsoft SyncFramework running in our application to synchronize an oracle db with a mobile device. Problem The queries that we need to gather the data on the oracle db take much time (and we haven't found a way to speed them up yet), so we try to split them up in as much portions as possible. One big part of the whole problem is, that we need different information out of one big table, that bloats a query if combined. Unfortunately, the SyncFramework allows only one TableAdapter per SyncTable. Now this is a problem for our application: If we were able to use more than one TableAdapter per SyncTable, we could easily spread the queries in a more efficient way. Using one query per Table which combines all the needed data takes way too much time. Ideas I thought of creating different TableAdapters for each one of the required queries and then merge the resulting datasets afterwards (preferably on the server). This seems to work, but is a rather awkward solution. Does someone of you know a better solution? Or do you have some ideas that could help? Thanks in advance, evnu EDIT: So, I implemented the merge solution. If you are interested, take a look at the following code. I'll give more details if there are questions. <WebMethod()> _ Public Function GetChanges(ByVal groupMetadata As SyncGroupMetadata, ByVal syncSession As SyncSession) As SyncContext Dim stream As MemoryStream Dim format As BinaryFormatter = New BinaryFormatter Dim anchors As Dictionary(Of String, Byte()) ' keep track of the tables that will be updated Dim addTables As Dictionary(Of String, List(Of SyncTableMetadata)) = New Dictionary(Of String, List(Of SyncTableMetadata)) ' list of all present anchors Dim allAnchors As Dictionary(Of String, Byte()) = New Dictionary(Of String, Byte()) ' fill allAnchors - deserialize all given anchors For Each Table As SyncTableMetadata In groupMetadata.TablesMetadata If Table.LastReceivedAnchor Is Nothing Or Table.LastReceivedAnchor.IsNull Then Continue For stream = New MemoryStream(Table.LastReceivedAnchor.Anchor) anchors = format.Deserialize(stream) For Each item As KeyValuePair(Of String, Byte()) In anchors allAnchors.Add(item.Key, item.Value) Next stream.Dispose() Next For Each Table As SyncTableMetadata In groupMetadata.TablesMetadata If allAnchors.ContainsKey(Table.TableName) Then Table.LastReceivedAnchor.Anchor = allAnchors(Table.TableName) End If Dim addSyncTables As List(Of SyncTableMetadata) If syncSession.SyncParameters.Contains(Table.TableName) Then Dim tableNames() As String = syncSession.SyncParameters(Table.TableName).Value.ToString.Split(":") addSyncTables = New List(Of SyncTableMetadata) For Each tableName As String In tableNames Dim newSynctable As SyncTableMetadata = New SyncTableMetadata newSynctable.TableName = tableName If allAnchors.ContainsKey(tableName) Then Dim anker As SyncAnchor = New SyncAnchor(allAnchors(tableName)) newSynctable.LastReceivedAnchor = anker Else newSynctable.LastReceivedAnchor = Nothing End If newSynctable.SyncDirection = Table.SyncDirection addSyncTables.Add(newSynctable) Next addTables.Add(Table.TableName, addSyncTables) End If Next ' add the newly created synctables For Each item As KeyValuePair(Of String, List(Of SyncTableMetadata)) In addTables For Each Table As SyncTableMetadata In item.Value groupMetadata.TablesMetadata.Add(Table) Next Next ' fire queries Dim context As SyncContext = servSyncProvider.GetChanges(groupMetadata, syncSession) ' merge resulting datasets For Each item As KeyValuePair(Of String, List(Of SyncTableMetadata)) In addTables For Each Table As SyncTableMetadata In item.Value If context.DataSet.Tables.Contains(Table.TableName) Then If Not context.DataSet.Tables.Contains(item.Key) Then Dim tmp As DataTable = context.DataSet.Tables(Table.TableName).Copy tmp.TableName = item.Key context.DataSet.Tables.Add(tmp) Else context.DataSet.Tables(item.Key).Merge(context.DataSet.Tables(Table.TableName)) context.DataSet.Tables.Remove(Table.TableName) End If End If Next Next ' create new anchors Dim allAnchorsDict As Dictionary(Of String, Byte()) = New Dictionary(Of String, Byte()) For Each Table As SyncTableMetadata In groupMetadata.TablesMetadata allAnchorsDict.Add(Table.TableName, context.NewAnchor.Anchor) Next stream = New MemoryStream format.Serialize(stream, allAnchorsDict) context.NewAnchor.Anchor = stream.ToArray stream.Dispose() Return context End Function

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• Using Spring as a JPA Container

  - by sdoca

  Hi, I found this article which talks about using Spring as a JPA container: http://java.sys-con.com/node/366275 I have never used Spring before this and am trying to make this work and hope someone can help me. In the article it states that you need to annotate a Spring bean with @Transactional and methods/fields with @PersistenceContext in order to provide transaction support and to inject an entity manager. Is there something the defines a bean as a "Spring Bean"? I have a bean class which implements CRUD operations on entities using generics: @Transactional public class GenericCrudServiceBean implements GenericCrudService { @PersistenceContext(unitName="MyData") private EntityManager em; @Override @PersistenceContext public <T> T create(T t) { em.persist(t); return t; } @Override @PersistenceContext public <T> void delete(T t) { t = em.merge(t); em.remove(t); } ... ... ... @Override @PersistenceContext public List<?> findWithNamedQuery(String queryName) { return em.createNamedQuery(queryName).getResultList(); } } Originally I only had this peristence context annotation: @PersistenceContext(unitName="MyData") private EntityManager em; but had a null em when findWithNamedQuery was invoked. Then I annotated the methods as well, but em is still null (no injection?). I was wondering if this had something to do with my bean not being recognized as "Spring". I have done configuration as best I could following the directions in the article including setting the following in my context.xml file: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <beans xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx" tx:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-2.0.xsd"> <bean id="entityManagerFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean"> <property name="persistenceUnitName" value="MyData" /> <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" /> <property name="loadTimeWeaver" class="org.springframework.classloading.ReflectiveLoadTimeWeaver" /> <property name="jpaVendorAdapter" ref="jpaAdapter" /> </bean> <bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close"> <property name="driverClassName" value="oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver" /> <property name="url" value="jdbc:oracle:thin:@localhost:1521:MySID" /> <property name="username" value="user" /> <property name="password" value="password" /> <property name="initialSize" value="3" /> <property name="maxActive" value="10" /> </bean> <bean id="jpaAdapter" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.vendor.EclipseLinkJpaVendorAdapter"> <property name="databasePlatform" value="org.eclipse.persistence.platform.database.OraclePlatform" /> <property name="showSql" value="true" /> </bean> <bean class="org.springframework.ormmjpa.support.PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor" /> <tx:annotation-driven /> </beans> I guessed that these belonged in the context.xml file because the article never specifically said which file is the "application context" file. If this is wrong, please let me know.

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• Windows Azure Use Case: Web Applications

  - by BuckWoody

  This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx  Description: Many applications have a requirement to be located outside of the organization’s internal infrastructure control. For instance, the company website for a brick-and-mortar retail company may want to post not only static but interactive content to be available to their external customers, and not want the customers to have access inside the organization’s firewall. There are also cases of pure web applications used for a great many of the internal functions of the business. This allows for remote workers, shared customer/employee workloads and data and other advantages. Some firms choose to host these web servers internally, others choose to contract out the infrastructure to an “ASP” (Application Service Provider) or an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) company. In any case, the design of these applications often resembles the following: In this design, a server (or perhaps more than one) hosts the presentation function (http or https) access to the application, and this same system may hold the computational aspects of the program. Authorization and Access is controlled programmatically, or is more open if this is a customer-facing application. Storage is either placed on the same or other servers, hosted within an RDBMS or NoSQL database, or a combination of the options, all coded into the application. High-Availability within this scenario is often the responsibility of the architects of the application, and by purchasing more hosting resources which must be built, licensed and configured, and manually added as demand requires, although some IaaS providers have a partially automatic method to add nodes for scale-out, if the architecture of the application supports it. Disaster Recovery is the responsibility of the system architect as well. Implementation: In a Windows Azure Platform as a Service (PaaS) environment, many of these architectural considerations are designed into the system. The Azure “Fabric” (not to be confused with the Azure implementation of Application Fabric - more on that in a moment) is designed to provide scalability. Compute resources can be added and removed programmatically based on any number of factors. Balancers at the request-level of the Fabric automatically route http and https requests. The fabric also provides High-Availability for storage and other components. Disaster recovery is a shared responsibility between the facilities (which have the ability to restore in case of catastrophic failure) and your code, which should build in recovery. In a Windows Azure-based web application, you have the ability to separate out the various functions and components. Presentation can be coded for multiple platforms like smart phones, tablets and PC’s, while the computation can be a single entity shared between them. This makes the applications more resilient and more object-oriented, and lends itself to a SOA or Distributed Computing architecture. It is true that you could code up a similar set of functionality in a traditional web-farm, but the difference here is that the components are built into the very design of the architecture. The API’s and DLL’s you call in a Windows Azure code base contains components as first-class citizens. For instance, if you need storage, it is simply called within the application as an object.  Computation has multiple options and the ability to scale linearly. You also gain another component that you would either have to write or bolt-in to a typical web-farm: the Application Fabric. This Windows Azure component provides communication between applications or even to on-premise systems. It provides authorization in either person-based or claims-based perspectives. SQL Azure provides relational storage as another option, and can also be used or accessed from on-premise systems. It should be noted that you can use all or some of these components individually. Resources: Design Strategies for Scalable Active Server Applications - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms972349.aspx  Physical Tiers and Deployment  - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee658120.aspx

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• Restyling RadDataPager for WPF and Silverlight

    A small but powerful control has joined the great family of Telerik XAML controls with the recent release. RadDataPager is a result of an increasing demand from our customers who needed to work with large amounts of server data presented in small portions at the client side.  The primary goal was to make a powerful data paging control to be used in any scenarios requiring getting and presenting portions of data. How good is RadDataPager in working with paged data you can see in Rossen's announcement. Yet being a XAML control it challenged us with making one more visually appealing and highly customizable control. It offers a slick look in all available WPF/Silverlight Telerik themes:     As you can see the default design is targeting mainly business scenarios. At the same time being an example for a truly lookless XAML control RadDataPager allows restyling with minimal efforts this way widening the possible range of applications.  Lets see what we can doo with a few lines of XAML : <Style x:Key="buttonStyle" TargetType="ButtonBase" > <Setter Property="Template"> <Setter.Value> <ControlTemplate TargetType="ButtonBase"> <Grid Width="40" Background="Black"> <Ellipse StrokeThickness="2" VerticalAlignment="Center" Width="15" Height="15" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Fill="Gray" /> <Ellipse Visibility="{Binding IsCurrent, Converter={StaticResource VisibilityConverter}}" VerticalAlignment="Center" Height="16" Fill="White" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Width="16"/> </Grid> </ControlTemplate> </Setter.Value> </Setter> </Style> ... <telerik:RadDataPager NumericButtonStyle="{StaticResource buttonStyle}" ... And the result: The IPhone-style-thing bellow the RadCoverFlow is actually our RadDataPager.       With a few more lines of XAML we may get  almost any imaginable look of the pager control including the fascinating result demonstrated in the short video on the top.Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Is Microsoft&rsquo;s Cloud Bet Placed on the Ground?

  - by andrewbrust

  Today at the Unversity of Washington, Steve Ballmer gave a speech on Microsoft’s cloud strategy.  Significantly, Azure was only briefly mentioned and was not shown.  Instead, Ballmer spoke about what he called the five “dimensions” of the cloud, and used that as the basis for an almost philosophical discussion.  Ballmer opined on how the cloud should be distinguished from the Internet.as well as what the cloud will and should enable.  Ballmer worked hard to portray the cloud not as a challenger to Windows and PCs (as Google would certainly suggest it is) but  really as just the latest peripheral that adds value to PCs and devices. At one point during his speech, Ballmer said “We start with Windows at Microsoft.  It’s the most popular smart device on the planet.  And our design center for the future of Windows is to make it one of those smarter devices that the cloud really wants.”  I’m not sure I agree with Ballmer’s ambition here, but I must admit he’s taken the “software + services” concept and expanded on it in more consumer-friendly fashion. There were demos too.  For example, Blaise Aguera y Arcas reprised his Bing Maps demo from the TED conference held last month.  And Simon Atwell showed how Microsoft has teamed with Sky TV in the UK to turn Xbox into something that looks uncannily like Windows Media Center.  Specifically, an Xbox console app called Sky Player provides full access to Sky’s on-demand programming but also live TV access to an array of networks carried on its home TV service, complete with an on-screen programming guide.  Windows Phone 7 Series was shown quickly and Ballmer told us that while Windows Mobile/Phone 6.5 and earlier were designed for voice and legacy functionality, Windows Phone 7 Series is designed for the cloud. Over and over during Ballmer’s talk (and those of his guest demo presenters), the message was clear: Microsoft believes that client (“smart”) devices, and not mere HTML terminals, are the technologies to best deliver on the promise of the cloud.  The message was that PCs running Windows, game consoles and smart phones  whose native interfaces are Internet-connected offer the most effective way to utilize cloud capabilities.  Even the Bing Maps demo conveyed this message, because the advanced technology shown in the demo uses Silverlight (and thus the PCs computing power), and not AJAX (which relies only upon the browser’s native scripting and rendering capabilities) to produce the impressive interface shown to the audience. Microsoft’s new slogan, with respect to the cloud, is “we’re all in.”  Just as a Texas Hold ‘em player bets his entire stash of chips when he goes all in, so too is Microsoft “betting the company” on the cloud.  But it would seem that Microsoft’s bet isn’t on the cloud in a pure sense, and is instead on the power of the cloud to fuel new growth in PCs and other client devices, Microsoft’s traditional comfort zone.  Is that a bet or a hedge?  If the latter, is Microsoft truly all in?  I don’t really know.  I think many people would say this is a sucker’s bet.  But others would say it’s suckers who bet against Microsoft.  No matter what, the burden is on Microsoft to prove this contrarian view of the cloud is a sensible one.  To do that, they’ll need to deliver on cloud-connected device innovation.  And to do that, the whole company will need to feel that victory is crucial.  Time will tell.  And I expect to present progress reports in future posts.

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• SQLAuthority News – Top 5 Latest Microsoft Certifications of 2013 – Guest Post

  - by Pinal Dave

  With the IT job market getting more and more competent by the day, certifications are a must for anyone who wishes to get a strong foothold in the industry. Microsoft community comes up with regular updates and enhancements in its existing products to keep up with the rapidly evolving requirements of the ICT industry. We bring you a list of five latest Microsoft certifications that you must consider acquiring this year. MCSE: SharePoint Learn all about Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft SharePoint 2013, which brings an advanced set of features to the fore in this latest version. It introduces new capabilities for business intelligence, social media, branding, search, identity management, mobile device among other features. Enjoy a great user experience with sharing and collaboration in community forum, within a pixel-perfect SharePoint website. Data connectivity and business intelligence tools allow users to process and access data, analyze reports, share and collaborate with each other more conveniently. Microsoft Specialist: Microsoft Project 2013 The only project management system that works seamlessly with other applications and cloud solutions of Microsoft, MS Project 2013 offers more than what meets the eye.  It provides for easier management and monitoring of projects so that users can ensure timely delivery while improving the productivity significantly. So keep all your projects on track and collaborate with your team like never before with this enhanced release! This one’s a must for all project managers. MCSE Messaging Another one of Microsoft gems is its messaging environment which has also launched the latest release Microsoft Exchange Server 2013. Messaging administrators can take up this training and validate their expertise in Unified Messaging, Exchange Online, PowerShell and Virtualization strategies, through MCSE Messaging certification in Exchange Server. If you wish to enhance productivity and data security of your organization while being flexible and extremely efficient, this is the right certification for you. MCSE Communication An enterprise can function optimally on the strength of its information flow and communication systems. With Lync Server 2013, you can introduce a whole new world of unified communications which consists of audio/video conferencing, dial-in, Persistent Chat, instant chat, and EDGE services in your organization. Utilize IT to serve and support business objectives by mastering this UC technology with this latest MCSE Communication course on using Microsoft Lync Server 2013. MCSE: SQL Server 2012 BI Platform The decision making process is largely influenced by underlying enterprise information used by the management for business intelligence. Therefore, a robust business intelligence platform that anchors enterprise IT and transform it to operational efficiencies is the need of the hour. SQL Server 2012 BI Platform certification helps professionals implement, manage and maintain a BI database infrastructure effectively. IT professionals with BI skills are highly sought after these days. MCSD: Windows Store Apps A Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer certification in Windows Store Apps validates your potential in designing interactive apps. Learn The Essentials of Developing Windows Store Apps using HTML5 and JavaScript and establish yourself as an ace developer capable of creating fast and fluid Metro style apps for Windows 8 that are accessible on a variety of devices. You can also go ahead and Learn Essentials of Developing Windows Store Apps using C# mode if you’re already familiar and working with C# programming language. Hence the developers are free to choose their own favorite development stream which opens doors for them to get ready for the latest and exciting application development platform called Windows store apps. Software developers with these skills are in great demand in the industry today. In order to continue being competitive in your respective fields, it is imperative that IT personnel update their knowledge on a regular basis. Certifications are a means to achieve this goal. Not considered to be an optional pre-requisite anymore, major IT certifications such as these are now essential to stay afloat in a cut-throat industry where technologies change on a daily basis. This blog is written by Aruneet Anand of Koenig Solutions. Koenig Solutions does training for all of the above courses. For more information, visit the website. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Microsoft Certifications

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• WEB203 &ndash; Jump into Silverlight!&hellip; and Become Effective Immediately with Tim Huckaby, Fou

  - by Robert Burger

  Getting ready for the good stuff. Definitely wish there were more Silverlight and WCF RIA sessions, but this is a start.  Was lucky to get a coveted power-enabled seat.  Luckily, due to my trustily slow Verizon data card, I can get these notes out amidst a total Internet outage here.  This is the second breakout session of the day, and is by far standing-room only.  I stepped out before the session started to get a cool Diet COKE and wouldn’t have gotten back in if I didn’t already have a seat. Tim says this is an intro session and that he’s been begging for intro sessions at TechEd for years and that by looking at this audience, he thinks the demand is there.  Admittedly, I didn’t know this was an intro session, or I might have gone elsewhere.  But, it was the very first Silverlight session, so I had to be here. Tim says he will be providing a very good comprehensive reference application at the end of the presentation.  He has just demoed it, and it is a full CRUD-based Sales Manager application based on…  AdventureWorks! Session Agenda What it is / How to get started Declarative Programming Layout and Controls, Events and Commands Working with Data Adding Style to Your Application   Silverlight…  “WPF Light” Why is the download 4.2MB?  Because the direct competitor is a 4.2MB download.  There is no technical reason it is not the entire framework.  It is purely to “be competitive”.   Getting Started Get all of the following downloads from www.silverlight.net/getstarted Install VS2010 or Visual Web Developer Express 2010 Install Silverlight 4 Tools for VS2010 Install Expression Blend 4 Install the Silverlight 4 Toolkit   Reference Application Features Uses MVVM pattern – a way to move data access code that would normally be inline within the UI and placing it in nice data access libraries Images loaded dynamically from the database, converting GIF to PNG because Silverlight does not support GIF. LINQ to SQL is the data access model WCF is the data provider and is using binary message encoding   Declarative Programming XAML replaces code for UI representation Attributes control Layout and Style Event handlers wired-up in XAML Declarative Data Binding   Layout Overview Content rendering flows inside of parent Fixed positioning (Canvas) is seldom used Panels are used to house content Margins and Padding over fixed size   Panels StackPanel – Arranges child elements into a single line oriented horizontally or vertically Grid – A flexible grid are that consists of rows and columns Canvas – An are where positions are specifically fixed WrapPanel (in Toolkit) – Positions child elements in sequential position left to right and top to bottom. DockPanel (in Toolkit) – Positions child controls within a dockable area   Positioning Horizontal and Vertical Alignment Margin – Separates an element from neighboring elements Padding – Enlarges the effective size of an element by a thickness   Controls Overview Not all controls created equal Silverlight, as a subset of WPF, so many WPF controls do not exist in the core Siverlight release Silverlight Toolkit continues to add controls, but are released in different quality bands Plenty of good 3rd party controls to fill the gaps Windows Phone 7 is to have 95% of controls available in Silverlight Core and Toolkit.   Events and Commands Standard .NET Events Routed Events Commands – based on the ICommand interface – logical action that can be invoked in several ways   Adding Style to Your Application Resource Dictionaries – Contains a hash table of key/value pairs.  Silverlight can only use Static Resources whereas WPF can also use Dynamic Resources Visual State Manager Silverlight 4 supports Implicit styles ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries combines many different file-based resources   Downloads

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• Release Management as Orchestra

  - by ericajanine

  I read an excellent, concise article (http://www.buildmeister.com/articles/software_release_management_best_practices) on the basics of release management practices. In the article, it states "Release Management is often likened to the conductor of an orchestra, with the individual changes to be implemented the various instruments within it." I played in music ensembles for years, so this is especially close to my heart as example. I learned most of my discipline from hours and hours of practice at the hand of a very skilled conductor and leader. I also learned that the true magic in symphonic performance is one where everyone involved is focused on one sound, one goal. In turn, that solid focus creates a sound and experience bigger than just mechanics alone accomplish. In symphony, a conductor's true purpose is to make you, a performer, better so the overall sound and end product is better. The big picture (the performance of the composition) is the end-game, and all musicians in the orchestra know without question their part makes up an important but incomplete piece of that performance. A good conductor works with each section (e.g. group) to ensure their individual pieces are solid. Let's restate: The conductor leads and is responsible for ensuring those pieces are solid. While the performers themselves are doing the work, the conductor is the final authority on when the pieces are ready or not. If not, the conductor initiates the efforts to get them ready or makes the decision to scrap their parts altogether for the sake of an overall performance. Let it sink in, because it's clear--It is not the performer's call if they play their part as agreed, it's the conductor's final call to allow it. In comparison, if a software release manager is a conductor, the only way for that manager to be effective is to drive the overarching process and execution of individual pieces of a software development lifecycle. It does not mean the release manager performs each and every piece, it means the release manager has oversight and influence because the end-game is a successful software enhancin a useable environment. It means the release manager, not the developer or development manager, has the final call if something goes into a software release. Of course, this is not a process of autocracy or dictation of absolute rule, it's cooperative effort. But the release manager must have the final authority to make a decision if something is ready to be added to the bigger piece, the overall symphony of software changes being considered for package and release. It also goes without saying a release manager, like a conductor, must have full autonomy and isolation from other software groups. A conductor is the one on the podium waving a little stick at the each section and cueing them for their parts, not yelling from the back of the room while also playing a tuba and taking direction from the horn section. I have personally seen where release managers are relegated to being considered little more than coordinators, red-tapers to "satisfy" the demands of an audit group without being bothered to actually respect all that a release manager gives a group willing to employ them fully. In this dysfunctional scenario, development managers, project managers, business users, and other stakeholders have been given nearly full clearance to demand and push their agendas forward, causing a tail-wagging-the-dog scenario where an inherent conflict will ensue. Depending on the strength, determination for peace, and willingness to overlook a built-in expectation that is wrong, the release manager here must face the crafted conflict head-on and diffuse it as quickly as possible. Then, the release manager must clearly make a case why a change cannot be released without negative impact to all parties involved. If a political agenda is solely driving a software release, there IS no symphony, there is no "software lifecycle". It's just out-of-tune noise. More importantly, there is no real conductor. Sometimes, just wanting to make a beautiful sound is not enough. If you are a release manager, are you freed up enough to move, to conduct the sections of software creation to ensure a solid release performance is possible? If not, it's time to take stock in what your role actually is and see if that is what you truly want to achieve in your position. If you are, then you can successfully build your career and that of the people in your groups to create truly beautiful software (music) together.

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• Employee Info Starter Kit: Project Mission

  - by Mohammad Ashraful Alam

  Employee Info Starter Kit is an open source ASP.NET project template that is intended to address different types of real world challenges faced by web application developers when performing common CRUD operations. Using a single database table ‘Employee’, it illustrates how to utilize Microsoft ASP.NET 4.0, Entity Framework 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 effectively in that context. Employee Info Starter Kit is highly influenced by the concept ‘Pareto Principle’ or 80-20 rule. where it is targeted to enable a web developer to gain 80% productivity with 20% of effort with respect to learning curve and production. User Stories The user end functionalities of this starter kit are pretty simple and straight forward that are focused in to perform CRUD operation on employee records as described below. Creating a new employee record Read existing employee record Update an existing employee record Delete existing employee records Key Technology Areas ASP.NET 4.0 Entity Framework 4.0 T-4 Template Visual Studio 2010 Architectural Objective There is no universal architecture which can be considered as the best for all sorts of applications around the world. Based on requirements, constraints, environment, application architecture can differ from one to another. Trade-off factors are one of the important considerations while deciding a particular architectural solution. Employee Info Starter Kit is highly influenced by the concept ‘Pareto Principle’ or 80-20 rule, where it is targeted to enable a web developer to gain 80% productivity with 20% of effort with respect to learning curve and production. “Productivity” as the architectural objective typically also includes other trade-off factors as well as, such as testability, flexibility, performance etc. Fortunately Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 includes lots of great features that have been implemented cleverly in this project to reduce these trade-off factors in the minimum level. Why Employee Info Starter Kit is Not a Framework? Application frameworks are really great for productivity, some of which are really unavoidable in this modern age. However relying too many frameworks may overkill a project, as frameworks are typically designed to serve wide range of different usage and are less customizable or editable. On the other hand having implementation patterns can be useful for developers, as it enables them to adjust application on demand. Employee Info Starter Kit provides hundreds of “connected” snippets and implementation patterns to demonstrate problem solutions in actual production environment. It also includes Visual Studio T-4 templates that generate thousands lines of data access and business logic layer repetitive codes in literally few seconds on the fly, which are fully mock testable due to language support for partial methods and latest support for mock testing in Entity Framework. Why Employee Info Starter Kit is Different than Other Open-source Web Applications? Software development is one of the rapid growing industries around the globe, where the technology is being updated very frequently to adapt greater challenges over time. There are literally thousands of community web sites, blogs and forums that are dedicated to provide support to adapt new technologies. While some are really great to enable learning new technologies quickly, in most cases they are either too “simple and brief” to be used in real world scenarios or too “complex and detailed” which are typically focused to achieve a product goal (such as CMS, e-Commerce etc) from "end user" perspective and have a long duration learning curve with respect to the corresponding technology. Employee Info Starter Kit, as a web project, is basically "developer" oriented which actually considers a hybrid approach as “simple and detailed”, where a simple domain has been considered to intentionally illustrate most of the architectural and implementation challenges faced by web application developers so that anyone can dive into deep into the corresponding new technology or concept quickly. Roadmap Since its first release by 2008 in MSDN Code Gallery, Employee Info Starter Kit gained a huge popularity in ASP.NET community and had 1, 50,000+ downloads afterwards. Being encouraged with this great response, we have a strong commitment for the community to provide support for it with respect to latest technologies continuously. Currently hosted in Codeplex, this community driven project is planned to have a wide range of individual editions, each of which will be focused on a selected application architecture, framework or platform, such as ASP.NET Webform, ASP.NET Dynamic Data, ASP.NET MVC, jQuery Ajax (RIA), Silverlight (RIA), Azure Service Platform (Cloud), Visual Studio Automated Test etc. See here for full list of current and future editions.

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• What Counts For a DBA: Ego

  - by Louis Davidson

  Leaving aside, for a second, Freud’s psychoanalytical definitions, the term “ego” generally refers to a person’s sense of self, and their self-esteem. In casual usage, however, it usually appears in the adjectival form, “egotistical” (most often followed by “jerk”). You don’t need to be a jerk to be a DBA; humility is important. However, ego is important too. A good DBA needs a certain degree of self-esteem…a belief and pride in what he or she can do better than anyone else can. The ideal DBA needs to be humble enough to admit when they are wrong but egotistical enough to know when they are right, and to stand up for that knowledge and make their voice heard. In most organizations, the DBA team is seriously outnumbered by headstrong developers and clock driven managers, and “great” DBAs will often be outnumbered by…well…the not so great. In order to be heard in this environment, a DBA will not only need to be very skilled, but will also need a healthy dose of ego. As Freud might have put it, the unconscious desire of the DBA (the id) is for iron-fist control over their databases, and code that runs in them. However, the ego moderates this desire, seeking to “satisfy the id in realistic ways that, in the long term, bring benefit rather than grief“. In other words, the ego understands the need to exert a measure of control and self-belief, but also to tolerate and play nicely with developers and other DBAs. The trick, naturally, is learning how to be heard when it is important, but also to make everyone around you welcome that input, even when you have to be bold to make the “I know what I am talking about, and you…well…not so much” decisions. Consider a baseball team, bottom of the ninth inning of the championship game, man on first and down one run. Almost anyone on that team will have the ability to hit a home run, but only one or two will have the iron belief that they can pull it off in this critical, end-game situation. The player you need in this situation is the one who has passionately gone the extra mile preparing for just this moment, is bursting at the seams with self-confidence, and can look the coach in the eye and state, boldly, “Put me in, I am your best bet“. Likewise, on those occasions when high customer demand coincides with copious system errors, and panic is bubbling just beneath the surface, you don’t need the minimally qualified support person, armed with the “reboot and hope” technique (though that sometimes works!). You need the DBA who steps up and says, “Put me in” and has the skill and tenacity to back up those words and to fix the pinpoint and fix the problem, whatever it takes, while keeping customers and managers happy. Of course, the egotistical DBA will happily spend hours telling you how great they are at their job, and how brilliantly they put out a previous fire, and this is no guarantee that they can deliver. However, if an otherwise-humble DBA looks you in the eye and says, “I can do it”, then hear them out. Sometimes, this burst of ego will be exactly what’s required.

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• Site Review: Facebook.com and Blockbuster.com - Navigation Schemes

  After cycling through a list of my favorite sites I decided to select Facebook.com and Blockbuster.com for this  post because I found their navigation schemes very intuitive. Facebook in my opinion took a very simplistic and minimalistic approach when they designed their site and its navigation. For example, when you login to your account you will find on the upper left hand side a generic section of the site common areas to all users like news, messages, events, photos and friends. Below this in a separate navigation menu is a list of applications that a user has elected to access through bookmarks. Finally in the upper right hand corner of the site contains links to administer the user’s account like account settings, public profile, and a link back to the users’ home page. Blockbuster on the other had tried to make site navigation a little more slick by using a menu-submenu approach to navigation where user can click on things like Rent, Buy, On Demand, Games, Stores, and Gifts and a submenu of corresponding items appears below the original menu item. In addition they also took this approach and added categorized lists of movies that they offer on the homepage so that users can click on an item like “DVD Spotlight” and a list of movies represented as actual DVD box cases appear on the user’s screen so they can scroll through the list by using left and right arrows on either side of the images displayed. Both Facebook and Blockbuster have more than one navigation groupings because their respected sites are so large and offer an absorbent amount of features. Because of this reason they have to group the main functionality of information in to logical groups based on their actions they perform and the access to specific information. For example it would not make sense for Facebook to include a particular game you like to play within your account with a section pertaining to account administration. The game link would be completely out of place and really confuse the users experience because the groupings where not logically grouped. In addition I think that Facebook users would benefit if Facebook allowed its users to specify what they want on the general navigation from within their site or at least create a section to show frequently accessed pages or favorite sections. Finally regarding additional navigation, I think blockbuster users really benefit from the submenu system of categorizing data, and if fact Blockbuster even allows them to refine the information they are looking for through the use of secondary submenu systems allowing users to really drill down in to what they are looking for to learn more on. I do not think that having more than one navigation bar on a web page is not confusing for the user. For example if you have a navigation bar at the top of your page and at the bottom will allow users to move around the website easier because they can utilize the navigation closest to where their cursor is on the page. In regards to designers forcing all the navigation in to one navigation bar, I think it would be hard for the user to fully understand what is going on based on the size and complexity of the site they are dealing with. For example Blockbuster has a ton of content that could not easily be put in to one navigation bar. From my experience with both Facebook and Blockbuster, they both do a good job with cross browser compatibility. I have had no issues with either site in IE, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari over the years. In addition, I do not believe that either Facebook or Blockbuster require any additional plug-in to utilize their navigation bars.

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• Making the most of next weeks SharePoint 2010 developer training

  - by Eric Nelson

  [you can still register if you are free on the afternoons of 9th to 11th – UK time] We have 50+ registrations with more coming in – which is fantastic. Please read on to make the most of the training. Background We have structured the training to make sure that you can still learn lots during the three days even if you do not have SharePoint 2010 installed. Additionally the course is based around a subset of the channel 9 training to allow you to easily dig deeper or look again at specific areas. Which means if you have zero time between now and next Wednesday then you are still good to go. But if you can do some pre-work you will likely get even more out of the three days. Step 1: Check out the topics and resources available on-demand The course is based around a subset of the channel 9 training to allow you to easily dig deeper or look again at specific areas. Take a lap around the SharePoint 2010 Training Course on Channel 9 Download the SharePoint Developer Training Kit Step 2: Use a pre-configured Virtual Machine which you can download (best start today – it is large!) Consider using the VM we created If you don't have access to SharePoint 2010. You will need a 64bit host OS and bare minimum of 4GB of RAM. 8GB recommended. Virtual PC can not be used with this VM – Virtual PC only supports 32bit guests. The 2010-7a Information Worker VM gives you everything you need to develop for SharePoint 2010. Watch the Video on how to use this VM Download the VM Remember you only need to download the “parts” for the 2010-7a VM. There are 3 subtly different ways of using this VM: Easiest is to follow the advice of the video and get yourself a host OS of Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V and simply use the VM Alternatively you can take the VHD and create a “Boot to VHD” if you have Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise Edition. This works really well – especially if you are already familiar with “Boot to VHD” (This post I did will help you get started) Or you can take the VHD and use an alternative VM tool such as VirtualBox if you have a different host OS. NB: This tends to involve some work to get everything running fine. Check out parts 1 to 3 from Rolly and if you go with Virtual Box use an IDE controller not SATA. SATA will blue screen. Note in the screenshot below I also converted the vhd to a vmdk. I used the FREE Starwind Converter to do this whilst I was fighting blue screens – not sure its necessary as VirtualBox does now work with VHDs. or Step 3 – Install SharePoint 2010 on a 64bit Windows 7 or Vista Host I haven’t tried this but it is now supported. Check out MSDN. Final notes: I am in the process of securing a number of hosted VMs for ISVs directly managed by my team. Your Architect Evangelist will have details once I have them! Else we can sort out on the Wed. Regrettably I am unable to give folks 1:1 support on any issues around Boot to VHD, 3rd party VM products etc. Related Links: Check you are fully plugged into the work of my team – have you done these simple steps including joining our new LinkedIn group?

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• Windows Azure SDK 1.3 addresses early adopter feedback

  - by Eric Nelson

  At the end of November 2010 we released a new version of the Windows Azure SDK which contains many new features driven by the great feedback of early adopters plus a shiny new portal. New Portal implemented in Silverlight: The new portal is implemented using Silverlight and replaces the (IMHO rather clunky) original HTML + JavaScript portal. It is 100% better although does still have a few bugs. Enjoy! P.S. You can if you wish still use the old portal:   New runtime functionality: The following functionality is now generally available through the Windows Azure SDK and Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio and the new Windows Azure Management Portal: Elevated Privileges and Full IIS. You can now run a portion or all of your code in Web and Worker roles with elevated administrator privileges. The Web role now provides Full IIS functionality, which enables multiple IIS sites per Web role and the ability to install IIS modules. Remote Desktop functionality enables you to connect to a running instance of your application or service in order to monitor activity and troubleshoot common problems. Windows Server 2008 R2 Roles: Windows Azure now supports Windows Server 2008 R2 in its Web, worker and VM roles. This new support enables you to take advantage of the full range of Windows Server 2008 R2 features such as IIS 7.5, AppLocker, and enhanced command-line and automated management using PowerShell Version 2.0. New runtime functionality – in beta: Windows Azure Virtual Machine Role: Support for more types of new and existing Windows applications will soon be available with the introduction of the Virtual Machine (VM) role. You can move more existing applications to Windows Azure, reducing the need to make costly code or deployment changes. Extra Small Windows Azure Instance, which is priced at $0.05 per compute hour, provides developers with a cost-effective training and development environment. Developers can also use the Extra Small instance to prototype cloud solutions at a lower cost. Windows Azure Connect: (formerly Project Sydney), which enables a simple and easy-to-manage mechanism to set up IP-based network connectivity between on-premises and Windows Azure resources, is the first Windows Azure Virtual Network feature that we’re making available as a CTP. You can sign up for any of the betas via the Windows Azure Management Portal. Improved processes and simplified operations New portal! (see above) Access to new diagnostic information including the ability to click on a role to see role type, deployment time and last reboot time A new sign-up process that dramatically reduces the number of steps needed to sign up for Windows Azure. New scenario based Windows Azure Platform forums to help answer questions and share knowledge more efficiently. Multiple Service Administrators: Windows Azure now supports multiple Windows Live IDs to have administrator privileges on the same Windows Azure account. The objective is to make it easy for a team to work on the same Windows Azure account while using their individual Windows Live IDs.   Related Links Please also let us know through Microsoft Platform Ready if and when you intend to build an application using the Windows Azure Platform. Or indeed if you already have (Well done). You will get access to some great benefits if you do (more on that in a future post). It also really helps us better understand the demand out there which directly impacts how we will plan the next six months of activities around the Windows Azure Platform. Visit Microsoft Platform Ready to tell us about your plans for your applications UK based? Interested in the Windows Azure Platform? Join http://ukazure.ning.com Get started with the Windows Azure Platform http://bit.ly/startazure

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• Build 2012, the first post

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  Yes, I was one of the lucky few who made it to Build. Build, formerly known as the Professional Developers Conference (or PDC) is the place to be if you are a developer on the Microsoft platform. Since I take my job seriously I took out some time on my busy schedule, sighed at the thought of not seeing my family for another week and signed up for it. Now, before I talk about the amazing Surface devices (yes, this posting is written on one of them), the great Lumia 920 we all got, the long deserved love for touch, NUI and other things I have been talking about for years, I need to do some ranting. So if you are anxious to read about the technical goodies you’ll have to wait until the next post. Still here? Good. When I signed up for the Build conference during my holidays this summer it was pretty obvious that demand would be high. Therefor I made sure I was on time. But even though I registered only 7 minutes after the initial opening time the Early Bird discount for the first 500 attendees was already sold out. I later learned that registration actually started 5 minutes before the scheduled time but even though it is still impressive how fast things went. The whole event sold out in 57 minutes Or so they say… A lot of people got put on the waiting list. There was room for about 1500 attendees and I heard that at least 1000 people were on that waiting list, including a lot of people I know. Strangely, all of them got tickets assigned after 2 weeks. Here at the conference I heard from a guy from Nokia that they had shipped 2500 Lumia 920 phones. That number matches the rumors that the organization added 1000 extra tickets. This, of course is no problem. I am not an elitist and I think large crowds have a special atmosphere that I quite like. But…. The Microsoft Campus is not equipped for that sheer volume of visitors. That was painfully obvious during on-site registration where people had to stand in line for over 2 hours. The conference is spread out over 2 buildings, divided by a 15 minute busride (yes, the campus is that big). I have seen queues of over 200 people waiting for the bus and when that arrived it had a capacity of 16. I can assure you: that doesn’t fit. This of course means that travelling from one site to the other might take about 30 minutes. So you arrive at the session room just in time, only to find out it’s full. Since you can’ get into that session you try to find another one but now you’re even more late so you have no chance at all of entering. The doors are closed and you’re told: “Well, you can watch the live stream online”. Mmmm… So I spend thousands of dollars, a week away from home, family and work to be told I can also watch the sessions online? Are you fricking kidding me? I could go on but I won’t. You get the idea. It’s jus badly organized, something I am not really used to in my 20 years of experience at Microsoft events. Yes, I am disappointed. I hope a lot of people here in Redmond will also fill in the evals and that the organization next year will do a better job. Really, Build deserves better. </rantmode>

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• Government Mandates and Programming Languages

  A recent SEC proposal (which, at over 600 pages, I havent read in any detail) includes the following: We are proposing to require the filing of a computer program (the waterfall computer program, as defined in the proposed rule) of the contractual cash flow provisions of the securities in the form of downloadable source code in Python, a commonly used computer programming language that is open source and interpretive. The computer program would be tagged in XML and required to be filed with the Commission as an exhibit. Under our proposal, the filed source code for the computer program, when downloaded and run (by loading it into an open Python session on the investors computer), would be required to allow the user to programmatically input information from the asset data file that we are proposing to require as described above. We believe that, with the waterfall computer program and the asset data file, investors would be better able to conduct their own evaluations of ABS and may be less likely to be dependent on the opinions of credit rating agencies. With respect to any registration statement on Form SF-1 (Section 239.44) or Form SF-3 (Section 239.45) relating to an offering of an asset-backed security that is required to comply with Item 1113(h) of Regulation AB, the Waterfall Computer Program (as defined in Item 1113(h)(1) of Regulation AB) must be written in the Python programming language and able to be downloaded and run on a local computer properly configured with a Python interpreter. The Waterfall Computer Program should be filed in the manner specified in the EDGAR Filer Manual. I dont see how it can be in investors best interests that the SEC demand a particular programming language be used for software related to investment data.  I have a feeling that investors who use computers at all already have software with which they are familiar, and that the vast majority of them are not running an open source scripting language on their machines to do their financial analysis.  In fact, I would wager that most of them are using tools like Excel, and if they really need to script anything, its being done with VBA in Excel. Now, Im not proposing that the SEC should require that the data be provided in Excel format with VBA scripts included so everyone can easily access the data (despite the fact that this would actually be pretty useful generally).  Rather, I think it is ill-advised for a government agency to make recommendations of this nature, period.  If the goal of the recommendation is to ensure that the way things work is codified in a transparent manner, than I can certainly respect that.  It seems to me that this could be accomplished without dictating the technology to use.  To wit: An Excel document could contain all of the data as well as the formulae necessary, and most likely would not require the end-user to install anything on their machine The SEC could simply create a calculator in the cloud such that any/all investors could use a single canonical web-based (or web service based) tool Millions of Java and .NET developers could write their own implementations You can read more about this issue, including the favorable position on it, on Jayanth Varmas blog. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Running Powershell from within SharePoint

  - by Norgean

  Just because something is a daft idea, doesn't mean it can't be done. We sometimes need to do some housekeeping - like delete old files or list items or… yes, well, whatever you use Powershell for in a SharePoint world. Or it could be that your solution has "issues" for which you have Powershell solutions, but not the budget to transform into proper bug fixes. So you create a "how to" for the ITPro guys. Idea: What if we keep the scripts in a list, and have SharePoint execute the scripts on demand? An announcements list (because of the multiline body field). Warning! Let us be clear. This list needs to be locked down; if somebody creates a malicious script and you run it, I cannot help you. First; we need to figure out how to start Powershell scripts from C#. Hit teh interwebs and the Googlie, and you may find jpmik's post: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/18229/How-to-run-PowerShell-scripts-from-C. (Or MS' official answer at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee706563(v=vs.85).aspx) public string RunPowershell(string powershellText, SPWeb web, string param1, string param2) { // Powershell ~= RunspaceFactory - i.e. Create a powershell context var runspace = RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace(); var resultString = new StringBuilder(); try { // load the SharePoint snapin - Note: you cannot do this in the script itself (i.e. add-pssnapin etc does not work) PSSnapInException snapInError; runspace.RunspaceConfiguration.AddPSSnapIn("Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell", out snapInError); runspace.Open(); // set a web variable. runspace.SessionStateProxy.SetVariable("webContext", web); // and some user defined parameters runspace.SessionStateProxy.SetVariable("param1", param1); runspace.SessionStateProxy.SetVariable("param2", param2); var pipeline = runspace.CreatePipeline(); pipeline.Commands.AddScript(powershellText); // add a "return" variable pipeline.Commands.Add("Out-String"); // execute! var results = pipeline.Invoke(); // convert the script result into a single string foreach (PSObject obj in results) { resultString.AppendLine(obj.ToString()); } } finally { // close the runspace runspace.Close(); } // consider logging the result. Or something. return resultString.ToString(); } Ok. We've written some code. Let us test it. var runner = new PowershellRunner(); runner.RunPowershellScript(@" $web = Get-SPWeb 'http://server/web' # or $webContext $web.Title = $param1 $web.Update() $web.Dispose() ", null, "New title", "not used"); Next step: Connect the code to the list, or more specifically, have the code execute on one (or several) list items. As there are more options than readers, I'll leave this as an exercise for the reader. Some alternatives: Create a ribbon button that calls RunPowershell with the body of the selected itemsAdd a layout pageSpecify list item from query string (possibly coupled with content editor webpart with html that links directly to this page with querystring)WebpartListing with an "execute" columnList with multiselect and an execute button Etc!Now that you have the code for executing powershell scripts, you can easily expand this into a timer job, which executes scripts at regular intervals. But if the previous solution was dangerous, this is even worse - the scripts will usually be run with one of the admin accounts, and can do pretty much anything...One more thing... Note that as this is running "consoleless" calls to Write-Host will fail. Two solutions; remove all output, or check if the script is run in a console-window or not.  if ($host.Name -eq "ConsoleHost") { Write-Host 'If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong' }

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• Why bother writing an Windows 8 app?

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  So you want to know more about development for Window 8. Great! There are lots of reasons you should be excited about this. Since I don’t know why YOU are interested in this, I’ll make a list of reasons people can choose from. (as a side note: whenever I talk about Win8 development I am referring to the Metro Style / WinRt side of things. Apps for the ‘classic’ desktop side of Win8 on Intel are business as usual…) So… Why would you care about making an app for Windows 8? 1. It’s cool. Let’s not beat around the bush: if you like development for a hobby then you’ll love to work on this new platform. You can create apps in a relative short time (short time as in compared to writing a new CRM system) and that makes it great for a hobby product. 2. You’ll stand out. Hey, we all need an ego boost every now and then. We all need to feel special. So if you can manage to be one of the first to have you app in the Store then you’ll likely to be noticed. Just close your eyes for a moment and image you standing in a bar. It’s crowded, and then you casually say “Oh yeah, I just had my app certified and it’s in the Win8 store now”. People will stop talking, will offer you drinks and beautiful women / gorgeous man / furry creatures from Alpha Centauri (whatever your preferences are) will propose. Or maybe not. Anyway…. 3. Make some cash! IDC predicts there will be about 350,000,000 Windows 8 licenses sold in the next year. Think about that number. 350,000,000. And they all have access to the Store. Where you’re app will be. With one little click they can select it, download and somehow magically $1.00 or $2.00 from their bank account is transferred to yours. Now, I am not saying that all of those people will download and buy your app but what if only 1% of them did? Remember: there aren’t that many apps available yet….. 4. Learn. Creating new small apps is a great way to learn new stuff. Yes, you could read about it (on this blog for instance) but the only way to learn something is to do it. So be prepared for the future and learn something new by doing it.Write an app! Now! 5. The biggie (for me at least): it’s fun. Even if you remove the points above it’s still fun to write for these devices and this platform. Now some of you will say : “But why not write a great app for IOS or Android?” I think this is a valid question. Of course the novelty of the platform wears out and points 2 and 3 from above list will not be as relevant as it is today. But still 1 4 and 5 remain. And don’t forget: if you already work on the Microsoft platform it’s not that hard to learn this new Win8 stuff. If you have done some XAML development (be it WPF or Silverlight) you are almost there in becoming a good Win8 developer. So you’ll be more productive much sooner than when you have to learn Objective C or Java. Even if you’re a HTML / Javascript developer (I say developer here, not designer) you’ll be up to speed on Win8 development pretty soon. Yes, you, that funky Web Developer who lives and breathes HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript / Node.Js / JQuery: you too can be a Win8 developer. A first class Win8 developer! So.. Download the stuff you need from http://dev.windows.com install Windows 8 and Visual Studio 12 and by the time you’re ready I’ll be working on the next article: how to do all this? Happy coding!

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• PowerShell Script To Find Where SharePoint 2007 Features Are Activated

  - by Brian T. Jackett

  Recently I posted a script to find where SharePoint 2010 Features Are Activated.  I built the original version to use SharePoint 2010 PowerShell commandlets as that saved me a number of steps for filtering and gathering features at each level.  If there was ever demand for a 2007 version I could modify the script to handle that by using the object model instead of commandlets.  Just the other week a fellow SharePoint PFE Jason Gallicchio had a customer asking about a version for SharePoint 2007.  With a little bit of work I was able to convert the script to work against SharePoint 2007.   Solution    Below is the converted script that works against a SharePoint 2007 farm.  Note: There appears to be a bug with the 2007 version that does not give accurate results against a SharePoint 2010 farm.  I ran the 2007 version against a 2010 farm and got fewer results than my 2010 version of the script.  Discussing with some fellow PFEs I think the discrepancy may be due to sandboxed features, a new concept in SharePoint 2010.  I have not had enough time to test or confirm.  For the time being only use the 2007 version script against SharePoint 2007 farms and the 2010 version against SharePoint 2010 farms.    Note: This script is not optimized for medium to large farms.  In my testing it took 1-3 minutes to recurse through my demo environment.  This script is provided as-is with no warranty.  Run this in a smaller dev / test environment first. 001 002 003 004 005 006 007 008 009 010 011 012 013 014 015 016 017 018 019 020 021 022 023 024 025 026 027 028 029 030 031 032 033 034 035 036 037 038 039 040 041 042 043 044 045 046 047 048 049 050 051 052 053 054 055 056 057 058 059 060 061 062 063 064 065 066 067 068 069 070 function Get-SPFeatureActivated { # see full script for help info, removed for formatting [CmdletBinding()] param(     [Parameter(position = 1, valueFromPipeline=$true)]     [string]     $Identity )#end param     Begin     {         # load SharePoint assembly to access object model         [void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint")             # declare empty array to hold results. Will add custom member for Url to show where activated at on objects returned from Get-SPFeature.         $results = @()                 $params = @{}     }     Process     {         if([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Identity) -eq $false)         {             $params = @{Identity = $Identity}         }                 # create hashtable of farm features to lookup definition ids later         $farm = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPFarm]::Local                         # check farm features         $results += ($farm.FeatureDefinitions | Where-Object {$_.Scope -eq "Farm"} | Where-Object {[string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Identity) -or ($_.DisplayName -eq $Identity)} |                          % {Add-Member -InputObject $_ -MemberType noteproperty -Name Url -Value ([string]::Empty) -PassThru} |                          Select-Object -Property Scope, DisplayName, Id, Url)                 # check web application features         $contentWebAppServices = $farm.services | ? {$_.typename -like "Windows SharePoint Services Web Application"}                 foreach($webApp in $contentWebAppServices.WebApplications)         {             $results += ($webApp.Features | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Definition | Where-Object {[string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Identity) -or ($_.DisplayName -eq $Identity)} |                          % {Add-Member -InputObject $_ -MemberType noteproperty -Name Url -Value $webApp.GetResponseUri(0).AbsoluteUri -PassThru} |                          Select-Object -Property Scope, DisplayName, Id, Url)                         # check site collection features in current web app             foreach($site in ($webApp.Sites))             {                 $results += ($site.Features | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Definition | Where-Object {[string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Identity) -or ($_.DisplayName -eq $Identity)} |                                  % {Add-Member -InputObject $_ -MemberType noteproperty -Name Url -Value $site.Url -PassThru} |                                  Select-Object -Property Scope, DisplayName, Id, Url)                                 # check site features in current site collection                 foreach($web in ($site.AllWebs))                 {                     $results += ($web.Features | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Definition | Where-Object {[string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Identity) -or ($_.DisplayName -eq $Identity)} |                                      % {Add-Member -InputObject $_ -MemberType noteproperty -Name Url -Value $web.Url -PassThru} |                                      Select-Object -Property Scope, DisplayName, Id, Url)                                                        $web.Dispose()                 }                 $site.Dispose()             }         }     }     End     {         $results     } } #end Get-SPFeatureActivated Get-SPFeatureActivated   Conclusion    I have posted this script to the TechNet Script Repository (click here).  As always I appreciate any feedback on scripts.  If anyone is motivated to run this 2007 version script against a SharePoint 2010 to see if they find any differences in number of features reported versus what they get with the 2010 version script I’d love to hear from you.         -Frog Out

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• Web Safe Area (optimal resolution) for web app design?

  - by M.A.X

  I'm in the process of designing a new web app and I'm wondering for what 'Web Safe Area' should I optimize the app layout and design. By Web Safe Area I mean the actual area available to display the website in the browser (which is influenced by monitor resolution as well as the space taken up by the browser and OS) I did some investigation and thinking on my own but wanted to share this to see what the general opinion is. Here is what I found: Optimal Display Resolution: w3schools web stats seems to be the most referenced source (however they state that these are results from their site and is biased towards tech savvy users) http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php (aggregate data from something like 15,000 different sites that use their tracking services) StatCounter Global Stats Display Resolution (Stats are based on aggregate data collected by StatCounter on a sample exceeding 15 billion pageviews per month collected from across the StatCounter network of more than 3 million websites) NetMarketShare Screen Resolutions (marketshare.hitslink.com) (a web analytics consulting firm, they get data from browsers of site visitors to their on-demand network of live stats customers. The data is compiled from approximately 160 million visitors per month) Display Resolution Summary: There is a bit of variation between the above sources but in general as of Jan 2011 looks like 1024x768 is about 20%, while ~85% have a higher resolution of at least 1280x768 (1280x800 is the most common of these with 15-20% of total web, depending on the source; 1280x1024 and 1366x768 follow behind with 9-14% of the share). My guess would be that the higher resolution values will be even more common if we filter on North America, and even higher if we filter on N.American corporate users (unfortunately I couldn't find any free geographically filtered statistics). Another point to note is that the 1024x768 desktop user population is likely lower than the aforementioned 20%, seeing as the iPad (1024x768 native display) is likely propping up those number (the app I'm designing is flash based, Apple mobile devices don't support flash so iPad support isn't a concern). My recommendation would be to optimize around the 1280x768 constraint (*note: 1280x768 is actually a relatively rare resolution, but I think it's a valid constraint range considering that 1366x768 is relatively common and 1280 is the most common horizontal resolution). Browser + OS Constraints: To further add to the constraints we have to subtract the space taken up by the browser (assuming IE, which is the most space consuming) and the OS (assuming WinXP-Win7): Win7 has the biggest taskbar footprint at a height of 40px (XP's and Vista's is 30px) The default IE8 view uses up 25px at the bottom of the screen with the status bar and a further 120px at the top of the screen with the windows title bar and the browser UI (assuming the default 'favorites' toolbar is present, it would instead be 91px without the favorites toolbar). Assuming no scrollbar, we also loose a total of 4px horizontally for the window outline. This means that we are left with 583px of vertical space and 1276px of horizontal. In other words, a Web Safe Area of 1276 x 583 Is this a correct line of thinking? I'm really surprised that I couldn't find this type of investigation anywhere on the web. Lots of websites talk about designing for 1024x768, but that's only half the equation! There is no mention of browser/OS influences on the actual area you have to display the site/app. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks. EDIT Another caveat to my line of thinking above is that different browsers actually take up different amounts of pixels based on the OS they're running on. For example, under WinXP IE8 takes up 142px on top of the screen (instead the aforementioned 120px for Win7) because the file menu shows up by default on XP while in Win7 the file menu is hidden by default. So it looks like on WinXP + IE8 the Web Safe Area would be a mere 572px (768px-142-30-24=572)

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• How to deal with overly aggressive "Link Take Down Demands"?

  - by Eoin

  I've been receiving a large number of emails recently requesting I clean from link spam from my forum. Initially the emails were very polite and professional, and I was happy to remove the links. Recently the email have gotten very abrasive, here is a particularly rude example: From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Hi, This is the second time we are reaching out to you regarding your link to our site hxxp://www.company-two.com from hxxp://www.my-forum.com/some-topic-id. We really do need to remove this link. We have to report to Google any link we were unable to remove, and I wouldn't want to have to include your site in the list. Could you please remove our link from this page and any other page on your site? Thank You, Name Changed Behind the superficial pleasantries I feel there is some very real maliciousness. Note the email address, DMCA Violations, I don't see how the DMCA is involved here, except as a word which tends to strike fear in many people. Also relating to the email address, it doesn't match the company being linked to at all. How am I to trust they are truely operating on behalf of company-two when they don't even use one of it's email addresses. My email is hidden by privacypost. While a service with legitimate uses, I feel it's highly unprofessional for communications between to companies. The claim "This is the second time..." Every email I've received has started like this, but a check of my spam filters has never revealed a 1st mail. Initially I gave them the benefit of the doubt, by now though it's clear this is a cheap ploy to start me off on the defensive. And finally worst of all- the threats of reporting me to Google if I don't do everything they ask. I sent a polite reply asking for more information. I have no idea if the email address was even valid but I never received any response. Much later I got this followup mail From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Hi, This is the final time we are reaching out to you regarding your link to our site hxxp://www.company-two.com from hxxp://www.my-forum.com/some-topic-id. We will soon be reporting to Google any link we were unable to remove, and currently your site will have to be on the list. Could you please remove our link from this page and any other page on your site? I appreciate your urgent attention to this matter. Thank You, Name Changed This time the from address was more personal, though still not obviously connected to the spammed company. Lets be honest, I don't for one second believe that the companies were the victim of a 3rd party spammer as they claim. The links in questions were generated well over a year ago, and I firmly believe the companies were directly responsible for the spam links in question, a type of spam that has plagued my forum. Now they have the audacity to demand I spend my time cleaning up their mess, using threats to ensure they get their way. Have recent changes in Googles algorithms meant all the cash they spent spamming the web has now turned into a liability? If so I can see why these companies are all of a sudden running scared. Frankly, cleaning up my forum is a good things, but the threats they are using sickens me. So my question here is specifically about the threats: Are they vaild, and would such reports to Google destroy my page rankings? Is there a way I can report this abusive behaviour to Google?

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• Extreme Makeover, Phone Edition: Comcasts xfinity

  Mobile Makeover For many companies the first foray into Windows Phone 7 (WP7) may be in porting their existing mobile apps. It is tempting to simply transfer existing functionality, avoiding the additional design costs. Readdressing business needs and taking advantage of the WP7 platform can reduce cost and is essential to a successful re-launch. To better understand the advantage of new development lets examine a conceptual upgrade of Comcasts existing mobile app. Before Comcast has a great mobile app that provides several key features. The ability to browse the lineup using a guide, a client for Comcast email accounts, On Demand gallery, and much more. We will leverage these and build on them using some of the incredible WP7 features.   After With the proliferation of DVRs (Digital Video Recorders) and a variety of media devices (TV, PC, Mobile) content providers are challenged to find creative ways to build their brands. Every client touch point must provide both value added services as well as opportunities for marketing and up-sale; WP7 makes it easy to focus on those opportunities. The new app is an excellent vehicle for presenting Comcasts newly rebranded TV, Voice, and Internet services. These services now fly under the banner of xfinity and have been expanded to provide the best experience for Comcast customers. The Windows Phone 7 app will increase the surface area of this service revolution.   The home menu is simplified and highlights Comcasts Triple Play: Voice, TV, and Internet. The inbox has been replaced with a messages view, and message management is handled by a WP7 hub. The hub presents emails, tweets, and IMs from Comcast and other viewers the user follows on Twitter.  The popular view orders shows based on the users viewing history and current cable package. The first show Glee is both popular and participating in a conceptual co-marketing effort, so it receives prime positioning. The second spot goes to a hit show on a premium channel, in this example HBOs The Pacific, encouraging viewers to upgrade for this premium content. The remaining spots are ordered based on viewing history and popularity. Tapping the play button moves the user to the theatre where they can watch previews or full episodes streaming from Fancast. Tapping an extra presents the user with show details as well as interactive content that may be included as part of co-marketing efforts. Co-Marketing with Dynamic Content The success of Comcasts services are tied to the success of the networks and shows it purveys, making co-marketing efforts essential. In this concept FOX is co-marketing its popular show Glee. A customized panorama is updated with the latest gleeks tweets, streaming HD episodes, and extras featuring photos and video of the cast. If WP7 apps can be dynamically extended with web hosted .xap files, including sandboxed partner experiences would enable interactive features such as the Gleek Peek, in which a viewer can select a character from a panorama to view the actors profile. This dynamic inline experience has a tailored appeal to aspiring creatives and is technically possible with Windows Phone 7.   Summary The conceptual Comcast mobile app for Windows Phone 7 highlights just a few of the incredible experiences and business opportunities that can be unlocked with this latest mobile solution. It is critical that organizations recognize and take full advantage of these new capabilities. Simply porting existing mobile applications does not leverage these powerful tools; re-examining existing applications and upgrading them to Windows Phone 7 will prove essential to the continued growth and success of your brand.Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• “Apparently, you signed a software services agreement without fully understanding it.”

  - by Dave Ballantyne

  I am not a lawyer. Let me say that again, I am not a lawyer. Todays Dilbert has prompted me to post about my recent experience with SqlServer licensing. I'm in the technical realm and rarely have much to do with purchasing and licensing.  I say “I need” , budget realities will state weather I actually get.  However, I do keep my ear to the ground and due to my community involvement, I know, or at least have an understanding of, some licensing restrictions. Due to a misunderstanding, Microsoft Licensing stated that we needed licenses for our standby servers.  I knew that that was not the case,  and a quick tweet confirmed this. So after composing an email stating exactly what the machines in question were used for ie Log shipped to and used in a disaster recover scenario only,  and posting several Technet articles to back this up, we saved 2 enterprise edition licences, a not inconsiderable cost. However during this discussion, I was made aware of another ‘legalese’ document that could completely override the referenced articles, and anything I knew, or thought i knew, about SqlServer licensing. Personally, I had no knowledge of this.  The “Purchase Use Rights” agreement would appear to be the volume licensing equivalent of the “End User License Agreement” , click throughs we all know and ignore.  Here is a direct quote from Microsoft licensing, when asked for clarification. “Thanks for your email. Just to give some background on the Product Use Rights (PUR), licenses acquired through volume licensing are bound by the most recent PUR at the time of license acquisition. The link for the current PUR and PUR archive is http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/product-licensing.aspx. Further to this, products acquired through boxed product or pre-installed on hardware (OEM) are bound by the End User License Agreement (EULA). The PUR will explain limitations, license requirements and rulings on areas like multiplexing, virtualization, processor licensing, etc. When an article will appear on a Microsoft site or blog describing the licensing of a product, it will be using the PUR as a base. Due to the writing style or language used by the person writing areas of the website or technical blogs, the PUR is what you should use as a rule and not any of the other media. The PUR is updated quarterly and will reference every product available at that time working on the latest version unless otherwise stated. The crux of this is that the PUR is written after extensive discussions between the different branches of Microsoft (legal, technical, etc) and the wording is then approved. This is not always the case for some pages explaining licensing as they are merely intended to advise and not subject to the intense scrutiny as the PUR.” So, exactly what does that mean ? My take :  This is a living document, “updated quarterly” , though presumably this could be done on a whim and a fancy.  It could state , you are only licensed if ,that during install you stand in a corner juggling and that photographic evidence is required. A plainly ridiculous demand but,  what else could it override or new requirements could it state that change your existing understanding of the product or your legal usage of it. As i say, im not a lawyer, but are you checking the PURA prior to purchase ?

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• The five steps of business intelligence adoption: where are you?

  - by Red Gate Software BI Tools Team

  When I was in Orlando and New York last month, I spoke to a lot of business intelligence users. What they told me suggested a path of BI adoption. The user’s place on the path depends on the size and sophistication of their organisation. Step 1: A company with a database of customer transactions will often want to examine particular data, like revenue and unit sales over the last period for each product and territory. To do this, they probably use simple SQL queries or stored procedures to produce data on demand. Step 2: The results from step one are saved in an Excel document, so business users can analyse them with filters or pivot tables. Alternatively, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) might be used to generate a report of the SQL query for display on an intranet page. Step 3: If these queries are run frequently, or business users want to explore data from multiple sources more freely, it may become necessary to create a new database structured for analysis rather than CRUD (create, retrieve, update, and delete). For example, data from more than one system — plus external information — may be incorporated into a data warehouse. This can become ‘one source of truth’ for the business’s operational activities. The warehouse will probably have a simple ‘star’ schema, with fact tables representing the measures to be analysed (e.g. unit sales, revenue) and dimension tables defining how this data is aggregated (e.g. by time, region or product). Reports can be generated from the warehouse with Excel, SSRS or other tools. Step 4: Not too long ago, Microsoft introduced an Excel plug-in, PowerPivot, which allows users to bring larger volumes of data into Excel documents and create links between multiple tables.  These BISM Tabular documents can be created by the database owners or other expert Excel users and viewed by anyone with Excel PowerPivot. Sometimes, business users may use PowerPivot to create reports directly from the primary database, bypassing the need for a data warehouse. This can introduce problems when there are misunderstandings of the database structure or no single ‘source of truth’ for key data. Step 5: Steps three or four are often enough to satisfy business intelligence needs, especially if users are sophisticated enough to work with the warehouse in Excel or SSRS. However, sometimes the relationships between data are too complex or the queries which aggregate across periods, regions etc are too slow. In these cases, it can be necessary to formalise how the data is analysed and pre-build some of the aggregations. To do this, a business intelligence professional will typically use SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) to create a multidimensional model — or “cube” — that more simply represents key measures and aggregates them across specified dimensions. Step five is where our tool, SSAS Compare, becomes useful, as it helps review and deploy changes from development to production. For us at Red Gate, the primary value of SSAS Compare is to establish a dialog with BI users, so we can develop a portfolio of products that support creation and deployment across a range of report and model types. For example, PowerPivot and the new BISM Tabular model create a potential customer base for tools that extend beyond BI professionals. We’re interested in learning where people are in this story, so we’ve created a six-question survey to find out. Whether you’re at step one or step five, we’d love to know how you use BI so we can decide how to build tools that solve your problems. So if you have a sixty seconds to spare, tell us on the survey!

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• A programmer who doesn't get to program - where to turn? [closed]

  - by Just an Anon

  I'm in my mid 20's, and have been working as a full time programmer / developer for the last ~6 years, with several years of part-time freelancing before this, and three straight years of freelancing in the middle of this short career. I work mostly with PHP and the Drupal framework. By and large, I focus on programming custom pieces of functionality; these, of course, vary greatly from project to project. I've got years of solid experience with OOP (have done some Java & C# years ago, too) including intensive experience with front-end development, and even some design work. I've lead small teams (2-4 people) of developers. And of course, given the large amount of freelancing, I've got decent project- & client-management skills. My problem is staying motivated at any place of employment. In the time mentioned I've worked (full-time) at six local companies. The longest I've stayed at any company was just over a year. I find that I'll get hired and be very excited and motivated for the first few months, but the work quickly gets "stale." By that I mean that the interesting components (ie. the programming) get done, and the rest of the work turns into boring cleanup (move a button, add text, change colours, add a field). I don't get challenged, and I don't feel like I'm learning anything new. This happens repeatedly time and time again, and I always end up leaving for either a new opportunity, or to freelance. I'm wondering if perhaps I've painted myself into a corner with the rather niche work market (although with very high demand and good compensation) and need to explore other career choices. Another possibility is that I may be choosing the wrong places of employment, mostly small agencies, and need to look into working for a larger, more established firm. I find programming, writing code, and architecting solutions very rewarding. When I'm working on an interesting problem I lose all sense of time and 14-16 hours can fly by like minutes. I get the same exciting feeling when I'm doing high-level planning of a complex system, breaking up the work and figuring out how everything will tie-in together. I absolutely hate doing small, "stupid" changes that pose no challenge, yet seem to make up more and more of my work. I want to find a workplace where I will get to work on such tasks, be challenged, and improve in all areas of product development. This maybe a programming job, management, architecture of desktop apps, or may be managing a taco stand on a beach in Mexico - I don't know, and I need some advice and real-world feedback. What are some job areas worth exploring? The requirements are fairly simple: working with computers interacting with others challenging decent pay (I'm making just short of 90k / year with a month of vacation & some benefits, and would like to stay in this range, but am willing to take a temporary cut in pay for a more interesting position) Any advice would be much appreciated!

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